“No,” Alex corrected, “it has to be someone with the clout to stand against our dear father.”
“They wouldn’t be making for Shrewton himself, would they?” Daniel looked at Roderick. “He winters on his estate outside Norwich, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, but that hardly makes sense-he’s not the puppetmaster, and anyone could guess he’ll simply destroy the letter.” Roderick shook his head. “As Alex says, Delborough and his colleagues must be planning to get the letter into the hands of someone willing and able to do something with it, or what’s the point?”
“Indeed,” Alex said. “And sadly there are quite a few powerful men around here.”
December 16
Somersham Place, Cambridgeshire
Del sprawled in an armchair by Devil’s library fire, legs stretched before him, a glass of brandy in his hand, and laughed.
He’d laughed more today, been more genuinely amused than he had been in decades. A sad reflection on how lacking his life had been. A hint, a prod, as to what he wanted, even needed of his future, of his life yet to come.
Despite the snow, the day had been truly relaxing. There’d even been a glimmer of sunshine to lighten it, but then the clouds had closed in, the wind had picked up, and blizzard-like conditions had set in.
Night had fallen like a pall. There’d been no letup in the wind, presently howling, bansheelike, about the eaves. Outside, snow was swirling thick and fast, mostly scoured from what had fallen earlier, but inside, the heavy curtains had been drawn and the fires built up to cheering blazes.
With so many gathered in it, and the fire roaring, the library felt like a cozy cave. A very comfortable and luxurious cave, safe from the elements.
Dinner was over, and the children had just been recaptured and carried off by their nursemaids. The company had spent the last hour swapping tales of childhood exploits-not so much of the young ones rolling and crawling about the floor or toddling awkwardly on short stubby legs, but of their parents. Tales of family, of shared adventures, of kinship in the true sense.
From the padded comfort of the armchair, Del watched Deliah, seated on the chaise opposite, drinking in the ambiance, noted that she, like he, was drawn to the stories of childhood daring and thrills.
He and she were the exotics in the room. They were both only children; neither had had siblings with whom to share. But it wasn’t only that that drew them to the stories the Cynsters had in abundance. The tales epitomized normal English life, life in this country, their homeland-a life neither he nor she had experienced for many years. If ever.
The Cynsters’ experience hadn’t been theirs.
Yet.
There was no reason it couldn’t be, that together they couldn’t make a bid to have just that sort of life, those sorts of experiences. Have similar family stories to tell, perhaps not of themselves, but of their children.
He felt an inner tug at the thought.
His gaze traveled her face, saw laughter light her fine eyes at some comment. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. To marry her, and try his hand at creating a real family at Delborough Hall.
But what did she want?
He was who he was; he couldn’t help but approach the task of gaining her hand-her agreement to wed him-as a campaign.
The easiest way to get her to fall into line was to discover what she wanted of her life, her future, and couch his proposal in a way that best paralleled that. That supported that.
Not that he intended accepting any reply other than a “yes.” Preferably a “yes, please.” What he was more concerned with was the speed, the rapidity with which he could secure that correct response, thus minimizing any cost to himself, to his pride by way of any revelations required to convince her to utter that small word.
His decision to wait until his mission was concluded still seemed the wisest course, but her comment that morning about leaving her Humberside home for parts unknown had sounded a warning. Once his mission was ended, it wouldn’t be wise to let her have her head for long.
Indeed, with every hour that passed, he was more inclined to refine his plan. The instant his mission was ended, before he surrendered her to her parents, he would offer for her hand, and be accepted, thus reducing the separation that would naturally occur between returning her to her home and her coming to live permanently with him.
He wasn’t of a mind to let her go, not even for a day. Somehow simply having her about, in the same house, knowing she was there, made him feel more settled. More complete.
As if he’d found his future purpose and she was an instrinsic part.
He was too seasoned a campaigner not to pay attention to instinct.
So what did she want? How could he tempt her?
At that moment, despite her outward appearance of content, Deliah was feeling distinctly downhearted.
Not that she had any reason to be; she kept telling herself that, but it didn’t help.
For the first time in her life, she’d experienced a day in the company of genuine friends, women and men who saw her as she was yet did not consider her-the real her-as in any way beyond their pale. Throughout the day, little incidents had underscored that in this company, she-her character, her traits-were the norm. In the world the Cynsters and Chillingworth inhabited, ladies were life partners, not cyphers, their existences significantly more than mere adjuncts to their husbands’ lives.
The events of the day had conspired to educate and show her, to lay before her in all its glory the precise type of life she might have had had her Great Scandal not derailed her. A life she would even now sell her soul to seize and enjoy-if she could.
If any gentleman of similar ilk to the Cynsters, one with similar expectations of his wife, could be prevailed on to offer for her hand.
If Del would.
But he wouldn’t.
He’d taken her as his lover-she’d accepted him as hers. And that was that. As she’d years ago proved, and as she’d been lectured about ad nauseam in the aftermath of the scandal, gentlemen did not marry their lovers.
More specifically, no gentleman would ever marry her.
Her spirits sank lower as the thought floated blackly through her mind. Its darkness, its intensity, made her wonder-made her look more closely at what she felt. And why…
She managed to keep a smile on her face, or at least keep her lips curved, her expression relaxed, while inwardly she berated herself. How unutterably foolish. How unforgivably silly. How inexcusably willful.
She’d done it again-fallen in love, again.
No. She caught herself, looked anew, reconsidered. She’d fallen in love, really, truly, head over heels forevermore in love, for the first time. What she felt for Del was oceans apart from the mild emotion she’d felt for that bastard Griffiths. Then, in her innocence, her naïveté, she’d convinced herself that what she’d felt was love; she hadn’t at the time known enough to know the difference.
Now she did.
She knew she loved Del.
To the absolute bottom of her foolish, foolish heart.
Bad enough. She would not-could not-allow herself to compound her stupidity by even imagining that there was even the slightest hope that he might feel the same for her, let alone that he might see her as an eligible lady. One he might marry.
As she’d been told from adolescence on, she wasn’t the marriageable kind. The kind of lady gentlemen wanted to marry.
She was too bossy. Too headstrong, too opinionated. Too willful.
Regardless, even if Del were different, and might have considered her for the position of his wife, he wouldn’t now, now that they were lovers.
The wash of deadening, dismal feelings that flowed through her threatened to sink her.
Still smiling, but inwardly desperate for escape, for distraction, she looked around-and met Del’s eyes.
He’d been watching her. Some part of her had registered it-she’d felt the telltale warmth-but she’d been too engrossed in her black thoughts to respond.