Certainly she wasn’t the same person she’d been during those long-ago summer days.
But one thing was still clear in her mind—she believed in love.
The acknowledgement startled her. After all that Boyd, her father, her family had put her through, she still believed.
It isn’t often one is struck with self-knowledge, and every time it is surprising. Suddenly, she realized why she’d set herself up as a matchmaker. She wanted to right wrongs, to guide others away from the disastrous decisions she’d made in her own life.
She softened her voice. “My lord, marriage is a difficult endeavor. I’m not saying you must love your wife, but you must like her. Otherwise you will be saddling yourself to a cold, uncompromising life.” The sort of life his parents had had all those years ago.
The sort of life she remembered him vowing never to live.
Her change in tone worked. The fury in his eyes died, replaced by hopelessness. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain to me,” she said.
“I’m cursed.”
Thea blinked. Uncertain if he was being dramatic or factual. “Cursed?”
“Yes,” he said with complete seriousness. “And my only hope of survival is to marry someone I don’t like, that I willneverbe able to abide. It will call for a very special woman. I don’t want someone I would detest. There is a difference between not liking and detesting.”
Thea glanced at Sir James to see if he thought his lordship was spouting nonsense. He nodded his head as if agreeing with Lord Lyon.
“You believe him cursed as well?” Thea challenged the solicitor.
Sir James shrugged. “There is evidence to suggest it.”
For a second, Thea wondered if she had wandered into a world of nonsense—and then her mind seized upon another possibility. A sinister one.
“Is my brother behind this?” she demanded.
Both Lord Lyon and Sir James acted perplexed at her accusation, but she was on to the game now. This was the only explanation that made sense. She stood. “Oh, this was very clever of him. I know Horace is not happy that I remain independent and even dare to go so far as to work for my living. But this?” She shook her head. “Youshould be ashamed of yourself, Sir James. And you, Lord Lyon. What a faithless friend you are. Apparently your title has destroyed whatever was good inside of you.”
“I beg your pardon?” Lord Lyon said. He’d risen when she had and now pretended to be clueless in the face of her accusation.
She moved toward the door. Her excitement over a healthy commission had turned to disappointment.
Sir James came around the desk toward her. “Mrs. Martin, please, I don’t know what we said to upset you—”
She cut him off by whirling around, her outstretched hand a warning that she did not want him to come closer. “Enough. I can’t believe I wasted a half shilling on the two of you. Here you are giving in to my brother’s schemes, and for what? A payment, Sir James? Some sort of cloakroom political deal in the House of Lords, Lord Lyon? Oh, yes, I know how the duke works. He’s always hatching new alliances for his own benefit. But I once thought you the closest of friends, and to my great dismay, you have grown into a man much like your parents—cold, distant, everything you said you wouldn’t be.Curses,” she said, biting out the word as if it had been an epithet. “Did youreally believe I would be so gullible. Well, return to my brother and tell him no one believes in curses in this day and age. Not even his sister, the one he refuses to acknowledge.” With that pronouncement, she opened the door and sailed out of the room.
“Thea,come back here,” Neal ordered.
Her response was to keep walking.
Chapter Two
Righteous anger propelled Thea down the street and halfway home. She didn’t have blood in her veins right now, she hadgunpowder.
To think she had taken them seriously at first. She’d asked Lord Lyon what sort of qualities he was looking for in a wife? They had been very good at not snickering in her face.
And what of Lyon? Her relationship with her father had always been troubled. The duke and Thea had locked horns continually while she’d been growing up. She’d rebelled at his numerous rules, his favoritism toward her brothers and the injustice of refusing to let her study anything except deportment, painting and religion. He’d wanted docile, obedient daughters with more hair than wit, and Thea wasn’t cut of that cloth.
Neal had known all that. She’d confided in him the struggles and arguments between she and her father. With the solace of Neal’s friendship, Theahad been able to face a summer of her father being unusually harsh with his strictures and criticisms, until Neal had thrown the friendship aside without a fare-thee-well. He’d just left her wondering, worrying if she had done something to set him off her, worrying if he’d been ill or, worse, dead.
Of course, he’d been fine. She’d heard through the servants that he’d been up and around the parish.
He just hadn’t cared enough to explain why he hadn’t wanted to see or talk to her any longer.