Gideon readily admitted to being more than a little concerned as to what Michael Montague’s state of mind might have been when he died.
Firstly, by leaving guardianship of his daughter to a man he hadn’t seen for ten years and who was known to be shrouded in scandal regarding his wife’s death.
Now this, a brown leather journal Lydia seemed to recognize as she opened the cover to read the inscription written there in black ink.
“The date says this is my father’s diary for eighteen hundred and five.”
Ten years ago, and the year Harriet died and Gideon was horribly burned.
Gideon reared back as if struck, but he continued to stare at the journal as Lydia held it in her slender hands. As if its contents might at any moment strike out at him with the speed of a venomous snake.
Lydia eyed him curiously. “Isn’t that the same year your wife died?”
Her lack of certainty in that fact proved again how young she was.
She turned the journal over. “There is a piece of ribbon marking a place partway through the entries— Gideon…?” She voiced her surprise as he snatched the journal from her and turned to the page she had pointed out.
A letter fell from between the two pages, but Gideon paid it no heed once he had seen the date at the top of the page: Chessington Park, Kent, August 3rd, 1805.
A month before Harriet died in the fire at their London home.
He slammed the journal closed with a loud snap after reading the words written on the first line for that date.
Today, I kissed Harriet Rhodes.
Gideon’s heart was pounding so loudly and so fast, he was starting to feel lightheaded. There was also a strange ringing noise in his ears.
Dear God, what if this diary was a deathbed confession of Michael Montague having been involved in an affair with Harriet before she died?
Gideon staggered back slightly at the enormity of that even being a possibility. But if that were the case, it would further explain her aversion to their own marriage.
“Here. Sit down.” Lydia pulled back a chair at the kitchen table before guiding him to sit on it. “I will make us both some tea.” She filled the kettle and placed it on the range before turning back to him, her gaze full of concern. “You have become very pale.”
Unsurprisingly so, if Gideon’s suspicions should prove to be the correct ones.
Ten years ago Michael Montague would have been aged about five and thirty and a widower for the five years previous to that.
Was it possible…
Could Chessington and Harriet have been involved in an affair together…
Surely not.
It didn’t make any sense, if that were the case, for the earl to then leave guardianship of his only and beloved child to the man he had cuckolded all those years ago.
It made even less sense to leave that same man a diary confessing to the affair with that man’s wife.
“Here.” Lydia crossed the room to place a cup of tea on the table in front of him before bending to retrieve the letter from the flagstone floor. “I wonder what Papa—”
Gideon snatched the sealed letter from her before she could read what was written inside. “Your father left the journal and letter to me.”
Lydia looked hurt by the abruptness of his tone and manner. “I only thought that perhaps they might in some way explain why my father chose you to be my guardian when the two of you, by your own admission, had not seen each other for many years before he died. I apologize if I overstepped.”
Gideon at once felt guilty. Of course Lydia was curious as to what her father’s thinking might have been when he had chosen Esher for her guardian, a man Lydia had never so much as met before a week ago.
“Forgive me.” He gave a quick bow of his head. “I am a little surprised your father has left me what looks to be a very personal journal of his thoughts and life.” And most especially surprised by the first line of the entry being August 3rd.
He needed to read more of the journal to know whether or not Chessington and Harriet’s friendship had gone beyond a kiss. Something he was reluctant to do in front of Lydia.
It was obvious from all of Lydia’s comments about her father that she adored him and that he had indulged and loved her. With the other man dead, and so unable to defend himself, Gideon didn’t want to be the reason Lydia’s adoration for her father was shaken or damaged.
They had reached a new understanding this evening. One of both pleasure and tenderness. The last thing Gideon wanted to do was put that closeness in danger.
He placed the journal and the letter on the tabletop, then reached out to lightly grasp one of Lydia’s wrists and pull her between his parted legs before sitting her gently down on one of his thighs.
He curved his arms about the slenderness of her waist. “Whatever is written in either the journal or letter, I first wish for you to know that…that…”
“Yes?” Lydia could barely contain her anticipation as she waited for Gideon to finish his sentence. She had a feeling it was going to be of far more importance to her future than anything her father might have written.
Gideon swallowed. “I respect and admire you very much.”
“Oh.” Lydia was completely unable to hide her disappointment.
Gideon reached up to stroke his knuckles against one of her cheeks. “Your father must have been very proud of you.”
She smiled fondly. “I believe he was quite biased in that regard.”
“Not in the least.” Strong arms tightened about her. “Lydia, I…I…”
“Yes?” Her impatience deepened at this hesitation from a man she knew to be anything but reticent, let alone less than decisive in all his dealings.
He drew a deep breath. “I believe I have come to more than respect and admire you.”
Lydia was having trouble breathing. “You have?”
Gideon nodded. “Tonight, with you, is the first time I have made love to any woman in a very long time— No,” he corrected himself firmly. “You are the first woman I have ever made love with and who has in turn made love to me. My previous encounters were…lacking in that tenderness of emotion or were in some other way less than satisfactory. I tried with Harriet, I really did, but she abhorred everything to do with the physical side of our marriage. In the end, I believe she abhorred me,” he acknowledged bleakly.
Lydia reached up to gently touch his rigidly clenched jaw. “I am sorry for that. But I doubt that was your fault. I know that there are some women who dislike all physical intimacy no matter who it is with. Harriet sounds as if she was one of them.”
As far as Lydia was concerned, Harriet Rhodes’s loss was her gain. How Harriet had ever been able to resist a man as charismatic and sensual as Gideon was beyond comprehension.
“Lydia.” Gideon waited until her head was turned fully toward him and he had her full attention. “Whatever we discover from reading your father’s journal or the letter, I wish for you to know that I have developed feelings for you. Strong feelings.”
It wasn’t a declaration of the love Lydia now believed she felt toward him, but it was definitely more of an admission from Gideon than she had ever dared hope for. “I have strong feelings for you too.”
His smile was one of affection as she deliberately echoed his cautious words. “Then can we agree that nothing we read tonight will change the…feelings we have for each other.” His smile faded.
She gave a puzzled frown. “You sound as if you believe that to be a possibility.”
He remained serious. “Please first promise me that, Lydia.”
“Of course,” she readily agreed in the face of his obvious intensity. “I am not so fickle a creature that I will allow someone else, even my own father, to influence my opinion of another. Of you,” she added huskily.
“And yet you were obviously as puzzled as I when your father made me your guardian.”
She chuckled. “It was a little strange, yes, when the two of us had never even met. But I trust my father’s decisions implicitly. He was not a man to set too much store by other people’s opinion either. He preferred to make up his own mind about a person or a subject. The Prince Regent himself often asked that he share those levelheaded opinions with him.”
“The two of them remained friends even after Prince George became Regent?”
“They did,” she confirmed proudly.
Gideon frowned. “Then I am surprised he did not make you a ward of the Crown rather than my own. It would have been perfectly acceptable in the circumstances, and you would have been able to remain in London Society with your friends.”
“My father obviously considered you to be the man he could trust enough to care for his most treasured possession. Me,” she added in case there should be any doubt.
Gideon nodded slowly. “I always thought of your father as a man of honor and integrity.”
“You are the only other gentleman I know who has that same depth of honor and honesty,” she stated without hesitation.
Gideon released the breath he had apparently been holding. “Then we shall proceed. But with the proviso that you accept that your father, for all that he was a good man, was also only a man, with a man’s foibles and weaknesses.”
Lydia eyed him warily. “What are you saying?”
Gideon frowned. “I read only one line of the journal before slamming it closed, but your father wrote: Today, I kissed Harriet Rhodes,” he acknowledged heavily.
Lydia pulled back sharply to stare at Gideon in disbelief. Oh, she didn’t doubt for a moment that was what Gideon thought he had read in her father’s diary, but she could not and would not believe her father to be guilty of such perfidy.
Not just because of his deep sense of honesty, but Lydia also knew her father had continued to love her mother until the day he died. The last words he had spoken were to express his happiness in at last being reunited with his beloved Alicia.
Lydia reached out to pick up the journal before handing it to Gideon. “Show it to me, please.”
Gideon could see by Lydia’s stubbornly determined expression that she did not believe her father to be guilty of kissing another man’s wife.
“Perhaps we should read the letter first?” He was attempting to delay opening that journal again on the entry for August 3rd, 1805, for as long as possible. Attempting to delay the possibility of losing this closeness to Lydia.
She picked up the missive from the tabletop. “My father has written on the front of this that you are to read it after the journal.”
Gideon bit back his frustration. He was afraid, deeply afraid, that if once lost, this closeness that currently existed between himself and Lydia would be gone forever. He didn’t think he could bear it if that meant he had to return to that barren and unhappy time he had known for so long before Lydia’s warmth and beauty came into his life. Before she came to Cornwall and breathed life and hope into his icy heart.
“The journal, Gideon,” she prompted again firmly.
“Kiss me first,” he gruffly encouraged.
A warm smile curved her lips. “I will happily kiss you any time you wish me to. The contents of the journal will not change that,” she promised before placing the softness of her lips against his.
Gideon returned the kiss with a sense of desperation. He was sure, despite what Lydia said to the contrary, that she would want nothing more to do with him once they had read the rest of her father’s journal for the year Harriet had died.