.
regret not suspecting my aunt was destroying my letters and challenging her version of the truth, Gideon, but does his lordship really want to know me?’
‘Of course he does, he’s not the sort of man who judges a child for something they are completely innocent of. I’m a far greater obstacle to Christian forgiveness than you will ever be—he would have every excuse to hate me, given how the succession stands, but he can’t even manage that, so just give him a chance, Callie. I promise you he’s nothing like the ogre you seem to have made of him in your imagination.’
‘I’m beginning to see that. For years I thought he was happy to leave me in ignorance of who I truly was so he didn’t have to admit his son was a rake. I know we weren’t going to talk about Aunt Seraphina, but she does intrude into our lives even now, doesn’t she? Until we understand exactly what she did we can’t forget her. She said my paternal grandfather is as proud as the devil and would never openly acknowledge me, but everything she told me was a lie. Yet the poor man’s heart must sink at the prospect of me as the only source of Laughraine blood left, unless he’s prepared to make an April-and-December marriage and that doesn’t seem likely as he’s been a widower for over twenty years, does it?’
‘No, he was devoted to his wife and seems genuinely happy for us to inherit Raigne one day between us.’
‘Who says there can be an us? I’m not sure I can do it again, Gideon,’ she asked, panicked by the certainty if she was left alone with him too long she would make a fool of herself and beg to be his true wife again.
‘Not yet, maybe, but one day I hope to change your mind. Meanwhile I’m not made of stone, despite your obvious belief to the contrary.’
‘You must be, if you really haven’t had a mistress all the years we’ve been apart.’
‘We’re back to that again, are we? Very well, if it makes you feel better I’ll swear on anything you ask me to that I’m telling the truth. I’ve been on the rack for you, Callie. In the early days I often couldn’t sleep for the lack of you in my bed and at my side. I daydreamed about making love to you when I should have been slaving at my books and stayed working at my first and mostly hopeless cases late into the night because I hated going back to a place I couldn’t call a home without you in it. I can’t count the number of times I set out to find you because I couldn’t stand being alone any longer. Then I’d remember the last weeks when you wouldn’t even share a room with me and that infernal letter you say now that you never sent and it would strip me of any hopes or dreams and I’d go back to my law books and do my best to pretend living without you wasn’t hell on earth. All I had left of you was those vows to be faithful only unto you and I kept them,’ he ended defiantly and no doubt he had, after they parted, since he looked as if the emptiness of those years had been punishment enough for any man’s sins.
‘I’m sorry for all those wicked, wicked lies she told using my name,’ Callie said lamely, reeling at a sight of her wild and passionate young lover fully alive under the cool facade he used to keep the world at bay. ‘We were good friends, once upon a time, though, weren’t we, Gideon? Perhaps we could be so again,’ she added clumsily.
‘Are you two coming down, or do you intend to camp out at the top of the stairs for the rest of the day?’ Lord Laughraine asked from the great hall below them. Callie was touched to see he couldn’t wait in some stately room for them to come to him and glad he had interrupted an awkward conversation with Gideon.
‘My wife really needs a rest,’ he told his honorary uncle, as if her welfare was far more important than protocol. It warmed a chilly corner of her heart to think she was his first concern, even now he was back with his family and clearly very welcome.
She tugged at Gideon’s hand and led him towards the stairs to silently show him she had a mind of her own, even if she didn’t want to challenge him for fussing over her in public right now. Who would have thought she’d ever be so anxious to meet her other grandfather again, after all her doubts and scruples about her origins? This tug of mixed emotions was pulling her first one way and then another and if she looked pale it was more an indication of her inner turmoil than some physical frailty Gideon had convinced himself she suffered from. She must find a way to prove otherwise soon, but now she was about to meet his lordship as her true self for the first time in her life and she needed all her energy for that.
Could Lord Laughraine really own her as his kin as well as Gideon’s wife? She was unsure how she felt about that notion. A week ago she was convinced her aunt was the only member of her family she could rely on, and look how wrong she’d been about her. Now she was torn between wanting to love and trust her paternal grandfather and distrusting his motive for wanting her and Gideon here. Grandfather Sommers had brought her up to see the good in people and this wily old aristocrat was as lonely as she had been in his own way. If she locked up her heart and threw away the key because it was easier than trusting anyone, she would be no better than Seraphina Bartle. She raised her chin as she walked down the grand staircase at Gideon’s side, doing her best to look serene and much calmer than she felt.
‘If you have had as big a shock as I have today I’m not the least bit surprised you feel exhausted,’ his lordship said genially when they were face-to-face. ‘Welcome home, my dear. I’m so glad to see you back in King’s Raigne with this young rogue again.’
Callie held out her hand, since she wasn’t quite sure how to answer him, and Lord Laughraine surprised her by shaking it solemnly, then bowing to her like an old-fashioned gallant. He embraced Gideon as if he’d accomplished something wonderful by bringing her here and all her aunt’s assertions a bastard grandchild would never be welcome at Raigne rang hollow. How much damage the wretched woman had done by playing on Callie’s insecurities, a goodly few of them caused by her in the first place.
‘Thank you for bringing her home, my boy,’ he said gruffly as he stood back and seemed to recollect they were standing in a lofty hallway where anyone might chance on them. ‘But you should have sent word you were coming sooner so we could receive you in a much more suitable style for my heir and his lovely lady.’
‘I agree about Lady Laughraine’s beauty, of course, but bad pennies like me don’t turn up every day, do they, my dear?’ Gideon said with a sardonic smile that hinted it still hurt him that she had fainted at first sight of him after all those years.
‘It is to be hoped not,’ she replied tartly. ‘One husband is quite enough for me.’
‘You asked for that one, my boy,’ his lordship interrupted.
‘I did, and now we’re keeping my lady standing in the hallway, Uncle Charles, whatever can we be thinking of?’ Gideon joked with none of the defensive fury he would have shown after being wrong-footed in the old days.
‘And here’s Mrs Craddock with her bevy of chicks. It’s a bit late to line up and make Lady Laughraine run the gauntlet now,’ Lord Laughraine greeted his stately-looking housekeeper and a phalanx of maidservants. ‘Where’s Craddock with his cohort then?’ he barked and made Callie feel better about the ritual of the heir’s bride having to greet the household ten years after she and Gideon got back from their scandalous wedding.
‘He’s late as usual, my lord,’ Mrs Craddock said repressively, but with a decided twinkle in her acute blue eyes that made Callie think she might be able to live with the formidable woman, after all.
‘Here’s my great-nephew’s lady parched for some of that tea you all seem to set such store by nowadays and we’re keeping her standing about in a draught.’
‘Even if you were, I would be glad of any breeze on such a hot day, Craddock,’ Callie told the now not-quite-so-stately butler as he puffed in at the head of his line of footmen and all the other male servants such a huge old house needed to keep it running smoothly.
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