Page 16 of Miss Harvey's Horribly Lovable Fiancé
“But Esme will not recover.”
Nor will I.“I do love her, Lord Courtland.”
That melted the ice in the man. By a little. “As do I, my boy.”
His own father had never addressed him with such endearment.
And even though Courtland apologized for the informality, he was adamant. “I must know she will live not only in love but also in the style to which I have worked all my life to ensure is hers. She cares not for your titles. And neither do I. Your lands? Well, those that are yours prosper. Those that your father administers are judged to need a prudent hand. I will not leave her unprotected to the ill winds of fortune if she were to lose you, sir.”
“I do what I can to change my father’s approval of the settlement.”
“He must accept,” Courtland declared, his brown eyes harsh with despair. “Or I am left to advise my girl to fail to appear at the altar.”
His words hit Giles like a hammer blow. All his life he had suffered outrage, loss and embarrassment because of his father. Giles had lived his life quietly building his own reputation. He was proud of what he’d accomplished. But after all that, to lose the woman he loved because of his father’s perfidy would gut him. “I understand.”
Courtland stared at him. “Yet, sir, few marriages are meant in heaven. This is one.”
“I agree.”
“Would that we could write that in the contracts, Northington.”
“Before you advise Esme, you will wait for my father’s response to my ultimatum?”
Courtland considered him for a very long time, his brown eyes wet with love for his daughter. “For her, I will. Excuse me now, please, my lord. I must see to my wife.”
With a trepidation he’d not experienced in years, Giles watched him go. Helplessness was a condition he’d felt as a child at the irrational behavior of his father. The emotion was not welcome and Giles had worked his entire life to eradicate it. But now…
If Brentford does not accept my offer, what am I to do?
He wanted Esme with a desire he’d never felt for any other woman. If he could not take her as his wife with all honors due her, then he would not wed her and give her less.
Even at that, thetonwould declare that their break was her fault. That she had dishonored herself with some other man. That for it, he had repudiated her.
He could not allow her to pay such a price for his father’s sins.
* * *
Frustrated,Giles folded his arms and let the revelers dance around him.
What was all his money worth if he could not buy his own happiness? What had he worked for? What had he saved for?
To provide a good living for himself, despite his father’s depravity, he’d worked diligently. Long before he’d met Miss Esme Harvey, Giles had the satisfaction of accumulating income that his sire could never touch. He had given some to him, largely to keep him away. But to give him more?
No! Not when Giles had Esme within reach. Not when he wanted to shower her with chocolate to kiss from her lips and translucent silk that he could slide from her delicious body.
And why should he give in to his father?
The man had projected no noble persona in any year of his life. While he gambled, drank and ignored his duties as governor of his domains, he had also ignored his wife. He’d cheated Giles’s mother of honor by dallying in the most expensive and notorious whore houses in London. Yet at the same time, he raked and scraped on the money spent in the house. So negligent was he, Giles had once overheard a man say that Brentford was so muddle-headed he could be on his deathbed and would not spend a penny to buy his own coffin, but throw it to his latest vice.
Would that he were to crawl to his deathbed tonight and I wouldn’t have a problem come the morrow, now would I?
Silently, he cursed.
But the taste of that was sour to him. What irony this tale was. He’d spent years working with Frenchemigresin England and lately in France too since many aristocrats had returned to claim their lands and titles under the restored Bourbons. His mission with all of them had been to coddle and nurture them, gentle them to the concept thatrevanchewas pointless. That punishing those who had led their families to Madame Guillotine and pillaged their homes and land was a fruitless exercise in pride. He could not teach forgiveness if he had none himself.
Ha. His problem was more than that the sins against him and his honor continued. They were not buried in some unmarked grave but done to him now in his most deserving hour.
How was he to live with such a sire who would do that to his only son?
