A light footstep on the stairs made him turn, hope sparking in his chest. But it wasn’t his beautiful, brave, caring Bess who appeared in the doorway.
It was Henrietta, Dowager Duchess of Ashbourn.
“My dear Nathaniel,” she trilled, gliding toward him, white hands outstretched as though to gather him in for a cuddle, the way she’d done when she worked in his mother’s household as his nursemaid.
Without thinking, he took a step back, and her hands fluttered to her sides at once. A shadow of disappointment flitted across her still-lovely face, but she only nodded in a resigned sort of way that made the blue ribbons decorating her lace cap dance.
Pulling himself together, Nathaniel took refuge in the strict propriety of his upbringing. He offered her a perfectly correct bow and said, “Your Grace.”
She regarded him thoughtfully from a few paces away. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink? I quite like cognac. Nothing better, when one’s nerves are feeling frazzled.”
Nathaniel found another glass that looked clean enough and poured out a finger of brandy. “Do your nerves trouble you now?” he asked politely.
“Oh, the whole place has been in an uproar all day,” she said cheerfully, taking her glass of brandy to a nearby table and setting it down.
Nathaniel stepped quickly to pull out her chair for her, which she accepted gracefully as her due. She sat and arranged her night rail and wrapper prettily, then widened her eyes and tipped her beribboned, lacy bonnet in the direction of the chair on the other side of the table. “Won’t you join me, Nathaniel, dear?”
Unable to see any polite way to refuse, Nathaniel sat. It was probably the least he could do, after everything that had happened.
Before he could launch into a formal apology for the dereliction of his duty in caring for Lucy, Henrietta leaned forward confidingly and said, “You know, I’d been hoping we might have a chance for a little talk, just you and me.”
Nathaniel regarded her as impassively as he was able. He could only imagine the things she’d wanted to say to him after her husband died and Nathaniel dispossessed his father’s second family of their home and all their belongings.
Gemma had certainly not held back; she’d torn a strip off him last May. Likely he owed his stepmother the same opportunity to vent her spleen.
But Henrietta didn’t look angry. She was in the process of taking a delicate sip of her brandy, shuddering all over in a cascade of quivering lace, then taking another, deeper sip.
Nathaniel couldn’t wait any longer. “Before you say whatever it is you need to say, I’d like to offer my sincerest apologies for Lucy’s recent ordeal. And I want you to know, I plan to do everything in my power to ensure that not a breath of scandal touches her because of it.”
“Oh, bless you, but I could hardly hold you to a higher standard than myself—and Lucy has been running rings around me for years and years. My impossible girl.”
She looked unbearably fond as she said it. For some reason, it made the backs of Nathaniel’s eyes burn.
He managed to keep himself from commenting that if Henrietta had taken the trouble of correcting Lucy’s behavior long ago, they would never have been in this mess.
Possibly true, but hardly helpful in the present moment.
“Lucy is young,” he said instead. “No doubt this experience will have taught her much.”
Henrietta took another sip of brandy that could not quite hide the smile tugging at her lips. “Mmm. No doubt. But that is not what I wished to speak with you about.”
Nathaniel clenched his back teeth but did not allow himself to look away from her. “You wish to tell me what you think of my decision to deprive your daughters of their portions and dowries, and yourself of a life of comfortable ease…in the dower house at the country estate, perhaps. If it helps, I am very sensible of the damage I have done to your family with my…strict interpretation of the terms of Father’s will.”
The damage he’d done in a fit of vengeful pique, would perhaps be more accurate. Nathaniel found he could not quite unbend himself far enough to say it to this woman he had hated for so long, and so uselessly.
“I have only begun to make amends,” he continued, “but I will continue my efforts. I can only hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me someday.”
He downed the rest of his brandy in one go, letting it burn a line straight through him. Christ. Everything was certainly simpler before he’d met Bess and let her talk him into launching Lucy’s Season. Before he’d gotten to know his youngest sister in all her wry, biting humor and bright openness.
Before he’d had to confront what he’d done to her, and to her family—and the way his actions continued to play out in their lives.
For surely, if he had not removed all financial aid from his stepmother and half-sisters, if they’d never been forced to leave London and take refuge in this backwater village, Lucy would never have kicked over the traces and run away like this.
As he’d told Bess, there was no one but Nathaniel to blame for this mess.
But Henrietta was shaking her head, sorrow turning her eyes watery again. “Dear Nathaniel. We are your family, as well. And quite a lot of good has come from our sojourn here at Five Mile House. Gemma is married for love—to a duke!—and settled nearby, and I have made wonderful friends here, I must say. I rediscovered my love of painting! And of course, there’s dear Bess. We never should have met her if we’d stayed in London.”
The truth of that rocked through Nathaniel.
