“Modesty ill befits you, King Saber.”
“You mock me with the title, but it is sweet to hear my true name again.”
Her already serious face grew somber, and she tugged him to a halt. “Belle says you’ll be leaving us soon to return to Moricadia.”
He touched Ella’s cheek with his forefinger. “Belle is very perceptive.”
Ella took a difficult breath. “So you are going to claim your throne.”
“It’s not as easy as that. I know from the newspaper reports that the de Guignards are still firmly in charge, but I don’t know what is left of the resistance. And my family? I’ve heard no word from anyone since the letter announcing my mother’s death. But that’s not to say Grimsborough hasn’t kept the letters from me.”
At the mention of her father’s name, even Ella’s mouth twisted in dislike. “I would almost say it was a certainty. His determination to sever any ties between you and Moricadia is remarkable only in its steadfast cruelty.”
“There is nothing remarkable about Grimsborough’s cruelty. It’s the one trait we can all depend on.”
“I don’t wish to pain you, but in Moricadia …could it be there is no resistance left? That your family is scattered?” Her wide eyes were anxious.
“That is what I fear.” And he did. All the long years in England, he had worried, hoped, tried to think of a way to investigate the families in Moricadia without attracting the attention of the de Guignards, the usurpers of his throne. Yet their police tortured and murdered any native Moricadians they suspected of insurgence, and he always knew that when he returned home, he had to appear innocuous. So he confined his investigations to questioning visitors who returned from Moricadia, and that had yielded him no information at all.
“What can one man do against these beasts who hold all the power?” She squeezed his arm. “I confess, I fear for you.”
“Don’t fear. I’ll find my family. If necessary, I’ll reunite them, but my family is remarkably resilient. They know the hidden places of the mountains and forests.”
Remembering his childhood in those places, he smiled.
“I must believe that somewhere, they’re still alive.”
“You have said that for two hundred years, since the de Guignards murdered King Reynaldo, they’ve tried to claim that this time they exterminated the remnants of his line, and every year your family fruitlessly fights to recover the throne. Why should your return change that?” In her own way, Ella was aggressive, determined that he realize the challenges ahead.
“With no money and no backing, there was never a chance for my family, but when I return, all that will have changed.” He grinned at her. “Have I not succeeded in using the education Father chose for me in all the best ways possible?”
“You’ve made your fortune?”
“Horses have been good for me. I know them, I know which ones will win, and with my winnings, I know how to buy and breed. Yes, I’ve made my fortune.”
“I’m glad. I only wish … Oh, well.” She shrugged.
“No matter. So you plan to return and win your throne or be killed?”
“There’s always a chance I’ll be killed, but there’s a legend among the Moricadians that when the ghost of Reynaldo rides, it foretells the return of the one true king.”
“Is the ghost of Reynaldo riding?”
“No, but I haven’t returned yet.”
She smiled and hugged his arm. “I wish you wouldn’t go, but I know you’ll never be whole until you are in your home country.”
“What about you, dear sister? What is your fate?”
For she was far too solemn for him to feel easy.
“I’ll marry. I’ll have children. I’ll be widowed young and live out my life in peace.”
His niggling disquiet grew. “You’re not even married and you’re hoping to be widowed?”
She tugged his watch out of its pocket. “Aren’t you supposed to be meeting with Father?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“You’d better hurry. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“Definitely changing the subject.”
“There’ll be time later to talk.” Ella pushed him. “Go on. I have to go get dressed myself.” She walked away, then turned back to him. “Promise me one thing.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me that no matter how dreadful your interview with Father, you’ll stay for Belle’s party.”
He hesitated. Ella only suspected the interview would be dreadful. Raul knew very well that when his father heard the news Raul intended to give him, he would be in a cold rage.
“Your departure would ruin this party for her, and she’s had little enough joy in her life,” Ella insisted.
“Yes. I know. Very well. I will stay.”
“And say farewell to us before you leave forever.”
“That I would not fail to do.”
Ella walked back to him, reached up, and smoothed the midnight dark hair off his forehead. “I don’t care what the gossips say about you. You’re a good man, and wherever you go, remember— we girls love you dearly.”
He took her hand and lightly kissed her fingertips. “If I am a good man, the credit goes to you and my sisters.”
“I think not. The goodness is at the bedrock of your being, built there by your character.”
God, he hoped that was the truth.
But as he stepped into his father’s study and looked at Grimsborough’s dark visage, so like his own, he didn’t believe it for a minute.
Chapter Four
As always, Grimsborough sat at his desk, writing on some papers that held his complete attention.
Raul knew his father wasn’t putting on airs with his imperious ways. Grimsborough simply saw no reason to politely acknowledge a visitor before he had reached a stopping point. In his own opinion, and in the opinion of his wiser servants, no one on earth was as important a personage as the Viscount Grimsborough. Yet Raul had reached the glorious moment where what and who his father was meant nothing to him.
So he seated himself in the chair before Grimsborough’s desk and waited without apparent interest for his father to finish whatever occupied him.
When his father put down his pen, a portentous silence followed.
Raul glanced up.
“So!” Grimsborough sounded irritated. Because Raul was studying the shine on his boots? Or because the figures on his sheet of paper didn’t add up to his satisfaction? “You say you’re done with school.”
“I am done with school. I have learned everything I need to know there.”
“I suppose you think you should go on the Grand Tour.”
“Not at all.” Grimsborough still made the mistake of assuming that Raul was like other young English gentlemen: vapid, self-absorbed, convinced that the world revolved around them. While in fact Raul knew very well that if he wished the world to revolve around him, he would have to work to create that world.
“Good.” Grimsborough was one of those English gentlemen: no longer young, but still self-absorbed. “Because it’s come to my attention that you’ve shown a talent with horses.”
“All Moricadians are good with horses. It’s a talent bred into me by my ancestors.”
As Raul knew it would, his claim on Moricadia goaded Grimsborough into snapping, “Nonsense. You’re only half Moricadian, and your bent comes from being around superior English horses.”
“As you say. ”With studied indifference, Raul straightened the crease of his trousers.
Satisfied he had quelled Raul’s brief rebellion, Grimsborough went right to the point. “My wishes are that you should take over the direction of my racing stables.”
“Those are your wishes?” Raul hated that his father could aggravate him with such ease and without even realizing he had done it. Raul should be bigger than this … but this was his father, the man who had ordered him beaten, forced civilization on him, and almost killed him, and all becaus
e of a careless union with Raul’s mother. Careless on Grimsborough’s part only; Raul knew his mother had loved the man who had so betrayed her. For that, he almost pitied her, and yet …he missed her still. He would go for months without remembering. Then he would dream about her, and the grief would catch him by the throat.
He hadn’t been there to hold her hand while she died, to whisper of a son’s love— and that had been his fault.
It was all his fault.
“I’d pay you a commission, of course, based on the amount of your winnings.” Grimsborough clearly believed he was making a concession.
Raul almost smiled. Almost. “Is this a test, sir, to check my worthiness?”
“What do you mean?” Grimsborough seemed truly puzzled, as he undoubtedly was.
“Your minions have drilled into me the wonder of your generosity in allowing me to join, despite my bastard birth, the ranks of English gentlemen.”
Grimsborough nodded pontifically.
“I’ve learned that a gentleman spits on the idea of earning lucre through any kind of honest labor.” Raul had watched noblemen, old and young, lose their homes, wreck their families, flee to the continent, or go to debtors’ prison rather than earn a living. He scorned them—but Grimsborough didn’t know that.
For the first time in his life, Raul saw Grimsborough warily pick his words. “Of course, while it’s true that most English gentlemen carefully eschew the appearance of work, there are men who do work because circumstances demand they do so.”
“But not the son of the Viscount Grimsborough.
Indeed, I know that as your bastard, I should be even more careful than men who were legitimately born to the ranks. So I’m afraid I must refuse your generous offer.” Raul scrutinized his father, not seeing the cracks in Grimsborough’s composure, but knowing they were there.
Irritation at having his wishes balked sent a whipcord of color into Grimsborough’s sculpted cheeks. “Then I shall have to cut off your allowance.”
“As you wish.” Raul stood, satisfied with every aspect of the interview.
“What do you think you’re going to do without your allowance? You have no money of your own.” With deliberate malice, Grimsborough added, “Your mother’s family clearly hasn’t contributed to your support. In fact— your mother’s family hasn’t written in years.”
Remembering his conversation with Ella, Raul asked,
“How many years, sir?”
“What?”
“When you told me of my grandfather’s death, and again of my mother’s death, a pile of letters sat at your elbow. So someone did write.” Resentment put a bite into Raul’s voice. “For how long, sir, was my family ignored?”
“I judged it better to cleanly sever your ties with Moricadia.” Not an answer, but it told Raul so much.
“A clean amputation, you might say.”
“Exactly.” Grimsborough seemed to believe Raul approved.
“Where are the letters now?”
“I gave them to Thompson to burn. Why?”
“I’m returning to Moricadia, sailing on tomorrow evening’s tide, and I would like to know the situation I face.” Raul twirled his watch fob. “But perhaps not knowing is better.”
“Mori … Moricadia?” In the first spontaneous movement Raul had ever seen from him, Grimsborough came to his feet. “What do you intend to do in Moricadia?
There’s nothing there!”
“You are very wrong. Moricadia is famous for its gambling houses, its spas, its pleasure seekers— and its racetracks. I have purchased a castle with extensive stables. My hostler, my handler, my horses have preceded me. I shall make a fine living among the bon ton.”
Grimsborough strode around the desk and came to a halt in front of Raul, his nostrils flared, his green eyes lit with cold fury. “Where did you get this money for horses? For travel? For a castle? Have you been stealing from me?”
Raul held his temper as he held his horses, with a steady hand and a fine eye for the winning move. “How would that be possible, sir? You’ve gambled away most of your fine fortune, and word is out on London streets— loan no more to the Viscount Grimsborough, for that way lies penury.”
Grimsborough flung his head back in shock. Lifted his hand to slap his son.
Raul looked into his eyes, his own gaze icy with warning. “I would not do that if I were you.”
The silence that followed was long, fraught with shifting power.
Grimsborough’s hand dropped.
He was, possibly for the first time in his life, afraid of another person.
“Very wise,” Raul said.
Raul’s taunt infuriated his father, and, putting his face close to Raul’s, Grimsborough said, “You owe me for your education! Your clothes! Your life! I demand that you give up this ridiculous scheme to return to— ” He caught his breath, his eyes becoming a pale green as an old memory returned to him. “Wait! You still think you’re some kind of Moricadian royalty, don’t you? Well, let me tell you, my lad, when I seduced her, your mother was nothing but a serving maid in my hotel. When I left her, I told her to send word if she was with child and the child was a son. I heard nothing until you arrived on my doorstep. God knows what happened after I left her.
She no doubt prostituted herself.”
Raul swallowed the bile in his throat. “My grandfather wouldn’t have allowed such a thing.”
Grimsborough drew himself up to his full height—only to discover he no longer overtopped Raul. Wild with rancor, he said, “Ha! Your grandfather was nothing but an old peasant with aspirations. I don’t even know if you’re mine.”
A scurrilous insult, and one both men knew to be false.
They stared at each other from identically colored eyes, two men who shared nothing but blood and bone—and an abiding hatred for the other.
“All the better reason for me to leave England. Farewell, Father. I hope that our paths never cross again.”
Raul strode toward the door. Turning, he faced his father again. “By the way, you might want to find yourself a new butler. Thompson is going with me to Moricadia.”
“You worthless bastard.” Grimsborough’s words slashed at Raul.
Raul paused. Took a grip on his suddenly precarious temper. “A bastard, certainly. The bastard son of the biggest wastrel in all England. I wonder, Father, what you will do next.”
Grimsborough hissed like a dying snake.
With a bow, Raul walked out, wanting desperately to leave this house forever, but bound by his promise to one sister and his affection for the others.
Bound, when he would rather be free.
Chapter Five
Smiling, nodding, Victoria made her way through the ballroom, then up the stairs, never slowing to speak to the other revelers until she could step outside the open door onto the long balcony that rimmed the upper story.
The night was warm, clear, and moonless. The fresh air had enticed the small groups who stood in the light of the open windows and gazed out over the midnight gardens.
Composure determinedly intact, Victoria turned to the right, got to the corner of the stately home, then turned right again toward the darkest corner, where the sound of the music and conversation faded. There she walked more slowly, taking care not to stumble over chairs artfully placed in conversational poses, toward the stone railing, and stared blindly into the moonless night.
She listened oh so carefully, and when she had heard no voices, no footsteps, no sound, she took a breath to ease the constriction of her chest. Then, with careful deliberation, she broke, one by one, the ivory stays of her white lace fan. Staring at it as if it were the focus of her ire, she said, “You … insufferable … ass.” Her voice was quiet, intense … shaking. She took another breath. “How dare you … ? As if I want you … You’re rich and you’re ugly and you’re old and you’re fickle and— ” Another long breath. “Fifty years old. Fifty! And I’m barely eighteen.
Puny, bony, gray complexioned, and
married. Disgusting! Have you never heard there’s no fool like an old fool? Do you imagine I’m here looking for a patron?”
She put her fingers to her face and realized angry tears wet the fingers of her borrowed white gloves. Tears of anger. Tears of humiliation.
The first time Lord Meredith rubbed his elbow against her breast, she had thought it was an error.
The second time, she flushed, excused herself, and moved away.
This was her fault. All her fault. She should never have allowed Belle and her sisters to dress her up like a fancy doll. The gown was the height of fashion: a glowing azure silk, cut with a wide skirt that gathered at her tiny waist, puff sleeves that bared her shoulders and back.
She should have realized that some vile man would interpret it as an invitation.
But she was always careful. Always. A girl in her position couldn’t afford scandal. Foolishly, she had thought herself safe here, in her friend’s noble home. She had imagined that men who would take advantage of a woman left virtually alone in the world would respect the reputable circumstances if not the impoverished female.
Her mother would be pleased to know this lesson of propriety had been thoroughly learned, and with no damage to Victoria’s good character.
She took another long breath as she tried to ease the constriction of the corset that pinched her waist so harshly. Then, as she remembered Lord Meredith’s touch, she shuddered and her skin crawled. “I wouldn’t have a man like you… .” Lord Meredith wasn’t here to listen, but she berated him anyway. “I wouldn’t have any man… . Cretin! Inbred buffoon!”
Yes. She had to take every care, for if she failed to safeguard her reputation, no one would hire her as a governess and she would suffer only two choices— living forever in her stepfather’s home on his grudging charity, or taking a man like Lord Meredith as her protector.
Both options were unacceptable.
She stared at the broken, shredded fan, then threw it as hard as she could.
The lace caught the breeze, flapped here and there like a wounded bat, and landed in the bushes far below.
“Unspeakable!” she said.