A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (45 page)

“
Father, you can’t really
wish align yourself with a man who would ravish your daughter, can
you? And why
does
the earl leave England so often?” The man’s frequent trips
abroad, with no explanation, left her unsettled—even more now that
she would be forced to marry him. Something seemed out of place,
though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“
I neither know nor care.
His concerns are his own.”

Grace ought to have known her father
would not enquire into such matters. He preferred to know the
title, connections, and property of any of her possible suitors.
Anything else held little concern. For that matter, their ages and
temperaments caused him no concern at all. Grace would marry as her
father ordered her to marry, and that was the end of that. Her
preferences, and frankly her needs, carried little moment with
him.

A throb built in her temples as she
waited to learn what else he had to say. Her jaw twitched with a
desperate need to scream at the man, but somehow she held her
tongue.

“
You claim he ravished you,
but what reasonable chit would not make such a claim under the
circumstances? Barrow says you offered yourself to him.” Several
moments passed as Grace’s father considered these ideas, mulling
them over much as he savored his liquor. “I have no reason to doubt
the earl’s word. But in all honesty, it matters not who tells the
truth and who lies. Your ruin is taking place before my eyes,
Grace, and your ruin means my ruin!”

He stopped pacing and faced her. His
eyes were cold, unfeeling. “By God, I will do everything in my
power to see my reputation and status maintained. Go to your
chamber. You will stay there unless I call for you.”

“
For how long, Father?” She
glared at him through a haze of red. Of course he would banish her
to her chamber again. He always locked her away.

“
Until I decide you should
come out, that is how long!” He sat behind his desk again and
poured whiskey into a glass.

Grace fled through the doors of his
library, blinded by her rage. Was she truly so unlovable her own
father would take the side of a jilted suitor over her?

Chapter One

April, 1813

Grace trembled as she knocked on the
door to her father’s study. Rationality had never been his strong
suit, and the few servants remaining in his employ considered him
anything but kind. Delaying this discussion, however, would only
mean putting off the inevitable, so she braced herself for the task
at hand as well as possible.

A muddled grunt from behind the door
seemed to be her invitation to enter. In the absence of a footman,
she pushed the dusty-covered, heavy doors open and proceeded into
the library.

Her father stared the books of his
estates with a sinister grimace on his face as he passed over the
same figures time and again. He pushed the papers about, placing
them just so against each other, in an apparent attempt to make the
numbers line up properly. The stench of whiskey and an overused
chamber pot permeated her senses.

“
What is it, girl? Can you
not see I am busy?” He barely spared her a passing
glance.

The impending confrontation would not
be a pleasant one.

“
Father, there is something
I must discuss with you.”

He rearranged his papers once more
before spilling his glass of whiskey on the mismanaged ledgers and
notes.

Grace stood her ground, bent on
avoiding assisting in the cleanup process. Father had created the
problem, and he could very well fix it himself. She was far more
concerned with how he might choose to handle her own situation. He
mopped at the spilled whiskey with his shirtsleeve while she waited
for him to acknowledge her.

“
Yes, yes. Well. We are
still waiting on Barrow to return so your betrothal can be
announced. I am quite certain he will not wish to wait for the
banns to be called. The earl can obtain a special license. Your
marriage will take place in due time, Grace. Never
fear.”

Ha. Never fear.

Father took a swig from the bottle and
then eyed her from across his battered desk. “Why have you left
your bedchamber? I told you to stay put. If you are even thinking
of asking to leave Chatham House for any reason, the answer is no.
I dare not add to the gossip.”

Father did not seem to realize,
through his ever-present veil of drunkenness, that hiding until the
gossip blew over would only add fuel to the gossipmongers’ fire,
not quench the flames. She wished there were someone she could talk
to, but he had kept her in veritable isolation her entire life. She
never knew exactly why. Grace could only assume he did not want her
to see how the rest of society lived. How could she think something
wrong when she knew nothing different?

His wobbly hand reached again for the
whisky decanter. “Barrow will surely put things to rights upon his
return from the continent.”

Grace knew without a doubt
that while the Earl of Barrow may
put
things to rights
in the eyes of her father,
her life would become anything
but
right. A life spent with the man who had so foully
abused her was the last thing she wanted, but under the current
circumstances, marrying the scoundrel might be the only option to
salvage her reputation.

Not that it would be Grace’s choice,
even if she had myriad options at her disposal. Doubtless, Father
would simply make his decision and force her to comply. She had
once thought she would do anything to be away from Father. But a
marriage to Barrow? She fought to conceal the shudder that coursed
through her veins, chilling her to the core.

What about running away? Now there was
a thought. Grace would have to hold on to the idea. She might need
to make use of it after telling her news.

Which brought her back to her current
purpose in speaking to him. “Father, there is something you should
know.”

He waved her off
impatiently.

“
Please. A—allow me to
speak.” Her shaking increased to the point of visibility, perhaps
in anticipation of his reaction to her news, or also possibly due
to fear of his retaliation. There was no way around telling him—he
would discover the truth for himself in time, and his wrath might
be deadly if it came to that, or at the very least
violent.

How revolting, that she had been
lowered to begging him for anything. But she must tell him,
whatever the cost to her pride.

“
Go on then. I do not have
all day.” Her father downed another large swig of his whiskey,
somewhat missing his mouth in the effort. A stream of the liquor
trailed down his chin and onto his already stained
shirt.

His large hands grasped the glass. The
image served as a reminder of the mark on her cheek. Better to just
get it over with. “Father, I am with child,” she blurted
out.

The glass fell to the desk and Grace
jumped. Her eyes followed it as it spilled its contents and dropped
to the floor, shattering into a vista of miniscule shards that
glinted in the dim candlelight.

Father stared out at nothing, his face
growing redder by degrees. The twitching in his eye increased to
the point she thought a vein might burst at any point. Good. He
deserved to be angry. The man could not even be bothered to love
his only child. But what would he force upon her now? She wished
she were bolder and could dare to speak her mind with
him.

His breath quickened to short rasps.
He staggered to the window, never deigning to look at Grace.
“Barrow is still away. Lord knows when he will return. Walsingham
will not have you. After Barrow’s announcement of your
indiscretions at White’s, no other man of title and means will have
you either.”

His frosty words fell heavy in the
room and hurt Grace more than a slap to the face ever could. Those
words proved what she already knew—her father’s prestige and
position were more important to him than she.

He paced through his library,
stumbling at times, never glancing in her direction. “You will
return to your chamber where you will remain until Barrow returns,
and then you shall be his problem, not mine. If he does not return
before the bastard is born, it will be given to some family that
needs another set of hands. And you will wait for him to marry
you.” He stared out the grimy window, his head nodding at varied
moments. “If he refuses to marry you, you will leave Chatham House
and never return. Seek employment as a paid companion or a
governess if you wish. Or as a whore, since you seem already
inclined to that profession.”

Grace’s chin rose in vehement
defiance.

“
But you will never step
foot across my door again, unless you come as the Countess of
Barrow. You are a
disgrace
.” Father stumbled back to
his desk and picked up the decanter of whiskey. He rang for a
servant to clean the mess he had caused, cursing when none arrived.
For years, he had employed no more than his personal valet, a cook,
and the occasional butler, yet he rarely remembered such pertinent
details when drunk as a wheelbarrow, as in this particular
moment.

Why, if he kept servants, he would
have to pay them! Father preferred to spend his money on gambling
or whores to keep him warm, or any number of other things on which
a wastrel might spend his blunt.

Grace’s nervous trembling subsided,
replaced by anger. If he believed he could hide her away only to
take her child from her, he was sorely mistaken. She could not
allow such a vile circumstance to come to pass.

But if he managed to marry her off to
Lord Barrow, her lot would become far worse than it already was.
The earl had already shown her the sort of villainous treatment she
could expect from him.

She left the library and returned to
her room. Her father could not win this battle. She refused to let
him take her child away from her, and she would be damned if she
would marry an abominable lecher such as Barrow.

Grace had only one option.

~ * ~

Lord Alexander Hardwicke borrowed a
curricle from his eldest brother Peter, the Duke of Somerton, for
his jaunt across town. His good friend Derek Redgrave, the Earl of
Sinclaire (a bloody handsome chap, even if Alex must risk his
virility to make such an assessment) passed by in a phaeton as he
left Mayfair on Piccadilly Circus.

“
And just where are you off
to in such a hurry on this fine spring day?”

Alex glanced about to be sure no one
was within earshot. “To see Priscilla and Harry. Come with me. I’ll
explain. I need to speak with you, anyway.”

Derek’s eyes darkened with curiosity,
then he changed the direction of his vehicle and followed
behind.

After a good ride, including several
unnecessary, and only slightly erratic, twists and turns to throw
off anyone curious about Alex’s destination, they pulled into a
drive before the functional home where he housed the woman and her
small son.

Their companion, Vivian, opened the
door to his insistent knock. “My lords, how delightful to see you
today. Come in.” She stepped aside to allow their rather bulky
bodies through the small doorframe.

“
Awwiks!” Harry’s delighted
squeal assaulted them when they ducked beneath the entrance to the
cozy parlor. “And Dewik, too.” The two-year-old boy dropped his
wooden toy and waddled across to where they stood. When he arrived
at their feet, he raised both arms to the sky and demanded,
“Up!”

“
Yes, sir. Up indeed.” Alex
lifted the giggling child high into the air and pretended to drop
him, only to catch him again at the last moment. Of course, this
elicited another peal of mirth.

“
If you do not greet him
properly, Harry, I fear he might drop you on your head.” Priscilla
sat on a window seat at the far wall, where she was at work sewing
a garment that could be for none other than her son. Her brown
curls fell into her eyes and she blew at them, only to have them
fall immediately back into their previous position.

“
Nooo, Awwiks not dwop
me.”

At the challenge, he took the bait and
lifted Harry ever higher and caught him just before his face
brushed the floor. The boy’s laughter threatened to rob Alex of all
his breath.

Priscilla looked up for just a moment
before she busied herself in her work again. “And to what do we owe
the pleasure of your company today? I didn’t expect you before the
weekend.” Her face filled with inquisitiveness.

Alex placed the boy on the floor and
gave him a wooden block to occupy his attention before he and Derek
took seats at the neat writing table near where Pris worked.
Everything here always seemed so dainty to him here, even with the
toddler around to make messes.

He took a breath and looked Pris in
the eye. “I have to leave you.”

“
By Jove, man. What will
you have her do?” Derek pushed back from his seat, his dark eyes
flashing with fury.