Damien glanced up at the stone-faced butler and scowled darkly. After riding hard for two days, he had been kept waiting for nearly three hours in the Earl of Barton’s great hall, with its painted and gilded dome, wide, sweeping staircase and richly appointed, uncomfortable furniture. His temper was stretched taut, yet he had managed to hold it in check by sheer force of will and alternatively pacing in front of the huge fireplace and sitting straight-backed on the edge of a wooden chair.
Damien now drew himself up to his full height and glowered at the butler, releasing some of his inner tension. The servant never flinched, but pivoted on his heel and silently led the way from the hall. Good Lord, Damien thought, the man’s face would surely shatter if he ever did anything so frivolous as smile.
Eyes pinned firmly on the thinning patch of hair on the crown of the butler’s head, Damien followed the servant from the room, his booted feet echoing on the black-and-white marble tiles.
He was ushered into a formal salon, vast in size, and furnished with impressive and expensive antiques. The Earl of Barton was seated on a large sofa near an open window, but he rose expectantly to his feet when Damien entered the room.
“Damien St. Lawrence, the Earl of Saunders,” the butler announced, closing the door soundlessly as he left.
“Now that I’ve set eyes on you,” Barton greeted him, “I’m certain I don’t know you. What do you want?”
“Good afternoon.” Though he was far too acquainted with adversity, even Damien was surprised by the openly hostile greeting. Deciding to counter the attack with overt politeness, he executed an exaggerated bow and said, “Thank you for seeing me so promptly, sir.”
The older man stiffened. “State your business. And be quick about it.” He resumed his seat on the sofa and airily waved his hand in the direction of a chair.
Damien surmised that half-hearted gesture constituted an invitation to be seated. He remained standing.
“I’ve come about your granddaughter, Isabella Browning.”
“Gotten herself into trouble again, has she? She always was a high-spirited miss. Well, out with it boy. What’s she done this time?”
“She hasn’tdoneanything, sir. Isabella is currently employed as governess to my children and doing an excellent job.”
“An excellent job, you say?” The earl lifted his gray eyebrows. “You arrive at my home uninvited and unannounced and wait three hours to see me. Judging by the mud spattered on your boots, you’ve traveled a fair distance. Do you mean to say you went to all that bother just to tell me that Isabella is a competent employee? I think not. I may be old, but I’ve still got my wits about me. What’s she done? Has she gone and ruined herself like her witless mother?”
Damien felt his face flush. He took a deep breath and moved slowly toward the edge of the room, determined not to be bested by his own temper or this disagreeable old man. Stalling for time, Damien set himself near the fireplace and casually perched an elbow upon the mantel.
“I want to know who Isabella’s natural father was.”
The earl made no reply. Damien caught a glimpse of the older man’s reflection in the gilt-edged mirror at the opposite side of the room. His stoic facade had not cracked, but his face had become a hollow shade of ash.
“I cannot see how this is any business of yours, Saunders. Unless you object to having my bastard granddaughter caring for your children.”
“You are a reprehensible old fool,” Damien said, unable to dispel the flash of pure fury that sprang up within him. He leaned forward and stared steadfastly into the earl’s eyes, exuding an aura of determination and power that momentarily stunned his adversary. “Tell me what you know about Isabella’s father.”
“Nothing. I know nothing.” Damien watched the earl’s face turn dark. “Marianne was my youngest daughter. Most folks said she was the prettiest. She was a shy, quiet girl who kept mostly to herself. Then one day she came to me and tearfully confessed she was going to have a child. She told me some nonsense about being in love with the babe’s father, but she couldn’t marry him. Blast it, she wouldn’t even tell me the bounder’s name. I was so furious, I refused to listen to her pathetic explanations and locked her in her bedchamber.
“After a week of isolation, I thought she’d crumble and tell me everything, but the stubborn chit wouldn’t say a word. I knew I had to do something, so I took Marianne down to Kent, hoping to get Charles Browning, a local doctor I knew, to fix everything. But somehow she convinced the buffoon not to abort her child. I told her she could come home with me if she would reveal her lover’s name, but the obstinate girl refused. I left her with Browning and never set eyes on her again. Eventually Browning married her. She wrote me once, when her child was born, but I saw no need to reply.”
Damien felt his stomach turn. How could a parent be so harsh with his own child as to reject her during the greatest crisis of her life? Damien’s heart filled with empathy for the frightened young Marianne, finding herself in such a dire predicament, having no one to turn to but this hard, unfeeling monster of a parent.
“And the child’s true father?” Damien asked.
“I never found out. Browning sent Isabella here when the girl reached seventeen. My sister Agnes questioned her, but the girl didn’t know anything. She had always thought Browning was her father. I guess her mother never spoke of it. Marianne protected her lover to the end.”
The bitterness in the old earl’s voice echoed through the vast room. Damien heard it, but failed to be moved. Clearly Isabella’s grandfather was an unnatural parent. He had willfully abandoned his daughter and deliberately shunned his granddaughter. As far as Damien was concerned, these bleak memories were precisely what the earl deserved.
A odd combination of anger and pity swept through Damien when he thought of Isabella living in this household with her cold, unforgiving grandfather. How isolated and lonely she must have been. Feeling the need to get away, Damien bowed curtly in the earl’s direction.
“Good day, sir.”
Damien left quickly, not bothering to wait for a servant to escort him out. He had taken no more than three steps outside the room, however, before being ambushed by a woman with light gray hair and a deeply lined face.
“Where are you off to in such a rush?” the woman demanded. She stood directly in front of Damien, boldly blocking his path while leaning heavily on her gold-tipped cane. “I heard your discussion with my brother. Not all of it, mind you, but enough to understand the gist of it.”
“You must be Isabella’s Great-aunt Agnes,” Damien decided. He remembered the cruel treatment Isabella had received from this woman and favored her with a stare that usually sent warning chills down a recipient’s spine. “Good-bye, madam.”
Damien made a motion to go around the woman, but Aunt Agnes thrust up her cane, laying it sharply against Damien’s arm in a forestalling manner. “It will take more than a brooding stare to chase me off, young man. Of course, if you aren’t interesting in finding out the truth, you’d best be on your way.”
