Wells was confounded by this fellow’s ramblings. Merrinan had mentioned before having served alongside his father, the Duke, but that he’d known Uncle Charles, Lord Carlton Wellesley himself . . . The coincidence was too much, not least because he’d just given his uncle’s timepiece to this man’s daughter.
Merrinan’s head snapped back. “What date you set?” he announced, moving another piece across the board, and not a bad move either.
“Date, sir?” Wells was again confused. How the devil his daughters managed his nonsense was a wonder. He’d go mad if he had to spend his days attending this dotty fellow.
“Wedding date, young man.” Merrinan ruthlessly stared him down. “I’ve not forgotten your promise to my daughter, sir, and while her dowry isn’t much, I’ve a little set aside, same as for Eleanor.”
Wells could not believe Merrinan still thought him betrothed to Charles. “Ah yes,” he faltered, “the wedding.” He swallowed, deciding that to play along again was better than to rouse the old man’s ire. He only prayed Charles would be spared such talk later. “We thought to wait until spring, sir,” he lied.
“Spring, eh?” Merrinan nodded. “Always best for weddings, unless of course you need wed sooner.” His look held mischief. “My Addie now, I married her in haste for that very reason, sir. Couldn’t keep her hands off me, nor I off her. What a woman she was, Adelaide. God rest her soul.” And suddenly his eyes began to swim, uncontrolled tears streaming down his sunken cheeks as his face fell to his hands.
Wells looked at him in shock, imagining Charles’s indignation should she learn her mother had been compromised before marriage. He was suddenly alarmed by all he knew, or thought he knew, of this man’s story—by the heartbreak felt so keenly still ten years since Merrinan’s wife had passed.
He awkwardly patted the fellow’s shoulder. “Can I fetch you a drink, Mr. Merrinan, or would you like to lie down a spell, sir?” He tried to think how Charles or Eleanor might handle the situation.
“No.” The old man lifted his tear-streaked face to Wells. “Only promise me you’ll never hurt my daughter, Wellesley. Promise you’ll care for her always, love her always.Promise,” he insisted, grasping Wells’s hand in a surprisingly strong grip. “Swear it, boy,” he repeated, his grip by now a crushing demand.
And Roland Wellesley, unable to articulate anything else, simply told him, “Yes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Iam not angry with you, Ellie,” Charles assured her sister, “I am merely stunned, is all, that you should have, well?—”
“That I should have feelings for John?” Her sister’s eyes flashed. “I know you think him unworthy, Charles, so beneath me that you will never see what I?—”
“I do not think him unworthy, Eleanor. I happen to have a great deal of respect for Cuthbert. That is not the issue.”
“Then what is the issue, Charles? I do not understand why you cannot be happy for me. Why you cannot?—”
“Eleanor,” she snapped, “I am unhappy not because of your feelings but because of what those feelings mean for your future.”
“But so long as?—”
“Let me finish, sister.” Charles steadied herself. “I made a vow to Mama that I would care for you and see you set in life. And I do not take my vow lightly. She would have wanted more for you, more than what John Cuthbert offers. Ellie, consider for a moment who he is. Did you know he is an orphan, without family? That Lord Wellesley’s father, the Duke, took him in as charity? He has no property, no standing in society, he has only the goodwill of his grace, the Duke, and his position at theAbbey as Lord Wellesley’s steward, on a salary I imagine can’t be all that much more than mine. Were you to marry him, where would you live? How would he support you and any children you might someday have?”
Eleanor looked defiant. “I should think we’d find a way, Charles, and that it would be no worse than living here alone with father as I do now.”
Charles glared at Ellie. “So it is escape you seek then? Perhaps you are less enamored of John Cuthbert and more of the chance to leave father and this house?”
“That is unkind and you know it!” Eleanor pushed back. “I would never abandon Father, ever. I would simply take him with me, or John live here with us. He is used to Papa already. He is not bothered by him. And besides, it is not as thoughyouhave any intention of returning soon, what with your new position and . . .” She abruptly stopped herself.
“And what, Eleanor?” Charles was surprised at how heated their argument had grown.
“And your own feelings for Lord Wells,” she threw at Charles in a fit of temper, only to immediately retract it. “Forgive me, Charles, I did not mean?—”
“Don’t you dare speak a word more to me, Eleanor.” Charles’s voice was brittle. “I am leaving now, and I will not be back.”
“Charles, please, I didn’t mean it, I swear I?—”
But she was too enraged to utter a word more for fear she might strike her sister outright. She could not bear to look at Ellie, all high and mighty in her newfound love, clueless as to what had been sacrificed for her, done for her.
“Charles!” Eleanor looked distraught. “Please!”
But she continued walking. She did not even consider his lordship remained yet inside with Father, hunched over a chessboard. She continued walking at a furious pace, her insidesroiling with rage, sorrow, and beneath it all, a merciless knot of growing despair and creeping, insidious envy.
“Miss Eleanor?” Wells took one look at the girl’s face and knew something was wrong. “What has happened to distress you, miss?”
He watched her swallow her pain. “I have quarreled with Charles, my lord, and I fear?—”
