His reaction to that fact was as violent as it had ever been. He still didn’t understand how, or why, she’d done as she had.
All that mattered was that she’d married Randall.
And killed his dreams.
Lowering his arms, he went to push away from the window frame, but stopped.
Looked out across the quiet night and wondered how much he still wanted those dreams.
She was now a widow; she still responded to him as she always had.
He no longer knew what she felt for him—something, certainly, even if it wasn’t what he’d thought. She hadn’t been in love with him as he’d been with her.
But did that matter?
The truth was…
For long minutes more he stood looking out unseeing, wrestling with the question of how much he was willing to give—to bend, to forgive, to accept—to recapture a semblance of those long-ago dreams.
Chapter 6
He bowled through the Nunchance Priory gates at mid-afternoon the next day. The long, winding drive was, he noted, in excellent repair, the trees shading it old but well-trimmed. The lawns and gardens that surrounded the house were neat, but not rigidly so, comfortable and colorful with rambling roses tumbling over walls, their perfumed blooms nodding in the warm breeze.
Beyond the changes expected of the years, all was as he remembered it.
He pulled up in the circular forecourt before the huge, rambling, late Tudor mansion. It had indeed been a priory, one linked to the abbey at Dearne; whereas the abbey hadn’t withstood the ravages of time and the various assaults visited upon it, the priory had escaped the old wars relatively unscathed, and succeeding generations of Vaux had preserved and added to its red-brick magnificence.
Leaving his curricle and horses in the care of a suitably reverent groom, Christian looked up at the long facade, at the many leaded windows that winked and blinked at him. The Allardyces and the Vaux were neighbors of sorts; while they didn’t share any boundaries, they were the two most senior families in the area and throughout the generations had been close acquaintances, if not always as close as friends.
That had been one reason both families had looked upon his and Letitia’s long-ago romance with benign approval, if not outright encouragement. No Vaux and Allardyce had married before, but once the idea bloomed, everyone had concurred that it was high time the families established a closer bond.
Then he’d gone to war, and Letitia had married Randall, and all thought of closer ties in this generation had faded. But the underlying acquaintance had not.
Climbing the shallow front steps, Christian tugged the bellpull.
When the butler, a thoroughly imposing specimen, opened the door, Christian smiled easily. “Good afternoon, Hightsbury. Is your master at home?”
Hightsbury recognized him and unbent enough to return his smile. “Indeed, my lord. Do come in. And may I say what a pleasure it is to see you here again. If you’ll wait in the drawing roo
m, I’ll inquire as to the master’s pleasure.”
Christian consented to cool his heels in the elegant, formal drawing room; naturally, being a Vaux domain, it was also a cornucopia of rich and colorful visual and textural delights.
He barely had time to absorb their combined impact before Hightsbury returned.
“If you’ll come this way, my lord. His lordship is in the library.”
Following Hightsbury down the long, wood-paneled corridors, remembering what little Letitia had said about Justin’s falling out with their father, he considered how to approach the coming interview.
Hightsbury opened a tall door, went in, and announced, “Lord Dearne, my lord.”
“Heh?” A white-haired figure hunched over a large desk swung around to peer at the door.
Christian was momentarily taken aback; the earl appeared swathed in a dressing gown—then he realized it was a long, soft, dun-colored coat of the sort serious scholars wore to protect their clothes from ink stains.
He smiled and went forward.
The earl peered at him from under bushy white brows. His hair stood up in tufts, as if he’d tugged at it; Christian saw the odd ink stain in the tumbled locks. All in all, the earl’s reputation as an irascible, unpredictable eccentric appeared well-founded.