Nicole and Derek looked up. Nicole tilted her head at him; Derek glowered. "As a matter of fact. Good morning to you as well."
"The two of you aren't bloody typical," Grant said as he absently poured coffee. "Odd, that's what you are. Peculiar even..."
"Should I even ask?" Derek inquired of Nicole.
Nicole popped to her feet. "I'll just let you two talk." She kissed Derek atop his head. "I'm about to relieve Nanny of a fussy morning baby, and I think I'll have more fun than you're about to."
When Nicole left, Derek folded the paper. "You look like hell."
"No better than I feel."
"I take it you and Victoria haven't gotten anything resolved." He poured himself more coffee, clearly anticipating a long conversation. "Though you certainly seemed to have last night."
Grant glowered. "What's resolved is that I'm going to drop her at the Court, and for the first time in months I'm going to sleep well."
"If you say so."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Why wouldn't you just ask her to marry you?"
"I did."
Derek opened his mouth and said nothing. Then he chuckled. "And she said no?"
Grant rose in disgust, but Derek grabbed his arm. "Sorry. Did she give a reason?"
"Yes, she won't marry without love." He spat the word. "She wants what you and Nicole have."
"I don't see what the issue is. Everyone knows you're in love with Victoria but you."
"I am not in love with her."
"Keep telling yourself that."
"Love's turned you into an imbecile."
With a smug smile, Derek raised his cup and remarked at the rim, "Then there's much to be said for imbecility."
"She drives me mad. I can think of nothing else! I never sleep; I hardly eat." Grant's fingers were white on his cup. "I can't live like this. If this is love, then I can certainly do without this misery."
Derek reached for Grant's cup and pried it from him before it cracked. "That's because you're crossing swords with something you shouldn't fight. Just go tell her you love her."
"No. Love is pleasant. Not this fever-pitch feeling twisting my gut whenever I'm near her."
"Pleasant?" Derek laughed without humor. "Nicole and I had something, or rather someone, between us. Loving each other was out of the question. But you have it so damn easy. A lovely, intelligent woman loves you, and all you have to do is accept it."
"I did. I asked her to marry me. Now she's made new demands." He ran a hand through his hair. "I should've just told her I loved her. I could certainly act like it." His voice grew excited, as though he'd hit on the perfect solution. "She'd never know."
"Listen to yourself. If you can act like it..."
Grant pounded his fist on the table. "You're right. She couldn't have conceived of a better way to drive me mad. She knows I'm an unemotional man. Detached, even. And she's asking for the one thing I can't give her."
Derek eyed Grant's still clenched fist. "You might want to reevaluate your, uh, dispassionate nature. Yes, in the past, talking to you was sometimes like talking to a wall. I remember how enraged you were when I told you I wasn't sailing the Great Circle Race. I wanted you to swing at me. I was praying you'd finally lose your temper."
"Why?"
"To confirm that you were still alive. Not a machine and not dead inside. And now I know you're miserable, but I can't help but be glad that she's awakened something in you. What you feel for her has taken over your life, and I can't be unhappy about that."
That made Grant even angrier. Nothing interrupted his ordered life unless he desired it to.
And this love that she wanted...
He was no coward, but this, this giving of your heart to someone else's care, where they could tread upon it or let it atrophy...The prospect was fearsome because he knew instinctively that should Victoria abuse his trust with it, he would never know happiness again. Any sane man should be afraid to give up control of his own happiness. To become dependent on someone else for the first time since he'd become a man. He felt as if he were strangling....
"What will you do?"
"What I've always planned. I will deliver her to Belmont, and then in the future when he passes, I'll return to claim my payment. For now, I'll endure one night there, then I'm going to get my bloody life back."
Within the hour, Amanda, Derek, and Nicole with the baby all gathered at the carriage to see them off. "You're only half a day away when the weather's good. We'll visit soon," Nicole promised as she handed little Geoffrey to Victoria. Victoria cradled him close, spilling a tear on his blue cap. When she kissed him and returned him to Nicole, Derek caught Grant's eye, giving him an expression that said, "Well?"
Grant returned a quick, restrained shake of the head.
Twenty-four
As Grant's coach rolled onto the drive of Belmont Court, sheepdogs bounded through the snow beside it, delighting Victoria and Camellia along with all the new sights.
White covered the manor house and the downs surrounding it, painting an idyllic picture--and masking the decline of the earl's home. Grant had been here just before the voyage and had been struck by the work the battered graystone needed, by the gardens blighted by neglect.
Yet, on this day, it looked like any other grand property. Stately trees lined the winding drive. Farther out, hills and vales, softened by snow, all rambled down to the riverbank.
The splintered front door brought him back to the reality of the situation. The Court was dying and needed an infusion of capital to survive. He reached for the knocker, and as it had before, it shone, freshly polished. What was left was tended as best as the earl's people could.
The door opened to show an older man. He had a tuft of red hair--red bordering on orange--that was graying at the sides and down his muttonchop whiskers.
"Dear me, dear me. It's really you. We scarcely believed the messenger. Come in, come in. I'm Huckabee, the manor steward," the man said with a little bow. "And this is Mrs. Huckabee, head housekeeper." He wrapped an arm around a round, matronly woman who'd waddled up beside him. Her hair was wholly gray though her face was unlined. "Don't suppose you remember us?"
Victoria thought for a moment, then said, "Don't you have a lot of children?"
"She does remember us," Mrs. Huckabee said, clapping her hands in excitement.
Victoria introduced Camellia--Grant, they already knew. Before Huckabee shut the door behind them, he pointed out a redheaded boy tearing off across the yard. "That'd be the youngest of nine Huckabees--he's the stable lad, and a late one at that."
"The villagers call him Huck," Mrs. Huckabee added. Then, casting a worried glance at Camellia, who'd paled on the jostling trip over, she said, "You all must be sorely put about with so much traveling and the roads so wretched poor. I'll put on dinner and Mr. Huckabee will show you straightaway to your rooms."
As they followed Huckabee up the bare steps, Victoria asked, "How old is this place? I don't remember it looking so...old."
"The Court as it stands now was built in the early seventeen hundreds, but a residence has been at this site since the late fourteen hundreds," Huckabee replied.
The Court's design had always impressed Grant. Since it was hollow, built around two central courtyards, most of the rooms on each of the three stories had views of either the upper or lower courts, as they were called, or of the surrounding countryside. But now the manor was just a shell, even emptier than Grant remembered. As Huckabee directed them along, Grant again noticed the blank walls and lack of carpets. After they'd accompanied the ladies to their rooms and reached Grant's spacious but nearly empty quarters, he raised his eyebrows at Huckabee. The man proudly lifted his chin and acted as if nothing was amiss.
Grant washed up and met the other four downstairs in a room just off the kitchen, arguably the warmest room in the house.
Victoria had changed dresses and combed her hair into an elaborate knot at her nape. She looked beautiful--a given
for him to think so--but she also appeared anxious. Grant hoped she and her grandfather, whom she was to meet momentarily, would get on well.
With the Huckabees busy in the kitchen, Victoria looked out at the vacant front hall. "This place is so different from Whitestone," she whispered to Camellia. "I remember the Court being warm and full of fine things."
Grant explained, "It hasn't been maintained. The earl spent his fortune searching for his family."
Victoria squared her shoulders. "Then I will have to help him make it nice again."
Grant had to look away. She had no idea.
At just over eighty-five, Edward Dearbourne was a frail man, his body insubstantial in his huge bed. Tori knew he was bedridden, knew he'd never recovered since his family had disappeared, so she was startled when she looked at his eyes. Though faded from age, they blazed with will and intelligence.
"Tori! Is it you? It's you!" He could scarcely rise up from his pillows.
"I'm here." She felt nervous with him, her last immediate relative.