No Regrets (18 page)

   Stockbridge tossed the cigar into the fire. He rested his forearms on his knees and lowered his tone. "Now listen to me, Foxhaven. This is important."

   The reasonable tone of voice and the obvious attempt at control stirred suspicion in Lucas's breast. When his father wanted something, it came with a price. "I am listening."

   "What I am about to tell you must not go out of this room. Do I have your word?"

   "Would you trust it if I gave it?"

   The fire crackled and hissed. Stockbridge glared and pressed his lips together.

   By dint of long practice, Lucas kept his expression bland and suffered the pain of his father's low opinion in silence. He forced a calm reply. "I give my word not to speak of it."

   Stockbridge flicked his cigar into the fire and leaned back with the air of a man about to impart welcome news. "Any son produced by Carolyn is heir to a large inheritance from her mother's side of the family."

   Every nerve jumping to attention at first, he then slouched deeper in the chair. "Rubbish. She only married me because her father left the family destitute."

   "The Valeron family chateau and estate in Champagne is hers for the taking."

   "There you are wrong. There's some cousin or other floating about. I met him." And would have killed him, given half the chance. He'd hoped to run into the bastard at one of the clubs or hells the previous night. A challenge over a gaming table would have been a fitting end to the scene on the balcony. Only Caro would never forgive him. An unfamiliar tightness squeezed his lungs.

   Triumph turned his father's smile into a sneer. "The so-called Chevalier, you mean? He's not a blood relative." He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a new cigar, and lit it.

   Lucas waited. Father would not be rushed.

   Stockbridge blew a smoke ring. "The old matriarch, Honoré Valeron, found him abandoned and adopted him after Carolyn's mother fled France with her parents. Somehow the old woman managed to keep her head and her estate. As the last direct descendant, any son born to Carolyn will inherit everything."

   "This is significant?"

   "God damn you, Foxhaven. Of course it is. Such a holding in France will have tremendous importance for the future."

   Power. It was the one thing his father truly valued. Power over people, over decisions, over wealth. And he expected Lucas to feel the same.

   Lucas gazed at his father. The noble brow, usually smooth and impassive, creased. A slight wavering in the drift of smoke from his cigar revealed a rare tremble to his hand. These were signs of stress under strict control; there was an element of panic behind the bluster. "Not done up, are you?" Lucas asked.

   A muscle jerked in his father's heavy jowl. "Don't talk nonsense. You know nothing of business or politics. Just do as you are told."

   Someone had Stockbridge backed into a corner. Lucas felt it in his bones. He pushed to his feet, wanting the interview over and not sure how to end it without forcibly throwing the old man out. He leaned his elbow on the mantel, staring into the flaming coals. He tapped the horse-headed, brass fire irons hanging from their stand with his booted foot. They chinked against each other, a carillon of tawdry bells.

   He kept his voice casual. "How long have you known this?"

   "Before I made the marriage contract with Torrington for his dumpling of a daughter, of course."

   Lucas stiffened at the slight. He wanted to push the words down his father's throat. He clamped his jaw down hard. Anything he said would be grist for his father's mill.

   Uninterested in any opinion Lucas might have, as always, Stockbridge continued his monologue. "The old fool. Never could see beyond the end of his sanctimonious nose. So glad to get an advantageous match, he couldn't wait to sign her over."

   And you couldn't wait to do the same to me. Bitterness and sour brandy scoured Lucas's throat.

   Damn it all. By serving his own ends, he'd become a pawn in his father's machinations— something he'd sworn never to allow again. He shot a sidelong glance at his father. "Why the haste? Heir now, heir later, what is the difference?"

   Stockbridge spoke slowly as if instructing a child. "Because, my dear boy, if Carolyn doesn't have an heir before Honoré dies, it all goes to the Chevalier. According to Cedric, she wants to see it settled."

   Why the hell hadn't Cedric told him what was in the wind? He usually forewarned him when Father had one of his starts. He spoke with chilly indifference. "I see. I will diligently plough the Torrington furrow, produce a nice little French heir, and assure the Stockbridge family a place in an anglophile France." He nudged at the coalscuttle with his foot. "In the meantime, the Stockbridge family fortunes will be augmented by a sound business proposition."

   His father flashed him an ironic smile. "Your perspicacity, for once, is outstanding, Lucas."

   The use of his Christian name meant his father presumed he'd won.

   "How much is it worth?" Lucas asked.

   "Twenty thousand a year, maybe more."

   A soft whistle escaped him. Enough to bring the joy of music to hundreds of orphan boys. "To do anything else would not make sense, I suppose. Twenty thousand pounds a year would be an incentive to bed even the most unattractive female."

   Stockbridge's gaze glittered with anticipation. "At last you show sense."

   Lucas gripped the edges of the white marble mantelpiece, feeling the cold under his clammy palms. The plan did not benefit Caro one iota of course. She would simply be the conduit to more wealth for the Stockbridge coffers. He felt sick to his stomach at the betrayal.

   He pushed away from the mantel and dropped into his chair. "Why the hell didn't you tell me about this before?"

   "What?" His father's eyes opened wide and then shuttered. "It wasn't necessary for you to know."

   "Because you knew I'd tell her father the truth. Because you knew she could marry whomever she pleased." The thought chilled his hot-blooded fury to ice.

   "One fortune hunter is as good as another," Stockbridge said. "And even then you made a mess of it. Frightened her off the first time."

   Lucas thumped the chair arm with his fist. "She only agreed to marry me because she had no option. What is she going to think when she finds out?"

   "You are married. What can she do?"

   She could invoke the escape clause in their agreement. Unless he got her with child. He had barely kept his hands off her these past few days. If he lost control again, that option would be lost to her. He felt like a bear in a trap. He'd have to chew off a limb to escape.

   He would not go back on his word.

   "Well?" Stockbridge said.

   He gave his father stare for stare. "It all seems eminently reasonable, my lord. Therefore, I must refuse."

   For a moment, Stockbridge's jaw worked as if he chewed on unpalatable fury. He leaped to his feet, his fleshy throat wobbling. "You impudent puppy. Are you telling me you won't get an heir?"

   "Your grasp of the English language is extraordinary, sir."

   Stockbridge's chest heaved on a huge indrawn breath, and his black eyes bored into Lucas. "Damn you." He drew himself up straight. "There is one thing I can always say about you, Foxhaven," he grated out. "You never fail to disappoint me."

   Refusing to flinch from the disgust on his father's face, Lucas rose languidly from his chair and, with a curl to his lip, executed a bow as elegant as the Chevalier's. "Glad to oblige, Father."

   Stockbridge shoved past him and stormed out through the open door. His heavy tread clattered down the stairs, and a few moments later, the sound of the front door banging echoed through the house.

   With a long sigh, Lucas relaxed. Once again, he'd proved the old man correct in his bad opinion. Any hope of resolving their differences vanished.

   He squeezed his eyes shut and willed the pounding in his head to cease. He'd have to find a reason to stay out of his wife's company if he wanted to avoid the worst case of lust he'd ever experienced.

   He strolled along the hall to the breakfast room.

   The buttered toast tasted like blotting paper. Caro replaced it on her plate and clenched her shaking hands together on her lap, staring at the four neat squares of browned bread, one nibbled at the corner. Something to eat always settled her nerves. Her father always swore a good meal cured bad humors. Another old homily he favored pattered through her mind like well-remembered footsteps: eavesdroppers never hear well of themselves.

   Twenty thousand pounds a year would be an incentive to bed even the most unattractive female.

   Lord Stockbridge wanted an heir to the title, and Lucas had agreed—for a tidy sum.

   Misery washed through her. Lucas had lied. She swallowed, but the hard crumb in her throat remained stuck. He'd agreed they could divorce at any time. They couldn't if they had child.

   In the distance, a bang signaled Lord Stockbridge's departure.

   Someone with so little to offer could expect nothing else, her mind whispered. A man like Lucas needed a bribe to suffer her as a wife. Her heart shriveled into a bloodless lump in the cavern of her chest. Hot tears pricked behind her eyelids.

   She blinked furiously. Having come to London to establish herself as a fashionable lady of the ton, she would not go home a failure. Unattractive she might be, fat and plain too, but she'd stood up to Lucas before, and now that she knew the truth, she could do so again.

   Composing her face into calm indifference in case Beckwith should return to tend the buffet on the sideboard, she slathered her toast with peach preserve and took another bite of now-sweetened blotting paper.

   The door swung open, and Lucas, eyes redrimmed, unshaven, and dressed in a blue silk dressing gown over his breeches, sauntered in. He looked like a disreputable pirate ready to ravish an innocent maiden.

   Excitement shimmered deep in her stomach. How mortifying that after what she'd heard, she couldn't resist him in such tempting disarray. She managed a cool smile. "Good morning."

   "Good morning." He strolled to the sideboard, poured coffee, and browsed the silver dishes, selecting coddled eggs and a slice of ham.

   Every movement emphasized his sculpted muscles beneath the soft folds of silk. A beautiful male, her husband, and he found her unattractive. It wasn't anything new, but hearing him say it so bluntly cut deep.

   Caro forced her gaze back to her plate.

   From the corner of her eye, she watched him carry his cup and plate to his usual seat around the corner from her. He rarely rose before noon, but when he did come to breakfast, she was always thrilled to see him. Today she wished him elsewhere.

   "My father just left," he said. He speared a piece of ham.

   "I hope he didn't think me remiss in not bidding him welcome." She'd almost walked in on their conversation, and only the sound of her name stopped her from opening the half-closed door.

   Lucas grimaced. "He came on business."

   The business of Lucas getting her with child. She held his gaze. "I'm sorry I missed him." She brought her coffee cup to her mouth, proud to see that it shook only a little.

   He seemed at a loss for words, his eyes wary. "Did I tell you I am going out of town again tonight? I am engaged to go to Charlie's hunting box for a couple of days."

   Relief washed through her. His absence would give her some needed time to plan her escape from this marriage. "I wish you a pleasant trip."

   A smile lightened his expression. "Thank you. What are your plans for today?"

   That smile turned him from disreputable to seductive in the blink of an eye. Once more the charming pirate caressed the innocent maid with his gaze. But this time, the maiden knew better than to fall for his sinful good looks. She hoped.

   Resting her wrist on the table edge to still her trembling hand, she carefully set her cup in her saucer. "This morning, I am going to Madame Charis's. Later, I am going riding in Hyde Park."

   "I will go with you. I want to take a look at that mare of yours. Tigs said she's too high strung for a lady's saddle."

   "He's wrong. She is perfectly sweet tempered. She needs frequent exercise, that is all."

   Not exactly sweet. Fraise had tried to unseat her in the stable yard the first day she tried out her paces, but after a brief tussle of wills, Caro had brought the spirited mare under control.

   He frowned. "If she's unmanageable, I'll get you something more suitable."

   "You will not put me on some slug. You know I am too good a horsewoman for that. No, Lucas, I want to keep Fraise."

   "I still wish to see for myself."

   "Not today. I have an engagement."

   Fires smoldered in the depths of his narrowed eyes. "Who?"

   "Does it matter?"

   "Who is it, Caro? I am your husband and am responsible for you."