He wanted to know how she’d felt when she saw her own name, pressed by Davis’s hand into his papers. And he could not bring himself to say it.
In his and Davis’s lives, Arthur had come first only once: in the order of their birth. He had been lucky in that, in the eyes of the world—his was the earldom, his the vote in the House of Lords. But their father’s unforgiving expectations had also been his, and the responsibility of a failing estate and hundreds of tenants.
He had never lived up to those expectations. He had tried—God, for years andyearshe had tried—but it had been a useless project. He could recall with ice-edged clarity the day he’d come home after dark, damp and muddy, exultant over the afternoon he’d spent with one of the tenants. They’d built a small mill, powered by a waterwheel of Arthur’s own design, and the man’s wife had been beside herself with delight, crowing over the time she would save in pounding grain.
His father had taken one look at Arthur’s disheveled state and cracked a laugh. “And now do you understand,” he’d said, “why they will never take you seriously?”
The earl had left then—Davis in tow—for an evening out.
His father had made it clear, in a thousand large and small ways, that Davis, not Arthur, ought to have been the heir. Hell, everyone thought it. Davis was charming, easygoing—who wouldn’t have preferred that to Arthur’s awkward bluntness, his reclusiveness, his unrelenting intensity?
So he’d stopped trying to please them. He’d stopped trying to win approval when the outcome was always failure, the finish line ever further out of his reach.
Until now. God, now, with Lydia, he wanted to come first. Wanted it as he’d never wanted anything in his life. And he knew—heknewhow setting himself up in competition with Davis would go. How it had always gone.
He could not ask her how she’d felt about Davis’s papers. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
“You’re right,” he said. “We should go.”
He turned and made his way down the stairwell and out the back door. Lydia stayed close behind him.
Outside the building, Georgiana and Huw awaited them.
“What took you so long?” Georgiana demanded. “I was on the verge of a rear assault on the building—”
“We were waylaid,” Lydia said quickly, “but all’s well. He was not recognized.”
“Good,” said Huw, “now let’s go. It’s a long, dark ride back to Strathrannoch Castle, and the dining room is starting to empty.”
It was true. Around the side of the building, Arthur could see people emerging from the front door, making their way to their homes or carriages.
“We’ll keep to the shadows,” he said. “Back here, amongst the trees, and find our way back to the coach-and-four before—”
It was a good plan. It would have been a good plan, at least,if the next voice he heard had not been one he was intimately familiar with.
“Strathrannoch? Good heavens, boy, is that you?”
And from around the corner of the building—my God, the woman must have the eyes of a hawk—came Lady de Younge.
She was tall and slim, her silver hair piled atop her head in a style faintly reminiscent of the previous century. She wore a white turban and white plumes, and a cloak over her severe purple evening gown.
“Ah, yes,” he said. There was no help for it now. “Lady de Younge, a pleasure.”
She came closer, and Arthur realized Lord de Younge was there as well, trailing his taller wife. Lord de Younge placed a hand on his wife’s lower back and then raised his quizzing glass.
“I say, Maggie, you’re right! Strathrannoch, m’boy! What brings you to Haddon Grange?”
“A bit of—a bit of—” He was an idiot. He had no idea what to say. A bit of arson followed by some casual groping in a stairwell?
He was saved from having to reply by the laughing voice he’d heard on the stairs, now pitched rather higher in tones of shock.
“Lord Strathrannoch!” The man stepped out the back door, his face flushed and his eyes trained upon Arthur’s damned conspicuous form. “I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you at once, my lord—and—and—my lady!”
Arthur’s mouth opened. Not a single word emerged. He watched the proceedings in a kind of silent daze, as of one watching a runaway carriage plunge toward the edge of a cliff.
The man from the stairwell—Arthur was fairly certain he was the third son of a former land steward—dropped into a bow at the waist.
Lord de Younge, meanwhile, pressed his quizzing glass closer to his face. “My lady?” he demanded. “Is there a Lady Strathrannoch now?”
