Dreaming (38 page)

She hesitated.

Some elusive emotion flickered in his expression.

She averted her eyes, gathered her skirts, and, cloak in one tight fist, placed her other hand in his. His long fingers closed over hers, and she fought to keep from responding with a soft gasp or from raising her eyes toward his—an old habit she intended to break.

The moment her foot touched solid ground, she slid her hand from his and walked toward the front steps with her head held high.

During the two-hour voyage back to the mainland, she had avoided him by staying in one of the Viscount’s cabins, claiming a headache. Heartache was more to the truth.

She had stood at the dock when they’d reached port, her head held defiantly high. She refused to let Richard see how badly he had truly hurt her. She watched as the smugglers left the Viscount’s sloop and climbed into the wagon that would take them to Lockett Manor. They were off toward a brighter future, working for the Earl of
Downe
.

Richard had opted to ride alongside the carriage that would take her home, and this had come as welcome news. She didn’t think she could manage to sit across from him in such close quarters and not cry.

For protection, she didn’t want to look in his eyes because she wanted to remember his expression as it had been last night. She didn’t want to see anything but that icy-hard stare and the satisfied look he’d worn when he made a fool of her. It would always be there to remind her that she had been foolish.

She started up the steps and the door opened. Her papa was waiting in the doorway. She was in his arms in three quick steps and she began to cry—from relief, from hurt and stress and exhaustion.

“
Letitia
,
Letitia
.” He just held her.

“Papa,” she whispered, her head buried against his shoulder.

“
Downe
,” her father said, and she felt him give a sharp nod.

“Sir.”

“Come inside now.” Her father guided her through the doors. Her movements were stiff, her body a sudden traitor, giving in to the exhaustion she had suffered for so long. “Let me look at you.” Her papa gripped her head and tilted it up. “You are exhausted.”

She nodded.

“Do you want a physician, anything?”

She shook her head. “I think I should just like to go to bed.”

“Go on, then. We’ll talk later.”

She slowly walked up the stairs, weariness overtaking her body, her heart, and her mind. But as she turned on the first landing, she heard Richard say to her father, “We need to talk.”

The sound of his voice stopped her. She just stood there. Then she sagged against the wall for a moment and buried her face in her hands.

Cruelly, her mind’s eye held a vision of Richard’s face and what she had seen so clearly last night: that she would never be his world. He wouldn’t let her—a painful realization that had settled where her bright hope used to be. She would never be his world. Never. And that thought was the end of hers.

A knock on her bedchamber door woke her with a start.

“
Letitia
? May I come in?”

“Papa?” She slid off her bed and opened the door.

Her father stood there. “I need to talk to you, child.”

She opened the door wider and averted her eyes as he walked by her. “I suppose I have truly made a muddle of things this time, haven’t I?” She waited for him to agree.

He stood staring at the fire, his arm resting on the chimneypiece. “I believe I am the one who has made a muddle of things. Not you.”

“How could this have been your fault, Papa? You weren’t even here.”

“That is the very problem. I’m afraid I haven’t been here enough, have I?”

“Oh, Papa. I told you I understand.”

“Do you, child? I wonder if you do. Your mother was my world,
Letty
. I didn’t know what a weak man I was until I lost her. I shudder to think what she would say about all this. About my running away on digs and leaving you on your own.”

“I think perhaps she would be angry with me, not you.”

“No, child. No.” His voice faded. Then he appeared to shake off his thoughts, and he looked down at her. “I have something else to ask you.” He paused, then asked, “Do you have any idea what the earl wanted to talk to me about?”

She shook her head.

“Yes, well, he said he hadn’t spoken to you.”

“No,” she said quietly. “He hasn’t spoken to me.” We haven’t exchanged a word since last night, she thought.

“
Downe
has offered for you. And considering, he was quite kind and generous with your provisions. He has assured me that you will want for nothing and—”

“Offered for me?” she whispered, then turned and repeated, “
Offered
for
me
?”

“Yes, well, under the circumstances there was nothing else he could do. He just left a few minutes ago to ride straight to
London
today.”

“Why?”

“To get a Special License. You will be married tomorrow afternoon.”

“I didn’t mean, why did he go to
London
? I meant, why did he offer for me? Richard doesn’t love me.”

“
Letitia
. The two of you were alone together for days. A terribly compromising situation.”

“But nothing happened.”

“I’m very pleased to hear it.”

“Nothing but a few kisses.”

Her father froze. “He kissed you?”

She nodded. “But that was because I asked him to.”

He groaned. “
Letitia
 . . . ”

“And he touched me, privately—now that was his idea, but—”

“He did what?”

“He touched my breast,” she admitted honestly, then chewed her lip as her father’s face colored. “But I hit him on the head with a piece of wood,” she added in a hopeful tone.

Her father’s jaw dropped.

“Oh, that was his idea too. He told me I should hit him if he ever touched me that way again.”

“Again?” her father said weakly.

She nodded.

He sagged into a nearby chair and shook his head. “God, how I wish your mother were here.”

“Me too.”

Her father rubbed a hand across his eyes for a minute, then rested his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling in between. He stared at the carpet. “I think, considering what has gone on between you two, that marriage is the best thing. How do you feel about that?”

“He doesn’t love me.”

He looked at her, then said, “Wasn’t it you, my dear, who spent over an hour one day raving about how I didn’t understand you and that you had loved Richard Lennox forever?”

“Yes and no. I said half a lifetime, not forever. Almost forever. But that was before.” She stared at her hands. “I understand now that when only one person loves, that isn’t enough.”

Her father was suddenly quiet. He seemed to be a million miles away.

“Papa?”

He blinked, then said, “Come, sit by me.”

She crossed to the chair and sat at his feet like she had when she was little.

He placed his hand on her shoulder and said, “Your mother’s marriage to me was arranged.”

“It was?”

He nodded. “I adored her the moment I laid eyes on her, but she didn’t want anything to do with me. She told your aunt I was too stuffy.”

“You’re not stuffy. A little preoccupied, perhaps,” she admitted honestly. “But not stuffy.”

He smiled then. “Your mother thought I was. It took a long time to win her over.”

“What finally did win her?”

From his face, she could tell he was remembering. He looked down at her, then said, “I took her on a dig with me.”

“I remember she liked those trips, didn’t she?”

He shook his head. “Not at that time. She did later, but she didn’t want to go that first time. In fact, I rather think you’d have to say that I abducted her.”

“Mama?” She sat a little straighter. “You kidnapped her?”

“Not exactly. I had your grandfather’s permission. He was in favor of the match and was tired of watching her lead me a merry chase. He thought that if I compromised her, then she’d have little recourse but to marry me.” He paused.

“So what happened?”

He smiled a private, distant kind of smile. “She came ’round. And that’s one of my points. Perhaps that was why her death was so hard to take. I felt as if I had been fighting to hang on to her forever.”

She leaned her head on his knee. “I told you that I understood.”

“I know. You’ve an acre of forgiveness in that tender heart of yours,
Letitia
. And that’s why I decided to tell you this. There are not too many parents who would confess to their children that their marriage was a forced one. Sometimes, child, when only one person loves it
is
enough. Sometimes it takes one person with strong faith and a tender heart to teach the other one what love is.”

Letty
stared at the floor. “That might be true in most cases, but Richard is rather pig—uh . . . strong-willed.”

“He didn’t seem too unwilling when he spoke to me,
Letty
.”

“He was being noble,” she said miserably. “He’s a hero on the inside. He just doesn’t know it.”

He was very quiet, then he finally said, “I’m not certain I should tell you this.”

“What?”

“I told him I wouldn’t force you.”

It was her turn to be surprised. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“And would you force me?”

He shook his head.

“So I don’t have to marry him, then?”

“It’s your decision.”

“What did he say?”

He gave a small chuckle. “Said I was a ramshackle excuse of a father and that you’d bloody well marry him if he had to drag you before the parson.”

“He said that?”

He nodded. “He has quite the temper.”

“Oh, he doesn’t mean all that blustering. He just likes to think he’s right.”

Her father laughed then. “He said he has some things to say to you. I believe he called it ‘a lifetime’s worth’ and that he was going to make ‘damn well certain’ that you heard him.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t believe,
Letitia
, that those are the words of a man being forced into marriage.”