Читать книгу The Worthington Wife - Sharon Page - Страница 7
ОглавлениеThe American’s Revenge
As the butler led him to his bedroom, Calvin Urqhart Patrick Carstairs—now the 7th Earl of Worthington—remembered the shock on Lady Worthington’s face when he walked into the drawing room and grinned.
A month ago, he had been woken from a hangover, hauled out of his bed in his apartment in Paris and told by a pale, nervous young lawyer named Smithson that he had inherited a title, three estates and the contents of four modestly invested bank accounts from the family who thought he wasn’t good enough to lick their boots.
The lawyer who tracked him down had stammered and blushed throughout the meeting. Cal’s latest model, Simone, had been walking around the room half-naked. She liked to feel sunlight pouring through the window on her bare breasts, and she liked to keep Cal looking at her. The lawyer had looked like his eyes were going to leap out of his head.
Cal had poured himself a glass of red wine to clear the hangover, then he’d let the lawyer explain his supposed good fortune—
“The master’s apartments have been prepared, my lord.”
The snooty tones of the Worthington butler brought Cal back to the present. The man had his hand on the doorknob of the room, but wasn’t opening it. Maybe he hoped to learn it was all a joke before he let Cal across the threshold of the earl’s bedroom.
It was a double door, so Cal shoved the other door open and walked in.
His trunk and his case were already in the room. The butler pointed out the bed, probably assuming he had no idea what a bed looked like if it wasn’t a dirty mattress on the floor. The man opened the doors to the bathing room and the dressing room, as well as a small room with large windows where the earl would traditionally retire to prepare his correspondence.
“It’ll do,” Cal said indifferently.
Haughtily, the butler tried to look down his nose at Cal—though his eyes came up to Cal’s shoulders. “Is your manservant traveling with you?”
“Don’t have one,” Cal replied, and he laughed at the look of smug satisfaction on the butler’s face. “I’m bohemian. Wild and uncivilized. If you think you’ve been proven right about me because I don’t have a valet, wait until I start holding orgies in the ballroom.”
The butler turned several fascinating colors. His cheeks went vermilion, his forehead was puce and he developed an intriguing blend of violet and scarlet on his neck.
It gave Cal the itch to create a modernist portrait of an English butler, done in severe blocks of color. Red, purple, yellow-green and stark white.
“When should I tell the countess you will return downstairs?” the man asked, sounding as if his windpipe wasn’t drawing air. “I will send a footman to unpack.”
“I won’t stay up here long. The footman can finish that job while I’m at dinner.”
“Very good.”
The butler turned away and stalked toward the door, but before he reached it, Cal called, “Wait.”
The man turned, lifting his brow self-importantly.
“The dark-haired woman with the pretty blue eyes—Julia Hazelton. Was she really my cousin’s fiancée? Anthony died at the Somme, isn’t that so?”
“Yes. We lost Lord Anthony to that battle. Indeed, Lady Julia Hazelton was his intended. It was a tragedy, devastating to us all.”
Yeah, Cal imagined it would be, since he was standing here now. “Why is she here?”
“Her family was invited to dine, and she is a close friend of the family.”
“Did she find someone else—after my cousin died?”
“Lady Julia is still unmarried, my lord. If I may ask, what is the purpose to these questions, my lord?”
“I’m curious,” he answered easily. “And if you’re going to ask a question anyway, don’t waste time asking permission to do it.”
The butler, whatever the hell his name was, glared snootily. “Very good, my lord.” Bowing, he retreated.
The door closed behind the butler’s stiff arse.
For the hell of it, Cal jumped on the bed, landing on his arse in his dusty trousers. He crossed his ankles, his boots on the bed.
He could just hear how his mother would berate him for that, so he slid off.
He went into the bathroom to wash and shave. Showing up scruffy had been his plan and it had served its purpose. The Countess of Worthington, his aunt, had looked like she was going to faint. She would expect him to show up at dinner looking equally bohemian and she would expect that he would have the table manners of an orangutan.
His family had stared at him with suspicion. He’d seen condescension on the countess’s face, resentment on the faces of his cousins. His family had all glared at him, sullen, angry...and scared.
Lady Julia had been the only one to welcome him. She had been the perfect English lady to him, polite and unflustered.
Traits he should have hated, given how he knew the aristocracy really behaved. She was likely no different than the rest of them. Masking her disdain behind a polite, reserved smile.
But she had been nice to him. And his mother would say that she didn’t deserve to have him judge her—and dislike her—just because of who she was.
Cal opened the bag that contained his straight razor and he filled the small sink with some water—
Hell. That was freezing cold. He ran the other tap, but it didn’t get any warmer. Cold-water shaving it would have to be.
He drew the sharp blade along his cheek, slicing off dark blond stubble. He had been looking forward to this ever since that morning when he’d been drinking while the lawyer was outlining the meaning of his new position.
At first he’d wanted to tell the young lawyer with the slicked-back hair to go back to the damned countess and tell her where she and her snobby family could stick their title.
They had disowned his father; they had rejected and vilified his mother for the sin of being an honest, decent woman from a poor family. His mother, Molly Brody, had gone into service to a rich family on Fifth Avenue; his father had been a guest. The usual story. Except his father, Lawrence Carstairs, had been idealistic. He’d fallen in love with the maid he seduced and married her.
Then his father had died. And his mother had gotten sick...
Cal had been fourteen years of age, with a younger brother who was eleven. That was the only reason he’d swallowed his pride and begged the damn Carstairs family for help. He’d been a desperate boy trying to save his mother’s life. And they’d refused. To them, he and his mother and his brother, David, didn’t exist.
Clearing his throat, the young lawyer had asked him when he would like to book passage back to England.
Cal had been ready to laugh in the face of Smithson Jr. of Smithson, Landers, Kendrick and Smithson. Go to England? He liked painting. He liked Paris. He’d finally found a place where he felt he belonged. He was happy in Paris whether he was sober or drunk, which he felt was a hell of an accomplishment.
“When you take up residence at Worthington Park, there is a dower house available for the countess,” Smithson had explained, after pulling at his tie. Simone had come into the kitchen and stood in front of the window so the sunlight limned her naked breasts. Blushing, the lawyer had said, “Should I relay your instruction to have it made ready?”
“For what?” he’d asked.
“For the countess to move into, when you take up residence in your new home.”
At that moment, Cal got it. He understood what he’d just been given.
Power.
Now, Cal sloshed the blade in the water and shaved the other side of his face. He patted his skin with a wet cloth, then slapped on some witch hazel. He got dressed in his tuxedo, tied the white bow tie, put on his best shined shoes.
From his trunk, he took out a faded snapshot. It was seven years old. He didn’t know why he’d brought it with him. He should have burned it a long time ago. It was a picture of a pretty girl with yellow-blond hair and a sweet face. Her name was Alice and she had nursed him when his plane had been shot down in France. His brother, David, had ended up in the same hospital, three days after Cal got there.
Alice had taken care of David when both of his legs had to be amputated below the knee. Cal had fallen in love with her. The problem was David fell in love with her, too, but without his legs, he wouldn’t propose to Alice. And with his brother being in love with her, Cal wouldn’t propose, either.
Cal tucked Alice’s photograph into the corner of the dressing table mirror.
David had wanted to come here, too. He supposed David had a right to see the house their father had grown up in. He would bring his brother over from America.
The problem was, David was a forgiving kind of man. He was a stronger man than Cal. David wasn’t going to like what he planned to do.
But Worthington Park was Cal’s chance at revenge.
* * *
The Countess of Worthington was shaking. Julia had only seen the countess like this twice—when the telegram had come with its cold, direct message that Anthony had been killed, and the day John Carstairs, her second son, had died in an automobile accident.
“You must have a sherry. Or a brandy. You look very ill.” She looked up to summon a drink, but Wiggins was already there. The butler must have almost run at undignified speed to return, and he now presented a delicate glass of sherry on his silver salver.
The countess stared blankly at it, as if she didn’t know what to do. Julia took the drink and pressed it into Lady Worthington’s hand. The countess’s pallor terrified her. She looked more gray than white and quite severely ill.
Julia felt panicked—Lady Worthington had been very ill after Anthony’s death. No one had known how to bring her out of grief. Julia had tried very hard to do it. She’d promised Anthony she’d be there for his mother and sisters should anything happen to him, and she always kept her promises.
“The boy is going to destroy us,” Lady Worthington moaned.
“He is going to do no such thing,” Julia said firmly. She would not allow it. Her mother, Zoe, Nigel and Isobel were conversing with Diana and her younger sisters. The younger ones kept glancing over, looking nervous and curious.
“Have the drink, Sophia,” Grandmama insisted. “You will need it.”
At Grandmama’s firm words, Lady Worthington suddenly took a long sip. “I know what he is going to do,” she whispered. “He wrote a letter.”
“A letter? What did it say?” Julia asked.
“He threatened us. Simply because he had asked for money and we had the good sense to refuse him. His mother was a grasping, scheming creature. She is the reason my husband’s younger brother is dead.”
“Goodness, what happened?” Julia asked. “What did she do?”
The countess put her hand to her throat, to rest on the large diamond that sat there. At fifty, the countess wore a fashionable gown—blue silk with a loose, dropped waist, covered in thousands of tiny turquoise and indigo beads. The Worthington diamonds—huge, heavy and square-cut—glittered on her chest. “I can’t speak about it. It is enough to know he is a danger.” The countess grasped Julia’s hand. “You must not listen to a word he says.”
But the plea made Julia uneasy. She remembered Diana’s words—that the countess had reason to feel guilty. But the look in the woman’s eyes was pure terror. “What is it that you fear he will say?”
“He will tell you lies! Everything that boy says will be twisted and untrue. He will try to make you believe—” Lady Worthington stopped. Her hand clutched the center diamond of her necklace, as if clinging to it gave her strength. “That is not important. You, Julia, should have loyalty to us. Do not welcome him. Do not show him friendship. He will use you to destroy us. Do not forget that. You must be on our side.”
“Of course I am.” But the countess’s words seemed so...extreme. Surely the countess was too upset to go into dinner. Excuses could be made. Julia leaned toward her grandmother. “Perhaps I could take her upstairs—”
“No,” the countess cried. “I will not run and hide from Calvin Carstairs. I will protect my family from him. When you have children, you will understand...you would do anything on earth to keep them safe.”
And Julia understood. The countess had lost both her sons. She would not allow anyone to hurt her daughters.
“As soon as the boy is downstairs, we will go in for dinner.” The countess lifted her chin. Julia was amazed by the woman’s strength and spirit.
Until the countess directed a sharp gaze at Diana, standing across the room. “Sometimes you must do something rather terrible to protect those you love.”
Julia didn’t understand. She had never seen the Countess of Worthington like this. Lady Worthington was usually so gracious, so kind. The tragedy she’d suffered in losing both her sons had broken the hearts of people on the estate, for she was so well loved. When Julia had lost her brother Will to the influenza outbreak and her own mother had sunk deeply into depression, Lady Worthington had been like a mother to her and Isobel.
She had never dreamed Lady Worthington would push anyone into marriage—despite Diana’s warning that her mother would scheme to do it. She had thought Diana was exaggerating. Diana had always been dramatic. They had been such opposites—it was why they had always been great friends. “You can’t mean to force Diana into marriage—”
“I will do what must be done.”
“But not that. You cannot force Diana to be unhappy for the rest of her life—”
“Better that than poverty. Julia, this is not your concern.”
The sharp words stung. But the raw fear in her ladyship’s eyes startled her.
Yet it was wrong that both the countess and Diana wanted this marriage—it would be a disaster. It was something she felt she could not allow to happen, because it would only cause pain.
Yet, how did she stop it? It might be true that she had no right to interfere, but she also couldn’t stand aside and watch a disaster unfurl—
Wiggins’s stentorian voice suddenly cut over all sound. “The Earl of Worthington.”
From where she stood, Julia could see the entrance to the drawing room. The new earl stood in the doorway...
Tall and broad-shouldered, he wore an immaculate tuxedo jacket, black trousers and white tie. His hair was slicked back neatly with pomade, which darkened it to a rich amber-gold. The severe hair brought out the handsome shape of his jaw, the striking lines of cheekbones you could cut yourself on. Even from across the room, the brilliant blue of his eyes was arresting.
Beside her, a feminine voice drawled, “He was right—he does clean up rather well.” Diana had moved beside her, perhaps sensing her mother’s sharp glance. But Diana set down her empty glass then glided across the drawing room toward her cousin.
Julia had put out her hand instinctively to stop her friend. But she was too late. And what could she do?
She didn’t know how to be there for Diana. To be pregnant and unmarried was a nightmare.
Diana’s silvery laugh sliced through the room. She was right at the new earl’s side, smiling into his eyes, running her strings of glittering jet beads through her fingers. Flirting for all she was worth.
“What’s wrong, Julia?”
Zoe, looking lovely in a beaded dress of deep green with an emerald-and-diamond choker around her slim neck, came to her side.
She couldn’t talk about Diana’s secret, not even to Zoe. She smoothed her face into a look of ladylike placidity. “It’s nothing.”
“Do you really think Cal is the vengeful monster the countess paints him to be?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s not stopping the countess from pushing her daughters at him,” Zoe observed.
Julia watched Diana move so close to Cal her bosom pressed to his bicep. Cassia, tall and blonde like Diana, but only twenty-one, had approached him, too. She smiled demurely at him—Cassia was always gentle and sweet. The youngest daughter was Thalia: eighteen and bookish. And when Thalia looked as if she wanted to escape, her mother propelled her to talk to Cal.
Then Julia realized Cal was watching Lady Worthington. Just for a moment, then Diana ran her finger along his sleeve and got his attention again.
But Julia had seen the cold, hard rage that seethed in that one fast look.
“I think the countess might be right,” Julia said softly.
Zoe looked at her surprised.
Wiggins stepped in the drawing room and cleared his throat. “May I announce His Grace, the Duke of Bradstock. His lordship, the Earl of Summerhay. His lordship, Viscount Yorkville.”
Nigel immediately moved to greet his good friend Summerhay.
“Oh no.” Julia swallowed hard. At least it would be easy to keep track of the three of them—Bradstock had black hair, Summerhay was blond, Yorkville had auburn waves. Other people arrived also—members of the local gentry, and an older gentleman to make appropriate numbers.
“Don’t worry. I’m on your side,” Zoe promised. “I don’t think you should marry a man you don’t love for his title.”
It wasn’t the right time to speak of it, but Julia suddenly felt she needed to take charge of something. “Zoe, I want to ask if you would consider lending me money.”
Her sister-in-law stared in surprise. “Whatever for, Julia?”
“For war widows who have been left destitute. I would like to loan money to the women. They will pay me back over time. All they need is a few pounds to start them on the direction of a new and better life. I asked Nigel for a loan against my dowry, but he refused.”
“Did he?”
“He thinks my work is too scandalous and it will ruin my marriage prospects.” She couldn’t help it—she glanced at Nigel, who was talking to the three peers who’d just arrived. For all she knew, he was pleading with them to propose to her.
“I would be happy to loan you the money, depending on the amount and the terms,” Zoe said. “Is there a great chance these women will default?”
Zoe was never foolish. She was smart and shrewd. “I don’t think so,” Julia said honestly. “But I will start with modest amounts. If a woman defaults, I will be able to repay out of my pin money and my dress allowance.”
“Your dress allowance.” Zoe shook her head, obviously amused.
“Do you agree with Nigel?”
“I love my husband, but when it comes to what should be considered scandalous for a woman, we never agree. I am happy you are helping these women.”
“You don’t fear for my marriage prospects?”
“I already know who you should marry. Noble Dr. Dougal Campbell.”
“Zoe...” Julia swallowed hard, aware of the sharp jolt of pain in her heart. “He just wrote to tell me he is engaged to someone else. I have lost him forever.”
“Then it was not a great loss, Julia, my dear,” the dowager duchess declared.
Julia jumped at the firm, autocratic tones of her grandmother. She turned to find the dowager duchess had walked up beside her and looked ready to deliver advice. Julia dearly loved her grandmother, but as Grandmama looked pointedly at the Duke of Bradstock, she swallowed hard.
“It is if Julia and Dr. Campbell were perfect for each other,” Zoe pointed out, sipping her drink and toying with her long string of beads.
Her grandmother linked arms and swept her away from Zoe. “Bradstock keeps watching you,” Grandmama said bluntly. “Why do you think he has never married? He is waiting for you. You could be a duchess with one simple word. And that word is yes. Julia, you must be settled. Where shall you live, if you end up a spinster?”
“Grandmama, I won’t say yes to a man just to have his house. There’s absolutely no reason I couldn’t have a flat in London and have a job—”
She had to stop. Grandmama staggered back with her hand on her heart. “If I find you behind the counter at Selfridges, my dear, it would be the end of me. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”
“No, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want my unhappy marriage on yours,” Julia said.
The dowager’s brows rose. “Touché.”
* * *
Cal was seated between the Duchess of Langford and Lady Julia at the long, wide, polished dinner table. His cousin Diana sat near him, talking flirtatiously to the man beside her—another earl—but glancing at him. The dining table would have stuck out both sides of the narrow tenement building he’d grown up in. The walls and floor of the dining room were covered in Italian marble shot with streaks of pink. On the table there was enough silverware and cut-glass crystal to pay a king’s ransom, and half the room was covered in gold leaf.
So damned opulent it made anger boil inside him.
Lady Julia turned to him, a lovely smile on her face, and asked, “What do you think of Worthington Park?”
Up close, Lady Julia—sister to the tall, black-haired Duke of Langford—was even more stunning.
Smooth, alabaster skin. Thick, shining black hair. Huge blue eyes. Her cool, controlled expression fascinated him. Like nothing could ever upset her. Though once he saw her looking at Diana and she’d looked real worried. Maybe because Diana was flirting with him.
Once or twice, he’d seen a look of terror on Lady Worthington’s face. That hadn’t stopped her pushing her three daughters at him. His cousins, damn it. English royalty married their cousins, but it seemed like a strange thing to him.
The countess obviously hoped the backwater hick from America would be so bowled over by her pretty English daughters and their jewels and their manners and their titles—each one was “Lady” something—that he’d kiss the ground they walked on and jump down on one knee to propose marriage to one of them.
As if that would happen. He would never marry one of them—one of the aristocracy.
“Looking at this place,” he said to Julia, “I can’t believe no one ever chopped the heads off the English aristocracy.”
He figured that would stop her trying to converse with him.
But it didn’t. “I can assure you that many members of the aristocracy have been afraid of that very thing for quite a long time,” she said smoothly. “But it is that fear that can lead to more justice for people, for better conditions and more decency—if it is pushed in the right direction.”
That answer he hadn’t expected. “You almost sound like a socialist.”
“Are you one, Worthington?” At his look of surprise, she added, “That is how you are to be addressed now. By your title.”
“I remember the lawyer telling me something like that. But having to hear that title is like having a bootheel ground into my heart. I’d prefer you call me Cal.”
Her lips parted. God, she had full, luscious lips.
But then, why shouldn’t she? She’d never slaved in a factory for fourteen hours a day. Or spent hours over a tub of steaming water, destroying her hands to scrub dishes.
A footman came by, holding a dish of oysters toward him. When Cal had made his money—a fortune that this family knew nothing about—back in the States from bootlegging and other enterprises that he wouldn’t talk about, he’d dined in a lot of nice restaurants. He’d liked knowing he could have whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it. But the amount of food coming out—and going back—shocked him.
“How much food do you people eat at dinner?” This was the third course and they hadn’t gotten to anything that looked like meat.
“There will be several courses, especially at a dinner party,” Lady Julia said softly. She kept her voice discreet, he noticed. “I expect the Worthington cook, Mrs. Feathers, wants to impress you.”
“Why? No one else around here does.”
Lady Julia faced him seriously. “The servants all know that their livelihoods depend on you. On whether you are satisfied with them or not.”
“They don’t need to knock themselves out,” he said. “I’m dissatisfied with this on principle.”
Her lips parted—damn, he couldn’t draw his eyes away from them. He wanted to hear what she would say, but then the duke sitting on the other side of her started talking to her. Not her brother, but the Duke of Bradstock. Black-haired and good-looking, Bradstock talked like he had a stick up his arse and couldn’t find a comfortable place on his chair.
“Lady Julia, have you given up that shocking hobby of yours?” the duke asked. “Or hasn’t your brother taken you in hand?”
Julia turned from him to Bradstock.
For some reason Cal felt damned irritated to lose her attention. Julia was the type of snobbish woman he should avoid. But he liked talking to her. And that surprised him.
“I am not in need of being ‘taken in hand,’” Julia said.
“He should forbid these forays into the sordid underbelly, Julia,” Bradstock went on.
Cal had no idea what they were talking about, but he could tell Julia didn’t like what the man was saying.
“I am over twenty-one, James,” she said crisply. “If I choose to do charitable work, I do so. When I told you of my work, I did not think you would hold it against me.”
“It shows you have a good heart, my dear.” The duke laughed. “There’s charity, my dear Julia, but surely this is beyond the pale. These women don’t want help. They’ve found a métier that they enjoy.”
“These women are starving and they have children to feed. I think what is beyond the pale is that there is no real help for these women. Their husbands were our heroes. And I don’t believe they enjoy what they are doing,” she said shortly.
Cal grinned. Not such a snob, then. He liked seeing Lady Julia with her blood running hot.
“My dear girl,” Bradstock said condescendingly, “we can’t just hand out money en masse. Times are hard for all of us. This year, I could only put in half the order for the wine cellar at my hunting box. Austerity has hit us all.”
“Hate to think you had to live without a bottle of wine,” Cal said. “If Julia is helping the widows of servicemen, I think that is pretty damn admirable.”
Bradstock glared at him. “A gentleman doesn’t use language like that at the dinner table.”
“Where I come from a ‘gentleman’ doesn’t tell a woman what to do when she doesn’t want him to.”
“And I’ve heard where you came from was some kind of cesspool,” sneered the duke. “You must be extremely grateful you were saved from whatever ditch you were in.”
“James, please. And Worthington, I do appreciate your support, but there is no need for heated discussion.”
So the duke got a “please” out of her and he got told off. “Get used to it, angel,” Cal said. “I’m the earl now.”
Her eyes widened in shock.
“If the man from the slums of New York agrees with you, my dear, isn’t that a sign you are doing the wrong thing?” Bradstock asked, looking down his nose. Cal would sorely love to rearrange that nose on the handsome idiot’s face.
“James, stop it. Let’s speak of something else. And do remember Worthington is your host.”
But Bradstock wouldn’t give it up. “If I were your brother, Julia, I should give you a spanking for being so naughty.”
Cal didn’t like the hot, appraising look in the bastard’s eyes. “If you don’t leave her alone,” he said heatedly, “I would be happy to beat you up.”
“Please, Worthington. Don’t. He is teasing.” Julia’s hand touched his wrist. Once, when he’d been working in a factory after the War, before he went back to life with the Five Points Gang, he’d gotten a shock from an electric outlet. The sizzle and tingle that had shot through his arm was nothing like the one that came from her touch.
Hell, she was everything he didn’t want. Privileged. Ladylike. Superior.
Except she had a heart and was willing to defend her beliefs. He liked her—and he hadn’t expected to like any of them.
All the men at the table—the Duke of Bad Manners, the Earl of Whatever, Viscount Something—watched Julia. They couldn’t take their eyes off her. Which didn’t seem to be making the Countess of Worthington too happy.
Just to piss them off, he said loudly to Julia, “You asked me if I like Worthington. For one man to get all this by the accident of his birth is wrong. A man should earn what he gets.”
She didn’t look shocked. “I can assure you that an earl who runs his estate properly works extremely hard. A responsible earl ensures his estate prospers, cares for his tenants and acts in a just manner. We are not frivolous and we don’t spend money lavishly on ourselves off the backs of others.”
He looked pointedly at the marble and gilt. “Don’t you?”
“Worthington Park would no longer exist if the men before you did that. Anthony’s father was one of the best landowners in the country. He was progressive, fair, compassionate. If he had not been, Worthington would have been destroyed by the harsh times that came both before and after the War.”
“And you’re telling me the tenants are happy to be poor while the earl is rich?”
“The tenants are happy with their treatment. On an estate like this, everyone knows the value of their place.”
So damned arrogant. Cal saw red. “I bet that footman over there would rather be sitting at this table than serving it. In America, he could be—if he worked hard and fought for it.”
His voice had dropped, low and angry. Lady Julia stiffened in shock.
“Maybe it would be better to keep the riffraff from inheriting,” Bradstock sneered. “Stop bothering Julia. You’re not fit to clean her boots. Wasn’t your mother some servant?”
Damn you. “My mother was a maid who worked in a mansion on Fifth Avenue and my father met her, fell in love with her pretty face and seduced her.”
He heard someone’s fork clatter to the plate. Anger drove him on.
“My father didn’t leave her high and dry when she became pregnant. He married her and got disowned for doing the right thing by her. But he loved her and she loved him. They spent their lives in squalor and as far as the Earl of Worthington was concerned, my mother, my brother and I didn’t exist. We could rot in hell. Too bad for all of you that I didn’t rot.”
For the first time, the countess spoke to him. “Worthington, we do not discuss our private matters at the dinner table.”
“Get used to it,” he snapped, like he’d said to Julia. “I’m not ashamed to say where I came from. And truth is, I don’t give a damn what you want.”
The countess went white.
He knew his mother would have been shocked at his behavior. She had struggled to raise him to be honest and decent and good—then he’d had to throw all that away to survive and help his family after his father was killed.
A lot of good it had done. He’d had to do bad things to bring home money for her and his brother, to support them, to make sure his family survived. He’d had to work for the gang who... Hell, it was join them or be beaten to death by them. After all that, Mam had died anyway—
Cal felt everyone’s eyes on him. They all looked at him with disgust or anger. Good—there was no point making them like him before he ripped the estate apart and destroyed Worthington Park—destroyed everything they cared about.
* * *
After dinner, Lady Worthington approached her. “I am exhausted. Fear is a very draining thing. Julia, my dear, do help me upstairs.”
Then Julia saw Lady Worthington look at Diana and frantically move her head to urge Diana to go to the group of gentlemen who were moving toward the drawing room—Cal, along with the duke and the viscount.
Julia knew what the countess was up to—getting her out of the room to give Diana a better chance to pursue the men.
Then Julia saw Nigel was heading toward her, leading the Earl of Summerhay.
And all she wanted to do was escape. She couldn’t face making polite conversation with a man who might want to marry her, when she didn’t want him. “I would be happy to take you up to your room, Lady Worthington.”
But the countess didn’t look pleased her plan had worked. She still looked afraid. Deeply afraid.
When they reached the door of the countess’s bedroom, Julia knew she must speak her mind. “You must not force one of your daughters into an unhappy marriage. I will not let the new earl destroy Worthington. Or hurt you.”
She was again reminded of the promise she’d made Anthony when he had gone away to war, a promise to look after his family if he didn’t come back. His family desperately needed help now, and she must live up to that promise.
The countess laughed. A hard, mirthless laugh, just like Diana’s, and it shocked Julia just as much. “What can you do, Julia? Accept that you are as powerless in this as I am.”
With that, the countess opened the door to her bedroom and her lady’s maid quickly came toward her.
When she returned downstairs, Julia did not go to the Oriental drawing room where everyone had gathered. Instead she slipped through the music room and went out to the terrace that looked over the east lawns and the woods.
The other drawing rooms overlooked the ornate gardens and decorative fountains. But Julia had always loved the view of the woods, which were wild and tangled. Ferns grew all around the edge of them, and the shadowy depths looked like a place where you could find faeries if you were very quiet and waited without moving. Julia used to do that with Diana, Cassia and Thalia when they were children.
Later, she would walk through the woods with Anthony. Looking at them brought that poignant mix of emotion, remembered happiness and pain.
Was she powerless to help? Or could she be like Zoe? Be courageous and grasp life. She believed the countess—who had been so kind to her when she was young and her own mother had fallen deeply into grieving—and Diana, her good friend, were worth fighting for.
“Lady Julia.”
She knew who stood behind her from the husky male voice with its distinct American twang. She turned, rubbing her arms as a cool breeze rippled over her. “Good evening, Worthington. It’s a lovely night.”
He came out onto the terrace, his hair almost silver in the bluish moonlight. Shadows made his cheekbones look even more pronounced, revealed a slight cleft in his chin and curved around his full, sensual mouth. He definitely looked wilder, rougher than Anthony had done. Cal looked untamed and by comparison Anthony had looked gentle and domesticated.
Cal grinned at her around an unlit cigarette he had clamped in his teeth. “I saw you sneak past the drawing room to come out here. Escaping your suitors?”
So he’d noticed that. She was surprised. “I just needed a bit of air.”
“You’re shivering,” he observed.
She turned from the balustrade, toward the glass-paned door. “I should go back inside.”
“Don’t go back in. Here, have this—” In a quick movement, he pulled off his jacket and gallantly draped it around her shoulders. She was wrapped in his warmth, in his masculine scent—slightly smoky and earthy, and crisp with witch hazel.
He held it around her and stepped close to her. “You’re different than the rest of them.”
Caught in the embrace of his coat, she felt a shiver go down her spine. He looked so much like Anthony, yet he was so utterly different. It was confusing. Her heart raced, and she felt, strangely, on the verge of tears just from looking at him. She couldn’t stop gazing at his face, thinking how familiar it was. But this was not Anthony. He wasn’t Anthony come back to her. He was someone else.
“You’re angry with me still,” he said.
“No. I was just...just lost in thought. In memories.” Then she thought: she must get to know this man. If she were to do battle with him, she must understand him. “How am I different?” she asked.
“You welcomed me and you don’t talk to me like you hate the sight of me. I’m sorry I was rude to you at dinner. You didn’t deserve that.”
He looked so forlorn, her heart suddenly panged for him.
This didn’t sound like an angry, vengeful man. How hard this must be for him, to suddenly become an earl, to be thrust into a position of responsibility, with a family he didn’t know.
“You must understand Lady Worthington,” she said impulsively. “Women in our situation know someone new will inherit and we could lose our homes. That is why the countess is so sharp. She really is a good person—she was always like a second mother to me. She is simply afraid. If you were to reassure them they have nothing to fear, I am sure it would help.”
Cal looked at her thoughtfully. “What’s she so afraid of?”
“She fears you will turn her and her daughters out of the house with nothing.”
He stepped back from her. From a pocket, he drew out a silver-colored lighter and lit his cigarette. He leaned on the balustrade and smoked, his shoulders hunched and tense.
“The estate is mine now,” he said. “I can do whatever I want with it. Maybe she’s right to be afraid.”
Julia’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean? What do you mean to do?”
“Maybe exactly what she fears,” he said softly.
“What did she do that deserves such a punishment?”
He blew smoke into the dark. Then he said, “I’m gonna sell the other estates—the hunting place, the house in Scotland. As for Worthington Park, I’m gonna sell it piece by piece.”
Horror gripped Julia. She stumbled back, gripping his coat. “You can’t do that! You can’t destroy Worthington!”
“The countess was right. To say I’m bitter and vengeful would be an understatement. I want to torture the Carstairs family with the pain of watching something they love die.”
“You cannot do this! Think of the tenants—all the people who live on this estate and rely upon it. What are you going to do with them? This house has been in the Worthington family for four hundred years.” She began to tremble. Anthony had loved Worthington Park. He was devoted to keeping it strong and secure. She and Anthony would talk of future plans when they were married—improvements to the house, a new nursery, a garden in which children could play. New equipment for the farm, improvements to the school so all the children of the estate would be educated.
“You can’t destroy the estate,” she went on, trying to fight the shakiness of her voice. “It would be heartless. Senseless. If you really want revenge, be the most beloved Earl of Worthington there has ever been. Prove them wrong.”
He laughed—a hard, bitter laugh. “No one here is ever going to love me. These estates should be ripped apart. They belong to the people. There should be no lords and masters.”
Her heart thundered. “Well, there are even in America. Can you tell me that in America, rich men believe poor men are equal to them? You can’t, I’m sure.” She leveled him with a firm gaze. “And I will stop you.”
He looked amused. “How do you plan to do that, Lady Julia?”
“I will—” She didn’t know what she would do but she had to think of something. She couldn’t watch Worthington—the place Anthony had loved with all his heart—be destroyed. “I will make you understand you have a responsibility to the land, the house and the people who live on the estate. I won’t stop until you love Worthington so deeply, you won’t let it go because it is a part of your soul.”
“That’ll never happen.”
“Yes, it will.” She pulled his tailored tuxedo jacket off her shoulders and shoved it at him.
He caught it and straightened, towering over her. A roguish smile curved his lips. “We’d better go back inside, Lady Julia. Even I know that if we’re away from the crowd long enough, people are gonna start talking about us.”
He took out the cigarette. His mouth lowered toward hers.
She was literally shaking in her shoes. Shaking with fury. But also with something else. With heat and confusion and a sudden, intense...whoosh.
Dear God, she wanted to kiss him.
And he was awful. Cruel. The enemy.
She took a determined step back and glared at him. “If you think I would kiss you after you just announced you would destroy this beautiful place and ruin hundreds of people’s lives, you are mad. Nothing is going to happen between us. Not ever.”
She turned and walked toward the door, determined not to shiver in the cool night air.
“I think you’re wrong,” he called out behind her.
She turned. In clear, no-nonsense tones, she said, “The only thing that will happen between us is that I will make you see sense, Worthington.”
She had no idea just how to do that at the moment, but it made a rather lovely exit line. Julia tipped up her chin and went inside, for once thankful she had been trained with a book on her head and could glide in victorious manner with aplomb.
