Lawrence hit the cricket ball with controlled force towards Rose where she stood in front of the stumps on the green outside his townhouse, situated in the famous Circus. Pride swelled inside him as his children ran to retrieve the ball. He’d provided them with a lovely home and enough food to fill their bellies. Enough warmth that they should never feel the chill in their home as he had within the cold corridors of his family’s manor house in Oxfordshire.
Yet, time and again, his fierce determination to protect his children’s happiness felt threatened. As though at any moment, his father would rise from the grave to beat him again, his mother looking on, her eyes alight with malicious satisfaction as this time they left him for dead and assumed guardianship of Rose and Nathanial.
He stabbed the bat into the grass and looked around the circle of houses and the people gathered on the green for the impromptu cricket game. The sun shone high in the sky and the first shimmers of hazy heat warmed his raised face. Yet it had no hope of melting the ice around his heart.
Once heir to the Culford estate, Lawrence’s father had raised his son with an iron hand, determined Lawrence would know hardship as James Culford had. How disappointed Lawrence’s parents must have been when they realised their son was neither boy nor man with a drop of superiority, cruelty or abuse in his nature.
Lawrence glared ahead. Those particular family traits had bypassed him and his eldest sister, Cornelia, and, instead, showed signs of manifesting in their snobbish, money-hungry younger sister, Harriet.
Yet, because she was female, their parents were adamant Harriet would not inherit.
So, Lawrence was dealt every ounce of James’ and Ophelia’s frustration and disappointment.
No matter the mask he wore in front of the children, his staff, colleagues or friends, the fact remained, Lawrence was damaged. Damaged and afraid. So very afraid that beneath his carefully maintained veneer, he feared he could one day be provoked and reveal a deeply buried anger, proving all too clearly he had bad Culford blood running through his veins.
How was he to be everything Rose and Nathanial needed when such bitter, hateful thoughts about his childhood and parents marred his mind and blackened his soul? Would he ever fully breathe while his mother was still living with Harriet and continually dripping venom into his sister’s ear?
He had fantastic neighbours, glorious friends, two beautiful children and more money than he could ever need – his money. Not Culford money, but money earned through his arduous work, investment savvy and a burning need to get away from a mother and father he resented to the very soles of his feet.
Although lonely and desperate for something… someone… to show him real love was possible, Lawrence was scared to fall in love, find comfort in a lover’s arms. What if his masquerade were to slip, and that woman learned of his weakness and cowardly obedience as a child… as a young man?
Yet something had to change before he fell so far into his discontented abyss that he lost all hope of ever climbing out again. If he were to ever stop believing himself a better man than his parents’ cruelty had made him, he would give up and lose everything. He had to find a way to destroy that man. Pulverise him. For his sake, but most importantly, for his children’s sake.
Sickness churned deep in his stomach.
He’d gone on to marry a woman of his parents’ choosing. A woman he didn’t love, yet sired children with her so they both might find a modicum of happiness in the eyes and comfort of their babies. A man who’d kept his promise of marriage yet ensured the shame of who he’d once been remained hidden. Its reality continued to twist in his blood, making him burn with rage and frustration behind his closed bedroom door.
His only course was to live his life for Rose and Nathanial. Maybe an inauthentic life in some ways, but one where his children only knew their father to be happy, smiling and playing. But how could he deny his children the potential to be loved and nurtured by a female touch he could never give them?
At the sound of footsteps, Lawrence turned. Nodding at Charles, his butler and confidante of the last six years, Lawrence’s bogus smile slipped easily into place. ‘Ah, you come bearing refreshments. Good man. Rose? Nathanial? Come and have a drink.’
Rose threw the ball to one of the neighbours’ children and raced towards Lawrence, Nathanial doing his best to keep up with her on his short, four-year-old legs. They each took a glass of milk and biscuit from Charles’ tray, his butler pulling his face into an almost impossible expression that sent the children into fits of giggles.
Lawrence grinned. ‘Go and take your treats to the bench under the tree. You look hot and bothered.’
The children walked away slowly, carefully balancing their drinks and biscuits as Lawrence took a glass of lemonade from the tray.
‘They’re enjoying themselves, I think. It’s nice to see so many of us out here using the green. It felt like a very long winter.’
A young woman walked past them, hand in hand with a toddling boy, and glanced at Lawrence from beneath lowered lashes.
Esther Stanbury immediately leapt into Lawrence’s mind. She was the antithesis of the woman who smiled at him so shyly, yet Esther continued to poke and prod at his memory.
He looked at Charles. ‘I met someone yesterday. A woman.’
‘Oh?’ His butler’s grey eyes widened in surprise, his eyebrows almost brushing the edges of his black hair. ‘And?’
‘And she intrigued me.’ Lawrence admitted, adding a shrug in the hope the gesture might deflect the depth of his interest considering how often Esther Stanbury had entered his thoughts in the last twenty-four hours. ‘I should’ve been infuriated by her, but I’m man enough to admit it’s not infuriation I’m feeling whenever I think about her.’
‘Then what are you feeling?’
He took a deep breath, surprised and confused by his sudden need to share his meeting Esther with Charles. Although Lawrence encouraged a much more personal relationship between himself and his staff than his parents would ever have considered, his candour did not bode well for maintaining his carefully tended control. ‘Nervous.’
Charles raised his eyebrows. ‘Nervous? I’m surprised by that. You have never struck me as nervous about any situation.’
‘And far too curious.’
‘I see.’ Charles looked across at the children. ‘And what did this woman do that should have infuriated you?’
‘It’s difficult to say. Her whole demeanour was of a nature I’ve not come across before. Not even with the suffragists. It’s as though Miss Stanbury is willing to fight for what she believes is right, even if she has to stand alone. She’s… quite remarkable.’
Charles smiled and pulled back his wide shoulders. ‘Well, that is interesting. Will you be seeing her again?’
Lawrence sighed, indecision warring with sanity inside him. ‘To do so would undoubtedly be foolish…’
‘But?’
‘I can’t help thinking I’d come to enjoy her company. In a friendship way, of course. Romance is the furthest thing from my mind,’ he insisted.
‘Of course.’ Charles laid the tray on the grass and crossed his arms, his gaze on their neighbours as they walked or ran across the grass. ‘But there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with this young woman?’
‘On the contrary.’ Lawrence flashed a genuine smile. ‘She’s beautiful. Clearly intelligent, if not a little too opinionated. Passionate, most definitely fond of children and, for some reason I’m yet to identify, has well and truly captured my attention.’
‘May I ask the lady’s name?’
‘Esther. Esther Stanbury.’ Lawrence frowned. He’d actually savoured her name on his tongue and he didn’t doubt she’d taste as softly sweet as the lingering scent of her perfume which incessantly clung to his nostrils. Where on earth were such thoughts coming from? ‘She’s a working woman. A woman my mother would undoubtedly disapprove of.’
‘I think your mother’s approval, one way or another, no longer matters to you, so why not ask this lady to dinner? She can only refuse, and then you’ll know for certain if your meeting with her was nothing more than an encounter that momentarily threw you off balance.’ Charles raised his eyebrows again. ‘Because that is how you’re feeling, isn’t it?’
‘Off balance.’ Lawrence nodded, ridiculously grateful his butler had named the absurdity currently threatening his self-preservation. ‘Indeed.’
Rose and Nathanial approached them, wearing matching milk moustaches complete with biscuit crumb sprinkles. Lawrence stepped forward, his momentary lapse in attention to them quashed. They mattered more than anything. His children had to come first. His own wants – his own desires – could not overshadow what mattered most: his children’s happiness and raising them in a loving and secure environment.
The strange and inexplicable urge to get to know Esther Stanbury was of no consequence. She wasn’t the right woman for him to pursue, even if such a miracle were to ever arise. How would such an independent woman with views and strong opinions, however just and right, ever be happy staying at home and helping raise another woman’s children?
Because that was the kind of spouse he should want for Rose and Nathanial. Only a woman who wanted to be with them would suffice. His children deserved that singular commitment and unfailing devotion. They needed to know they were loved above all else.
He had to be careful. Had to maintain his willpower. To make a mistake could affect Rose and Nathanial in ways from which they may never recover.
An arranged marriage, even a marriage of convenience, would eventually fail and he would not re-expose his children to the heartache he’d slowly managed to pull them out of when they’d lost Abigail. A truly loving and obedient woman who’d been nothing more to his parents than another person in their plans to continue their self-made lineage and increase the family wealth.
His chest tightened as isolation gripped him and Lawrence quickly swiped his hand over his face, the scuff of his jaw rasping against his palm.
Forcing a smile, he wiggled his eyebrows at the children as he passed his empty glass to Charles. ‘Right, who’s ready for our next innings?’
They squealed and laughed as Lawrence gave an almighty roar and grappled them into his arms. He ran across the grass bouncing and jolting the most precious gifts Abigail could ever have given him in her too-short life.