Page 65 of The Heir's Fortune
“Very well,” he heard Madeline say. “I will accompany you. I will be ready by tomorrow.”
Accompany him? Where was she going?
Before he could reconsider his actions, he knocked on the door and pushed it open.
“Lord Ashford,” Madeline’s father, Lord Trenton, said as he got to his feet. “Thank you for allowing my daughter to stay at your home for so long.”
Gideon had never known him well, although he was aware of his reputation as a gambler – one of the reasons Madeline had told him she would only add more scandal to his name. Gideon had seen for a moment, however, what it would be like if Madeline was no longer in his life when the pistol had been held to her head. It was not a life that he had any wish to partake in. Any scandal from her father would be forgotten and forgiven when she was a future duchess.
“The pleasure is ours,” Gideon said, clasping his hands behind his back and nodding his head. “Where are you going from here?”
“We will be returning to London,” Lord Trenton said. “I have… business, and Madeline will continue her search for a husband.”
“Will she now?” Gideon said, lifting a brow as he sought out Madeline’s gaze, but she refused to meet his stare, instead suddenly very interested in what Jack was doing on the blanket beside her. “Do you have any prospective matches, Lady Madeline?”
Her eyes finally lifted to meet his.
“It can be difficult due to my lack of dowry.”
Lord Trenton gave a huff as he tried to brush off her words. “Oh, come now, Maddy, it isn’t that bad. I might not be able to pay someone to take you off of my hands, but I am sure one of these days a gentleman will see what a catch you are – what you can bring to a marriage.”
“I am sure he will,” Gideon murmured. “He will be a lucky man, indeed, if you were to ever choose him.”
Madeline pleaded with him with her eyes, but Gideon was done with this game. He needed to speak to her, needed her to understand what had changed and what he intended.
“When you have finished your conversation, there is something I would like to speak to you about, Madeline,” he saidas she pushed tendrils of her hair back behind her ears. “Would you join me in the gardens?”
“Of course,” she said, smiling at him, although her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, disconcerting him.
He nodded and backed out the door. He didn’t like how she reacted to him, didn’t appreciate the idea that she hadn’t said anything about him to her father, who seemed to think that she was going to be accompanying him to London. The fact that she intended to look for a husband was nearly laughable.
It was time she understood how important she was and what she meant to him.
And then he was never letting her go again.
Madeline had triedto devise an excuse as to why she couldn’t speak to Gideon, but then she reminded herself that she was not a coward but rather a woman who faced everything in her life head-on.
And so, she found herself waiting by the fountain an hour later, gently throwing pebbles into the water.
Gideon hadn’t specified where in the gardens he would like to meet, but most of it was rather overgrown, although Madeline could see the beauty it held within, and she had to actively prevent herself from beginning to imagine just what she would do with it if she were to become part of the Sutcliffe family – because that just wouldn’t likely be the case anymore.
She heard his steps crunching through the gravel on the path behind her before she saw him, and when she turned her head toward him, she tried not to allow him to affect her as much as he had in the past.
But it was nearly impossible. She hated how fast her heart started beating, her pulse resounding in her head. He was everything she could have ever wanted in a man, that she had never known she had needed.
And for a moment, he had been hers.
“The gardens might have been a bad idea,” he said as he approached, his cloak billowing in the wind. “I had thought we would be able to spend time alone, but there is quite the chill in the air.”
“Winter is coming,” she said. “Soon enough it will be the Christmas season.”
He held out a hand to her and she took it as she rose to meet him.
“I have an idea of what I would like that season to look like,” he said, a small, wistful smile on his face as he looked off into the distance.
“Do you now?” she said, tilting her head, wondering if he meant it or if it had all just been a dream. She could see it as well. The two of them settled into the house, a hearty fire roaring behind them while greenery surrounded the room. Perhaps she would even capture him under the mistletoe. And she knew exactly what she would gift him. “Will Cassandra be staying at Castleton?”
He smiled sadly and shook his head ruefully. “I think not. She has her own family now, and they have been at Castleton longer than expected. I shouldn’t be greedy in wanting anymore of their time.”
