Chapter 26

Twenty-Six

It was Christmas Eve, and as with most December twenty-fourths, Grant spent the bulk of it dreading the marquess's annual fireside dinner. It was the one sentimental tradition his father had kept from the time Grant's mother had been alive.

Though he'd been young when she'd passed, he still recalled how the servants would decorate the drawing room, dressing the hearth and mantel with greens and ribbons and pinecones, and how instead of dining around a table in any formal way, they would eat as they would a picnic, with plates on their laps or on small folding tables. It was always a messy affair, but Grant's mother had thought it cozy and rustic and good fun. The marquess must have enjoyed it too, though he hardly ever let on that he remotely enjoyed anything at all.

However, this Christmas Eve, Lord Lindstrom was as chipper as a schoolboy, and all in thanks to the arrival of the grandson he'd been impatiently waiting for.

"All is well and good, well and good," he said from his leather chair, for what must have been the tenth time since the evening had commenced. "I knew it would it happen, as it should. A healthy little lad, too."

Slumped into the corner of a sofa, Grant leaned his head back and groaned. The marquess pointedly ignored him, though Penelope, seated next to him, laughed softly. Her husband, Alfred, was still happily eating his rum and currant pudding, a napkin tucked into his collar. Lawrence and his wife deplored the whole tradition and had hardly touched a thing on their plates, though Harold and his wife had made more of an effort. An unfortunate streak of gravy had dribbled down his cravat and Priscilla had spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to scrub it out with her napkin. On the carpet in front of the blazing hearth, Grant's nieces played a game of jacks.

"Of course, it is always preferable to have a spare heir," the marquess went on.

Grant lifted his head, the roasted fowl they'd been served earlier now churning in his stomach. "You are perpetually unsatisfiable, aren't you? You've had your prized grandson for less than a week, and already, you're angling for another."

His father harrumphed. "Not from you! I should have known better than to encourage you toward marrying again."

Grant sat upright. "Encourage? You threatened to cut me off, bone dry, unless I found a wife by the first of the year."

"And look how well that went," the marquess said. "The duke's sister has given you the old heave-ho!"

Grant clamped his jaw shut, refusing to rise to the old man's bait. The last week had passed in a blur of action, keeping his mind off Cassie and their parting at Hope House. He'd hired a lady's companion for Isabel and arranged for them to be taken to his hunting lodge in Essex, where she would be kept safe from Mr. Youngdale. As expected, he'd been released from custody after paying a simple fine for the charges of assault. Hugh had informed Grant that some Bow Street officers had agreed to do him a favor and look deeper into Youngdale's first wife's death, but there were no guarantees. Isabel would be safest at the lodge for now.

Cassie was relieved. He'd sent a note with the plans for Isabel, and she'd responded with a brief thank you and an announcement that her driver, Tris, had stepped down from his post. He was going to Essex, to be near Isabel. Otherwise, there had been no contact between them. Just as Cassie had requested.

Thinking of her hurt. It was a gasping, hollow ache in the center of his chest, and no amount of whisky or rounds in the boxing ring at Jack's could dull it. There was no getting around the plain truth: He'd done everything wrong.

"A damned shame, too. The lady had a backbone, at least," his father went on, snorting a laugh.

"Father do leave him be," Penelope said.

"What happened? How did you drive her away?" the old man asked, ignoring his daughter. "My guess is that Fournier wouldn't allow it."

"The duke does not tell her what to do," Grant said tightly.

She would have told Fournier by now about her secret life. He'd had to bury the urge to write and ask how the news had been received. No matter how incensed the duke was, Cassie would not give up on Hope House. She was too damned stubborn.

"Ah, so she rejected you all on her own, did she?"

Grant gritted his back teeth. "Yes."

His father sat forward in his chair and slapped his thighs, as if he'd just heard a raucous joke. As if he was pleased rather than disappointed that a woman had rejected him. He'd been the one to demand a marriage, but the fact that Grant had failed seemed to be the outcome he'd actually desired.

Grant met Harold's bespectacled gaze, a pleat of pity cutting into his brother's forehead. Lawrence avoided Grant's eyes by checking the time on his fob. Their wives exchanged discomfited looks, too. Had James been here, rather than at his home with his wife and newborn son, he might have interjected with some well-timed quip to ease the marquess's focus from Grant. But other than Penelope's feeble attempt, no one dared stand up to their father. No except Cassie. His heart squeezed when he recalled how she'd defended him at that dinner. For once, the marquess had been roundly stymied.

"That makes you happy, does it?" Grant asked. His father's grin slipped. "That I've failed to meet your expectations and fulfil your edicts. I wonder, why did you even bother to dole out that ultimatum when really, all you wanted—all you've ever wanted—was for me to fail?"

Lord Lindstrom's mouth turned down, and his expression went to stone. Grant got to his feet. He could no longer sit and say nothing. The thought of it suddenly made him ill. He didn't want to be like Harold or Lawrence or even James or Penelope, too cowed by their father's bitterness, his sharp tongue, and his constant disappointment to dare to speak up.

But Grant was already guilty of the same cowardice, wasn't he? To evade his father's wrath and displeasure, he had manipulated Cassie, applying pressure to one of her weak points—Hope House—until she'd given in. He'd valued keeping his father happy, and keeping his father's money flowing toward him, over his own honor. He'd told himself it was nothing, a prank, that no harm would be done.

Ballocks.

"Congratulations, my lord." Grant spread out his arms. "You have what you want."

"Believe it or not, I do not want a failure for a son. I want you to be a gentleman for Christ's sake. Doctoring is lowly work, and no lady of the peerage will ever stoop to being a doctor's wife. Lady Cassandra has made that clear."

"Do not speak as if you know Cassie's mind. You do not." He spoke calmly, evenly, even though he did not feel an ounce of peace right then. And he wouldn't. Not until he stopped pretending.

"She approves of my work. Every facet of it." He paused. "Including the charity clinic I run in Whitechapel."

The room had already been quiet, but now, it was as if even the fire in the hearth had stopped its crackling. Slowly, the marquess rose from his chair.

"I hope this is another one of your jokes," he seethed.

"I have never been more serious in my life."

Lawrence spluttered, "Whitechapel? That place is a cesspool."

Grant held his father's lowering glare. "That's right. I tend to the masses, father. The poor, the destitute, men and women of different colors and creeds, prostitutes—" At that, Lawrence's wife gasped. But Grant only smiled. "And a hell of a lot of criminals."

"Uncle Grant said hell, mummy," Lawrence's daughter, Emmaline said from the carpet. His nieces had abandoned their game of jacks. Grant belted out a laugh as a weight he'd not known was even there lifted from his shoulders. Miraculously, he could breathe again. How long had he been struggling for air?

"What are you thinking opening a clinic in the slums?" Lawrence asked. "Mingling with the diseased?"

"Now, let us all calm down—" Alfred began to say, but he was disregarded.

"This is unacceptable!" the marquess shouted. "I knew medical school was going to bring nothing but trouble. I should never have indulged you!"

"Did you say Lady Cassandra knew of this clinic?" Penelope asked.

"That is what he said, Pen. Do listen," Harold chided.

"Mummy, what is a prostitute?" another of Grant's nieces asked.

He threw back his head and laughed as Mary and Priscilla got up from their chairs to shepherd the little girls from the room.

"That is it! I am finished with being patient," his father said. "I am cutting you off until you close down that clinic and give up your profession. You will marry and you will be a gentleman, as I've raised you to be. And by God, you will not bring shame upon this family!"

It was the very threat Grant had been desperate to circumnavigate before. The one that had led him to manipulate Cassie. As Grant stood in the center of the room, his brothers and sister bickering between themselves and his father blasting off at the mouth about the repercussions of such selfishness, a surge of exuberance unlocked something inside him.

"Take your money," he said, tossing up his arms. "Go on, take it. Cut me off. I will no longer be beholden to you. I am finished, too, Father. I'm finished caring what you think. I am a doctor. I treat people who need help, and I don't give a damn if they live in Mayfair or Wapping or if it might damage my reputation."

He'd never felt so alive, so free as he did right then. Shocked silence descended over his family. They knew he was not in jest. He could see it on their expressions.

"I will make my own living, if I must, and if that means I am a destitute lord without two ha'pennies to rub together, then so be it. It will be worth it to not have to come crawling to you with my tail tucked between my legs. And if I marry," he went on, unable to curb his erupting confession. "If I marry, I will do so because I want to. Not because you want a spare grandson to ensure the title passes within your line. I will marry because I am in love, and I can't imagine my life without her. Because she is the only thing I can think about, even though she makes me want to tear my hair out, and even though she makes me feel like I'm a bottle of brut about to explode." He turned in a circle, raking his fingers along his scalp. "And she's not replacing Sarah, no, it's not that. I can't compare them. They are both incomparable. But Sarah is my past, and Cassie..." He dragged in a breath. "Is my future."

He fell quiet and waited for the guilt to weigh him down again. But it didn't. After several breathes, the idea of a future with Cassie had still not filled him with any guilt at all. Only anticipation. And then, uncertainty.

She didn't want him. She'd made it clear that she didn't wish to marry, and after the way he'd used her, how could he blame her? Cassie may have come to his bed willingly, but that had been on her terms, and for just one night. She'd gotten what she'd wanted from him, and now, she'd asked him to stay away. Was that what she wanted, though, or was it because of his inflexible avowal to never remarry? Hell. He had to find out.

"I thought Lady Cassandra turned you down," Lawrence said.

Snapped from his stupor, Grant saw his family all staring at him with bemused expressions. "She didn't turn me down," he replied. "Because I never even asked her."

"What are you talking about? The girl said you were betrothed!" his father spluttered.

He could keep spluttering for all Grant cared. "I have to go." He broke for the door. "I have somewhere more important I need to be."