Sweetest Regret Read online

  “What I felt for you in Munich.” His voice was low and harsh. “What I feel for you now. It is not interest.”

  Why, he was shaking—she could feel the fine tremors of his body where his chest pressed against hers, as though he were racked by some inward pressure too great for his flesh to contain.

  Her own pulse was hammering. “I . . . I meant no insult.”

  He eased back from her. Their eyes met, his own intent and unblinking. “Interest fades,” he said. “Interest dulls. Interest does not ruin a man. It does not blind him to other women. It does not catch in his chest like a hook. What I felt for you—what I feel for you—is far from interest.”

  The top of her head seemed to lift away. Wonder purled through her. “Yes,” she breathed.

  “So hear me now,” he said. “I do not give a damn what your father has to say about this. Do you understand that?” When she hesitated a moment too long, he said, “Answer me.”

  Swallowing, she nodded.

  “Good.” His hands slid down her arms, his fingers stroking over her palms, raising goose bumps, causing her breath to catch and her knees to weaken. He lifted her hands to his mouth in turn, his gaze hot on hers as he pressed his lips to her knuckles. His nostrils flared as he breathed deeply, in and out. Then he returned her hands to her sides, squeezing them once before stepping backward. “Good,” he said softly. “We understand each other.”

  Giddy delight washed through her. She crossed her arms to contain it, to prevent herself from reaching for him again. He could not know what he was saying. He had not thought it through. Would his conviction remain so steadfast once his career was stolen from him? She had no inheritance, apart from what her father might choose to leave her. She would not be able to help him regain his footing. She was no Countess Obolenskaya, to smooth his way by her own charm and beauty.

  And yet, the look on his face . . . the resolution, the steadfast intensity of his regard . . . it made her drunk.

  She forced herself to glance away, down the sloping grassland toward the stone towers of Brisbon Hall. “Why would he have sent you here?” Why would her father have risked the truth coming out? “It’s so careless. So unlike him.”

  He made a low noise, almost a scoff. “About that.” He reached into his pocket, withdrawing a crumpled slip of paper. “Cable came this morning.”

  Hesitantly she took it.

  Lady L in labor STOP Advise you go directly to Harlboro Grange STOP

  “Lady L?” She looked up, frowning.

  “Lady Lilleston,” he said flatly. “My aunt by marriage, for all that I’ve never met her. Her husband was my father’s brother.” He paused. “He died a week ago.”

  She gasped. “I’d no idea. Lucas, I’m so sorry for . . .” But she trailed off, realizing that her condolences were hardly wanted.

  He offered her a faint smile. Another round of gunshot exploded; birds wheeled overhead, and cries of disappointment went up. “I’m sorry for those who loved him,” he said. “Naturally, having known him only through his silence, and the insult it offered to my father—I don’t number among his mourners.”

  “But who sent this, then?”

  “Certainly none of the Godwins,” he said. “But I have a suspicion who might have wished me informed of this matter.” He raised his brows, inviting her to guess.

  She shook her head; she had not the faintest inkling.

  “Georgie.” He sighed. “Lilleston has no son. If this babe is a girl, I will inherit his estates. His honors. His earldom. I think your father would take an interest in that.”

  Comprehension dawned. “You think my father arranged that telegram?”

  “I think,” he said dryly, “that he has great faith in your appeal. Not a stupid man, Sir Philip. And he saw a chance to put a future earl in your path. It all depends on Lilleston’s newborn.” He tipped his head toward the telegram. “I expect he wants me at Harlboro Grange to make sure no trickery is played with the babe.”

  She crossed her arms, buffeted by a wave of violent distaste. “How . . . gothic.”

  His laughter was soft. “Indeed. But in your father’s circles? No doubt there’s been a babe switched here and there, to keep a crown in the family.”

  She sagged against the stone wall. “How can you sound so amused by it?” She was mortified, every inch of her skin prickling. “He’s scheming again! You should—heavens!” She covered her face, feeling the great heat rushing into her cheeks. “How presumptuous! To think you would have any interest in me, after what he told you in Munich!”

  “As I said, he’s no fool,” he said gently. “No doubt he guessed that with one look at you, I would be lost again.”

  The words were sweeter than she deserved. “If the babe is a boy, he’ll still oppose you.”

  “Hence, I suppose, the secrecy. Gives him a fine cover to repudiate me, should I end up a commoner tomorrow.”

  “I think I would like to take a shot myself,” she said through her teeth. “If only innocent birds weren’t the target. Will you go to Harlboro Grange, then?”

  “Of course not.” His voice was perfectly neutral now. “I wouldn’t be welcomed there.”

  She could not match his equanimity. A dark, poisonous feeling brewed in her chest at the notion of his family scorning him.

  She shoved the telegram into her pocket. “We must find that letter.”

  “Must we?” He picked up the rifle, aimed once more.

  “Yes!” How did he not understand this? She caught his elbow. “You’ve fought so hard,” she said, “your whole life, to make this career for yourself. I won’t let you throw it away!”

  He laid down the gun. “And I wouldn’t,” he said. “Not if what you felt for me was interest. Is it?”

  Anxiety welled in her throat. She turned, looking blindly over the hide toward the sun-dappled grass.

  “I’ll be braver than you,” he said levelly. “It was love, in Munich.”

  She closed her eyes. The beauty of that admission—it dazzled her. “Yes,” she whispered. “It was love.”

  “And last night, as I walked through these fields, I did not feel like a man mired in the past, Georgie. I was not mourning for what could have been. I felt like a man given a chance at a new future—a future with you.”

  She swallowed hard. “Then we must find that letter. There’s no other way.”

  “No. That’s not so.” He cupped her cheek. Drew her around to face him. “With or without the letter,” he said. “Answer me: what does your future look like?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Her expression shifted in some subtle, unquantifiable way. A moment ago, she had looked dazed and flush and achingly ripe for any proposal he might have put to her. But at his question, some spark went out of her face. He could feel her withdrawal as distinctly as the nip of the breeze.

  “I would make my future with you,” she whispered. “But not at such cost.”

  He bit back his frustration. He’d spoken truly to her. Now he knew that what they’d shared had been real, it changed everything—altered the very grounds on which he’d conceived his hopes. For it was one thing to strive to forget a humiliation, a humbling breach of judgment: that effort was only wise. But no wise man hoped to forget the only woman who had ever held his heart. No man had ever died peacefully in his bed, contented with his efforts, while knowing that he’d been robbed of the chance to share all his days with a woman like Georgiana Trent.

  This desire—this need—did not seem a return to Munich so much as a rebirth, stronger, fiercer, for the years it had been wrongfully trammeled.

  “That isn’t your choice to make,” he said. “I will weigh the consequences to myself. And I have done. I am asking what you want now.”

  Her cheek hollowed; she was biting it, he thought. If she was biting back even a fraction of what he felt, right now, then there was hope for him, surely.

  She stood straighter. Smoothed her shawl over her shoulders. “Do you know,” she said�
��pausing to clear her throat before she continued—“I’m not sure my father has ever passed a Christmas here at Brisbon Hall.”

  He frowned, thrown by this segue, but willing to try to follow it. “Ever? That seems unlikely.”

  “Well.” She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Perhaps when my mother was still living.”

  He studied her, trying to divine the source of the melancholy that shaded her expression now. “So you must not have spent many Christmases with him.”

  She glanced away, her face perfectly remote now. “His career came first. He does love me, of course; he reads my letters very carefully. He can quote them by heart, in fact. But he rarely replies—he’s so busy, when abroad.” She paused. “Still, it would mean a great deal if he managed to reply more regularly.”

  “I imagine so.” He felt very uneasy now. Blind, disoriented, unable to guess where she would turn next.

  “I wonder if he keeps all my letters,” she said. “I keep his, but they’re only fifty or so. Mine would be . . . why, there would be a thousand of them by now. I expect he couldn’t travel with so great a number. He must have burned them, I think.”

  He wanted to take her in his arms so goddamned badly—and to keep her there, heedless of the gunfire all around them, and the beaters crying out. “He keeps them,” he lied.

  She blinked. Looked at him directly. “Did you keep my letters? The ones I wrote to you in Munich?”

  His jaw clenched. He had burned them in a reckless, drunken despair, and regretted it the next morning, before he’d even opened his eyes, the smell of stale smoke clogging his bedroom. “Georgie. Yours wasn’t the only heart that was shattered that winter.”

  She nodded, very pale. “I don’t blame you for not keeping them. I thought about burning yours, too. But I couldn’t manage to do it.” Her smile trembled. “I worry about what that says of me. It seems I’m a person who can’t let go, even when she ought. I’m glad if you’re not like that, Lucas; it is better, healthier, to be able to let go.”

  “I never let go of you,” he said fiercely. “Never, Georgiana. I will admit, I tried to do so. But I never succeeded.”

  “Then there is my point.” She gazed at him steadily. “For I know you say you would give up your career for me. But you’ve wanted it far longer than you ever wanted me. You have never let go of that dream, even when the odds were against you. Perhaps, once you had lost it, you would realize your mistake. That you valued it above everything else, after all.”

  He silently cursed. “You are your father’s daughter,” he said gently, “to put hearts and careers on the same plane. But I was raised by a different father, who did give up his prospects for a woman, and never regretted it. That is my model.”

  The quick pull of her mouth suggested frustration. “But I would always know the price you had paid. And it would weigh on me.”

  He sighed. “I’m not sure how to convince you.” God knew, if she could only see herself through his eyes . . . She was beautiful, in the pearlescent light. She stood but an arm’s reach away, framed against the broad, sweeping vista of winter-bleached fields, the parkland rolling away behind her toward the gray towers of Brisbon Hall. Close enough for him to count the long, dark lashes that framed her soft brown eyes, and to trace, with his gaze, the sharp peaks of her upper lip, her mouth the shade of roses . . .

  The wind struck up, calling fresh color to her full cheeks. He touched her face very lightly, and she flinched.

  The recoil sliced him almost more deeply than he could bear. “Don’t,” he whispered. He would not allow it. He leaned down to kiss her—a gentler kiss than he had managed before.

  Her mouth was sweet, startled, soft. He drew away before it tempted him to forget their surroundings again.

  But there was nothing else here worth his attention but her. There never had been, when she was near.

  The beaters were announcing the third drive. Down the field, the other guests were preparing for the trek to the next hides. Lucas took her by the hand and drew her after him.

  She threw a startled glance over her shoulder. “You’re leaving your rifle.”

  “Enough with that,” he said. “Enough with your father, and the future, too. The day is ours, Georgie. Walk with me awhile.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  It took no more than an hour, alone with him in the country air, for Georgie to recall all the small details of affection that misery and heartbreak had scrubbed from her mind. How she felt more at ease with him than anyone she had ever known. How fluidly and freely their conversation ranged, from books to music to foreign cuisines; from politics to the new trend for “tea-tray” bustles—quite notorious, he said, in France. And the English fad for bicycles! Lucas did not know how to ride one. “But I do admire modern technology,” he said as he helped her over a stile, “always inventing new ways for bones to be broken. Perhaps I’ll give it a whirl sometime.”

  “Oh, it’s grand fun,” Georgie said, “and not nearly as dangerous as a horse. I’ll be glad to teach you.”

  Only a fraction of a moment passed before he smiled at her, but it was enough to call her attention to the slip of her tongue—her unthinking mention of a future they would share together.

  He put her at ease, then, sensing, no doubt, her inward turmoil. As they walked down the rutted country lane, he pointed out a rogue bluebird that showed an obsessive, nearly amorous interest in a nearby buckthorn bush. Lending the bluebird a gruff, husky voice, he mimed its ardent words of affection to the scruffy-looking plant.

  And she, recalling how he had always made her laugh over even the smallest things, entered the game again as easily as though it had never been interrupted by two years of grieving. She pitched her voice high, imitating the plant’s flustered protests, its shrill defense of its virtue. Amidst their laughter, they forgot entirely the shoot occurring a quarter mile behind them; when shots rang out, they both jumped, then fell back together, laughing harder yet.

  Two hours later, it felt odd, an imposition, to rejoin the others at Brisbon Hall. In the morning room, Georgie felt unable to do more than smile by rote as the party recounted their triumphs. Sobieski and Obolensky’s friendship seemed to have flourished; they teased each other by congratulating each other’s wives on outshooting them. She felt acutely aware of Lucas, smiling so easily at the men’s bluster, making a charming remark to pull the von Bittners into the repartee. But she kept her eyes elsewhere, knowing that if she looked at him now, everyone would read her face like a book.

  Happily, it was the privilege of the hostess to excuse herself to check on the evening’s preparations.

  Downstairs, she found the kitchens in a state of organized chaos—Dorking fowl and Norfolk turkeys being plucked and dressed for roasting; goose pies and currant cakes cooling on the broad table, side by side with gingerbread and cheesecake. On the range, wassail bubbled. Pansy, one of the kitchen maids, came rushing up with the Yule log, delivered from the village not five minutes ago. “Waited long enough!” she said. “I thought we’d have to make do with Christmas candles!”

  “Oh,” Georgie said, startled and pleased by this idea. “Do bring those to the drawing room too, won’t you?”

  “You’ll burn the place down,” Cook warned. “They’ve already added candles to that . . . shrub.”

  Cook looked with great suspicion on the Christmas tree; she considered it the first wave of an all-out German invasion.

  “Gladys and I had a look through the baggage,” Cook added. “Found nothing, I’m sorry to say.”

  Georgie’s spirits faltered. On a deep breath, she pushed through her disappointment, clinging instead to the magic of the morning. “Thank you,” she managed. “And—yes, I want the entire room to glow tonight. As many candles as possible. You can hide buckets of sand in the corners, if it eases your mind.”

  “Don’t think I won’t,” Cook grumbled, but she could not quite catch her smile as she waved Georgie off. “It’s well in hand here, miss. And you look as
though you’ve got better places to be.” She lifted a suggestive brow. “With a certain gentleman, maybe?”

  Georgie shook her head, smiling, and slipped back into the service passage.

  But once on the stairs, she found herself touching her mouth, simply to feel the shape of this silly smile. She fooled nobody.

  Some movement drew her attention toward the wall. Startled, she stepped closer to look at her reflection in the mirror. Why, if this was what everyone saw, she did not mind it. She looked . . . pretty. Remarkably so. Rosy and merry and full of life.

  She would never be a famous beauty. But if this face forever looked back at her from every mirror she passed, she would never feel inadequate to any circumstance.

  But she had looked so once before. And that happiness had melted away like a dream upon waking.

  She watched her smile fade. Here, now, was how she would look if Lucas lost his own joy—as he surely would, if her father destroyed his career in punishment for his marrying her.

  She forced that thought away as she continued up the stairs. She would not think on that today. Today was her Christmas gift to herself: a carefree celebration, in keeping with the season.

  As she stepped out into the hallway, she caught sight of Lucas in conversation with Mr. Sobieski. As easily as that, her smile came back. Eagerly, she went forward to meet them.

  Chapter Nine

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” Countess Obolenskaya waved for attention. “Miss Trent has just told me of a very lovely tradition among the English. Who wishes to walk to the stables with me?”

  Georgie shared a sideways smile with Lucas. They had been warming elder wine in a saucepan over the fire, Lucas’s hand over hers holding the pan steady above the flames—a very respectable touch, to which nobody could object.

  The rest of the group lounged in voluptuous abandon, glasses of wine and wassail dangling from their hands. It was half eleven: stockings had been hung amidst giggles, carols had been sung, and the remaining chestnuts roasted, but the Yule log still blazed, promising another hour or two of warmth. Nobody felt particularly inclined to venture into the cold.