“Even if I don’t marry this season?”
“No. Not even if you don’t marry this season.” By God she had better marry and soon because he had a weakness for her and that was bad news.
“I have never kissed anyone but you. I should thank you for showing me how… for the future I mean.”
Silence fell for a few moments where he battled his guilt and his want to kiss her tears away. He had to change the subject quickly. Still holding her hand, he studied the small enamel ring on her finger. “Where did you get this ring?”
“My father gave it to me just before he left. A keepsake, to remember him by. I did not want a ring; I wanted my father, but it is all I have of him now. I have had to move it to different fingers as I have grown but other than that I have not taken it off.
“What else do you remember about your father? Did he leave you anything else? A letter perhaps? Something he wanted you to keep safe for him? A secret?”
“A secret? No, nothing. I suppose that was because he told me he was coming back. Just a few months, he said. He lied.”
“How did you find out he was dead?”
“Captain Markham’s father came to the school. He took me out and we traveled to Miss Covington’s. He told me that my father had died and that he was now my guardian. I asked him questions, but he simply said it was better to just remember he was in heaven now with my mother. He said that once I was grown, he would come back and help me find a position somewhere. I did not know any better and I do not think I even understood what he meant. He lied too because I never saw him again either.”
“What happened when Captain Markham came to you?”
“I was called to Miss Covington’s office where he introduced himself as my new guardian. He regretted the circumstances, but I would need to stay there for a while longer. He did not have the capacity to look after me. I translated that to, he did not want me either. That was it. Two visits in ten years and still no one could tell me anything. All three of them left me behind without a backward glance.”
“I’m sorry.” And he was because he had always had the luxury of his family, his status and in turn, its wealth. “I promise I will never force you to do anything you do not want.”
He had lost his own father only seven years ago, and it had been a great loss to the family. His mother had thrown herself into marrying off all the children, most likely as a way to channel her grief into action. His father had only asked one thing of his boys on his death bed and that was to look after their mother. Lucinda had never been able to say goodbye to her father. No luxury of closure. Or hope, it seemed, for her own future.
“I had no choice in the end about anything,” she said. “I shut myself away after that. What was the use of making friends? What was the use of wanting more? I still dreamed of leaving, of having a life of my own, but now I see how woefully unprepared I am. I know nothing of high society, Tony, and it scares me. What if I disappoint my husband and he punishes me because I do not know how to run his house? I was taught how to add household accounts but not how to plan a party. I fear I do not know what I am doing.”
Lucinda buried her face in his shoulder. “Don’t you see I am a failure. A failure as a daughter and now your ward.” The shimmering of her tears turned her eyes a deeper green. “And most likely as a wife as well.”
He patted her back and said soothing words, but it did not help. After a while, she sniffed back her tears and got off his lap and placed his precious fossil back on the mantel, gave him a shaky curtsey, and left the room.
He watched her go, wanting to reassure her, but knowing it was better if he did not follow her. He had just made her even more miserable and got no new information, either. He was convinced that she was innocent, that she knew nothing about what her father was up to. If that were the case, he was in even more trouble than he thought.
What had her father been about? He had risked everything and for what? He had lost his life to keep the secret he had stolen out of the hands of the Prussians, but to what end? What if the Prussians had found the missing item? Maybe he had it on him when they murdered him and there was no danger at all to Lucinda? Other than assumptions and fabrications made up by the Machiavellian minds of the ton, he had nothing.
Tony thought about finishing the bottle beside him, but suddenly he was tired, exhausted. He had been running two missions at once. It was surely why it was taking such a toll on him.
He went to bed but could not sleep thinking about her, how sad she was. How she believed no one wanted her. It was madness becausehewanted her. No woman had ever had this pull over him. And worse, he did not know how to control it let alone sever it without hurting her.
Chapter Twelve
“Lord Ashton, whata pleasure.”
The solicitor was exactly what Tony thought he would look like. Short, balding, and bespectacled. Competent looking. “Thank you, Mister O’Neal. I know this was a rushed appointment.” Tony sat in a wobbly chair of blue velvet in a room that was so piled high with papers and boxes and files he feared if he moved the chair at all something might topple on him. So he sat rigid and waited.
Looking over the top of his glasses, Mister O’Neal seemed to be sizing Tony up. “Not at all, my lord. How can I help you?”
“I have become the legal guardian of one Miss Lucinda Sterling. Lord Foxton’s daughter. I know she must wait until her majority or marry to get her dowry, and I have no quarrel with that but… I was hoping you might assist me in another matter. Was anything left to her by her father by chance? A letter? A gift of some sort?”
“Now let me see,” he said scanning the document that Tony had given to him stating his legal rights. He frowned. “I will have to find it. It has been over ten years since this file was opened. Can you give me a half hour?”
Tony stood thinking it may take the better part of a month to find it in this mess. “Of course. I will be at the coffee shop across the street.”
“I will send my assistant to fetch you when we have found the documents.”
“That will be fine. I thank you for your time.”
Tony strolled across the street. It was an overcast day, and the shop was warm and inviting. He ordered his drink and took a seat at the side of the room so his back was to the wall but could see the whole room. As was his way he listened to the surrounding conversations. Who had lost the latest wager in White’s betting book, who had made a fool of themselves in the House of Lords and the latest debutantes. This caught his interest.
