Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

L eo held Lillian’s arm to him as they promenaded through the stand of stately English oaks. He knew, once he told her the truth, she’d see him differently. People always did. He couldn’t escape the sins of his father any more than he could escape being the nephew and presumed heir of the Marquess of Waringford.

Their time together was ending anyway. He saw the gate ahead, looming like a dark tunnel in his path, an end to the light-filled, airy avenue they trod together.

“My father was not…what you would call a sober fellow,” Leo said.

Few of the Westrop men were, at least in Leo’s experience. A firstborn uncle, who died young, and his heir, who died even younger, might have matured into steady, respectable men, but one would never know now. The marquess was the model for a man of his class, losing no more than his pockets could bear at the gaming tables, never squiring a mistress where his wife or his wife’s friends would see her. He provided his daughters with pin money and a coach of their own to share and ensured that men with less than respectable intentions, lineages, or fortunes never so much as looked at them, which perhaps explained why all three were yet unwed.

But Rupert’s father had proved light-heeled when news reached them of a second family in the Americas. And Leo’s father had been a notorious scoundrel, his reputation preceding him across several counties. That was enough to make Leo fear there was such a thing as bad blood, and he might have inherited it.

Rupert was their standout; Rupert went against the grain. He’d been loyal, brave, high-minded, if a bit of a hound for glory, but Rupert was gone, wasn’t he. And that left Leo and his brother, Joshua, to steer the family toward respectable waters in hopes of eventually buffing out the stains on the Westrop name and, in time, contributing to the family coffers.

Only time would tell if Leo indeed bore the same strain of fickleness that seemed bequeathed through the Westrop blood.

“You seem to be.” Lillian’s Delft blue eyes were clear of contempt or condescension as she regarded him. “Sober, that is. Save for that wild momentary freak where you asked a complete stranger to marry you. Yet if your mother intended to force your hand, no one can blame you for arranging your own noose, as it were.”

“You are not a noose.” He squeezed her arm against his side, studying the quiet lane and the pocket of calm inside busy London. Lillian was like that, too: a deep pool of calm in a rushing world.

“My mother holds a great deal of sway over me, and she knows it. My father was, through most of my childhood, absent on…pursuits of his own.” Pursuits that had brought nothing but indignity and debt to their family, but that was not worth saying. “I tried to supply what support for my mother I could. As a consequence, she became very closely involved in my life, even when I went away to Oxford. She feels she still has the right to govern me, as though I were yet in leading strings.”

She paced alongside him, her skirts a quiet rustle, like the leaves swaying in the trees. “And you have not yet been able to establish your independence, even as an adult,” she observed.

“That would require financial independence. My means come from my uncle, to some extent, and from my mother. Most of my resources go toward furthering my archaeological interests, which all in my family, save for my brother, think a complete waste of time. I had some trouble settling on a career, you might say, and so no one believes I am about anything useful in wishing to excavate in Uffington. They are all waiting to see what freak I take into my mind next.”

“Is it a freak to you?” she asked softly.

“No. Rather I feel I’ve come across what I most want to do, and mean to keep at it, if I can. Given the resources and opportunity.”

“Ah.” They came to the end of the lane and, in unspoken agreement, turned about. “I have not established any independence from my family, either. As a woman, it is not expected that I would set up a household of my own.”

“Do you wish to?”

“I am currently entertaining an offer of marriage,” she said, with an arch look at him from beneath her cap. “But once that matter comes to its destined end, I shall have to give some thought to my future. I agreed to chaperone Hester during her debut season, but I hope my aunt will not press her to a second one. Which leaves me somewhat at loose ends, moving between the homes of my parents, my aunt, and my great-uncle, with no place of my own to land.”

“Have you not thought about a husband? I thought it was the shared pursuit of damsels of a certain age. Perhaps the right shackle will give you the liberty to set up your household as you wish.”

Not that he would be that shackle, of course. He knew he could not bear, ever, to fail another person the way his father had so repeatedly failed and disappointed him. Leo had long ago decided he would simply never put himself in that position.

“I do not think it is in the habit of husbands to be accommodating,” Lillian remarked. “My father seems to be an exception in that, as in many things.” They strolled through a patch of leafy shade, and she added, “They have written me. Happens that news of our engagement reached Wilshire. They invited me to join them whenever I wish, but said if I am too busy enjoying gadding about to pleasure gardens and parties with my betrothed, they will understand.”

Leo wrestled with the tightening in his chest that accompanied this information, like grappling hooks tossed around his heart. He didn’t know which line to pursue first. “Do you intend to join them?”

She frowned. “I want to, but I am concerned about leaving Hester. She doesn’t enjoy the social activities my aunt forces on her. Taking her to the Physic Garden was such a treat for her, L—Westrop. Truly, it’s the most delightful outing she’s had in months. She said as much.”

“I wonder what your parents think of me ?” he couldn’t stop himself asking.

She tucked her lips together, hiding a smile. The breeze stirred the curls peeking beneath her cap.

“They think I have reached awfully high, attaching myself to a Westrop.”

“I suppose they too have wagers on when you will jilt me,” he muttered. If Lillian were traveling to Wiltshire…her parents would not be coming to London, where he could speak to them, learn from them.

Prove himself worthy of the hand of their daughter.

She turned to him. “Put your own wager in the book, and I will ensure you win it.”

He stared into her face—so innocent, so calculating. There were so many facets to this woman that kept emerging. So many depths.

“I believe that is cheating.”

Her eyes gleamed with mischief. “And you won’t presume to strip a coin or two from people who would make wagers on your heart? Very well. I respect the nobility of that sentiment.” She resumed walking, steering him along.

“Would you,” he began, and then fell silent. She arched a brow at him. “Would you like to see the Sardinian Embassy Chapel? I hear it is stuffed with silver plate and art from all those wealthy Catholics.”

“And I hear the chapel is closed. Someone at the Highcastle soiree told me the Sardinian ambassador is trying to let the house.”

Their last afternoon was slipping away. They’d walked the gardens. He’d shown her the chapel. Gower House was not far, a short jaunt down Holborn. Would she invite him to stay for tea once he took her home? Did she want anything from him?

But he had nothing to offer. There was nothing he could give her—including kisses—that wouldn’t make him seem a rogue without a more substantial promise to follow. He didn’t have the income to keep her in ease, and he didn’t have the poetic bent that made him susceptible to falling in love and overlooking all the practical considerations. He couldn’t risk becoming his father. If he hurt Lillian, the only woman he’d ever felt this kind of connection with—he’d do himself in first to prevent that ever happening.

Yet the thought of letting her go was agony.

He looked around for Augustus and saw the boy holding the head of Atlas and chatting with a young man, an aspirant to the bar from the look of him, admiring the marquess’s fine rig and cattle.

“Miss Gower. Lillian.” Leo pulled her arm close to his body. Layers of fabric separated her flesh from his, and yet her nearness, the very fact of her beside him, toppled sense. “I don’t suppose you would wait for me? Until I return from my dig. In the fall.”

Two tiny lines appeared between her brows. “You mean…wait until autumn to sever our engagement?”

He let out a breath. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“To…to thumb our noses at all the bets in the book saying our engagement isn’t real.”

“But it’s not real.”

She had warned him she was practical. Driven by good sense. He had not thought to find those admirable qualities so very frustrating.

“You have so very many other men lining up for your hand? Suitors you might rather consider?”

“No. Well…that is to say…”

He found himself drawn taut as a bow string, gripped with fury. “There is someone.” Arendale’s brother. That scoundrel Ned Delaval. Or Craven himself, good old Wim Wim, known to have an eye for a beautiful figure, the baronial bastard.

She glanced toward the brick building of the Hall, serene in its splendor and self-importance. “You have made me a curiosity. So many people want to know what might have possessed Mr. Westrop to offer for…someone like me.”

“Someone like what , exactly? What is it you are presumed to be?”

“A very unlikely bride for a would-be marquess.”

He set his teeth together. Her thoughts ran too much in line with his mother’s dismissal of her, and there was that title again, casting an ominous shadow over his life.

“A couple’s suitability is for the two of them to determine, wouldn’t you say?”

“And for all their friends to wonder about, not to mention becoming a spectacle for society at large.”

“I see. And you wish to cease being a spectacle.”

She nodded, one brief tilt of her head. “There have been pleasant moments. I do wish to tour Charles Grenville’s gardens at Paddington Green. I would very much like to see the orchid that Mr. Falstead’s sister has discovered. But as for the rest of it, the attention, the scrutiny—it makes me very uncomfortable.”

“So we simply go our separate ways.” He still had a tight hold of her arm, he realized when she tried subtly to disentangle herself. Caught by a stubborn impulse, he refused to release her. He wanted her to stay with him, damn it.

“We are going our separate ways in any case, Mr. Westrop,” she said gently. “You are engaged to oversee your dig, and I…I will go where my family needs me.”

This was a facer, the neat, swift blow that severed a diseased limb or a gall from a tree.

She didn’t want more time with him.

There was nothing to do after that but help her into the carriage, and Leo clung to the brief, warm press of her palm in his hand, savored the softness of her body beside his on the narrow seat as Atlas clipped the short distance down High Holborn. There was a danger in being near her. Lillian Gower threatened to reorient his priorities. She reordered what he wanted, channeling his desires into territory previously unknown. Like the way he could think of little but kissing her again, and what reason he might find to call upon her when he returned from his dig.

Months from now. When she might have forgotten about him. Might already—the thought made his blood ice—have accepted a proposal, a real one this time, from someone else.

He opened the door of Gower House to shouting.

It was so unlike the generally placid atmosphere of the Tudor mansion that at first Leo thought he might have entered the wrong home. He considered shutting the portal and reopening it, save the urgency of the voices caught his attention. Lillian pushed past him, a fleeting impression of geraniums and warmth.

“What is the matter?” she called, alarm in her tone.

“In her own home! And this is the way he treats her.” The housemaid, Sarey, held a broom and waved it in the direction of a short, corpulent man emerging from the small parlor where Mrs. Giles received her callers. He wore a harried, aggrieved expression, but it was nothing compared to Sarey’s wrath.

“An innocent child. Only a cad would take such advantage.” That must be the cook beside her, flapping a length of cloth near the gentleman’s face. She had umber skin and warm, deep brown eyes currently snapping with anger beneath a delicate lace cap. “Begone with you.”

“Mrs. Giles!” the man panted. His periwig was askew, and he tugged a flamboyant waistcoat over a pair of tight breeches that clung to every curve and roll of his sturdy frame. “Is this the treatment I am to expect in your house? After I was so kind to your daughter?”

“Kind?” Sarey screeched. “That ain’t kindness! That’s the sort of business as a man pays for, an you knows it.”

“Git on with you!” The cook shooed him like a cat. “Not in this house, no sir, not from a lord or anybody.”

“How dare you! Both of you! You’ll be turned off without a character for behaving like this. Lord Bacon, I beg you will ignore this fracas.” Mrs. Giles rushed out of the second family parlor, hands twisted in her apron. “But what of Hester, your lordship? You spoke of an offer?—”

“She don’t want what he’s offerin’!” Sarey snarled. “It ain’t decent.”

“No thank you, no, sir,” the cook barked, and together they drove the man toward the doorway. Leo stepped aside, snaking an arm around Lillian. She stood stiffly against him.

“What’s happened?” she demanded. “What has he done to Hester?”

“I didn’t touch the gel!” Bacon sputtered.

Leo had seen the man in Brooks: a minor baron who bragged about his cattle and the women he’d bedded, treating them as interchangeable. He was known for making vulgar wagers, then not paying out when he lost, and word was he’d been refused custom at more than one tailor and boot shop where he’d run up considerable debt. He was a terrible choice for Hester, and even the most desperate of mothers had to see it.

“Where is she?” Lillian’s voice turned ominous. “Where is Hex?”

“Lord Bacon.” Mrs. Giles rushed toward them as Bacon hustled down the hallway, grabbing his hat from the table and clapping it on his head.

“Allow me, Mrs. Giles.” Leo released Lillian with a short, half-conscious squeeze of reassurance. Following Bacon outside, he stepped onto the small stone porch of the house, pulling the heavy wooden door shut behind them.

“What happened, man?”

Bacon wheezed with indignation. “Led me on, that’s what! Promised me a willing gel, biddable wife, not half bad a price for the dowry, either. Only making sure the chit was as pliable as I was told. Ain’t making an offer for a stubborn wench, one as won’t take the bit.” He rearranged his hat, pulling it firmly onto his head. His wig, Leo noted, was threadbare and badly in need of powder. Bacon would do well to leave it off and update his wardrobe. He was living in a past decade.

“Miss Giles is neither a chit, nor a wench, nor a horse you are inspecting for purchase,” Leo said coldly. “What exactly would prove she was pliable ?”

“See here.” Bacon’s bluster shifted to uncertainty, and he swept a nervous glance up and down the busy street. “You won’t mention a word of this in Brooks, eh?”

“Have you done anything I’d need to call you out for?” Leo asked in a pleasant tone.

Bacon released a bark of laughter. “ From you ? The meek one, the Westrop with no gumption? That would be the—” He apprehended Leo’s narrowed eyes and shifted tack. “Not a matter of honor, I assure you, Westrop. Nothing like it. Just—no need to say a thing in the clubs or thereabout, you know?”

“I won’t.” Leo maintained his pleasant tone, though the steadiest Westrop, the one with the least gumption, wanted to latch his fingers around the man’s throat. “On the condition that Miss Giles never encounters you again. And,” he added, adding a blow which he knew Hester would approve, “next time abolition of the slave trade comes up in Lords, you vote in favor.”

This time Bacon’s bark sounded agonized. “You can’t mean that, man! My plantations depend on slaves. I’d have no profits otherwise.”

“Then I suppose you’ll have to find a way not to profit from human misery,” Leo said. “Good day, Bacon.”

The man tugged at his coat in irritation and stormed down to the street, shouting and muttering by turns. “Chair!” he bellowed, then, “Madness! As if I’d shackle m’self to— Chair!”

Leo opened the door to find Mrs. Giles filling the corridor with her wrath, all but breathing fire. “I suppose you’ve sent him away? Ruining Hester’s chances for good.”

“You don’t want him for a son-in-law, believe you me,” Leo retorted. “He’s under the hatches.”

She crossed her arms, still glaring. “He’s a peer and a lord of the realm.”

“With pockets to let. In debt everywhere,” Leo clarified. “He would make Hester’s life a misery.”

“My daughter is not your concern!” the widow huffed. “She is?—”

“Very much my concern, as she is Lillian’s. Now.”

He turned to the staff, who appeared to have been waiting for him, expecting him to resolve the manner. A mixed rush of apprehension and pride snaked through Leo. This was familiar territory: sorting out domestic messes, cleaning up after a selfish, irresponsible man, left to pick up the pieces and be the gentleman of the house, even when he’d been too young for the burden.

“Tell me what you saw,” he said gently.

The cook pointed at Sarey, her face solemn. “She peeped ’im. I’s just taking her part. Man like that won’t listen to one woman, but two harpies, we can get him to shift his sticks.” She smiled with pride. “An we did, dint we now.”

“Very effectively. I must say I approve,” Leo said.

“Well, I most certainly do not! The nerve of you two, and him a baron beside?—”

“A lord who was not behaving like a gentleman.” Leo sliced through the widow’s protest. “You’d best hope Hester was spared more than indignity. What happened, Sarey?” He turned to the maid.

Sarey curled her fingers around her broom handle, nostrils flaring with indignation. “Sitting too close,” she muttered. “All them sweet little words. Saw him take her hand and put it on his thigh, and I knew what he was about.”

Leo had no doubt Sarey did, as she made reference to a man’s thigh without turning a hair.

“I am glad you intervened, and I think Lill—Miss Gower will approve as well. Where is she?”

“They’s both in the small parlor, sir.”

“We are not at home to callers, sir ,” Mrs. Giles said icily, her eyes shooting fire at him.

“How fortunate, then, that I am practically family.”

Setting his hat on the table Bacon had vacated, Leo strode down the hall and entered the parlor where he had taken many a dish of tea. The dark wooden paneling and timbered ceiling dated to the house’s inception, as did the thick, intricately patterned rug, though the wooden chairs had been lately upholstered and new cushions occupied the bench beneath the windows.

Hester sat on the floor behind an occasional table, back against a carved wooden panel, hands over her ears and eyes screwed shut. Lillian sat beside her, her half boots poking out from beneath her skirts. Leo looked away from the shapely curve of her ankles and calves in their clocked stockings—now was not the time to be noting such things.

“I won’t marry him,” Hester said with great firmness.

“Of course you won’t.” Lillian snorted. “You’d be Lady Bacon.”

Hester’s shoulder quivered. After a moment, Lillian said, gently probing, “You didn’t like how he—treated you?”

“Said he wanted a wife he could pet,” Hester said, loosening her hands. “And who would pet him. Said he’d show me how.”

Lillian met Leo’s eyes, and he saw the fire raging in her. He felt the same roaring need to charge in, sword swinging, to protect the women. His woman.

The meek Westrop no longer, it would seem.

“Anything beyond petting, Hex?” Lillian asked carefully.

“No, because that was when Sarey barged in, and I am glad she did.” Hester leaned her head on her cousin’s shoulder. “Did she bring tea?”

“We can ring for it,” Leo said. “And Persian apple plum cake, if you wish.”

Hester fluttered open her eyes to regard him. “Peaches and plums?” She shook her head. “You’ll never learn, Leo.”

An indefinable warmth moved through him, curling and furling in the region of his chest. A region he’d so long kept hardened against affection, against trust, holding himself fast against the wishes and demands of others as he tried to find his own way.

Suddenly, it felt wonderful to be trusted. To be relied on. It didn’t feel like a shackle around his ankles, dragging him down into the mire.

“Miss Giles calls me Leo,” he said, very gravely, to Lillian.

“She’s addled by the thought of your outrageous concoction. As are we all.”

She smiled, and the curve of her mouth stamped that warm feeling into place, perhaps permanently, beneath his skin. Like the vessels that circulated blood and essential bodily fluids, but this was a channel only Lillian, and her smile, could fill.

“I want tea,” Hester decided. “And I don’t want a Season any longer. I don’t like these men Mama wants me to meet.”

“I have a solution.” Lillian hadn’t moved perceptibly, but Leo sharpened his gaze on her, alerted by the shift in her tone.

“We’ll go visit my mother and father,” Lillian said. “At Stonehenge. They’ve asked me to visit, and you can come with. Wouldn’t you like to see the great standing stones, Hex?”

“I would, but you know what Mama will say about chaperones and so on.” Hester rolled her eyes. “Besides, how would we get there?”

“I will take you,” Leo said.