Prince of Ravenscar (Sherbrooke Brides 11)

“We will see soon enough if he is sincere.”

Sophie said, “Something is wrong, Julian.”

He frowned but found his step was quicker as he walked up the wide steps to the front portico.

21

Time is nature’s way of keeping everything

from happening at once.

—WOODY ALLEN

Julian didn’t know why he was surprised, but he was. Richard Langworth stood in the now open front door, the Langworth butler at his elbow, a fine sneer on both their mouths. So this was the something Sophie felt was wrong. She’d somehow sensed that Richard was here. Well, his presence would certainly make things more interesting.

“So you brought all your ladies,” Richard said, sneer in full bloom. “Your timing, as always, Julian, is impressive. My father is anxious to see you. Since he wrote me the same time I wrote you, I decided it best that I come.” He stepped back, saw the three ladies, two maids, and Julian’s valet, Pliny, and whistled.

Julian stepped back, allowing the ladies to precede him into the long, narrow entrance hall.

The butler, Tegan, tall, straight, and more impressive than King William on a good day, cleared his throat. “His lordship instructed me to show you to the library immediately, Lord Julian. Perhaps the ladies would care to refresh themselves in the drawing room?”

“I would like to be shown to my room,” Corinne said.

“Forgive me, your grace, but dinner will be served in precisely”—he consulted his watch—“thirteen minutes. As you know, his lordship has a fondness for punctuality.”

“It is more than mere fondness, Tegan, it is an obsession with him,” Richard said. “However, if the ladies wish to refresh themselves, I am certain Julian can keep my father occupied.”

Tegan gave a short bow to Richard, gave a longer look to Julian, and escorted both him and Richard to the library, a grim, dark room Baron Purley had inhabited and loved for forty years, a room that had, as a child, made Julian uneasy—too many dark corners where an enemy could hide.

He saw Rupert Langworth, Baron Purley, closer to seventy than sixty, seated in his favorite chair, heavy and dark with elaborate carved arms, behind a massive mahogany desk of equal years. He slowly rose. He never looked away from Julian as he said, “Richard, leave us.”

Richard said, “I hope you know what you’re doing.” At his father’s nod, Richard left the library, closing the door behind him.

“Come here, Julian, I wish to see you. It has been three years.”

Rupert Langworth looked hale and hearty, as fit as Julian, his full head of white hair as thick as Julian’s.

“I suppose I was expecting to see you wheezing in your deathbed, sir, bargaining with God to bring you to Him rather than to the Devil, issuing orders on what foods would be served at your funeral breakfast.”

“I didn’t wish to lay it on with a trowel, but I thought the veriest hint I might be dying and wanted to close my accounts was the only way I could think of getting you here, Julian.”

“I believe a straightforward invitation would have sufficed. I did not come alone. My mother is with me, as well as her two protégées, Roxanne Radcliffe and Sophie Wilkie. I had not expected to see Richard here. Are we to have a house party, sir?”

“No, it is more a funeral. We are to bury the hatchet.”

“In my head?”

“No.” Rupert Langworth raised a pistol and fired.

22

Julian’s breath whooshed out as the bullet slammed into a bookshelf three feet to his left. He didn’t move, merely stared at the baron.

“You see how easy it would be to kill you and end poor Richard’s obsession with you.”

His heart was still beating a mad tattoo. “That is true, sir, you could, but you would also doubtless hang.”

“For taking revenge on the man who murdered my daughter? I don’t believe a jury of my peers would find me guilty.” Rupert wiped his handkerchief over the pistol, laid it carefully back into the top desk drawer, closed the drawer.