“Just a figure of speech.”
Judith squeezed Jacqueline’s hand. “Why are you denying these feelings?”
“Because it’s too soon,” Jack mumbled, still unwilling to admit what she was really feeling, even to herself, though she did allow, “But next year I might love him.”
“I wouldn’t have expected to hear such nonsense from you at this point, Jack Malory,” Judith scolded with a tsk. “You’ve said you miss him, said you’re not done with him—and don’t think I don’t know what you meant. But you can’t keep doingthatand not get with child, and then your father really will kill him.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand perfectly since I was part of that pact we made not to marry until next year. But everyone, including me, warned you how unrealistic it was. And answer me this: D’you really think you’ll find someone else who makes you feel the way he does? Why the devil would you still want to wait when you’ve already found your perfect man?”
“Father isn’t going to let me have him,” Jacqueline whispered.
“Oh.” Judith sighed. “There is that.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
DAMON ARRIVED IN EASTSussex to an empty house, no butler at the door, no one in the halls. What the devil had happened here? But then a young maid ran from the back of the house, ignoring him, and went out the front door, which he’d left open.
Incredulous, he followed her outside and called, “Wait! Where is everyone?”
The girl paused long enough to turn and say, “At the family cemetery, sir. Our lady is being buried today. If you’ve come for the funeral to pay your respects, you may still be in time. I overslept!”
She ran on and disappeared around the side of the large mansion. Damon didn’t move, felt poleaxed. Now he’d never be able to catch his grandmother at a lucid moment so she could answer his questions. That hope was gone forever. He wished he’d gotten here sooner. But it had taken a week in Jamaica to get his father settled in a new plantation, then Damon had spent another week in London trying to see Jack. But every time he knocked on the door to her house in Berkeley Square, one of two butlers—they really did have two—slammed the door shut. Only the first time, after he’d given his name, was he told, “Cap’n’s orders, you ain’t welcome.” They wouldn’t even take the flowers he’d brought her, so he’d had someone else deliver them, but they wouldn’t accept those, either!
He’d still kept an eye on her house, hoping to catch her when she left it, but she never did. He was going to have to try something more drastic when he returned to London, even if it meant confronting her father. There would be no pleasantness this time with that man—well, there never had been, but Malory’s boon was over and he’d made it absolutely clear that Damon couldn’t have his daughter.
But Damon was prepared to brave anything for her—if she would have him. He just needed a chance to speak to her without her father in attendance, to tell her he hadn’t been teasing when he’d asked her to marry him. He should have admitted it that day on his ship, but she’d seemed so annoyed at the idea. Would she still be? Was there really no hope of his ever making her his wife?
He knew where the cemetery was, on both sides of the small chapel beyond the tall hedges at the side of the house. The chapel spire could be seen above the hedges, which is how he’d found out it was there. He’d investigated it just once, fearing he’d find his mother’s grave in there, but he didn’t.
He hurried to the chapel, but when he passed through the fancy entrance cut into the tall hedges, he was surprised by the number of vehicles on the other side. So many people were there, standing outside the small chapel and coming out of it—servants, tenants, local gentry, even that solicitor, Mr. Harrison, who’d tracked him down and was the only person there whom he’d ever spoken to at length.
The coffin was already being carried out of the chapel. He’d missed the service, but at least he could see Agatha Reeves buried. She might have called him by a half dozen wrong names, thinking he was other men she knew, but she’d still been his grandmother, and he wished he could have known her when she’d still had all of her faculties.
A grave had already been dug in the side yard next to the chapel, branches of an oak tree shading it and flowers planted all around it. If not for the gravestones, a visitor might have thought this private family cemetery was a pretty garden. Only Reeveses were buried here. He noticed one grave that was nearly a century old as he slowly followed the procession.
While the coffin was being lowered into the open grave, he moved to stand next to Mr. Harrison, a middle-aged man with brown muttonchops and friendly green eyes. He had offices in the nearby town of Hastings.
Damon nodded a greeting and asked quietly, “How did she die? Peacefully?”
“I’m sorry to say it was likely a painful death.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Well, there’s no telling at what point she died on her fall down those stairs. I was told that a footman was helping her down them, but Lady Reeves thought he was her husband and then recalled her husband was dead. She screamed dreadfully as she tried to get away from the imagined ghost, and then—she tumbled backward.” Harrison sighed. “Nasty business, when your mind plays tricks on you like that. But I’m glad you’re here. I wasn’t sure if you were even in the country. I heard you sent word to Lady Reeves that you were returning to the West Indies. It meant nothing to her, but Mrs. Wright let me know. Such a busybody that woman, but utterly devoted to her mistress.”
“I returned a week ago. I had no idea my grandmother died”—Damon waved his hand at the coffin—“until just now.”
“My condolences, sir. But we will need to speak at the house later. Your grandmother made her will years ago, before her affliction, when she was of sound mind. She excluded the members of her family from whom she was estranged, namely her uncle by marriage and her daughter.”
“Agatha was estranged from my mother? Good God, man, you didn’t think that was something I should know?” No wonder the housekeeper had been so nasty to him!
Mr. Harrison shrugged. “I was the family solicitor, but I didn’t know them well and certainly wasn’t privy to their secrets. It could have been no more than a mother-daughter tiff that never got resolved. But those were Lady Reeves’s instructions when she made the will. She didn’t specify you in the will, but she didn’t exclude you either, so as her closest living relative, her worldly goods are now yours. It’s a long list, mostly properties, even a small castle in Scotland. Oh, and a house in London.”
“Empty?”
“No. It had been her mother’s house. Lady Reeves didn’t stay there often and probably hadn’t been there in years, but a few servants were retained in case she did want to use it.”
