Brook shook her head, unable to think up what secrets Justin’s family could be keeping from him. “The reason for the rift between your father and the rest of them, I should think. But as for what it is . . .”
She had always wondered at what had caused it. It must have been more than William’s penchant for gambling. But Justin had never known, and she hadn’t been well enough acquainted with his father to ever ask
him
.
Justin sighed. “Grandfather forbade her from telling me. And though I keep trying to convince myself it is likely just some old argument that makes little sense anymore, they both are—were, in Father’s case—so adamant about the secret being kept.”
She held tight to his arm, studying his profile as he looked out to the breaking waves of the North Sea. Sometimes it mattered less
what
a secret was than
that
it was. And right now, Justin needed his family supporting him, not adding more to his burdens. “
Ça va?
”
He sighed and squeezed her hand where it rested on his forearm, as he had done upon arriving three hours prior. “
Je ne
sais pas
. It is all just . . . too much.”
Laughter from the gardens drew her gaze back toward the house, where the other young people were engrossed in a game of croquet. Brook had bowed out of that particular game. And after she’d bested everyone in their impromptu archery competition, they had all made a show of thanking her for excusing herself.
Teasing . . . or were they glad to see her go, if only for a half-hour promenade? She turned to Justin again. His eyes had gone a darker blue, as they always did when he was troubled.
“It seems we both have secrets in our families. Grand-père gave me Maman’s journal before I left. He said she wanted it destroyed rather than letting me see it. He said . . . he said she thought coming back here would hurt me.”
Justin frowned and led her away from the frothing whitecaps, back down the hill toward the carefully structured shrubbery and the laughing couples on the lawn. “Have you read it? Does it explain why she took you away rather than delivering you to Whitby?”
“I haven’t.” She wanted to tug on his arm, to slow him down, to stay away a little longer. But from the house came the sound of a gong, and the croquet game came to an immediate halt. They must all get inside to dress for dinner. She contented herself with pressing upon his arm. “I promised Grand-père I wouldn’t read it until I was ready to face whatever it told me. And just now . . . I feel the coward for admitting it, but it is hard enough to accept the simple facts. That he is my father, that this is my home. I want to make my own impressions, not be colored by Maman’s.”
“Wise.” He looked down at her, a smile softening the corners of his mouth. “Curious as I know you always are, direct
it now toward discovering this family of yours, not focusing on the past.”
To that, she could only draw in a deep breath and tilt her head in acknowledgment. Soon they reached the indoors and parted ways. Brook tried to catch whatever glimpses she could of the house as she passed through it—a tour had been on the schedule for this afternoon, but the duke’s arrival had put a halt to that plan.
She knew her way back up to the corridor that housed her and her cousins’ rooms, though—and could have followed the sounds of giggling females had she not. Regan and Melissa were turning toward their doors as she topped the stairs.
Regan smiled and waved at her. “After you dress, come in with us to have your hair arranged. It will give us a chance to talk about the gentlemen.”
Brook returned the smile. It had been so long since she could claim any true female friends. She had been in a strange position in Monaco—not quite a royal to rub elbows with the nobles paying court to Grand-père, but too much a one to be accepted by Maman’s former ilk. Perhaps now things would be different. “Thank you. I shall.”
Her smile faded, though, when she caught Melissa’s low, “Regan! How in the world can you be so accepting when . . .”
Before she could hear the end of the question, their door shut. She told herself to shake it off—it was normal, after all, for them to have reservations. Slipping into her own chamber, she found Mademoiselle Ragusa holding up two of Brook’s new evening dresses, tilting her head from side to side and humming a nonsense verse she had used to sing in their schoolroom. Brook closed the door behind her and gave the woman a grin. “Having trouble deciding which you will wear, mademoiselle?”
The governess laughed and held them both up to her. “I could
not tie my corset tight enough. But there are so many pretty things, and all will flatter you. Which tonight?”
Brook joined her, running a hand down the pale green sleeve of one, along the violet beading of the other.
She saw only Grand-père, that indulgent smile on his face as she tried to decide between the two silks, the way he had said, “
Obtiens tous les deux
.” Get them both. Blinking against the burning in her eyes, she chose the green. It had been his favorite.
Within minutes, she had changed, slid the matching slippers onto her feet, and bade her companion a good evening. Nerves fluttered in her stomach as she made her way to the door her cousins had gone into. She had to pull in a long breath. Pray for fortification. For peace. For . . . for a connection.
At the first light rap of her knuckles upon the door, it opened inward. Melissa must have been standing there, waiting. Though her smile looked strained, she at least offered it. She motioned Brook inside, shutting the door behind her. Wariness gave way to pure feminine appreciation. “That gown! It’s divine. Parisian?”
Brook smiled. Just thinking of Paris brought the smell of baking baguettes to her memory, and the sound of a lazy concertina. “
Oui
.”
Regan stepped from behind a dressing screen, her smile calmer but far more welcoming. “Your Lord Abingdon’s jaw will no doubt drop to the floor.” Mischief lit her eyes. “Have you an understanding? You seem so close.”
“An under . . .” It took Brook a moment to process what that meant. Then she felt the heat scorch her cheeks. “Oh, no. We are only friends.”
“But?” Melissa raised her brows and spun toward the bed, where an evening gown lay waiting. “You cannot be happy with that
only
. He is nearly as handsome as his cousin.”
Cayton was not half so handsome as Justin. But Brook wasn’t about to argue with a smitten girl. “He is like a brother to me.”
“The best way for a romance to begin.” Regan chuckled and motioned Brook to the seat at the dressing table. “You first, cousin. Deirdre will return in a moment.”
Cousin
. Brook sank onto the padded stool and smiled at Regan’s reflection. They were both so beautiful, these cousins of hers, with the rich dark hair that felt like home.
Melissa had disappeared behind the screen. “I wish they were staying more than a night.”
Regan shook her head and stepped to Brook’s side, opening a traveling case that revealed rows of jewelry. “They will be back in a fortnight for Mama’s house party.”
“An eternity. And don’t pretend you didn’t have to stifle a groan when Thate said he would leave tomorrow as well.”
Regan stifled a sigh now and pulled out a necklace dripping crystals. “It hardly matters. Thate never pays me any mind.”
Toying with one of the hairpins on the tabletop, Brook met her cousin’s reflected gaze. It was not so unlike the backstage dressing room at the ballet. Girls were girls. They spoke of men. They fussed and dressed and yearned. She could grin. “
Au
contraire
. He grew quite testy in the car yesterday when talk turned to one of your suitors—a duke’s son. I cannot recall his name.”
“Lord Worthing.” Melissa pronounced it with an exaggerated sigh as she reemerged. “He and your Lord Abingdon are the only two heirs to duchies between the ages of ten and fifty. Every young lady in London was in a dither when Worthing came to call on Regan.”
“He is a good man.” Regan fastened her necklace, her voice so even, so calm that it was clear he was, to her, nothing more than that. “Of strong faith, which is rare. Handsome. Everything a lady could want.” Her hands fell to her sides, and her gaze bore right through the looking glass.
Melissa appeared at their side and slid her arm around her sister’s waist. “But you have set your heart on an unfashionable
young earl who will no doubt go careening into a ditch and get himself killed in one of those cars of his.”
Brook winced—she couldn’t help it. And thanked the Lord her cousin hadn’t said it when Justin could hear and be reminded of his father’s death. Better to focus on Regan and Thate. “
La vie
est une fleur dont l’amour est le miel.
”
“Hmm?” Regan looked down at her, her eyes still a bit distant. “Life is a flower?”
“. . . of which love is the honey. Victor Hugo.” Such pretty words. But maybe they were just the stuff of novels and poems. Never had Brook seen it play out in reality. Prince Louis refused to marry, and Prince Albert . . . Grand-père had been unlucky in matters of the heart. He had divorced his first wife well before Brook’s day. Then came Princess Alice. Brook well remembered his argument with her, when he moved Brook to the palace. Such accusations had surfaced then—his paramour, her paramour, problems with his son, problems with her son. They had separated.
Love, it seemed, had nothing to do with anything.
A discreet knock signaled the entrance of the maid. Brook assumed the conversation would shift, but Melissa shook her head and looked at her sister. “But can you be sure you
love
him? I like Thate, but he is hardly a responsible, dependable man to choose as a husband. If Lord Worthing proposes, you can hardly say no.”
Regan loosed a long gust of breath. “If Lord Worthing hadn’t come calling, everyone would consider Thate a fine catch. It isn’t as though he’s a pauper seeking my fortu—” She looked away, but Brook saw the flush in her cheeks.
And why would she cut herself off at the mention of a fortune? Brook glanced at Melissa in the mirror, but the younger of her cousins pressed her lips together and looked from her sister to Brook and back again.
She knew so little of this family. But they had that half-brother, Ram. He had inherited their father’s titles, his estates. And from what Justin said, most money went with estates, to keep them up. So Regan would not have a fortune, aside from a dowry.
But she would have . . . had Brook not come. Excluding their mother, these two were Whitby’s closest relatives, and Regan was the elder. She would have been the heiress of all that was his, aside from the title itself. And simply by showing up, Brook had stripped her of that. “Regan. I . . .”
She knew not what to say. The only words her tongue could find were Monegasque, and even they made little sense.
Regan put a warm, steady hand on Brook’s shoulder. “Think nothing of it, Brook. I never put my hopes in an inheritance—Uncle Whit only just succeeded in breaking the entail that required a male heir for it all. It is worth far more to see him finally find you. To gain a cousin and friend.”
It was no wonder Thate had been unable to keep his eyes off Regan all afternoon. She was far more than a lovely face. “I feel the same. When I asked Justin to help me find my family, I never imagined all this.” Brook had thought that, at most, he would show her a photograph of her deceased parents. Perhaps a village in which she was born.
Deirdre took up position behind her and gathered Brook’s curls.
Melissa pulled up a chair and eased to a seat upon it. “Justin. It sounds so very French. A friend of mine caught a glimpse of him during the Season, you know, and couldn’t stop talking about him. So mysterious—gone most of his life on the Continent, scarcely ever making an appearance in Town.”
“And nearly as handsome as his cousin?” Regan winked and leaned against the wall.
Melissa dimpled. “Nearly. Though you would probably put
Thate or Worthing at the top of the list. What say you, Deirdre? Who is the handsomest of our gentlemen friends?”
Brook expected the maid to demur, but instead she looked over at the sisters with a warm smile. “’Tis a hard matter to judge, sure enough. Though I must confess that one of the most striking men I’ve seen is that cousin of his lordship’s—Lord Pratt.”
Unease skittered up Brook’s spine at the mere mention of him.
Melissa made a thoughtful hum. “He is striking. But there is something about him . . .”
“He has no heart—that’s what.” Regan pushed up and stepped behind Brook. “How lovely. I do wish I had curls so you could do mine like that, Deirdre. But it would take hours to use the tongs on it first.”
“Your hair is beautiful, my lady. So glossy and thick. Though sure and Lady Berkeley’s curls are a joy to work with too.”
Brook summoned a smile, though that title still felt so odd. How long would it take for her to get used to answering to it? To seeing all these new faces? To having a father who looked at her as if she were an answer to prayer?
When Deirdre indicated she had finished, Brook rose. “Will Lord Whitby be ready, do you think? Could I find him before dinner?”
Regan sat on the stool, elegant as a queen. “He will be in the library.”
“A library!” Of course a house this size would have one, but how could she have been here a complete day already without finding it? “Where is it?”
Deirdre gave her a smile thirty degrees cooler than the one she had given Regan. “I can show you the way, my lady.”
“Thank you, but instruction will suffice. You are busy.”
Deirdre relented without a fuss, and told her where to find
the library. With little more ado, Brook slipped out. Back to her chamber, into the attached dressing room. There, on the floor, she had already noted the bandbox that held Maman’s letters . . . and theirs. Whitby and his Lizzie’s. For a long moment she stared at it in the fading light.
It had been years since she’d glanced through them. She’d never much wanted to read the love notes Maman had received over the years, especially the ones from the years before Brook was born, when they were more than pleas for a meeting, always refused. When they hinted at meetings enjoyed, instead.