Page 14 of The Seductive Love of a Lady
The upstairs landing was lined by two dozen intimidating portraits of Mary’s ancestors and artefacts gathered on grand tours. They reminded him of her family’s wealth.
Voices travelled from an open door. Mary’s pace quickened.
A drowning sensation took hold.Why did I say I would come?
‘You are an escapist…’The word he would use was still coward…
He set his jaw and walked on, focusing on the hand on his arm. He was here for her.
When they entered the drawing room, he realised he had been ambushed. The room contained her mother and father, her half-brother and his wife, and her aunts and uncles; the Dukes and Duchesses of Arundel and Bradford, and the Earlof Barrington, Marlow’s brother, and his wife, also some of her cousins.
As Mary led him to a sofa, judgemental looks were cast across the room, in silent speech.
There were lots of children in the room too. Some seated on the floor, playing and giggling, some on the knees of their mothers, and others occupying chairs among the adults.
A sharp pain impaled his heart – the scene was something from fiction books. A fairy tale.
‘Good day, everyone. Andrew has come to meet you.’
As Mary began to make introductions, Drew’s jaw set firm.
It was hard to tell which child belonged to whom, so many of them bore the Pembrokes’ dark hair and pale eyed colouring.
Mary completed an introduction.
Drew was too discombobulated to listen, but he knew the woman was Lady Wiltshire, Arundel’s Duchess.
A circle of boys sat cross-legged in the far corner, contentedly playing cards with fish tokens. His brothers were never that good-humoured, and he was confined to the nursery until he boarded at school, out of sight and mind.
Lady Wiltshire bid two of the girls move from a sofa and make room for him and Mary to sit together. Then she offered him a cup of tea.
He sat in a daydream. This was his first experience of afternoon tea, let alone a happy family.
Mary’s family laughed and chatted around him. He accepted a cup and saucer from her aunt but could not force any words of gratitude from his lips.
A girl who had got up to let him sit brought an embroidery hoop to show Mary, asking for her advice. The girl was her sister…
Drew felt as though he were looking into the room through a window.
Mary’s sister glanced at him, before walking over to her mother.
‘Mary!’ A smaller girl with a ragdoll dangling from her hand rushed to Mary.
‘Jemima!’ Mary mimicked her excitement, caught her and lifted her onto her lap.
‘You are my new brother, are you not?’ Her small hand rested on his thigh.
His cup and saucer were balanced in his hand. He put the cup and saucer on a table beside the sofa, not knowing what to do. A lump in his throat made it difficult to breathe.
The little girl told Mary something about her doll.
Mary’s fingers touched his arm for a moment, as though she understood. But she could not understand his childhood. It would be as inconceivable to her as this was to him.
A deep masculine laugh rang from the group of men. He stiffened, wondering if they were laughing at him.
Harry would be laughing his head off if he could see Drew sat there. Mark would have him sentenced to a madhouse in a week.
Drew cleared his throat, trying to shift the lump within it.
