mistakes than we do from our successes, do we not?”
She blinked back the sudden sting of tears threatening to mortify her further. She’d expected so much of her first encounter with an English lord. As much as she’d wanted to impress him, she’d wanted him to see—wanted them all to see—how very well her stepfather had done for himself. That his family was equal to theirs.
The Marquess turned to her stepfather, his dismissal hurting far more than she wanted to admit.
“I’ll be in the library,” the Marquess said. “Whenyou’ve finished visiting with Father, you’re welcome to join me there. Do you remember how to find it?”
“I have forgotten very little about this place,” her stepfather said.
“Hell does have a way of leaving an indelible mark on our souls, doesn’t it?”
With a curt bow, the Marquess left them to the purpose of their visit.
“Lydia,” her mother said, “will you please see to our things while your father and I visit with the Duke alone?”
Lydia tore her gaze from the stairs down which the Marquess had disappeared. She nodded, trying not to be disappointed that her first encounter with the aristocracy had not gone at all well.
Chapter 2
R hys abhorred weeping women. He stood within his mother’s bedchamber, his hands clasped behind his back, waiting patiently while she drenched one handkerchief after another.
“Stabbed me in the back,” she muttered. “You might as well have stabbed me in the back.”
“You would be wise not to fill my head with tempting notions, Mother,” he murmured.
She snapped up her head, her flow of tears abruptly stopped as though she’d quite quickly and efficiently erected a dam. With her lips compressed into a tight line, she rose gracefully—always gracefully—from the sofa before the fireplace and paced. “I can’t possibly stay here.”
“Grayson and his family will reside in Father’s wing of the house while they are here. You should seldom see them.”
“I shall go to the seaside—”
“I should think that would be entirely inappropriate in light of the fact that your husband of almost forty years lies upon his deathbed.”
“My husband,” she spat. “My husband, who never let a day pass without reminding me that his true love was some scandalous actress. You cannot imagine the agony of knowing you can never hold a favored spot within the heart of someone you love.”
Oh, he could well imagine it, but he was attempting to ease her pain, not his own.
“If you love Father as you claim, then you must know in his final hours he would desperately want to see Grayson. Nearly fifteen years have come and gone since Father sent him away, Mother, sent him away in an effort to appease you.”
Tears spilled over onto her cheeks, while she dropped back onto the sofa. “Quentin wouldn’t have allowed the bastard to step foot in this house.”
He decided his best course of action was to hold his tongue regarding the brother he had despised and stand his ground for the brother he had loved.
“Father pleaded with me to send for Grayson. I could not deny him so compelling a request.”
Although even if he had been uncaring enough to ignore his father’s appeal, he wouldn’t have. He’d wanted to see for himself how Grayson had fared in Texas.
By all appearances, he’d done rather nicely for himself. His wife had looked on the verge of rushing into battle to defend her husband when Rhys had first ascended the stairs.
But it was Grayson’s older daughter—his step- daughter—who’d initially captured his attention and nearly distracted Rhys from his purpose in flying up thestairs to begin with.
That he’d terrified her had been evident in the widening of her violet eyes, eyes that held far more innocence than he’d seen in any woman’s in a good long while. He’d wanted to untie the ribbon holding her hair in place and comb his fingers through her long, blond tresses simply to determine if they felt as silky