Julia London (52 page)

Michael scrawled his signature across a bank draft Sebastian handed him. A sudden silence caused him to lift his head; the quill pen stilled on the paper. The music had stopped. He handed a sheaf of papers to Sebastian and turned to greet the young boy who burst through the French doors and onto the terrace.

“Papa, Papa!” the boy cried as he threw himself into his father’s waiting arms.

“Aidan, how is my boy?” Michael asked cheerfully as he tousled the boy’s hair and hugged him tightly before putting him on his feet. “Have you finished your music lesson?”

The boy nodded vigorously. “Mama said I may play with an orchestra someday!” he announced proudly. Michael doubted his young son knew what an orchestra was.

“That you will, son.” In truth, all three of his children showed the promise of rare talent. He no longer had to imagine an orchestra when Abbey played. With Alaina on the pianoforte and Alexa on the violin, the three women of his family played sweet trios. Aidan, his youngest child, was showing
even more promise than his sisters on the strings. Michael sat down and gathered the boy on his lap.

“Aunt Tori and Uncle Sam are coming for supper, did you know?” he asked. The little boy frowned.

“She has a
baby
, Papa, and it cries all the time. Mama said that’s what babies do, but I don’t remember
ever
crying like that!” he averred, and folded his arms across his chest and nodded for emphasis.

Michael and Sebastian laughed.

“I assure you, my little prince, you also cried,” Michael told him.

Aidan wrinkled his nose and tilted his head as he looked up at his father. “I did?” he asked incredulously.

“You did indeed,” Michael said again, then leaned forward and whispered, “But not as often as Alexa, and certainly not as loudly as Alaina.”

“No one could
ever
cry as loud as Alaina,” the boy said, rolling his eyes.

As if on cue, two young girls came bounding through the French doors.

“Papa!” they cried in unison. Michael smiled warmly at his two young daughters. Alexa, with her hair the color of coal and crystal-blue eyes, resembled him. Alaina had her mother’s mahogany hair and violet eyes. Aidan, the youngest, was a peculiar mix of them both, with his father’s black hair and his mother’s violet eyes. Michael thought the three were the most handsome children he had ever seen and thought himself rather objective in his assessment. Of course, when he had mentioned that to Sam, his good friend had differed, and pointed to his own son and new daughter as proof that he and Tori had produced the more handsome offspring.

“What are you doing, Papa?” Alaina asked as she poked through some papers he had left on the wrought-iron table.

“I am waiting for your mother, my love. Kindly keep your hands to yourself.”

The girl immediately pulled back and turned her lovely face to him. “Where is she?” she asked.

“She has gone to Pemberheath, pet.”

“You are
forever
waiting on Mama! Every time she goes away, you say the same thing,” Alexa declared, fingering his neckcloth.

“Yes, Papa, why don’t you make her stay? Then you won’t have to wait so terribly long!” Alaina added. The three children turned expectant faces up to him.

“Because, my dear ones, if your mama never left, I would never wait for her.”

“But why do you want to wait for her all the time?” Alexa demanded.

Michael smiled and caressed his daughter’s cheek. “If I don’t wait, sweetheart, I may well forget
why
I wait for her.”

“Why do you wait, Papa?” Aidan asked.

“Because I love your mama very much. Now go and find your nanny. Your aunt and uncle shall be here soon.” The three children scampered off, knocking into one another as they tried to crowd through the door at the same time.

Sebastian rose. “I think I should assess the damage to the study,” he remarked dryly, and followed the children inside. Michael turned back to retrieve some papers he had forgotten, and caught a glimpse of Abbey walking with Withers through the garden. Obviously, the old gardener had waylaid her as she came in the drive to have her look at his newest accomplishment. Abbey, now thirty-four years of age, was more beautiful than ever. He was beginning to see a few gray hairs in her mahogany tresses, and the crinkles around her eyes were a bit more pronounced, but she had grown lovelier with each passing year. With the birth of their first child, Alexa, she had gained an appealing maturity.

Abbey saw him standing on the terrace and waved, her brilliant smile still capable of sending a quiet shiver down his spine. Lord, how his life had been blessed. He wished he could say he had earned it through years of waiting or some good deed. But in truth, it had all fallen on him unexpectedly, like the old stones of the ruins that tumbled to the earth. One cold day, when he was not really looking, she had tumbled into his life and into his heart.

Abbey was climbing the stairs now, and when she reached
the terrace, she walked straight into his open arms, and kissed him lightly. “What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“Waiting for you, sweetheart.”

Abbey laughed, her violet eyes sparkling, and linked her arm through his. “Wait no more, darling. I am here.”

The Devil’s Love

Wicked Angel

The Rogues of Regent Street series:

The Dangerous Gentleman

The Ruthless Charmer

The Beautiful Stranger

The Secret Lover

JULIA LONDON is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of more than a dozen historical romance novels, including the acclaimed Desperate Debutantes series, the Lockhart Family Highland trilogy (for which she was twice the finalist for the prestigious RITA award for excellence in romantic fiction), and The Rogues of Regent Street series, including
The Dangerous Gentleman, The Ruthless Charmer, The Beautiful Stranger
, and
The Secret Lover
. You may write Julia at P.O. Box 228, Georgetown, Texas, 78627, or at
[email protected]
. For news and updates, please visit her website at
www.julialondon.com
.

Bavaria, 1828

Paul Hill felt the first stab of true panic—a young woman was wearing what he thought was one of his sister’s gowns. And if he was not mistaken, she was also wearing a gold locket he had given Lauren on her sixteenth birthday. Standing in the dank foyer of a perfectly gothic castle, Paul feared he had arrived too late. As the woman searched for someone who could make some sense of his pathetic attempt at German, he wondered helplessly if once again he would find himself in a situation where he would be unable to help his sister. Swallowing past a lump of rising panic, he thought there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why the woman was wearing Lauren’s clothes and jewelry, though at the moment, that perfectly reasonable explanation escaped him.

He shifted, leaning against his cane to take the pressure from his crippled leg. If it were not for his infirmity, he might have been able to save her two years ago. He might have been able to provide for her and marry her well before
Uncle Ethan had come up with his detestable scheme. He might have—

“Entshuldigen Sie, Herr …?”

Paul snapped from his ruminations and leveled a cold gaze on a man bent with age. “I have come for my sister,” he announced grandly. The butler silently regarded him. Paul expelled a frustrated sigh; he did not have Lauren’s knack for languages. “
Meine Schwester.
Lauren Hill.”

The old man’s face brightened noticeably. “Ah, Grafin Bergen! She will be quite pleased. We were not certain when you would arrive,” he responded—in perfect English—and cracked a smile consisting of three teeth.

Startled, Paul straightened to his full height. “I demand at
once
to know her whereabouts!”

The old man’s lips closed as he shuffled forward. “I should be perfectly happy to point you in her direction,” he sniffed. “You need only ask. She is, at present, in the servant’s quarters.”

So they had forced her into servitude, the barbarians! “I should hardly think servant’s quarters are befitting a countess,” he snapped.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but the servant’s quarters are just around the north side of the castle,” the man responded indignantly as he pulled the massive oak-planked door open.

Paul pushed past him and moved as quickly as he could in the direction indicated. As he rounded a corner, laughter rose from a row of low-slung stone quarters built along the old curtain wall. Imagining the worst of indignities Lauren was being forced to suffer, he automatically groped at the small pistol he carried at his side.

Her most recent letter telling him of the death of her husband, Helmut Bergen, hinted that things were rather tense in the house. The new count, Helmut’s nephew, Magnus, had taken exception to her unorthodox marriage to the old count. That was hardly surprising—their guardian uncle, Lord Ethan Hill, had arranged this preposterous marriage
in exchange for the whole of the estate upon the old count’s death, a feat he had accomplished without so much as a dowry. Bloody hell, if anything had happened to Lauren, he would strangle Ethan with his bare hands.