Lucien usually avoided Wiltshire. The last time he’d traveled this way, he’d had a series of unfortunate events that had been so confounding that he’d vowed to travel by any other route from that point on, no matter how long the detour might take.
He wasn’t a superstitious man by any means, but he preferred not to dally in places where he’d encountered such tremendous stupidity that it had boggled his mind.
“Never thought to find us in Wiltshire again, Your Grace,” his driver said.
“Neither did I, Kay. And I am eternally grateful that you are perfectly hale. I should not wish to see you in such a state as last time, and the two of us at the mercy of a backwater driver who could not navigate himself through an open door.”
“Had us turned upside down, he did. Traveling north instead of south to Somerset. Then there was that strange storm that took us farther off course. And that stone in the road that broke the wheel.” He shook his head. “Thought we’d never get home.”
“Rest assured, this compulsory visit will be quite brief,” Lucien said, ninety-nine percent certain that he wouldn’t find a trace of Lady Avalon here either.
Unlike his other hunting expeditions, this time Pell and Morgan would join him in a few days. Since his sister still suffered bouts of fatigue after her illness in Italy, he hadn’t wanted her to risk the jaunt across the countryside. But she’d insisted and told him to go on ahead of them.
So now here he was in an idyllic village, filled with flower boxes beneath shopfront windows, neatly swept pavements beside the narrow, winding cobblestoned high street and townspeople who greeted one another with a smile and a tip of the hat.
In other words, it was hardly the place where he might find an adventuress like Lady Avalon.
Over the course of the past two years, he’d heard rumors of her living in large cities, teeming with crowds to conceal her and with excitement enough to satisfy her nature. But his quests had been fruitless.
Standing in the shadow of the clapboard inn, he surveyed the cluster of honey-colored stone buildings, calculating where best to begin making discreet inquiries. The butcher, the baker and the haberdasher were most likely to know the local gossip.
As he took a step, a sudden gust swept down the lane, strong enough that he lifted a hand to the brim of his hat. But instead of securing it, he went still, heedless to the black beaver topper tumbling off his head and onto the ground.
“Something amiss, sir?” Kay asked, unstrapping the portmanteau.
A familiar scent invaded Lucien’s nostrils, and a shiver rolled down his spine, his flesh prickling beneath his starched linen. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of raven-black hair, porcelain skin and lips as red as candied cherries.
His pulse quickened, and he turned swiftly.
But the morning sun glanced across his spectacles, blinding him for an instant. By the time he removed them, the figure was gone.
“Did you see a woman with dark hair and a fair complexion walk by just now?”
Brushing off the hat against the side of his long coat, his driver handed it to him. “No, sir. But are you feeling quite well? If you don’t mind my saying, you’ve gone a bit pale.”
Lucien shook his head. “Too much traveling of late. I’ll be glad to be home after this.”
And he would stay there for a time, vowing to ignore whatever rumors might come his way. He would have to put Lady Avalon and the book from his mind. This pursuit—this obsession—was killing him. If he didn’t stop, he would likely find his way to an early grave without having anything to show for his life.
He was just putting on his top hat when he heard something that sparked his interest.
“Good day, Mrs. Arthur,” a man said. “We have more of that cherry jam you fancy.”
“Thank you, Mr. Osborne. But I’m afraid I lingered too long over ribbons at Mrs. Baxter’s shop, and I must make haste back to the house. Tomorrow?” a voice called out, growing fainter on the breeze.
“Until tomorrow, then.”
Somewhere between the first syllable and the last, Lucien’s heart had stopped beating. He knew that voice, the way it lilted musically as if forever on the precipice of a laugh.
She’d likely laughed all the way out of Italy where she’d left him more than two years ago.
His heart started again in hard, angry beats. This time he was certain.
He fell into stealthy pursuit of the figure in a lavender pelisse and straw bonnet. As she scuttled along the pavement, he peevishly wondered why she was in such a hurry. Behind schedule for her latest conquest? Another duke waiting to be hoodwinked?
Turning the corner at the end of the lane, she bumped her basket against the lamppost, and the contents spilled. She paused, lowering to collect her scattered assortment of brightly colored ribbons.
“How clumsy of me,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh as his boots appeared in her line of vision, and he bent down. “I’m grateful for your assist—”
The instant the brim of her bonnet lifted and their eyes met, she stopped. Her face drained of all color. Even her eyes seemed a bleached blue, and more startling than he remembered.
Her lips formed the syllables of his name, but no sound came forth.
“Surprised?” he asked coldly.
Even so, he felt a brief, unanticipated swell of relief at seeing her alive. It lodged in his throat and he had a sudden urge to haul her into his arms, to hold her, to—
No. He refused to acknowledge any misplaced mawkish sentiment. It had no place here. But anger, outrage and resentment? Aye. Those were his bedfellows and he would hold fast to them.
“What . . .” she rasped, then swallowed. “What are you doing here?”
“To take back what’s mine.”
She stiffened and stood, watching him warily as he did the same. “I do not have anything that is yours.”
“I beg to differ. Surely, you know by now what my legacy means to me, and I will not leave here without it.”
“Over my dead body.” Instant ferocity flared to life in those eyes, and she bared her teeth like a wolf guarding her pup. “You’ve shown absolutely no interest in me or your legacy. So whatever reason you think you’ve come here for . . . Well, you can think again. Because you’re not going to lay a single hand on her.”
“We shall see about that.”
“We will, indeed.”
She stalked off, head high. And he let her go for the moment.
It was clear that she was comfortable here and had set down roots long enough to become familiar with the townspeople, at least. Perhaps he’d finally found the wolf’s lair. It would be difficult for her to flit off in a hurry, which gave him ample time to ask a few questions in the village.
Then, once armed with information, he would pay a call on her. After all, what kind of a gentleman would he be if he didn’t return the basket and spilled ribbons she’d so thoughtlessly left behind?
* * *
Meg returned to Crossmoor Abbey without remembering the steps she’d taken to arrive at her home. Even though she’d lived here for the majority of her life, the three stories of smooth ashlar stones and crenellated towers on either side seemed foreign to her.
All the workings of her mind had stopped on one thought: Lucien is here.
“Anything amiss, Mistress Stredwick?” the butler asked as he opened the recessed front door. “Shall I summon your aunt or Lady Hullworth?”
She shook her head, catching her ghostly white reflection in the foyer’s filigree-framed looking glass. “I am fine, Mr. Tidwell. Just a bit winded from the walk, I suppose.”
Numbly, she climbed the stairs with the intention of checking on Guinevere in the nursery but only made it to the first floor, where she sank onto one of the benches that lined the wainscoted hallway.
Lucien was here. It was almost impossible to believe. She might have convinced herself he was an aberration if not for the heavy thudding of her heart and the soul-deep ache that reminded her how little she had meant to him.
For the first month after her return from her holiday, she’d been worried and frantic. She’d paced the floor at nights, sleepless and imagining all sorts of calamities that might have befallen him.
By the second month, she’d been furious when she’d read in the society papers that he’d returned to Somerset. She’d even been tempted to travel there, pound on his door and demand answers. Did he think their night together meant nothing?
By the third month . . . she’d had other things on her mind, like how to tell her brother about her night of indiscretion and the child that had resulted from it.
The conversation had been humbling, humiliating. She’d let everyone down. Her family believed in love matches, not reckless nights of abandon. They waited for the Stredwick certainty, for fate, to guide them. And she thought she had as well.
But she’d been wrong about Lucien. Just like she’d been wrong about believing she’d loved Daniel Prescott.
Over that summer, she’d come to realize that what she’d felt for Daniel was a childish infatuation. What she had felt for Lucien was genuine, but only on her part, apparently. To him, she meant nothing. And it was with equal sadness when she realized that there would be no love match for her. Not ever. Because she couldn’t trust her own heart.
When Brandon had demanded to know the name of the blackguard, she’d refused to give it. She’d also sworn the aunts to secrecy, which they’d agreed to because they hadn’t wanted it known that they’d been chased out of Italy for stealing.
However, she had told them that she’d written countless letters to the gentleman in question and received no response. That had been the only reason Brandon hadn’t overruled her. That and because of Ellie.
Meg’s sister-in-law had looked into her husband’s eyes and simply asked him if he would truly force Meg to marry an obviously thoughtless and self-serving man. And since he’d nearly lost Ellie to such a man—until she’d seen the truth for herself—Brandon had accepted Meg’s decision. Albeit with gritted teeth and immense reluctance.
Her Aunt Sylvia, who lived with them at Crossmoor Abbey, had smiled softly when Meg had told her. She’d taken her hand and said that love was precious, that one should cherish all the gifts that came from it and that everything would work out as it was meant to.
Bryony knew the truth, of course. The other servants and the rest of society, however, would never understand a highborn woman choosing to have a child with no husband. So Aunt Sylvia had accidentally mentioned to her own abigail that Meg had fallen in love and married in Italy in a whirlwind romance. But her new husband, a gentleman of a fine family, had been called away on a matter of business and would return to her once he secured their fortune and future.
And just what was the surname of this mysterious gentleman who’d stolen the heart of their mistress?
Arthur, of course.
Meg could think of none other than the legendary king who’d started it all. After pretending to be Lady Avalon and Miss Parrish for a few months, it wasn’t terribly difficult to answer to the name Mrs. Arthur for a time.
After Guinevere was born and Mr. Arthur never presented himself, however, the servants started gossiping about the lack of letters coming from his quarter. They saw her send many out, but none—other than from her friends—came in.
She wasn’t entirely sure how Mr. Arthur had ostensibly died. All she knew was that Brandon had mentioned to his manservant that her supposed husband had befallen an accident—one too gruesome and scandalous for feminine ears—which had likely reflected his own desires to inflict retribution on the true culprit. But it was apparently so terrible that the servants wanted to erase his memory altogether.
So they called her Mistress Stredwick, while those in the village referred to her as either Mrs. Arthur or, with a pitying expression, the Widow Arthur.
But now that Lucien was here, the truth would be revealed, and she would bring humiliation on her family.
Meg had to leave Crossmoor Abbey. There was no other way. He was here to take Guinevere—his legacy—from her, and she refused to let that happen.
That thought brought her to her feet, the sudden fire in her blood driving away her residual shock at having seen him.
He’d been just as impossibly tall, perhaps taller, and one of his lenses had been smudged. His face was familiar to her and yet so much colder than she remembered. In fact, the last time she had seen him he was—
Don’t, she told herself. Thinking of what they’d been to each other, or what she’d thought they’d been, only made her heart break.
It was all too clear that she’d been wrong and that the Fates had never brought them together at all.
When she appeared in the nursery doorway, she saw that Guinevere was down for her nap, her wispy pale blonde hair fanning out over the pillow.
It had been a surprise when her hair had grown in blonde, considering that both of her parents were dark. But perhaps the Stredwick lineage that had given her brother nut-brown hair had something to do with that.
A healthy child, Guinevere had her mother’s roundness of face, and when she smiled, she flashed a dimple. But only on the left side of her cheek, just like her father. Her eyes were a changeable blue that seemed to grow darker each day, as if on the cusp of turning a rich river-stone brown, and there was no mistaking the flecks of gold that were undeniably like Lucien’s.
Since her daughter was not a sound sleeper, Meg quietly tiptoed away and went down to her own bedchamber.
She rang for Bryony immediately and informed her of the news.
“Then, we’ll be gone for a long while, I should expect,” Bryony said without hesitation. “We’ll manage just fine. I’ll start packing your things straightaway.”
Meg squeezed her hand with affection. “I don’t know what I would do without you. I’ll go to the attic with you to fetch as many valises as we can carry. We cannot tell the other servants. Not yet, at least. I’ll have to speak with Aunt Sylvia first.”
“Don’t you fret. It’ll all turn out right in the end.”
Meg tried to smile, but she remembered thinking that same thing when she’d left Italy. And as far as she could tell, nothing was turning out the way it was supposed to at all.