Chapter One

L ord Emory Lumlee, youngest son of the Duke of Tralee, stood in the small, manicured graveyard behind the chapel at Lilacfall Abbey. He’d shoved his hands in his pockets, not because the weather was cold. In fact, this year summer seemed to linger into fall like an unwanted guest. He’d stuffed his hands in his pockets to hide the way they shook. Rory hadn’t been to the cemetery since the funeral. He’d never even seen the stones marking the graves of his wife and infant son.

He stared down at them now, and his thoughts were not of how he missed them or how tragic it was that the month of his son’s birth was the same as his death. Rory could only think that the stonemason—was that who made gravestones and did the carving of the names?—had done excellent work. Rory wondered who had commissioned the stones and decided what they should say. Under his wife’s name, someone had ordered devoted wife and mother be added.

She had been a very good mother. He would give Harriet her due on that front. Had she been a devoted wife? Devoted implied faithfulness and loyalty. As far as he knew, she’d been faithful. But devoted also connoted a sort of enthusiasm or ardor. She’d never been an enthusiastic wife unless she was ardently pushing him away.

Rory lifted his eyes and stared out over the estate he’d purchased for her. Lilacfall Abbey was still green and vibrant, the lawns perfectly manicured, even those not visible from the house. A flowering tree planted beside the graveyard dropped bright pink blossoms, which the breeze tumbled over the tombstones.

Two tragic tombstones.

Rory waited for the tears to come, for the feeling of sadness or grief.

He felt nothing.

He’d felt nothing for seven months now, since the day he’d been told of the accident and the deaths. A wall had come down, preventing him from feeling pain and allowing him to survive under the crushing weight of guilt. Unfortunately, that wall also thwarted any hope of experiencing pleasure. He was merely existing—the only difference between himself and Harriet was that he was above ground, while she…

He heard someone clear her throat, and turned, blinking at the woman who stood at the gate. She was dressed head to toe in black. For a moment he wondered if his mind had finally snapped, and he was seeing specters. She looked so much like Harriet. Then his mind clicked her into place.

“Mrs. Dowling,” he said, and gave his former mother-in-law a stiff bow. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“My lord.” She curtseyed. “We heard you were back in the country, and I came as soon as I could.”

Rory clenched a fist inside his pocket. He had been back in England less than forty-eight hours. If Harriet’s mother had already been informed of his return and contrived to make the journey to Lilacfall Abbey, she must have paid men to watch for him.

“I apologize for being unprepared for your arrival. I haven’t looked at my correspondence yet, or even unpacked.” He doubted he would find any announcement of her arrival in his letters. She had clearly wanted to surprise him.

“Then you intend to stay?” she asked, coming right to the point.

Rory didn’t want to have this conversation over Harriet’s grave. “Shall we walk?” he asked, moving toward the gate.

Mrs. Dowling shook her head. “It’s been a long journey, and I am afraid I must return immediately. I’m too tired for a stroll. I came to bring you Frances.”

For a moment, Rory had no idea who Frances might be or why anyone would bring such a person to him.

And then he remembered.

“Your daughter,” Mrs. Dowling said, obviously seeing the confusion on his face.

“I know who she is,” Rory snapped.

“One cannot be too sure,” she said. “As you never wrote to her or responded to any of the letters she dictated to you.”

Rory didn’t answer. He’d learned that, as the son of a duke, he wasn’t required to answer when he did not care to.

“I’m afraid this may come as something of a shock to you,” his mother-in-law said, “but I must leave Frances with you.”

Rory frowned. “I can’t think why. I’m not exactly in a position to care for a young girl. You’re much better equipped—”

“Harold is dying,” Mrs. Dowling said matter-of-factly. “The doctors give him three months at most.”

Rory waited, thinking he might feel something, but his cold heart deigned not to thaw even a miniscule amount. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Mrs. Dowling gave a quick nod. “His health has not been good these past years, and Harriet’s death—” Her voice broke, and she looked away.

Rory wished he knew something to say while she composed herself. He could think of nothing except how, only days after their wedding, Harriet confessed that her father and mother had forced her to marry Rory. They knew she’d never loved him. He couldn’t quite summon compassion for either the dying Mr. Dowling or his wife.

They’d had not a care for him all those years ago.

“Harriet’s death was a hard blow to him.” Mrs. Dowling withdrew a handkerchief and dabbed at her nose. “She was his only daughter, and they had a special bond.”

“Surely his granddaughter must be a comfort to him then,” Rory said with steely calm.

At those words, Mrs. Dowling gave Rory a look so curious he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was it pity? Or perhaps it was disappointment?

“She was, yes, but now Harold’s health is such that I cannot care for the child. It will be better if she is with you. She needs her father.”

Rory snorted. “I’m sure that is the last thing she needs.”

“Well, perhaps you can be a better father to her than you were a husband to my daughter.”

Rory stiffened. He drew in a slow breath and waited for Mrs. Dowling to apologize, but she glared at him defiantly. It was a look he’d seen on her daughter’s face many times. “Mrs. Dowling, you know as well as I do that I tried to be a good husband to your daughter. She wanted nothing to do with me.”

“That’s not true—”

“It is,” he said, louder than he intended. “She tricked me into marriage at your urging, and then, after we were wed, she told me she all but loathed me.”

“You left her and the child.”

“In a luxurious town house in Mayfair. Better for Frances to grow up in a household where her mother didn’t curse her father and rage at him for not being the man she truly wanted. Even so, I tried to win Harriet over. Even after years of mistreatment, I tried.” He gestured to the grave of his infant son as proof of his efforts at reconciliation. “Your daughter never wanted me, and now my own daughter is a stranger to me.”

Mrs. Dowling pressed her lips together. He thought she might protest or even argue, but she didn’t gainsay him. Finally, she straightened her shoulders. “We should not have insisted on the marriage,” she said. “What’s done is done, and I have brought Frances with me and left her in the care of your housekeeper. We have said our goodbyes. If you don’t want her, perhaps your parents would take her in.” Mrs. Dowling turned. “Good day, my lord.”

Rory watched her for a long moment, fist clenched to keep from calling her back. He wanted to rage at her for showing up, unannounced, and thrusting a child upon him. But because he wasn’t a complete dolt, he kept his mouth shut. After all, he’d been the one to thrust the child into the arms of his late wife’s mother before walking away just moments after the first shovel of dirt had been thrown on Harriet’s coffin.

It seemed fitting that she should thrust the child back at him.

Rory gave the gravestones one last look before following his mother-in-law out of the cemetery gates. He took the long way back to the house, wanting her carriage to be away before he reached the estate. She’d blamed him for Harriet’s death. The entire Dowling family had blamed him, though how he could be responsible for a carriage accident when he’d been seventy miles away was beyond him.

But then, Harriet wouldn’t have been racing from London to Devon to see him if they hadn’t been estranged. If he hadn’t ordered her to come. No point in mentioning that he’d wanted her to come because he’d been trying, once again, to reconcile. That he’d sent for her and their newborn son in an effort to repair the marriage.

Now he’d never have that chance.

And Frances would never have a mother.

Rory stopped at a row of lilac bushes still in full bloom. Strange for the flowers to be blooming this late in the year, but the winter and spring had been unusually cold in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and fourteen, and he’d been told the flowers hadn’t bloomed until July. The estate was awash in lilac bushes, so many that they had given the estate its name. Harriet had loved lilacs and fallen in love with the place upon first sight all those years ago. Rory had bought it for her—rather, he’d used some of her dowry to purchase it. He’d hoped it would bridge the distance between them, a gap that had widened from the first days of their marriage. At two and twenty, he hadn’t understood that the divide was insurmountable. When he’d proposed, he’d thought their marriage would be a perfect union. She was the heiress with the money. He was the lord with the duke for a father and the old family name.

But nothing had been perfect. As soon as they’d exchanged vows, Harriet became someone he didn’t recognize. He’d thought her a lush violet when all along she’d been a rose with toxic thorns. When the truth had come out—she’d been in love with another and never wanted him—Rory had felt betrayed and used. He’d tried to forgive her lies and deceit, but Harriet made it quite clear she didn’t want Rory and did not care whether he forgave her. By the time Frances was christened, he was living here, Harriet was in London, and the two rarely met.

Rory thought he could count on both hands the number of times he’d been in the same room with Frances, his only child and the only survivor of that fatal carriage accident.

Rory heard the wheels of a carriage fading away and decided it was safe to return to the house. If Frances was in Mrs. Mann’s care, then perhaps he need not see her right away. What was he supposed to say to a—was she six or seven now?—to a little girl?

But as he approached the front door to the house, he heard a voice that could only be his daughter’s—high and childish. “I won’t go inside, and you can’t make me!”

Rory raised his brows at her tone of voice. Something in it was vaguely familiar. He hadn’t realized little girls spoke like that. He thought they were supposed to blush and speak in whispers.

“Miss Frances, don’t you want to see the nursery? We have toys there,” the housekeeper said patiently.

This information was new to Rory. He hadn’t been in the nursery since—well, he’d never been in the nursery.

“No. I want to go home!”

Rory rounded the edge of the house in time to see his daughter kick Mrs. Mann in the shin. Rory’s brows went up again. It had been a rather impressive kick. But he couldn’t have his child—or anyone, really—abusing the staff. “Now, see here!” he bellowed, making Mrs. Mann, a maid, and the child jump and turn to look at him. “There will be no abuse of the staff,” he said, voice stern.

For a moment, the little girl looked at him, and Rory saw in her face his own eyes. Like him, she had dark hair and slanting eyebrows. He had a flash of himself as a child, and he knew why her tone of voice had been familiar. She was a female version of the child he had been—willful, stubborn, and recalcitrant.

She narrowed her eyes at him, stuck her hands on her hips, and tossed her hair. “And who are you?”

Rory marched right up to her and looked down at her. “Your father.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said. And then she kicked him.

Rory made a sound of surprise and made a grab for the chit, but she was smart and fast and had taken off running. “Frances Louise Lumley! Come back here this instant!”

“No!” she called over her shoulder, her dark hair streaming out behind her. “I hate you. I hate all of you!”

For a moment, the world dimmed. She’d sounded so much like her mother in that moment. He couldn’t count the number of times Harriet had screamed that she hated him, as though he had been the one who’d deceived her instead of the other way round.

Rory looked at Mrs. Mann. If he hadn’t been the son of a duke, he would have asked what he was supposed to do now. But as he was the son of a duke and was presumed to always know what to do in every situation, he said nothing. Mrs. Mann had known him long enough, though, to know when he wanted her advice. “I’ll send one of the maids after her. Mary is young and pretty. Perhaps she can bring the young lady inside.”

“Good idea,” Rory said. “Did she not come with a nanny? Or would she have a governess at this age?”

“A nanny still, I think,” Mrs. Mann said. “Mrs. Dowling mentioned she did have a nanny, or rather she’s had half a dozen over the last few months. The most recent just resigned her position. I assumed it was because she did not desire to travel to Devon.”

“That must be why,” Rory said drily. They were both perfectly aware, after meeting the child, the girl had run the nannies off. After all, the Dowlings themselves also lived in Devon, which was another reason Harriet had wanted a home here.

“You will place an advertisement for a caretaker straight away.”

Mrs. Mann’s brows went up. She was a woman of middle years, her light brown hair going gray at the roots and temples. “Then the child will be staying here?”

“For the moment,” Rory said. Until he could figure out what else to do with her. He couldn’t send her to his parents. If they didn’t send her right back, they would pack her off to school. That was what they had done with him long before he was the customary age of eight. Rory didn’t know his daughter, but the one thing he would not do was send her away to school.

He’d engage a nanny or a governess or whatever was appropriate, and then he wouldn’t have to think about the child again. She could stay in the nursery learning French or embroidery or whatever girls learned, and he could… Well, he didn’t know what he would do. He didn’t expect to stay in England. He’d returned because he’d received several odd and rather disturbing letters from his friends. First King had written, and then Henry. The letters had been somewhat delayed, and Rory had no idea if his friends still needed him.

But he’d come nonetheless.

He’d sort his friends out and help as needed, and then he’d decide what to do and where to go. And it would be somewhere far, far away from Lilacfall Abbey and the memories it held.