The Coachman's Daughter (8 page)

He closed his eyes and opened them as if
bringing himself from some other place. Gruffly he finished, “Haven
was created in such a moment, and that makes her existence precious
to me. She is all I have left of it. Nothing in this life will ever
duplicate it. If you have never felt it, you scoff and you mock it.
If you do not believe in it, then you never find your soul
mate—like his grace, like Lord Montgomery, as I once did. I will
have nothing less for Haven. I care not if she ever is a man’s
bride. Brides are not always there by choice. I understand passion
and desire. Being a lover is more than servicing one or the other,
it is a selfish choice, but it is because of what each gives—to the
other. What we’re helpless to feeling.”

With his usual women, Deme could fill in that
he no more desire or emotion with them than he did taking a piss.
They were nameless, faceless—and, Patrick did not want his daughter
treated as such.

Deme had never in his life had to face a
father or the guardian of someone he had been intimate with. It was
a discomforting experience, to say the least. However, it also
seemed apt that the first time he did—it would be Mulhern’s.

What he said to Patrick in reply was, “I have
no vice, sin, or flaw that Haven has not witnessed. She has no
illusions about me. She’s never ignored or excused them, nor
allowed me to make them other than they are. There was only one
person who did likewise, and that is Lord Montgomery.

Up until tonight, I would have said Haven
Mulhern and I dislike each other intensely. She, for good reason,
and I, because she never gives a bloody damn about who I am and
refuses to fit any category I mentally put her in. She has always
been there to save me from myself, true. Every time I try to answer
why, I know it is not the right one. Haven does only what Haven
wants to do.”

“And what about tonight?” Patrick asked
softly.

Deme looked away and shoved a hand thorough
his hair. “My initial reason for kissing her was the usual. After I
had, after I realized I was far from detached, I forgot—anything
else.”

Feeling Patrick’s gaze on his profile, Deme
finally turned his head to meet it.

The man sighed and then murmured, “Come to
the apartments after six this evening. I believe Haven is going to
visits with Lady Lisette then. Be discreet. What I have to say, I
haven’t yet shared with Haven.” Patrick sighed again. “I suppose it
is time.”

When he had gone, and the door shut, Deme
murmured, “Bloody hell. And stared at it before he found his coat
and hat and left.

Outside of the coach house, it was a deep
gray fall morning, surreal and heavy with fog. He needed the walk
to the manor house to clear his head. He was bloody well good at
making things worse, was he not? Only this time, Deme did not
intend to leave it as it was. Sitting there those hours after she
left, he knew he could not dance his way out of this. For the first
time in his life, he had felt…alive.

Later, entering the house by the library
doors, then going up to his chambers, He divested his coat and hat
in his sitting room, where a fire was fresh laid. He continued to
the bedchamber and watched a foggy dawn manifest into day, while he
sat in the window seat and smoked.

His valet entered and ran his bath sometime
later.

Deme told him, “When his grace is awake and
has his breakfast, will you tell him I would beg a word with him
before noon?”

The valet looked at him and bowed. “Yes, my
lord.”

Deme nodded and turned to stare sightlessly
out the window, finally hearing the valet run his bath. When the
man left, he prepared a pan, shaved and then saw to bathing and
dressing.

He’d requested only coffee, and spent the
morning hours unlike he had ever done, sitting, looking at
nothing—seeing his life from the time he had finished university.
At some point, he remembered that misty field at dawn. He had
discovered Selene’s trickery on the ride back to her estate. No
tears, no regret or mourning, but a lust, a crazed kind of victory
in her eyes—that turned his blood cold. Later still discovering he
was not the first, she had tried to engage to rid herself of
William. She had died, two years ago he had heard. Lived her life
with a string of lovers. He did not care. He did not feel anything
but relief. All the acts, she had performed for him; convincing him
William was no worse than an animal, made him sick.

“The Duke will see you now.”

Deme glanced over, having not heard Mossley’s
tread.

He stood and walked past the man, then went
into the hall and down spiraled stairs. Servants were preparing for
the dozen or so guests. They curtseyed or greeted him as he passed
them on his way to the study.

He knocked, and his grace bade him enter.

“Is ought amiss?” His father looked him over,
turning from the French doors with his coffee and cigar. Deme never
sought audience with him. He was rarely in fit condition to talk
to.

Deme shook his head and took a chair. He
waved his father to join him. “There’s something I wish to
discuss.”

The Duke joined him after leaving the smoke
to rest on an iron tray outside, and placing his coffee on the
desk.

Deme studied the green carpeting over
polished wood floors, choosing his words carefully. “I think I know
why you offered to hand Wimberly over to me so soon.” He raised his
gaze to his fathers. “But there are still the twins, and Jude, the
brothers when they return. This has always been home to them. It is
very much that, because of you and the Duchess. I beg you remain,
as this is your home, and if you wish to spend some time at Blakely
do so. You can give me stewardship over the lesser holdings.”

Those blue eyes on him keenly, his grace
murmured, “It will be yours someday, Wimberly.”

“Then let us wait until someday.” Deme got to
his feet and walked over to the spot his father had been. “This is
where we gather, where the memories for the siblings are. You and
Mama love it here.”

“What is wrong, my son?”

Deme released a terse breath and braced a
hand on the door opening, watching a rabbit slip out of the side
garden and along the cobbled walk.

“I went into the village last night.”

“I know.”

“How?”

The Duke grunted dryly. “Does it matter?”

“No.”

The leather chair squeaked and Duke came over
to stand beside him.

They were shoulder to shoulder for some time
before his grace offered, “After your mother has her party and the
boys have left, we’ll discuss what you wish to oversee. It will be
a relief to me. You always had more of a head for keeping books and
keeping track of what needs done than I.”

“Thank you. I haven’t been of much use in
awhile.”

Though it was said with self-mocking humor,
the Duke pat him on the shoulder, a gesture he had not done since
Deme was a lad. After dropping his hand, he cleared his throat and
offered, “I never wanted the perfect heir Demetrius. That would
have made me daft. There are none of us perfect. I just want a
happy one. Wimberly’s aren’t restrained and serene; we learn more
from our mistakes than we do from advice.”

Staring at him, Deme asked, “How did you come
to hire Patrick. Why he was here six years before Haven joined
him?”

If the Duke thought that an odd change of
subject, he didn’t show it.

“I met him in Ireland. I was wagering on a
race.”

Deme felt his nape prickle. “And?”

“And I am not sure that Mulhern has told his
daughter everything, thus it is not my place to break a
confidence.”

“It will go no further.”

The Duke went to sit behind the desk. He
absently scratched his jaw. “Patrick was employed by the
aristocracy. A young man of rank, who had three sisters in his
charge. One of those ladies gave birth to Haven.”

“She is Patrick’s?”

“Yes. It is a complicated tale. But the
brother duped him. He was something of a wastrel. The ancestral
estates were in trouble. He got wind of the affection between
Mulhern and his sister. He told Patrick if he would turn over the
purses and prizes he won, to get the estate out of debt, he could
consent for Patrick to wed his sister. Patrick did so, but over
time learned that the brother had already promised her to a gentry
fellow whom he also owed gambling debts to.”

Deme guessed, “He had not paid off debts with
the money Patrick gave him?”

“No. He gambled it away as fast as it was put
in his hands. Patrick however, did not discover the worst until he
went to see her brother and tell him his woman was with child.
Thinking themselves soon to wed, they had been lovers. Her brother
was enraged, but apparently hid it well enough.

He strung Patrick along and kept her hidden
while the child grew in her. Patrick by now realized how desperate
the situation was for the both of them. He somehow got wind that
the Lord had instructed the servants to secret the child to an
orphanage—and that he had those plans to wed her to the other man.
Patrick quickly made other arrangements—a vicar and his wife, he
confided in were paid to keep the child. There was an unpleasant
scene between them all, Patrick, was devastated, and the Lady, too
young to defy her brother, and too frightened I would expect, could
do nothing. Whilst Patrick was making arrangements to carry her off
with him—her brother had her wed to the other man.”

Deme cursed softly.

Wimberly sat back. “Yes. I take it he tried
to contact her but was told by one of her sisters that it would
cause her trouble. There was a letter from her, at some point,
imploring him to keep the child safe. To place neither of them in
jeopardy by revealing their relationship. She was under her
husband’s rule. Her brother would make her sisters suffer. There
was a possibility Patrick would be charged with some crime.”

“Good God.”

“In any event, I met him at one of those
races, a high stakes one. It was his impressive skill at the whip
that made me offer him a position. Others were doing so. He turned
me down several times. I invited him to dine at an Inn with me. Let
us just say—I could tell he was a man on the edge of some
desperation. I am surprised he could focus well enough win those
races. With some prodding, the whole tale came out.”

“But he could have brought her—Haven—with
him.”

“He was devastated, Deme. Having nothing to
show for years of hard work and training too. He wanted the Aunt to
tell her mother where she was—should she ever desire to see her. He
sent money. However, in time, I urged him to send for her so that
she might have proper schooling. That is what he did.”

“Haven knows none of this?”

“No. She knew nothing about her mother.”

“The woman never came to see her then?”

The Duke met his gaze. “One of the sisters
told him she died and that is all he had told Haven.”

“Why do you say it like that?”

“The Lady was wed into a family of some power
and influence. She knew the risk to Patrick, a coachman, let alone
to herself. Would it not be wise to let him think so? Perhaps the
only way she could deal with it was to put him and the child behind
her.”

Deme lowered his body into one of the chairs.
“Mama knows, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

After a bit, the Duke joined him. “I trust
you will not reveal to Patrick either what I have shared.”

“Of course not.” However, he thought he could
spare the man the whole telling of it.

His father reached and pat his knee. “We are
none of us wise when we are young and in love, Deme. Just look at
your mother and myself. We were mad for each other, and yet we hurt
each other deeply. My pride hurt because she resented being made to
wed me. She was young and had been stifled growing up. I became an
arrogant ass, and took a mistress.

She left me and we divorced. The both of us
made every pretense of moving on, but put us in the same ballroom
and were like two sparks igniting. We cheated on our lovers with
each other.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Finally I
understood her and she me, and we ceased fighting what we knew was
destiny.”

“You argue as much as you love,” Deme said
aridly.

“We’re passionate people. Of course we
argue.”

Deme stood to leave. “Whatever I do, that may
seem—out of the ordinary in the next few weeks, will you trust
me?”

“Yes.” It came without hesitation.

Deme nodded, then promising the Duke before
he would, he went in search of his younger brothers, spending the
day with them hunting, listening to them tease each other over all
the ladies they would be attracting when they donned their dashing
uniforms.

On the way home, they walked ahead, Aiden and
James. Jude strode beside him, rifle over his shoulder and offered,
“I have told Mama I have no intention of taking some position as a
vicar. I am aware ‘tis done by younger sons, but I am not suited
for it.”

Deme pulled from the distraction he had been
in on and off, awaiting six o’clock. “There is no great hurry to
decide, little John, you are only six and ten.”

That brother grinned at him. “I know.
However, I have decided not to wait until I am twenty-one to do so.
I am going to study law.”

“Impressive choice.”

Jude laughed somewhat abashed. “I have a
letter from father to present to Lord Harrison. He is a barrister.
He often takes in young men with promise. I will be leaving at
months end—for Cambridge.”

“I wish you every fortune, brother.”

Jude nodded. “I shall doubtless need it.”

Deme offered, and he could tell it surprised
his brother, “When you complete your exams, I’ll see you have a
well-placed set of offices and impressive list of clients—including
your family.” He chuckled softly. “I’m sure your retainer will be
earned with the Wimberly’s.”