Treasured Vows (10 page)

Miss Abbott surprised him by laying a hand on his shoulder. The gesture was strangely comforting. “What did you do?”

“I went looking for him—and I found him. He and a crony had picked up a young girl on the street. They had raped her. A young girl.” He stood abruptly, feeling a need to put distance between himself and Miss Abbott’s compassion. “You can’t imagine the things they did.”

The memory was too real, too vivid. He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep, steadying breath. “That’s when I knew I didn’t want to be like my father.” He turned to her and added quietly, “And I’m not.”

“What happened to the girl?” Miss Abbott asked softly.

“I took her home. Her family had to call the physician…but I don’t know what happened to her. She had a brother who was a lieutenant in the Horse Guards, though. He called Father out and ran him through. The rumor is that Father showed up for the duel drunk. I don’t doubt it.”

“Did he ever see your mother before—”

“No. She died two weeks later. It was just as well. The man was a bastard.”

She studied him quietly with that direct, clear gaze of hers. Finally he broke the silence. “Trying to picture me as a rake?” he asked, hearing more bitterness in his voice than he’d intended.

“No,” she responded softly. “I’m seeing you as a man desperately trying to be the opposite of his father and yet headed in the same direction.”

The verdict shocked him. “What do you mean?” he demanded.

She rose to her feet. “I mean that you want so desperately to prove yourself different from your father that you’d even marry a woman for whom you have no affection whatsoever.”

Her audacity stunned him. No one had ever delivered a crueler insult. “You don’t know what you are saying,” he said when he found control of his voice. “I am not offering Miranda
carte blanche,
Miss Abbott. I am offering her my
name.
”

“Mr. Morgan, perhaps I am overstepping myself in saying this, but Miranda has a
problem
.” She tapped her temple with two fingers. “And I can’t believe you don’t see it as clearly as I do. You’re a fool to marry her—especially for no other reason than to buy a title to prove yourself different from your father.”

Grant stared at her hard for a long minute before responding, “You’re right, Miss Abbott.”

She blinked in surprise. “I am?”

“Yes, you
are
overstepping yourself. Furthermore,
I’m
the fool for unburdening myself to you.” He practically ground the words out.

She sat down on the bench, carefully erect. A cloud covered the moon, and he couldn’t read her expression.

He looked away. Damn her! She’d insulted him—so why did he feel guilty? Finally he said, “I didn’t come out here to argue.” He sat on the bench opposite her. “I wanted you to know that I understand how it feels not to fit in.” He paused a moment and added, “I also know how important it is to you to believe that your father must feel something for you.”

When she spoke, her voice came out hoarse with pent-up emotion. “Then let me go.”

“What?”

“I said, let me go.”

“The bank has a responsibility to you. I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” Her eyes sparkled in the moonlight as she challenged him, “If you understand even a little of what I feel, then you should know how I long to free myself from this.” She gestured to the house and surrounding garden.

“So you can do what? Run up bills you can’t pay? Or find your father? Haven’t you understood anything of what I just told you?
The man’s not worth it
.”

“Why? Because you say so? I don’t know that! And I have to find out for myself.” She dropped to her knees in front of him. “Don’t you understand? You know who your father is. You rejected him. But I don’t know. My common sense tells me that he can’t have my best interests at heart, but I’ll never know until I meet him.” She touched her hand to her breast. “It’s something in here, deep inside me, that needs to meet him. To look into his eyes. To hear his voice.”

“Even if he’s a bloody scoundrel?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Perhaps after I meet him, I won’t want him in my life…but I have to know.”

A part of him wanted to grant her deepest wish. She had that effect on him. He rose and walked a few steps away, again feeling the need to put distance between them.

“It’s virtually impossible to reunite you with him,” he said curtly.

“Only because you keep saying it is,” she said, rising to her feet.

“You must understand, I’m acting in your best interests—”

“A pox on my best interests!” she shouted, her voice carrying in the night. He looked toward the house. She did, too, and then lowered her voice to say with equal heat, “It certainly can’t be in my best interests to be forced into a marriage I don’t want. And if you tell me one more time that it is an acceptable solution, I shall scream and pull my hair out. You may marry for money, sir, but I want nothing to do with it.”

The woman never gave up! “You know, Miss Abbott, you can be quite infuriating.”

She arched an eyebrow. “So can you, Mr. Morgan. So can you.”

Grant caught himself smiling. She was more stubborn than a barrister and twice as intelligent. A man would never be bored with Phadra Abbott in his life. Finally he confessed, “I have tried to think of another way.”

She looked at him with surprise. “You have?”

“But I haven’t been successful. The problem is time. The activity in your accounts has drawn attention. We need to replace the funds for the emeralds before the end of the year.”

“I could take a position as a governess. I could work off the debt.”

“I don’t think—”

“Yes, I can.”

“Miss Abbott, it would take years for you to earn enough to pay back the amount the emeralds were sold for. Don’t look for help from Sir Cecil. The man’s made several unwise business decisions and is barely making ends meet, in spite of all this.” He nodded his head toward the house.

“Then I’ll pay back
all
of it.”

“Ten thousand pounds?”

She sank down onto a bench. “I had no idea they cost that much,” she said in a small voice.

“It was an incredible set of stones.”

Miss Abbott looked off into the distance as if evaluating her future. Grant didn’t like the determined set of her chin and wasn’t surprised when she looked at him intently and announced, “I’ll do it. I will find a way to pay back the debt. I can write. I can teach. I may even try my luck on the stage, as Henny did.”

“No,” he said emphatically.

“Why not?” she asked with some exasperation. “It’s a solution. There has to be another way besides marriage. Trust me, I’m not marriageable material.”

“That’s not true,” he answered, surprised she would even say such a thing. “Right now, standing in the garden with the moonlight all around you, you look very marriageable.”

Miss Abbott’s mouth dropped open, as if she couldn’t believe he’d said those words.

He couldn’t believe he’d said them, either. Grant shifted, suddenly uneasy.

A voice calling his name interrupted his thoughts. Lady Roberta had come out into the garden from the back doorway of the house. She hurried toward him, throwing a shawl around her shoulders.

Thankful for the interruption, Grant walked up the path to meet her. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong…other than that we missed you. I noticed that you didn’t come out from the dining room with the other men.” Her lips formed a lovely little moue before she asked, “What have you been doing out here by yourself?”

“By myself?” Grant turned toward the shrubs that
encircled the benches. Miss Abbott was not in sight. Had she slipped away or was she hiding? He realized that it didn’t matter—in fact, it would be better if no one knew they’d been out there together. When he turned back around, he almost bumped into Lady Roberta, who had moved quite close to him. He took a step backward. “Did you come to take me inside?”

She smiled, her invitation clear. “I was hoping I could convince you to give me a tour of the garden.”

Grant placed a hand on each of her shoulders and turned her in the direction of the house. “I’m sure Miranda is waiting for us.”

Lady Roberta dug in her heels and pulled him back with surprising strength. “She’s not. When I left the parlor, she and Lord Phipps were very cozy.”

The idea that Miranda was once again throwing herself at Phipps irritated Grant. He also thought of what Miss Abbott would say if she’d overheard this conversation or if she’d been serious when she said that she didn’t think Miranda was quite right in the head.

He dismissed the idea even as he almost forcibly dragged the pouting Lady Roberta to the house. Furthermore, he had to put Phadra Abbott out of his mind.

But that was easier said than done. Especially since he found her in the drawing room when he and Lady Roberta rejoined the rest of the company. There must be a side door he didn’t know about.

He frowned. Lord Phipps no longer attended Miranda but sat next to Miss Abbott. The two appeared deeply involved in conversation until she looked up, her gaze meeting his. He could tell that she still considered herself mistress of her fate.

Grant felt his jaw tighten at her stubborn refusal to listen to reason. At that moment a smiling Sir Cecil, benevolent from food and drink, walked up and nudged him in the ribs before whispering, “Might be a match. Phipps has got the blunt to pay off the emeralds and then some, hasn’t he? And he loved all that soup-drinking nonsense!”

M
onday afternoon Grant was so immersed in his work that he didn’t hear the door to his private office swing open until a voice said, “You work too hard.”

Startled, Grant looked up and saw William Duroy in his smart-looking uniform standing in the doorway. “William,” he said, pleased to see him. “What brings you here?” he asked, pulling out his watch from his waistcoat. It was 1:39. Replacing his watch, Grant sat back in his chair and stretched, feeling his muscles unkink themselves up and down his back. “I didn’t think you rose before two when you were on leave, and your uniform puts me to shame as I sit here working. Is it a holiday? Has the king demanded your presence?” He grinned. “Or has Napoleon landed and you’ve come to warn me?”

“I paid a morning call on Miss Abbott.”

The grin froze on Grant’s face. “Miss Abbott? You called on her…this morning?”

William laughed happily. “Now I’ve shocked you.
Not only am I at your office before two, but I’ve been courting.”

“Courting…?” Grant groped for words. “I’m—surprised.”

“Oh, I am, too. I didn’t know what to think the other night. I mean, with all that nonsense about women going on to university.”

“She meant what she said,” Grant interjected, feeling a sudden need to make sure William understood.

“I’m sure she does,” he agreed. “And I admit that at first I was put off by it. Thomas too. He was still grumbling when we parted company. He went on and on about how the first thing women will want is entry to university and then next they’ll expect seats in Parliament. Can you imagine a female prime minister? It might be just what the government needs to act against Napoleon!” He laughed again, the sound light-hearted. He stepped to Grant’s desk and placed a hand on its polished surface. “However, after the party I couldn’t get her off my mind.”

Grant shifted uncomfortably.

“I find the fact that she has strong ideals refreshing,” William said.

“You do?”

“I do,” William reaffirmed before moving with restless energy around the room. “Too many women do nothing more than parrot one’s words. But Phadra Abbott is original, her ideas thoughtful, her manner direct. In short, she is like no other woman I’ve met—except for my mother. Did I ever tell you that my mother always wanted to teach? Just like Miss Abbott.”

“No, you’ve never said a word to me about your mother,” Grant answered, feeling irrationally cross.

“Well, my mother is a headstrong woman, and I adore her that way. My father always told us boys that when the time came to choose a wife, we should do what he did and find someone with some spirit, some intelligence.”

“He said that, did he?”

“Yes. He said a woman like that could keep a man interested not only in the bedroom but out of the bedroom as well.”

“William—,” Grant started, not certain he wanted to hear his friend talk about Miss Abbott and bedrooms.

“Oh, I never thought there was another woman with Mother’s verve and energy.”

“Verve?”

“Yes! That special something that is so hard to define. I’ve looked, but I’d never met anyone just like her…until last night.” William’s eyes took on a dreamy look, something that Grant had never thought possible for the pragmatic military man. He sat down on the arm of the chair in front of Grant’s desk. “My call on Miss Abbott this morning only confirmed what I’d suspected. She’s intelligent. Spirited. Noble. Beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” Grant admitted she was uncommonly attractive, but beautiful?

“Those eyes,” William went on as if he hadn’t heard him. “They are like windows to her soul. You can read everything going on in her lively mind through those eyes. And her figure…so enticing…” He lifted a hand to draw a curved shape in the air and smiled.

Grant didn’t like the smile any more than he liked the fact that William had seen what he himself had
noticed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said stiffly.

William sighed before focusing again on his friend. “Grant, you can’t have turned into that much of a monk! Oh, I admit, I didn’t see it all at first. That outfit she was wearing hid a great deal. It was grossly unattractive, and I have no idea why she doesn’t choose a more becoming style. But I’m not blind. Phadra Abbott has a figure any man would like to explore.”

Grant felt hot, indignant color steal up his neck.

“And that hair,” William continued, staring into space as if transfixed. “I don’t like the style of it. I found myself sitting across from her in the parlor today and wondering what it would be like if she took the pins out of it and set it free. I bet it hangs down to her waist. All wild and curly.”

Grant’s fingers tingled as if they could feel those lively, silky curls. He rose suddenly and walked over to the window. It took him a second to find his voice. “She’s deeply in debt.”

“What?” William asked. Grant’s voice seemed to have brought him out of a trance.

Grant turned, his hands clasped behind his back, his face set in his sternest banker expression. “She’s deeply in debt,” he repeated.

“I know that. You told Thomas and me before you introduced her to us. Ten thousand pounds, isn’t it?”

“Fifteen,” Grant lied, fueled by an irrational urge to dampen William’s enthusiasm.

His friend was silent a moment, as if mulling this information over in his mind. “I believe she’s worth it,” he finally said.

That wasn’t the answer Grant had expected. “William, think sensibly. You don’t know her at all.”

The young officer winked slyly. “But what I know, I like excessively.”

Before Grant could think of a comment—something other than crossing over to his friend and shaking him senseless—William asked, “What’s the matter with you? I thought you wanted to find a suitor for Miss Abbott. I gained the impression that you were even desperate to find a husband for her.” He stood and spread his hands. “Well, here I am. And if she accepts my suit, we’ll name the first baby after you.”

The first baby?
Grant frowned.

“Is something the matter?” William asked, his expression puzzled.

Grant shook his head. What the devil
was
the matter with him? “No. Nothing.” He forced a smile. “Name the first baby after me? What if it’s a girl?”

William laughed, his good humor restored, “Grantwina?”

Grant found himself smiling at that bit of foolishness and dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand.

William looked down at his hands, which held his cockaded hat with its jaunty red and yellow plumes. His eyes turned pensive. “Your friendship has meant a great deal to me over the years.”

“As I value yours,” Grant answered sincerely. He walked back to his desk and sat down, steepling his fingers in front of him.

William’s expression turned serious. “We’ve known each since our first day at Eton together. I know better than most how hard you’ve worked and how much you want a title. Grant, I firmly believe you’ll get it someday. So I hope you’ll not believe that I’m crossing the line of friendship when I tell you that
I think you should reconsider your engagement to Lady Miranda.”

“What do you mean?” Grant asked, caution edging his tone.

William’s eyes didn’t meet Grant’s gaze as he said, “I’ve heard things.”

The words hung in the air between them. Grant didn’t have to ask him what he meant. William was not the first friend to take him aside, and then there had been Miss Abbott’s suggestion that perhaps Miranda wasn’t well…

Grant pushed his own reservations aside. Enough people knew of his intentions toward Miranda that there was no honorable way to withdraw his suit without creating a scandal—something Grant could not afford if he wanted his knighthood. He shook his head. “I’m committed.”

William looked as though he was about to say something, but then apparently thought better of it. When he spoke, his voice was again carefree. “Come with me to my club.”

Where they would run into more friends who would take him aside and act as if he were marrying one of
Macbeth
’s witches and not the very lovely and aristocratic Miranda Evans. Grant waved toward the papers on his desk. “I can’t.”

“Not even for an afternoon? This may be our last chance to enjoy ourselves as bachelors.”

Grant shook his head. It wasn’t only the work. He needed some time alone. Why was the idea of William and Miss Abbott together so unsettling?

William studied him for a moment before saying, “Suit yourself.”

Grant felt guilty. “Will I see you at the ball?”

William smiled. “When your engagement is announced? Absolutely. Who knows? We cavalry officers are a dashing lot. Perhaps I’ll have swept Miss Abbott off her feet by then, and we can make a double engagement announcement.”

“That would be good,” Grant managed to croak out.

If William noticed his lack of enthusiasm, he gave no indication. He placed his hat underneath his arm and with a salute left Grant’s office.

Grant sat still for several long moments analyzing the feelings churning within him. He should be pleased William planned to make an offer for Phadra Abbott. After all, he thought of William almost as a brother. Miss Abbott would be marrying a good man.

Sir Cecil burst into Grant’s office without announcing himself. “Oh, good, you’re here. Just ran into that Captain Duroy again. Met him this morning when he paid a call to our precious Phadra. Did he have anything particular he wanted to say to you?”

“He wanted me to go to his club with him this afternoon,” Grant answered, not certain why he didn’t want to tell Sir Cecil of William’s intentions toward Miss Abbott.

That wasn’t the answer Sir Cecil wanted. The corners of his mouth turned down as he leaned against the door frame. “Well, he probably couldn’t afford her debts.”

“His father is Malcolm Duroy of Yorkshire.”

“The nabob?”

“Exactly. His father made the family’s fortune, but they all work. William chose the military. His brothers run the family concerns.”

Sir Cecil stood up straight, his eyes dancing with excitement. “Well, now, this is interesting. Duroy and Phipps. Our little Phadra is making a good showing for herself.”

“Phipps?”

“Phadra received a huge bouquet of posies from him this morning.” Sir Cecil clapped his hands together. “When do you think you can hook one and reel him in? Phipps would be nice. He has excellent connections, but I don’t know how Miranda will handle it.” Then he flushed, realizing what bit of information he had inadvertently let slip.

Grant felt the muscles in his jaw tense. Did the man think he was a fool and completely blind to Miranda’s machinations over the past few weeks? It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Evans he didn’t give a bloody damn about Miranda’s feelings over Phipps, but he reined in his pride and swallowed the angry retort. When he had his title and seat on the Court of Directors, then he would be his own man and could speak his mind to Sir Cecil. Until then he would play the game. He made himself answer calmly, “I’ll talk to William. Perhaps we can announce both engagements Wednesday night.”

“Excellent!” Sir Cecil started to leave but then stopped and turned back to Grant. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your handling this little matter of the emeralds and all for me, Grant. I know you’re coming into the family through the back door, but I want you to know that I consider you an asset to the Evans name.”

Realizing Sir Cecil was waiting for a response, Grant managed a dutiful “Thank you, my lord.”

The words tasted sour in his mouth.

It didn’t help matters when, an hour later, Sir Cecil left for the day. His secretary appeared in Grant’s office with a stack of papers and instructions from Sir Cecil to review them for him.

Several times during the afternoon Grant told himself that it didn’t matter. After all he had no plans for the evening. Miranda planned to attend Almack’s, the very exclusive supper club that would never let the son of Jason Morgan walk through its portal—and he sensed she knew it.

Well let her have her last fling,
he thought grimly, signing Sir Cecil’s name to another report and throwing it on top of the high stack of finished work. After their engagement was announced, she’d discover herself just as unwelcome at Almack’s.

He sat back in his chair and rubbed his temples, dismissing the thought as uncharitable—and not the best way to start a marriage. He rarely got headaches, but all day, for some reason, something had not seemed right to him.

The oil on his desk lamp burned low when the note from Elrad the goldsmith came. The man wanted to see Grant immediately, that evening.

Grant pulled out his watch. 8:13. He was ready for his supper and his bed, but he’d done bank business, and personal business, with Elrad for years and respected him. Pulling on his double-breasted dress coat, he left for the goldsmith’s shop on Cranbourne Street.

Elrad answered Grant’s knock on the establishment’s door himself. “Thank you for coming so quickly,” he said, the long chestnut curls on either side of his head bobbing with his bow.

“You said it was urgent.”

“It is. My father is furious, but I told him I would take it up with you and you would make everything right.”