“It must be this way, Galen, for our daughter’s sake,” she said. “It must be.”
“You will not marry me?”
“No.”
His voice dropped to a distraught whisper. “You said you loved me, yet you are willing to abandon me again.”
Her eyes shone with something more than tears as she raised her head and looked at him. “There is only one person who I love as much as you, Galen, and that is Jocelyn. It is only for her sake I ask this. For her, I would break your heart—and my own.”
“Verity!”
“Please, Galen, go,” she whispered, needing every ounce of her resolve and concern for her daughter’s welfare to say it.
He reached out to take hold of her shoulders. “If I must never see you again, for our daughter’s sake, let me tell you once more how I love you.”
“Galen, please, it is too much,” she stammered, holding him away from her. “I cannot bear it.”
“Then let me kiss you again.”
“Galen,” she protested feebly as he drew her close.
She did not have the strength to refuse. She did not want to refuse.
This kiss was gentle, tender and tasted of the salt of her tears.
With a ragged sigh, he stepped back. “May I write to you?”
“That would not be wise.”
“Will you write to me in London to tell me how you and Jocelyn are?” he pleaded. “No one in my household will wonder if I get a letter addressed in a lady’s hand.”
Hearing his mournful, heartfelt words, she could not refuse his request. “I shall write, Galen, but it cannot be often. I will have to find a way to post it in secret, but I shall write. I give you my word.”
He grasped her hand and raised it to his lips. “Then I shall be content, or try to be.”
“And so must I.” She drew her hand away. “What of Lady Mary?”
“Oh, yes. Lady Mary.” He shrugged. “Perhaps…in time…when I am able to contemplate marriage to anyone but you…”
He abruptly turned and strode a few paces away, then just as suddenly halted and looked back. “Goodbye, Verity. Give my love to Jocelyn.”
She nodded.
He wheeled around and marched down the path. Around the bend.
And out of her life. Again. Forever.
She wanted to moan with despair, or scream in agony. She wanted to weep and wail, gnash her teeth, tear her hair.
But most of all, she wanted to call him back to her.
She did none of these things, for she would not make her daughter suffer for
her
happiness.
So instead, after several minutes had elapsed, Verity wiped her eyes, sighed heavily, straightened her shoulders and headed back to her house.
She did not see the man behind the oak on the other side of the path who had watched and listened, a dark scowl marring his familiar features.
“London?” Myron said with a snort, coming out of doze and half out of his chair as he stared at Galen, with whom he had been sharing a companionable moment of calm in the drawing room before the ladies—and possibly George—came down for dinner.
“Yes. I’m sorry, Myron, yet I fear I must return immediately. Tomorrow, in fact. There is some business I have only just remembered, no doubt because I’ve had such an enjoyable time here.”
“Thanks to Lady Mary, eh?”
Galen forced a noncommittal smile onto his face and remained enigmatically silent.
“Well, if you must, you must. I’m dashed grateful you came down at all.”
“Myron, it is I who am grateful,” Galen replied truthfully. “And I’m very sorry indeed I never came before.”
If he had, perhaps he would have encountered Verity and Jocelyn sooner, and maybe he could have found a way to be part of their lives. Somehow.
Regrettably, he could never come here again, because he did not think he had the strength to stay away from them if he was so nearby.
“You must promise to visit me when you come to London,” Galen said.
Now that he had regained his friendship with Myron and valued it as he always should have, he didn’t want to lose that, too.
And it could very well be that Myron might be able to give him additional news of Verity and Jocelyn from time to time.
“That’s very kind of you,” Myron said.
He was so obviously delighted, Galen felt another twinge of guilt for not inviting him before this.
Then Myron frowned. “The ladies are going to be very disappointed you’re leaving us.”
“I think you overestimate my attraction.”
“Do I? I’m sure Lady Mary has been entertaining certain hopes.”
“Led on by my own esteemed cousin, surely.
Still, I am not saying that she need be disappointed.”
“And here I was really wondering if you were contemplating the pretty widow,” Myron said sheepishly.
Galen managed a wry laugh. “No, no widows for me, thank you.”
Myron seemed relieved, and a new thought came to Galen.
What if Myron were interested in Verity?
No, it couldn’t be. It mustn’t be.
Yet if Verity were to marry anybody, even Myron, that would free her from her in-laws. If he wanted her to be free—and he did—he should even encourage that. As for Myron, he was a good, kind, generous soul.
Despite such reasoning, Galen felt physically ill at the thought of Verity married to anybody except himself.
Perhaps he was leaping to conclusions unnecessarily.
“Mrs. Davis-Jones is pretty, of course,” he remarked. “Have you taken a fancy to her?”
“Demme, no!” Myron cried, truly horrified. Then he blushed like a boy telling a dirty story.
“I thought you didn’t believe those rumors about her husband’s death,” Galen asked, searching for a possible explanation for Myron’s reaction.
“Oh, that. No, I don’t.”
“What then?”
“She’s not…that is, her mother…”
Galen’s jaw tensed. “What is the matter?”
“Well, in my last letter to Justbury Minor I told him that you had come down and I mentioned my pretty bereaved neighbor. Today I received a reply. I fear I have been noticing somebody I should not, and I must say I’m rather shocked your cousin does, although I suppose the old school ties may be just as strong with the weaker sex.”
“What the devil are you talking about, Myron?”
His friend blushed. “It seems, um, that Mrs. Davis-Jones is not the child of her mother’s husband.”
Deep in his heart, Galen had wanted to believe that Verity was exaggerating the stain of illegitimacy, but if kindhearted, jovial Myron could look as if he had just revealed that Verity was a multiple murderer, what would other people be like? Other men?
“Since she seems to be a gentle, demure woman, and since I know how rumors can run rampant with very little encouragement,” Galen replied, “I hope you won’t feel called upon to repeat what you have heard. There is her innocent child to consider, too.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right,” Myron acknowledged, and Galen subdued a sigh of relief.
If he prevented even one person from spreading the story of Verity’s past, that would be something.
At the sound of rustling skirts and Eloise’s exclamations, Myron got to his feet and gruffly cleared his throat. “I’ll let you disappoint the ladies and tell them that you’re leaving us.”
“Of course.”
With a subdued sigh, Galen turned to greet Eloise, who fluttered in with an aura of lacy bits and perfume, her chartreuse evening gown both ugly and revealing. Lady Mary, much more tastefully attired in pale pink silk and with a single rose in her hair, entered with her.
“You both look enchanting,” Galen said.
Lady Mary’s smile grew a little bolder and she sidled a little closer. Really, one would think he was a wolf, the way she behaved when she was near him, Galen thought with sudden irritation.
“Thank you, thank you!” Eloise gushed as she sat on the edge of the sofa and adjusted her glove. “That is more than George ever says. Indeed, I could stand in front of him naked and he wouldn’t say a thing.”
Struck dumb, no doubt, was Galen’s first thought. “Where is he?”
“Still trying to get his cravat tied properly,” Eloise replied. “Your man Rhodes has come to his aid, so we should be seeing him soon enough.”
Galen decided he had better get his announcement over with. “I am sorry to say that I shall be leaving for London very early in the morning. If you ladies have any commission for me there, or wish me to convey any messages, I shall be de lighted to do so.”
Lady Mary looked stunned, and Eloise frowned as darkly as she could.
“You must stay as long as you like, Lady Bodenham, Lady Mary,” Myron hastened to add. “Indeed, after all the excitement of having such marvelous company, I shall turn as growly as a bear if you decamp, too!”
“Whatever can there be to make you leave in such a rush?” Eloise demanded.
“Estate business,” Galen replied simply. The less said, the better.
“I thought your man Jasper handled all that.”
“He cannot sign my name on legal documents,” Galen replied.
This was quite true, although it had nothing to do with his return to London.
“Oh, well, then,” Eloise said grudgingly as she reclined on the sofa.
“We shall miss you, Your Grace,” Lady Mary ventured.
“I hope we can renew our acquaintance at a later date, Lady Mary,” he replied gallantly.
When he saw her pleased smile, the noose tightened more.
T
he next morning, as Verity made some desultory efforts to sweep the kitchen floor before Nancy returned from the market in the village, she tried not to remember Galen and his culinary efforts. She would not shed tears when she moved the little pot in which he had boiled an egg, and she would not wax sentimental over the cloth that had protected his fingers.
The door burst open, breaking her reverie, and Nancy came bustling in. She set her basket on the table and, with arms akimbo and bonnet askew, regarded her mistress as an overseer might an insolent workman. “
What
do you think has happened now?”
“I have no idea,” Verity answered as she laid her broom against the wall, “but please speak softly. The Blackstones are not yet awake.”
Nancy cast a scornful glance ceilingward, then
turned her attention back to Verity. “You’ll never guess.”
“I think you’re right, so please tell me.”
“He’s up and left!”
Verity went to the table and began to empty the basket of the few items Nancy had purchased. “Who?”
“The Duke of Deighton—and his precious Titus Minimus!”
Judging by the way she had tossed things into the basket, Nancy had been irritated from the start of her marketing.
“Why should that upset you?” Verity inquired. “Did you get the flour?”
“Because folks couldn’t stop talking about it, even with me standing there waiting to pay good money to ’em! And as for that Jill at the mill!” Nancy relieved her feelings by turning around and shaking her fist in the general direction of Jefford. “You’d think he’d jilted her at the altar, the hussy!”
“Who, the duke or his valet?”
“Either one—or both, the jade! Took me an age to get her to measure the flour out.”
“Oh, yes, here it is.” Verity returned the empty basket to its place by the door. “Well, if he is gone, things should soon return to normal. Is Lady Bodenham still at Sir Myron’s?”
“I suppose so. They didn’t say she’d gone, or
that other one, either. O’ course, they wouldn’t have taken no notice of that unless they’d sprouted wings and flown over their heads!”
“Is that Nancy?” Jocelyn called from the parlor.
“Yes, she’s home.”
“Good. The duke would like to speak to her, too,” Jocelyn said.
Verity had to lean on the table for support. “Who?”
“The duke. I’ve just let him in!”
How could he do this?
After all she had said…explained…made clear…how could he disregard her wishes so blatantly?
What if he meant to continue disregarding them? He was a duke, a rich and powerful nobleman. She would have little means to prevent him.
She glanced at Nancy to see an equally dismayed and suspicious look on her face.
“Well, this is certainly a surprise,” Verity said with forced gaiety. “To have a duke take leave of
me!
” She lowered her voice to a confidential whisper. “You know, I fear you may have been right all along about him. I am so relieved he’s leaving Jefford!”
“No doubt that Jill will think he’s lingering on after
her
, and her with them buckteeth.”
“Let us say our goodbyes quickly, then.”
She hurried to the parlor, Nancy behind her.
For the first time, the sight of Galen and his
charming smile failed to move her. All she could think of was his selfish disregard for the risk he was taking by coming here.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” she began coolly as she entered the parlor.
“Good morning, and pray forgive the early hour of my call.”
“He says he’s come to say goodbye,” Jocelyn said, and Verity noted the tears welling her daughter’s eyes, and her trembling lip.
She was doing all she could not to cry.
Verity glanced sharply at Galen—and in that instant, her anger dissolved. He was looking at Jocelyn with both intensity and torment, as if he were trying to memorize her features and trying not to cry, too.
She knew then he had not come to make threats or plead with her to change her mind. He had come to see his daughter for what might be the last time.
“I couldn’t go without saying farewell to you all. I shall never forget your kindness and hospitality,” he said. He smiled, but it was empty of any joy.
“Well, you’re welcome and goodbye, then,” Nancy snapped from the doorway, where she regarded him with obvious suspicion.
“You’ll come back, won’t you?” Jocelyn pleaded. “You’ll come to visit Sir Myron again,
won’t you? Next time, I can show you how to toast bread.”
“We shall see.”
“Jocelyn, the duke has many claims upon his time.”
“And he’s got to get on his way now, no doubt,” Nancy finished. “Folks to visit, estates to run, parties to attend, the House of Lords to snore in.”
“Nancy, I am so glad you are here. I have a very great favor to ask of you,” Galen said, smiling at her with some genuine good humor and not a little forbearance.
“A favor of me, Your Grace?” she replied dubiously.
“I should dearly love to have the recipe for the tarts. I know that no one will be able to make them as well as you two, but perhaps my chef in London can achieve a near proximity. Will you be so generous as to let me have it?”
“It ain’t—isn’t—written down. I keep it here,” she replied, tapping her temple.
“Perhaps you could write it out at some later date and send it on to me at London? Here is my address.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. “Mrs. Davis-Jones, if you would be so good as to pass this to Nancy?”
Of course, Verity thought as she reached out to take the card, her hand touching his for the briefest
of moments. She would have to have Galen’s address if she were to write. Otherwise, she would have to get it from Eloise or Sir Myron, and that would involve more subterfuge and complications. It was much easier to read it on the card and commit it to memory as she handed it to Nancy.
“Perhaps the duke would appreciate some tarts for his journey? Jocelyn and Nancy made a fresh batch yesterday.”
“That would be delightful.”
“They’re even better than the ones you had before,” Jocelyn assured him.
“Nancy, would you be so good as to get him some?”
Nancy nodded. “All right. I’ll say my goodbye, then, Your Grace. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Nancy.”
She nodded briskly once, then exited the room, leaving Galen alone with Verity and Jocelyn.
He knew it would be better if he left at once. He didn’t doubt that the longer he lingered, the greater the pain would be when he eventually tore himself away. But he had to come one more time to ensure that Verity knew his London address, and because he couldn’t bear the thought of not saying a final farewell to Jocelyn.
With a woeful smile, he looked down into Jocelyn’s eyes that were so like her mother’s and touched one dark curl that was so like his.
“I have to go now, Jocelyn,” he said softly. “I have a long day’s journey ahead, made somewhat better by the offer of the tarts.”
“We never played Indians.”
“No.”
She gave him a look as serious and studious as an adult’s. “Why are you really going away?”
He heard Verity’s sharp intake of breath, but ignored it. “Because I must. Sometimes people must do things they would rather not.”
“But you’re a
duke
and rich, too.”
Before Verity could say anything, Galen answered, “That does not mean I have no obligations, Jocelyn. I would rather stay a little longer, but I simply cannot.”
Suddenly they heard noises overheard. Galen glanced at Verity and realized she had tensed. “I don’t think that’s a mouse,” he ventured.
“It’s Uncle Clive and Aunt Fanny,” Jocelyn announced. “They’ve been asleep all morning.”
“It is not yet ten o’clock,” Verity reminded her. “Your Grace, do you wish to take your leave of them, too?”
“Sadly, I have overstayed my time as it is,” Galen replied.
He didn’t want to see the Blackstones again, especially Clive, because he didn’t trust himself not to warn the man to keep away from Verity on pain of death.
Galen crouched down until he was eye to eye with the daughter he yearned to acknowledge, and to know. “Goodbye, Jocelyn. I hope to hear your war whoop again someday.”
Her lip started to tremble again. “Goodbye,” she mumbled. Then she ran out of the room. They heard her feet pounding up the stairs and a door banged shut.
“I’m sorry, Galen,” Verity whispered as he straightened, “but it has to be this way.”
He sighed heavily and gave her a weary shadow of his smile. “I know.”
He reached out and took her hand gently. “I only wish—” he began gruffly, as if his words would come out of his throat despite a manly effort to keep silent.
“Will you…can you…perhaps someday, when she is old enough to understand, will you tell her the truth?”
Verity nodded slowly.
“Please do not make me sound too much a rake, if that is not too much to ask.”
“I shall tell her what a good and unselfish man her natural father was,” Verity vowed.
Nancy appeared in the drawing room door, a cloth bundle in her hand, and Galen raised Verity’s hand to his lips for a kiss. “Goodbye, Mrs. Davis-Jones.”
“Farewell, Your Grace,” she whispered as she curtsied.
Then he walked toward Nancy, took the bundle, gave Verity a final, enigmatic glance, and left.
“Goodbye and good riddance to ’im!” Nancy muttered as she closed the door behind him. “All charm and flattery, that one.”
Verity opened her mouth, ready to tell Nancy that she was wrong. Quite wrong. There was so much more to him than that.
And so much more that she wished to learn.
But he was gone.
He was gone forever.
“I don’t see that he was so very handsome,” Nancy muttered as she headed to the kitchen. “What with that hair and them manners, looking at you like he’d like to take a bite out o’ you.”
Verity reached for her shawl hanging on a peg near the door. “I am going to the woods for a walk, Nancy. I shouldn’t be long.”
She didn’t wait to hear Nancy’s response.
She fled to the solitude of the woods.
A few days later, Galen sat in the library of his Mayfair town house, staring unseeing into the flames in the hearth. Heavy plum-colored velvet draperies covered the windows, so no street noise penetrated the silence. He had not bothered to light
any candles. The door was closed, and the servants knew better than to disturb him there.
Between the draperies, the dark paneling and lack of illumination, the library was as dim as a tomb, and Galen liked it that way.
He sighed and ran his hand through his unkempt hair. He hadn’t gone out today, and he wasn’t going out tonight. He would rather sit in his library alone.
He glanced at the letter from Eloise lying open on his desk. It seemed Lady Mary was going to be in London next month.
He stood abruptly, poured himself a brandy and downed it in a gulp. Gad, he didn’t want to marry her! He didn’t want to marry anybody but Verity. He would never love any woman as he did her.
He strode to the desk and grabbed Eloise’s letter. With fiendish relish he crumpled it into a little ball and tossed it toward the fireplace. It bounced off the bronze andiron and fell into the flames. Smiling with satisfaction, he watched as the edges caught fire, curled, blackened and disintegrated into ashes.
Then he sighed. “That was mature,” he muttered sardonically. “And you thought you had become a more sensible man.”
He so dearly wished he had always been a sensible man! Then he would not be in this hellish exile of his own making. He would have been wor
thy of Verity’s love from the beginning, and perhaps she wouldn’t have married—
Such speculation was worthless. The past was the past. He could not undo what he had done, just as she could not. He must try to carry on.
He picked up the other letter that had been on his desk, written in Buck’s familiar, yet obviously weak, hand.
There had been a time Galen would never have written to his half brother, not even to inquire how he fared after his illness. Having lost Jocelyn and Verity, however…well, he had written to all three of his brothers when he returned to London.
Buck had been quite ill with a fever and was slowly recovering. He didn’t know when he would be back in England, and the tone of his shaky writing indicated he really didn’t think Galen cared.
Buck was wrong. Galen was truly glad to hear that his half brother was doing better and would be coming home. Galen would wait to see him before he went back to Italy, and he would have War and Hunt come for a visit to London, too. If only he could add Verity and Jocelyn to that family gathering!
“Your Grace?”
“What it is?” he growled, turning toward the door.
“I did knock, Your Grace,” a liveried footman
stammered as he held out a silver salver bearing a visiting card.
“I don’t want to see anybody.”
“He says it’s very important, Your Grace, and was most insistent.”
“Insistent?”
Galen scoffed as he snatched up the card. “Who dares to be
insistent
to the Duke of Deighton?”
He frowned as he read the name in the flickering light of the hearth fire: Clive Blackstone.
He had absolutely no desire to see or talk to the obsequious Clive Blackstone. The man was probably going to ask him to invest in his mills again, something Galen would never do. “Tell him I am not at home.”
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” the footman replied, blanching under Galen’s angry glare. “He said if you refused to see him, I was to say it was about an extremely important personal matter…about a widow, Your Grace.”
Galen’s throat went dry. “Ask him to join me here.”
After the footman left, he tried to compose himself. He told himself it was natural that Blackstone would refer to Verity. She had been to school with his cousin.
Clive Blackstone strolled into the library. Gone was the humble, fawning manner he had possessed in Jefford. Now the fellow boldly ignored Galen
and let his gaze insolently rove over the multitude of richly bound volumes on the wall, the carpet and the fine cherry wood and leather furniture, as if he were an auctioneer Galen had summoned to sell off every piece.