An amused light danced in Elkins’s eyes. “Very good, Lady Amelia.”
On the eveof the third day, Christiana finally reached Barnsley Hall. The familiar house was lit in the light of the dying sun, and even at a distance, she could see the toll neglect had taken on the place. Undergrowth climbed to the windows, and the facade crumbled under the weight of age and disrepair. Only a single light burned in the window—her father’s room.
Her stomach clenched. She had been unable to eat anything all day.
Baxter put a hand on her arm. “It’ll be all right, ma’am. All you need do is sit with him.”
Could she forgive him if he apologized? That was the question burning in her mind as the coach finally pulled up by the front door, the horses snorting and steaming. Preoccupied as she was, she barely noticed Mr. Stephens step out to greet her until he handed her down the steps. He looked older than she remembered, though only a couple of months had passed.
If only she could have taken him with her.
He smiled at her in the fatherly way her own father never had. “Your Grace,” he said, and she started at the unfamiliarity of such a title from his lips. She accepted his hand and allowed him to hand her down from the carriage. “You look well.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stephens. The duke is kind to me.”
“I’m very pleased to hear it.”
She smiled, despite the worry coiling in her gut. “How is my father?”
“Still alive, Your Grace,” Mr. Stephens said gravely. “And in a foul temper for it. I’m here for your sake and no other.”
“This is Baxter, my lady’s maid,” Christiana said, waving her hand at her maid. “Baxter, this is Mr. Stephens, my father’s steward.”
“Welcome,” Mr. Stephens said, inclining his head. “Shall we go inside?”
“Please.” Christiana followed her former steward up the worn stone steps into the crumbling house she had once considered a home. A wave of fondness filled her for the old stone rooms, so dear to her despite their abandonment.
How her life had changed since she had last stepped foot in her childhood home. She had changed, too; she no longer wanted the same things. Her dream was not to set up alone in this house with a telescope and books and endless visions of the night sky.
Now, her dreams held a certain masked man, bared just for her, gentle when she knew he held a storm inside. He had allowed her to see his pain, and that was a gift. Her dreams involved a life with him—along with her books and perhaps even one day a telescope.
Upstairs, the state of the house was worse, the air stale and with the sharp tang of vomit. There could be no hiding that an ill person lingered here, hanging on to life by a thread.
Mr. Stephens stopped outside her father’s chambers, and bowed. “He asked for you, but he has not been in a good state of mind for the past few days. Please… don’t take anything he has to say too much to heart.”
Christiana forced a smile she didn’t feel. “He is a dying man, surrounded by the filth of his own making. What can he do to me now?”
Mr. Stephens made no reply, and Christiana stepped inside.
The room was dim, stinking of sweat and sick. The curtains were drawn, and the bed loomed at the far end of the room, her father barely visible under the sheets. For a moment, she worried he had died while left alone, but then he stirred, the material shifting.
“Who is it?” he asked, peevish to the last, his words strained and rasping.
Christiana stepped forward, adjusting her glasses. “You sent for me, Father.”
“Christiana?” More rustling. She approached, waiting by the side of the bed. Up close, more details jumped out at her—the hollowness of her father’s eyes, and the pale, almost gray complexion of his face. His mouth twisted in that habitually cruel way it had, and his bony hands snatched at her wrist, holding her in a bruising grip despite his age and infirmity.
“Let go of me,” she said, as calmly as she was able.
“So you came, eh? Did you come to gloat, seeing me like this?” His fingers tightened. “This is your future, you know. Abandoned by everyone who ought to call you family. Did you think of me when you left me for your new life?”
She wrenched her wrist free. “Youwere the one who sent me away, or had you forgotten that part?” The anger came easily now, scorching the remainder of her grief. How foolish she had been to wonder if she would forgive him if he asked her to—he would never have asked, not in a thousand years. “Or had you hoped that I would make a less favorable match? Did you expect me to make an ill match and live as a housekeeper for another man? It must have been galling to see me made a duchess while you rotted away here, unable even to call me to your side to berate me.”
His eyes gleamed. “Getting above yourself, aren’t you? All those airs and graces when you’re just like me. Mrs. Dove-Lyon told me about your gambling proclivities when you were younger. None of that money came my way, did it?”
“And what would you have done with it except lose it again?”
“You owe everything you have to me. Don’t be so ungrateful, girl. Would that fancy duke of yours have looked twice at you if Mrs. Dove-Lyon hadn’t brokered the match? Don’t be foolish.”