A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (79 page)

Her hand was taken by another—a soft,
female hand—which then guided her to a seat. So she sat. And
realized that her mouth must be gaping open, yet again, even though
she had firmly shut it before dismounting her uncle’s
carriage.

Voices rang out all around her: a
loud, aggressive male voice, a sharp, forceful female voice, one
very calm masculine voice. They all blended together before things
shifted into focus.

“
She is a whore!” Father.
Father was here. With Lord Alexander’s family.
He is here
. “Grace, you will come
with me this instant. I swear on your mother’s grave—”

No, she couldn’t go with him. She
tried to speak, but no sound came out.

“
You are
not
taking this girl
anywhere, my lord, so you may force that idea from your blithering
head this instant.” The female voice. Grace looked about, trying to
find the speaker.

An older woman stood before her, tall
and regal with the most glorious head of rich, auburn hair Grace
had ever seen, tinged with only a few streaks of grey. She had a
look of determination on her face that would have cowed an army as
she stood before Father, towering over him, hands fisted against
her hips and swords slashing through her eyes. This woman held
herself with the bearing of a goddess, or perhaps the
Queen.

“
His Grace has informed me
that you are his guest because the Prince of Wales has made the
request, and so you’ll not be taking one single, solitary step
outside. Is that clear?” She paused only long enough to receive a
curt nod from Grace’s father. “And to top that, since your daughter
has come into my home, she is my guest and may stay as long as she
sees fit. You, sir, have no say in the matter.” He stammered to
interrupt, so she added: “None!”

The goddess-woman had not finished.
Grace could only stare in amazement that anyone would dare to speak
to her father in this way. What she wouldn’t give to have the
courage to do so herself.

“
Furthermore, you will
never use that word in my presence again. Have I made myself
understood? Don’t try to pretend you don’t know what word I speak
of, and do
not
ever use it again in reference to your daughter. Your own
daughter! How could—how could—augh!” She shuddered in anger, but
took only a moment from her diatribe.

Grace couldn’t bear to take her eyes
from the woman for long, but she took a brief glance about the room
during that time, now that her vision had cleared again. Two young
ladies, similar in age to herself, with varying shades of red in
their hair sat about the table. Aunt Dorothea and Uncle Laurence
had taken seats at the end of the table, opposite of Father and the
older woman, next to Lord Rotheby. Aunt Dorothea winked when she
caught Grace’s eye. Two men with reddish hair and two others with
dark hair completed the party. They must be Lord Alexander’s
family. Except, perhaps, for the dark-haired men. She searched her
mind for a moment, trying to place them amongst the siblings, but
to no avail.

They all stared, transfixed, upon the
very same exchange she’d been observing for the last several
minutes. Not upset, per se, but rather engaged.

Lord Alexander was nowhere to be seen.
Good. Or was it bad?

There was no time to
debate. The goddess had recomposed herself and pushed forward. “You
call yourself a
father
? You arrogant, impertinent fool.”

Father looked to take exception to
being called a fool, but she would not be deterred, and she allowed
no one to interrupt.

“
And what is this bag of
moonshine you’ve directed toward Sir Laurence and Lady Kensington?
Of all the blasphemous faradiddle, that just about takes the cake.
It is plain to see that these two could not hurt a fly if they
tried, so I call your bluff. Poppycock! No one kidnapped anyone,
and I’ll hear no more of it. It seems to me, based on the way you
speak to your daughter, that she would have been ridiculous and
absurdly foolish to stay with you. She left you, Lord Chatham. She
ran away. Is that not the truth of it, Lady Grace?”

The fullness of the formidable woman’s
gaze fell on Grace, along with the eyes of everyone else in the
room. Even Father. She slunk down into her seat and wished she
could burrow a hole to the Indies or the Americas or somewhere
else—anywhere else—but there.

She had to be Lord
Alexander’s mother. Mustn’t she? “Er, Your Grace, that is, well.
Yes? Yes. I did. I left on my own.” After a few words came out with
no major disasters smiting her down, she gained a touch of courage,
turning her gaze to rest fully on her father. “I went by coach to
Aunt Dorothea and Uncle Laurence’s home in Somerton and they were
gracious enough to allow me to stay with them. They’ve done no
wrong. You must drop your unfounded charges against them at once.”
Good God, where had that come from? She had issued her
father
a command
.

Might as well continue while she still
had breath. “And as Her Grace said, I won’t be going anywhere with
you. Ever again.”

“
That’s right! She can stay
with us,” said Aunt Dorothea, apparently unable to completely bite
her tongue.

Grace passed her aunt a smile before
she turned to the duchess and nodded. She wished, for the briefest
of moments, she could interpret the look on the older woman’s face.
Reverence? Acceptance?

“
Well, I suppose that’s
settled then,” the duchess said. “Shall we move on to what I find
to be the greater concern here, Lord Chatham?” As she turned her
gaze away from Grace and back to her father, it shifted to the
cold, steely determination from before. “Which, of course, would be
your treatment of your daughter. I realize that, as her father and
her guardian, you are certainly entitled by law to do with the poor
girl as you see fit. But really, sir, some things are simply beyond
the pale. Where has all of this come from?”

Her posture demanded a
response.

“
You dare to question me in
this manner, yet
I
am the impertinent one?” Father’s chin quivered, belying his
show of bravado.

“
Lord Chatham,” came the
calm, smooth voice of the man nearest her father. This must be the
duke himself. “You would be well advised to answer my mother when
she asks you a question. And if you insult Her Grace again, or any
of the ladies present for that matter, I shall take it upon myself
to teach you a lesson in manners.” He never raised his voice much
higher than a whisper, forcing her to lean closer to hear his
words. But his quiet demeanor disguised a grim resolve she had no
desire to test.

Father’s eyes narrowed, but he only
followed it with, “Indeed.”

“
So? Go on.”

He harrumphed and fidgeted and shifted
his eyes about, but the dowager would not back down.

“
Very well. What was your
question?” Of course, Father couldn’t make this confrontation easy.
Grace was, at least somewhat, hoping he wouldn’t answer. Hearing
the truth of why he had so mistreated her might be too much to
tolerate.

“
Whatever could give you
cause to cast such dubious names upon your one and only daughter,
your flesh and blood, your child whom you should protect and love
and cherish?”

His eyes settled on Grace, full of
hatred and unbridled anger. She cast her own to the floor and took
deep, rapid breaths, hoping to staunch a flood of tears.

“
That
whore
—”

The duke was out of his chair and
across the room faster than Grace could react. He pulled Father
from his seat and slammed him against the wall. The crack of
Father’s skull reverberated in the room. He hung, suspended by the
younger man’s grip on the collar of his coat, his feet dangling a
few inches above the floor.

“
You have been warned,
Chatham.”

Father stared up at Lord Somerton’s
teeth, which had not even moved when he spoke, trembling like a
small child.

“
I ap—apologize. It will
not happen again.” Words rushed from his mouth. “Please, please put
me down. I promise to mind my language.”

Lord Somerton dropped him and he fell
like an overused doll to the floor.

Seemingly unfazed by any of the
happenings, the dowager walked over to where Father sat. She took a
chair nearby. “Where does all of this anger stem from? Surely she
couldn’t have done anything so terrible to cause all of
this.”

“
Her? Grace?” Father spat
out the words. “Grace has likely done nothing so terribly wrong, at
least if you disregard her having run from home and then whatever
misguided affairs she has carried on with your
Lord Alexander
. No, it has nothing to
do with her, but with what she is not.”

“
What am I not?” She didn’t
realize she’d spoken aloud until all eyes turned to her
again.

“
What are you not? You
aren’t a boy, for one thing. You cannot be my heir.” Venom filled
his words.

“
I cannot help that,
Father.” Could he really hate her for that?

“
Oh, but that’s not all.
You are also not your mother, but you look like her. You have her
hair, her skin. Her eyes. You look more like her every day. I can’t
bear to look upon you.” Was that a tear forming in his eye? Surely
not.

“
Lord Chatham, why does it
hurt you so much to have your daughter bear the resemblance of your
wife?” The dowager’s voice was soft, kind. Almost
motherly.

“
Because after Grace was
born, her mother would have nothing to do with me. The trollop
carried on affairs with half the
ton
, and then she contracted an
illness and died from it.” Tears flowed freely down his cheeks, and
his usually ruddy face was blisteringly purple. “Because I was
never good enough for her mother, so she can never be good enough
for me.”

Something propelled Grace forward,
across the room, to hand her father a handkerchief. She stood
there, before him, watching him with something akin to pity. All
these years, he had pushed her away and wasted his life, all
because she looked like her mother and reminded him of his own
pains.

He reached for her, and she backed
away out of instinct. As she took her step backward, she bumped
into a very tall, very male body.

“
Oh! Pardon me.” When she
looked up, the duke reached out to steady her and then moved her
off to the side, where she was suddenly surrounded by
all
of the Hardwicke
siblings present. One of the sisters took her hand and patted the
back of it reassuringly.

“
You do realize, of
course,” the dowager continued, “that you’ve been quite wrong to
mistreat your daughter because of your own grief.”

He blubbered and sniffled and wiped
the handkerchief across his face, making an even bigger mess of
things. “I know!”

“
You cannot change the
past, Lord Chatham. But you can change the future.”

“
But how? I’ve made a true
muck of her life, haven’t I?” He looked only at the dowager, not at
anyone else in the room, least of all Grace.

“
She won’t return with you.
She’s made herself abundantly clear on that matter, and I daresay
she’s made the proper decision there. I’ll certainly support her in
that endeavor.”

“
As shall I,” said the
duke.

“
And I,” came from one of
the dark-haired men.

“
I believe you know,
Chatham, where I stand on the matter.” Uncle Laurence remained
seated with the earl and Aunt Dorothea, but he insisted upon being
heard.

The other Hardwicke brother said
nothing, but formed one hand into a fist and punched it against the
other.

“
So it seems Lady Grace has
two options. She can return to Somerton under the care and
supervision of her aunt and uncle—”

Father scoffed. “They have obviously
not supervised her too closely now, have they?”

Lord Somerton spoke so softly Grace
was uncertain she’d properly made his words out, but it sounded
something like, “And your supervision has been better,
then?”

The dowager continued as if
she hadn’t been interrupted. “Or she can marry Alex. Of course, I’m
sure you can see the latter option would be the far better course
of action for her reputation, since she has been quite the subject
of all the latest
on dits
here, and I would imagine in Bath, and likely in a
number of other places across the country. And if you truly have
the intention of making her future better than her past has been,
then I would suggest you consider everything that is best
for
her
.”

But she couldn’t marry Lord Alexander.
She’d refused him. He deserved better. “But—” Her voice broke off
on a sob. The sister holding her hand pulled her in for a tight hug
and the other girl joined them, patting her on the back, rubbing a
hand over her hair.

“
I believe the young ladies
have heard enough of this, don’t you agree?” the dowager asked the
group as a whole. “Lord Sinclaire, would you be so kind as to
escort them all to the drawing room? And the Kensingtons too, if
you’d like. I’ll order tea served, and Peter, Lord Chatham, and I
will join you once this business has been settled. Neil, you go
along with them.”