Page 42 of The Himbo and the Lord

CHAPTERNINETEEN

Ru

“Fenella Dubarry?!”I exclaim, as my father drops his news on me. I thought I’d been summoned for business, and in a way I had. But we’d concluded the questions he wanted answers to—nothing he couldn’t have kept for the office tomorrow—which had left me with an uneasiness as I sat across the wide wooden desk from him in his study.

And now I learn the real reason why he called me here this morning.

“The Dubarrys are a respectable family. Lord Dubarry has been a long-term member of my club.”

“So?” I sound petulant, but I want to make my father spell it out for me.

He leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers, which I know is never a good sign, and I’m probably in for a long lecture, one I’ve heard before on numerous occasions.

“Rupert.” I can hear the exasperation in his voice, but I don’t let it get to me. “How old are you, twenty-eight, twenty-nine?”

I don’t answer because not only does he not require one, but the fact he can’t actually remember how old I am means he doesn’t deserve one. He doesn’t deserve my respect either, and he doesn’t have it, not really. I continue to toe the family line because tradition has been ingrained in me from an early age, but I won’t adhere to it enough to give him what he wants.

Not without a fight anyway.

Except I’m not fighting. I’m resisting for as long as possible. A conscientious objector to my own inevitable fate.

My cowardice to stand up to my father makes me fidgety, and while he goes over the same tired speech about duty and family and the Cardew line, I chew the side of my thumb and turn my thoughts to Nate as usual.

He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who wouldn’t stand up to his own father. I bet they have a great relationship. He’s so open about his sexuality as well, that it probably isn’t a problem for him either. Twin feelings, of wishing to be more like him and envy that he probably has it easy, weave their way through me, and I almost miss the point my father is getting to.

“So, they’re coming to dinner tomorrow night. I expect you to be here.”

“What?” The exclamation bursts from me. I know what he’s up to. Fenella is just another in the long line of women he’sconsideredfor me, hoping I’ll want to marry one of them eventually.

But he can’t make me.

“It’s not what,” my father sighs. “It’s pardon.”

His need to correct me irritates me.

“Whatever,” I mumble, but the look he gives me, shows that he heard me perfectly well.

“Rupert! I raised you better than that.”

Yes, well father, here’s the thing. You didn’t raise me, did you? As soon as I was old enough, you packed me off to boarding school.

I’m not sorry about it, though. I had a good time at Woodcourtt, but to say I was raised by my father, or even my mother, is a joke.

I don’t bother to answer him on that one, which irritates him further. Maybe if he’d shown me one tiny bit of love or even a kind word in the last twenty-eight years, then maybe I would bother, but I exist for one reason only, to be the next Lord Harrington. I’ve always suspected that I wouldn’t have been born at all if Petra had been male.

“Tomorrow, seven o’clock.” He dismisses me with his words and I leave without saying goodbye. I’m as disappointed in him as he is in me and I can’t wait to get out of his presence. Out of his house.

“He only wants to see you happy.” My mother comes out of the drawing room as I cross the hall, hoping to escape.

I stop and face her.

“No he doesn’t. All he cares is that the Cardew line doesn’t die out. Like anyone cares about my happiness.”

“Your father does.” She tries to make peace between us but I never listen. She’s never been very maternal. Petra and I were cared for by nannies when we were younger, and then both of us were sent away to school. We were tolerated during the holidays as long as we didn’t make too much noise or interrupt the functions and garden parties our parents held.

“I know he can trace us back to the thirteenth century or whatever, but really, does it matter?”

She makes a face like l’ve insulted her personally, and I finally understand. Having two unmarried children, aged twenty-eight and thirty, is an embarrassment to her. It’s not something she can boast about in her circle. She’s never been the mother of the bride or groom. Never been able to show off pictures of her grandchildren. It makes her feel like a failure, which shows how shallow her friends are too, if they make her feel like that.

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