Not Wicked Enough (36 page)

“Indeed?”

“Quite.”

She remained silent.

“I was shocked to discover my aunt—your mother—hadn’t died as they told me she had, but had instead married
and even had a child.” He drew in a long breath. “I was equally shocked to learn I had a cousin I knew nothing about.” He drew another breath, but Lily said nothing. “Everything in secret.” He paced again. “I was…appalled by the lies, Miss Wellstone. My own father, perpetuating such a deception.” He stopped walking. “Upon learning of your inheritance, my father immediately met with his attorneys.”

“I am aware.”

He looked sheepish. “Yes, you must be. At any rate, as you also know, the properties and the monies were Aunt Lily’s to dispose of as she wished, and eventually the family lawyers had no choice but to advise my father he would be unlikely to prevail if he continued to pursue the matter.”

Lily pressed her lips together. Was he about to tell her he’d secured a more favorable legal opinion? In such a case, would she not be hearing from an attorney, and not Fenris himself? Ah, but then there was that mysterious packet he carried. The one that contained legal documents. “I see.”

“I persuaded him there was nothing to be gained by going forward as he wished. Other than the enrichment of our lawyers. And yours.”

If he was already in possession of papers that declared her incompetent, he would he have brought the bailiff to secure her. Or was he confident she would simply go along with a heinous plan to lock her away? “Sir. I have yet to understand why you are here. Nothing you’ve said is anything my own solicitor has not already told me. Perhaps not the particulars, but the result is what matters, I daresay.”

“True.”

“Nevertheless,” she said, “I thank you for your intervention with your father. You saved us both a great deal of aggravation and money.”

He nodded. He was quite a handsome man. Not like Mountjoy, but appealing nonetheless. “A few weeks ago I came across letters that my aunt—not your mother, I mean, but our great-aunt and your namesake—left behind at my father’s house. She kept a study there, and after she passed,
my father never went through the room.” He stood very straight, as a military man might.

Lily’s stomach dropped. “You found another will.”

“A will?” His eyebrows drew together. “No. Not at all. I found letters. From you.” He held out his packet. “I thought I ought to return them to you.”

Lily rose with all the dignity at her command. “There is only so much ill will I’ll tolerate from anyone, even a future duke. You traveled all this way, spent all these days here in order to make the grand gesture of returning Aunt Lily’s letters to me? Because, naturally, you would not wish the letters of such a woman as I am to remain in your house.” She held out her hand. “Please give me the letters so that you may be on your way home.”

He blanched. “You misunderstand.”

“It was made very clear to me that your family—”

“We Talbots are your family as well.”

“Much to my regret. Besides Aunt Lily no Talbot has ever wanted anything to do with a Wellstone.” His last words penetrated and she gave a brittle laugh. “You say Talbots are my family, too? What family returns a child’s letters but one that wants no association with her? For I assure you, I was a child when I first wrote to our grandfather. And to your father, too. They returned my letters unread. Now you do me the favor of returning my letters to Aunt Lily. My collection is now complete. Thank you, Lord Fenris, for it’s better that I have the letters than that they stay in the hands of anyone with the name Talbot.”

“My father admitted to me that he refused your letters.” He briefly closed his eyes. “I hope you’ll accept my apologies for that.”

“Aunt Lily was the only one of you who wanted anything to do with me. She loved me, and I loved her. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish she were still alive.”

“Miss Wellstone. Please.”

She held out her hand again, shaking with anger that he felt he’d needed to see her personally to cut off relations
they’d never had in the first place. “I am happy to accept the letters and see you on your way. Thank you, my lord, and good day.”

“Cousin.”

“I have no cousin.” She heard in her words and the manner of her saying the echo of her father. So determined to punish any slight. If anyone deserved that, was it not the Talbots?

He stared at the letters without handing them over. So did Lily. She remembered the paper, the smell of the ink as she wrote the letters, and how deeply she’d longed to meet the woman she’d been named after. Fenris spoke softly. “You weren’t more than fourteen or fifteen when you wrote these letters.”

“You read them?”

“Of course I read them.” He lifted his chin, and the look in his eye reminded her of Ginny’s opinion of him. A judgmental man, and from what she could see, the very worst sort who probably believed he was justified in his lectures and moral superiority. “They were among my Aunt Lily’s effects. I found them in the house where I live.”

She lifted her hands. “Keep them, then, if you feel you must assert ownership. Or would you feel better if I gnashed my teeth and wept bitter tears?”

“No.”

“For I tell you, I won’t give you the satisfaction.”

“I wished only to tell you that it’s plain from these pages that you loved her, and that Aunt Lily had a great deal of affection for you and your mother.” He checked himself. “I suppose that’s obvious seeing as how she made you her sole heir. Heiress. Miss Wellstone. Cousin Lily. I read your letters to her and wanted to meet you and tell you I am sorry, very sorry, that my grandfather refused to acknowledge you and that my father did the same.”

She sat on the sofa and opened her mouth to speak and found she had no words. The desire to send him away still burned hot. Why should she reconcile with any Talbot after
what his family had done? She stared at her lap and struggled to compose herself. This unreasoning sense of betrayal was her father’s way, and she would not follow his example. She looked up. “That’s decent of you.”

“I wish I’d met your mother. I wish I’d known you were corresponding with Aunt Lily before it was too late. Miss Wellstone.” He took a half step forward and stopped himself. “I am here because I do not wish the estrangement between our families to continue.”

“You don’t?”

“You
are
my relation, Miss Wellstone. Not a Talbot by name, but my cousin nevertheless. Cannot you and I make our peace?”

“What does your father think of your visit here?”

His mouth twisted. “That does not signify.”

“He doesn’t know you’ve come.”

“I’m a grown man.” He laughed. “I make my own life, and my father, I do assure you, is well aware of that. I respect his advice and opinion, but my life is my own.”

“Ah.”

Fenris tapped the letters on his palm. “I have given our situation a great deal of consideration. Yours and mine.”

“My inheritance or our estrangement?”

He colored but soon recovered. “Both, I suppose. I can see, Miss Wellstone, that you are a woman of spirit, though that has no bearing on my presence here. There’s no way I could have known before I left to find you that I would encounter such a striking, vibrant woman as you.”

“What is your point?”

“Naturally, your letters suggest the spirit I see in you now. I never did expect to find an ordinary woman, not after reading these.”

“I’m not certain you mean that as a compliment, but I’ll take it as one.”

“You should. It is not and never was my intention to slight you in any way. I did not come here merely to return the letters as some sort of insult to you.” His chagrin was honest,
she felt. Miraculous, even. “I thought you might want them as a memento of the woman you loved.”

She held out her hand. “I would like that very much. Thank you.”

“Perhaps it won’t be necessary for me to return them.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are my cousin.” He went still, composing himself much as she had needed to do. “You would be welcome to read these letters as often as you like.”

The tension in her melted away. His wish for a reconciliation was genuine, and that meant she had a cousin. “I should be glad, very glad, to know you.”

“It is my hope, Miss Wellstone, that we will have more than an acquaintance.”

“Oh?” She leaned against the sofa back. “How so, if your father and mine have not changed their minds? Do you propose we carry on a clandestine correspondence such as Aunt Lily and I did?” The idea amused her enough that she smiled at him, and he tipped his head. “We wrote to each other in care of a particular stationer’s. Her letters to me were always franked, but I wouldn’t expect you to do the same. That expense is now one I can bear. But to keep our secret, my lord, I could write my letters to you in lemon juice, as a precaution against them being intercepted. Your father would think someone is sending you blank papers. Imagine his confusion. You might tell him it’s a new stationer you’re thinking of patronizing and the paper is a sample.”

Fenris blinked once then again. “There’s no need for a secret correspondence or letters written in code or lemon juice.”

“How disappointing.”

“Miss Wellstone.” He smiled. Barely. A Tablot smile, she thought. “Have you not foreseen the reason for my visit?”

“No. Since you haven’t brought the baliff, I rather think I have not.”

“I am here to make you an offer.”

She frowned. “Of what? The letters?”

“We can right the wrongs of the past, you and I.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

He went down on one knee. “Lily Wellstone, marry me. Become my future duchess.”

At that point, the door opened, and Mountjoy walked in. He took one look at Fenris kneeling and his eyebrows shot to his forehead. “What the devil is this?”

Lily didn’t answer because, for once in her life, she had no idea what to say when it must be perfectly clear what was going on.

O
N
M
OUNTJOY’S
RETURN TO B
ITTERWARD
, D
OYLE
informed him that Lord Fenris was here and that Lily was presently entertaining him in the Prussian salon. Mountjoy went directly there. Almost directly. He opened two wrong doors first.

When he found the right room, he stopped at the threshold of the doorway, his heart hammering as if he’d returned to find his house had been robbed and he was only now understanding the scope of his losses. Lily sat on the sofa, luminously beautiful in a gown in a shade of pink that flattered her complexion. As if she would ever wear a color that did not.

What the devil was going on, indeed.

Mountjoy raked his fingers through his hair in what was probably a futile attempt to make himself presentable. He wore his riding clothes, for pity’s sake, which had not yet been altered for him or sent to him new. Mud and, no doubt, unspeakable matter spattered his boots. In all likelihood
there was dirt on his face. He looked disreputable and unkempt and there was nothing he could do about it.

It was bloody obvious what was going on.

That damned prude Fenris was on one knee. In front of Lily. Holding her hand and staring into her face with the sort of stunned awe he’d seen before from other men.

The fool was proposing to her.

To Lily.

She did not look angry or horrified or even mortified. She did not look like a woman who had just refused an offer of marriage from someone she had every reason to dislike.

Mountjoy didn’t question the panic that washed over him. Not that he hadn’t taken into account the possibility that Fenris would do this. What he hadn’t accounted for was Lily’s reaction. He’d assumed Fenris would be a pompous prick and that Lily would refuse him because she had better sense than to entertain thoughts of marriage to a man like Fenris. That assumption was a serious miscalculation on his part. If she married Fenris, whether she was in love with the man or not, she would have the family she’d always longed for. She would belong, and for her, that would be a powerful incentive to accept.