“A granddaughter? I heard they had a child but not that it was a girl. I assumed she died with that villain Foxton.”
“She is very much alive. Her name is Lucinda. I am her guardian.”
He narrowed his eyes on Tony. “If you’ve come here for a dowry for her I’ll not give her a penny.” He tucked the blanket around his hips and looked out the window.
“She doesn’t know I am here. In fact, she has no idea you are alive either. Lucinda does not need your coin, my lord; she is wealthy in her own right. She has lived most of her life thinking she had no family… but she has you.”
“What would she want with an old man? I am no good to anyone. My bones creak more than a frigate in a storm.”
“I think she would just want to know her grandfather. To hear more about you and her mother.”
“She will want nothing to do with me when she finds out it was me who ran them out of the country,” he said, still looking out the window.
Tony sat back. How would she react to that news? “If you had the time over would you have made the same decision?”
He took his time before answering. “Hell no. I regretted that decision for over a decade. I didn’t think they would leave the country and never come home. I was mad as hell that they had gone against my wishes. Damn Tory bastard.”
“I am sure they regretted their decision to leave the country too. Perhaps they thought they had no other choice.”
Tony saw tears in the man’s eyes as he turned, and this shocked him. “He took my girl, Ashton. He took my beautiful girl to some godforsaken place, and she died. I never got to bury her, to tell her how sorry I was for all that happened. All I had was my anger. At the time I would have shot the blaggard between the eyes had he returned. Later, I wished he had at least sent her back to me to bury properly. Who knows where she was laid to rest.”
“I am sorry, my lord. Lucinda was sent back to England before her father died and was placed in a school for young ladies where she has stayed until she came under my protection.”
“He should have sent her to me, damn his eyes. I could have raised her better than some merchant’s girl’s school.”
“Maybe he was unsure you would accept her.”
“No. He wanted to keep her from me. He took my girl and denied me my granddaughter. He hated me as much as I hated him.”
“Lucinda knows nothing of your hatred. She does not know of your feelings on the subject, but you said you regretted your decision. This is your opportunity to have a relationship with her. You are her only family, my lord. I am sure she would love to hear stories of her mother as a child.”
“She will learn the truth soon enough and then she will hate me too.”
“What if she doesn’t? What if she sees how remorseful you are and forgives you? Surely, she will see you did it because you loved her mother. That you still love her. Isn’t it worth seeing Lucinda for? I am giving you the opportunity to have a relationship with your granddaughter. Is that not worth swallowing your pride, for her sake and yours?”
“What exactly are you asking me to do?”
“Come to London. Meet her. She is beautiful. She has her mother’s features and her father’s glorious hair and she is…”Infuriating, smart, and desirable.“Worth the effort.”
“What happens if she doesn’t forgive me?”
“It is up to you if you even want to confess what you did.”
“What are you getting out of this?”
“Nothing but the pleasure of seeing Lucinda meeting family.”
Lord Shorten narrowed his eyes. “You love her, don’t you?”
“I am her guardian. Her happiness is my only concern.” Part of his brain knew this was not totally correct. Denying his true feelings was hard work, made harder every time he saw her, but for his sanity and his position, he had to keep up the fight. “Well, are you willing to leave the past behind and hopefully have Lucinda in your life?”
The old man looked out the window again, no doubt weighing the reasons to take up his offer or not.
Lucinda breathed inthe smell of old books as she entered the Temple of the Muses bookshop in Finsbury Square. She had exhausted all of Marianne’s books and so off they went to see what prose would enchant them next. The building itself was huge, multiple stories high. The dowager perused the section for fashion magazines while the girls headed straight for the gothic romances.
“Surely, you young ladies are not into such blasphemous works?”
Lucinda spun around to find Lord Dunstan smiling down at them. Lucinda curtseyed. “Oh, my lord, this is the last place I would expect to see you.”
