At the look that blazed forth from her eyes, he added quickly, “Or maybe we’ll have something stronger.”
Lady Anne Rumsford had been a rare dark-eyed English beauty the Season that she’d debuted and had been declared the “diamond.” However, undercurrents of rumor had surfaced about her life before she’d been presented at court. Rumors of strange, out-of-control passions.
She’d turned down multiple proposals, and had seemed about to turn her back on thetonwhen Lord Rumsford had decided to propose to the wildly unpredictable beauty. He’d suspected they might be kindred spirits, and she might be amenable to an “arrangement.”
He’d been the only heir to the viscountcy in his family and had a duty to the title which he would have preferred to ignore. But there he was. He’d been terrified at revealing his reasons for an “arrangement,” but Anne had been so relieved to accept a husband who would make few demands, she’d enthusiastically accepted his suit without question.
After several glasses of Madeira, his wife broke down and began to sob. “Shush,” he said. “Don’t cry so. The servants will think I’m beating you.”
She hiccuped a laugh, and took his proffered handkerchief to dry the tears from her face. “I’m sorry about being so upset over your dismissal of Nurse. You did the right thing. I’d forgotten how old she was. She was with our family forever.”
His wife’s family was an ancient and revered one. Her father, Hugh Bromley, was the Earl of Harcourt. Her mother, the countess, had served Queen Charlotte at court for many years.
“I’ve shamed my family, and Wilhelmina was the final strike against me.” A lone tear rolled down her cheek again. “She so resembles her father. How can you even think of keeping her as your daughter? We’re already the brunt of society’s jests.”
“I love Mina,” he said simply. “She’s beautiful, bright, and she has your spirit. I couldn’t turn her out as a babe, and I certainly won’t do it now.”
She hesitated a moment, as if wondering whether to go on. “Are you really sure you want yourself the topic oftongossip?”
“I’ve survived much worse than harboring the child of my wife’s lover.”
“You know I’m sorry for what I said about Sir Thomas.”
“Yes, I know,” he acknowledged, and took her in his arms to console her while she cried some more.
* * *
October1825
Montcliffe Abbey
Rumford, England
Julian pulled up his gelding, Bruin, a short distance from Montcliffe Abbey. He couldn’t quite banish a vague feeling of self-doubt nagging at the back of his mind, and he wasn’t ready to face his old friends, at least not yet. He dismounted and began to walk the remaining distance, giving himself time to think.
When they’d all left Eton and gone their separate ways, he’d headed off to Rhodes to study the archives there on the Knights Templar. Over the years, he’d read everything his father had accumulated in the library at Edgewood and eventually had become as absorbed as he’d been told his father had been over the minutiae of the Templars.
In the fall, he’d resume his studies at Oxford, but until then, he’d catch up on his duties at the Edgewood estate, with Beesley at his side.
During the time he’d been gone, however, the vision of Mina wandering the halls of Montcliffe, barefoot and cold, had haunted him. No matter how old she was, he’d always think of her as that neglected child. The truth was, he’d missed her smile. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been missing a front tooth, but hadn’t been embarrassed enough to forego her usual broad smile. He supposed she was as close as he’d ever get to having a little sister, or any family at all for that matter.
When he rounded the final turn toward the entrance gate to the Abbey, he noticed a small figure leaning across the fence enclosing pastureland where the Tindall family grazed their horses.Mina. Gad—would that child never stop getting herself embroiled in misadventures? At first he thought she was alone, but glimpsed an older woman he’d not met before, sitting beneath the shade of a nearby sturdy oak tree with a book in her hand.
As he drew closer, Bruin whickered and the petite figure leaning across the fence turned, jumped down, and raced toward him. “Julian,” she screeched. “Jul-yan.” A reddish calico tomcat raced at her heels.
He held his hands over his ears in mock horror. “You’re going to ruin both my hearing and Bruin’s.”
She slowed down and gave him the mischievous smile that hadn’t changed since the night he’d danced the naughty five-year-old across the balcony above her father’s ballroom. The giggles that followed were pure Mina. “You’re making that up.” She turned toward the woman sitting beneath the tree. “Isn’t he, Mrs. Phippen?”
“Miss Wilhelmina, what have I told you about talking to gentlemen to whom we have not been introduced?” The expression on the woman’s face remained friendly, so Julian assumed she must know he was a family friend.
Mina hung her head. “Yes, Mrs. Phippen.”
At that moment when the girl lifted her face and stared straight into his eyes, he knew. The tiny, irrepressible Mina he’d known and watched over was gone. She’d been replaced by a young lady, albeit only about ten or so, who was being tutored in the etiquette of theton. What hadn’t changed were her impossibly huge, blue eyes that blazed out of an urchin’s face, a face that had somehow turned wiser since last he’d seen her.
“Mrs. Phippen, this is His Grace, the Duke of Montfort, and a dear friend of my brothers. Julian, this is Mrs. Phippen, my governess.”
The woman dropped her book, scrambled to her feet, and dipped to a slight bow. “Your Grace…I’m so sorry, I…I should have known…”
