Worse-she knew it. A golden-eyed siren, she'd deliberately tempted him-and very nearly lured him to the rocks.
That a woman could reduce his vaunted self-control to the merest vestige of its usual despotic strength was not a fact he liked to contemplate. He'd slept alone last night-not well. He'd spent half the night thinking, warily wondering. The truth was he was more deeply entangled than he'd thought. The truth was, he yearned to let go-to lose himself utterly-in loving her. Just formulating that thought was enough to unnerve him-he'd always equated losing control, especially in that arena, as a form of surrender.
To knowingly surrender-knowingly let go as she'd asked-was… too unnerving to imagine.
Their interaction had developed dangerous undercurrents-currents he'd failed to forsee when he'd set sail on this particular tack. What would happen if she held firm to her inexplicable refusal? Would he ever be able to give her up? Let her go? Marry some other woman?
Vane shifted on the hard seat and resettled the reins in his hands. He didn't even want to consider those questions. Indeed, he refused point-blank to consider them. If she could take a stance, so could he.
She was going to marry him-she was going to be his wife. He just had to convince her there was no sane alternative.
The first step was to discover the basis for her inexplicable stance, the reason she would not agree to marriage. As the curricle rolled on, the pace slow so the carriages could keep up, he wrestled with schemes to uncover Patience's problem, which had now become his.
They stopped briefly for lunch at Harpenden. Both Patience and Timms spent their time cosseting Minnie, still under the weather. Other than a low-voiced query as to Gerrard's strength, Patience had no time to spend with him. Laying her sisterly qualms to rest, he let her return to Minnie's side, squelching all thought of taking her up in his curricle. Minnie's need was greater than his.
Their cavalcade got under way again. Gerrard settled back, surveying all with a keen and curious eye. "I've never been this far south."
"Oh?" Vane kept his gaze on his horses. "Where, exactly, is your home?"
Gerrard told him, describing the valley outside Chesterfield using words like brushstrokes; Vane had no difficulty seeing it in his mind's eye. "We've always lived there," Gerrard concluded. "For the most part, Patience runs things, but she's been teaching me the ropes for the last year."
"It must have been hard when your father died so unexpectedly-difficult for your mother and Patience to take up the reins."
Gerrard shrugged. "Not really. They'd been managing the estate for years even then-first Mama, then Patience."
"But…" Vane frowned. He glanced at Gerrard. "Surely your father managed the estate?"
Gerrard shook his head. "He was never interested. Well, he was never there. He died when I was six, and I couldn't remember him even then. I can't recall him ever staying for more than a few nights. Mama said he preferred London and his London friends-he didn't come home very often. It used to make her sad."
His gaze grew distant as memory took hold. "She was always trying to describe him to us, how handsome and gentlemanly he was, how he rode so well to hounds, how he carried the cloak of a gentleman so elegantly. Whenever he appeared, even if for only one day, she was always eager for us to see how impressive he was." He grimaced. "But I can't recall what he looked like at all."
A chill struck Vane's soul. For Gerrard, with his vivid visual memory, to have no recollection of his father spoke volumes. Yet for well-heeled gentlemen to behave toward their families as Reginald Debbington had was not unheard of and no crime. Vane knew it. But he'd never before been close to the children of such men, never before had cause to feel sorrow and anger on their behalf-sorrow and anger they themselves, the deprived, did not know they should feel-for what their father had not given them. All the things his own family, the Cynsters, held dear-all they stood for-family, home, and hearth. To have and to hold was the Cynster motto. The first necessitated the second-that was something all male Cynsters understood from their earliest years. You desired, you seized-then you accepted responsibility. Actively. When it came to family, Cynsters were nothing if not active.
As the curricle bowled along, Vane struggled to grasp the reality Gerrard had described-he could see Gerrard's home, but couldn't conceive of its atmosphere, how it had functioned. The entire concept-a family without its natural leader, its most stalwart defender-was alien to him.
He could, however, imagine how Patience-his determined, independent, practical wife-to-be-would have viewed her father's behavior. Vane frowned. "Your father-was Patience very attached to him?"
&n
bsp; Gerrard's puzzled look was answer enough. "Attached to him?" His brows rose. "I don't think so. When he died, I remember her saying something about duty, and what was expected." After a moment, he added, "It's difficult to become attached to someone who's not there."
Someone who didn't value your attachment. Vane heard the words in his head-and wondered.
The shadows were lengthening when their cavalcade pulled up in Aldford Street, just west of South Audley Street. Vane threw the reins to Duggan and jumped down. Minnie's traveling carriage rocked to a stop behind his curricle, directly before the steps of Number 22. A discreet, gentleman's residence, Number 22 had been hired at short notice by a certain Mr. Montague, man of business to many of the Cynsters.
Opening the door of Minnie's carriage, Vane handed Patience to the pavement. Timms followed, then Minnie. Vane knew better than to attempt to carry her. Instead, with Patience lending support on her other side, he helped Minnie climb the steep steps. The rest of Minnie's household began debouching from their carriages, attracting the attention of late strollers. An army of footmen swarmed out of the house to assist with the luggage.
At the top of the steps, the front door stood open. Patience, carefully guiding Minnie, looked up as they gained the narrow porch-and discovered a strange personage standing in the front hall, holding the door wide. Stoop-shouldered, wiry, with an expression that would have done credit to a drenched cat, he was the oddest butler she'd ever encountered.
Vane, however, appeared to find nothing odd about the man; he nodded briefly as he helped Minnie over the threshold. "Sligo."
Sligo bowed. "Sir."
Minnie looked up and beamed. "Why, Sligo, what a pleasant surprise."
Following in Minnie's wake, Patience could have sworn Sligo blushed. Looking uncomfortable, he bowed again. "Ma'am."
In the melee that followed, as Minnie and Timms, then all the others, were received and shown to their rooms, Patience had ample time to observe Sligo, and the absolute rule he wielded over the junior servants. Both Masters and Mrs. Henderson, who had traveled up with their mistress, clearly recognized Sligo and treated him as a respected equal.