“Let me guess,” he said. “It was because Estelle was a delicate girl and you were the heir.”
“Well, I am the heir,” Bertrand said apologetically. “The only one, sir.”
“My fault, I suppose,” Marcel muttered. “Yes, my fault. Perhaps you were so perfect, Bertrand, that I did not believe you could be replicated.”
“I am not perfect,” his son said with a frown.
“To me you are,” Marcel said. “I will have these looked at in time for summer next year. I will test them myself before I allow you to row off to the far shores of the lake. If I sink and leave nothing but a bubble behind, at least I will have left an heir too.”
Bertrand looked slightly shocked. Estelle, who had come to stand in the doorway, giggled. Yes, really. She did not just laugh. She giggled. It was music to her father’s ears. And Bertrand, after a glance at her, laughed too.
“I daresay you can swim, sir,” he said.
“Yes, I daresay I can,” Marcel agreed.
They continued on their walk about the lake. He tried to spend time with them each day and had felt some easing of their very formal relationship. Bertrand had become almost enthusiastic when he learned that his father had not idled all his time away at Oxford but had actually earned a first- class degree. Estelle had looked at first dubious when he had suggested that they invite some young people to the house occasionally. Apparently Jane had believed the son and daughter of the Marquess of Dorchester must hold themselves aloof from inferior company. Perhaps now they were close to eighteen, Marcel had suggested, and their characters were fully formed, they might relax that rule somewhat. Estelle was ecstatic. Even Bertrand had looked pleased.
“My sister will be happy, sir,” he had said. “She enjoys company. So do I,” he had added after a short pause.
Marcel stopped on the bank below the dower house and stood looking at it—specifically at the large drawing room window, behind which he had stood with Viola. He determinedly avoided thinking of her—except when memories crept up on him unaware, which was far too often for his peace of mind. His son and daughter had stopped on either side of him.
“She is going to Brambledean Court for Christmas,” Estelle said, jolting his attention from the memories. He looked sharply at her. “In Wiltshire,” she added. “The Earl of Riverdale’s home. She is going there for Christmas.”
“Indeed?” he said. It would be foolish to ask who she was. His tone was deliberately frosty. He did not want to hear more.
“Yes,” she said. “Abigail told me so.”
He turned to walk onward, but she did not move. Neither did Bertrand.
“I write to her and she always replies,” Estelle said. “So does Jessica.”
Jessica. He had to think for a moment. Ah, yes, she was Abigail’s young cousin and friend—Lady Jessica Archer, Netherby’s half sister.
“She is unhappy,” Estelle said.
“Jessica?” he said. “Abigail?” He did not want this conversation.
“Miss Kingsley,” Estelle said. “She will not admit it, Abigail says. She is always determinedly cheerful. But she has lost weight, and she has dark circles under her eyes.”
He turned on her. “And of what possible interest can this be to me, young lady?” he asked. “What is her unhappiness to me? She did not want to marry me. She would have been happy enough to leave me back there in Devonshire before you discovered us. She was happy enough to leave here. She left before any of the rest of her family, if you will remember. She could not leave here soon enough. Her mood and her plans for Christmas are of no concern to me whatsoever. Is that clearly understood?”
Her face paled and her lower lip quivered, and he half expected her to collapse in an abject heap at his feet. She did not do so.
“And you are unhappy too,” his daughter said.
“What the devil?” He glared at her.
“It is true, sir,” Bertrand said from behind him. “You know it is. And we know it. And a proper gentleman does not blaspheme in a lady’s hearing.”
What the devil? Marcel wheeled on his son. “You are quite right,” he said curtly. “My apologies, Estelle. It will not happen again.”
“You are looking almost gaunt,” Bertrand said. “And you wander alone and go riding alone and stay up half the night and get up before anyone else.”
“What the devil?” Marcel frowned ferociously at his son. “Is a man not allowed to do as he wants in his own home without being spied upon by his children? I beg your pardon, Estelle. It will not happen again. Perhaps I have always walked and ridden and stayed up late and risen early. Have you thought of that? Perhaps it is the way I like to live.”
“Perhaps you want to go back to your own life,” Bertrand said, “and that is why you are so unhappy. But Stell and I do not think it is that, sir. We think it is because of Miss Kingsley. And we think she is unhappy because of you.”
“And . . .” He looked incredulously from one to the other of them. “And you think you ought to appoint yourselves matchmaker to your own father.”
They both stared back, identical stern looks on their faces. Bertrand spoke first.
“Someone has to, sir,” he said.
“Someone has to?” He felt as though he were in the middle of a bizarre dream.
“You are going to ruin your life, Papa,” Estelle said, “and she is going to ruin hers. All because you are both too stubborn for your own good. Have you told her that you love her, that you want to marry her?”
“I would wager you have not,” Bertrand said. “And you cannot expect her to say it first, sir. No well-bred lady would.”
It was either explode with wrath or . . .
Marcel threw back his head and laughed. Estelle’s lips twitched. Bertrand frowned.
“And why would my, ah, love life be of such concern to my children?” Marcel asked when he had sobered.
Bertrand was still frowning. “We are still children to you, are we not?” he said. “I am not concerned about you or even much interested. You may return to London for all I care, or wherever else it is you go when you are not here. You may waste the rest of your life as far as I am concerned. You seem to be very good at that. I wish you would go away. We have grown up very well without you, Estelle and I. We can do the rest of our living very well without you too. Why did we ever think you cared for Miss Kingsley or anyone else? You do not care about anyone except yourself. Sir.”
“Bert,” Estelle wailed, and tried to catch his arm. But he jerked it free of her grasp and turned to stride off back the way they had come. For a moment Marcel thought she would go running after him, but he set a hand on her arm.
“Let him go,” he said. “I will have a talk with him later.”
She gazed at him, her eyes troubled. “We have no memory at all of our first year,” she said, “though we have strained to put a face on Mama from Aunt Jane’s descriptions. We have tried remembering you too as you were then. It is hopeless, of course. We were just babies. But always, as far back as we can remember, we have waited for you to come back. To stay. We have waited to love you. And for you to love us. We have been puzzled too and angry, and we have told ourselves with each passing year that we no longer need you or want you to return to upset our lives. But it is what we have always wanted, Papa. Perhaps Bertrand more than me. He wanted—no, he needed a father to look up to, to admire, to emulate, a father to praise him and encourage him and do things with him and look at him with pride. He has always known he looks like you. He used to stand in front of a looking glass whenever you were here, trying to imitate your posture, your facial expressions, and your mannerisms. I just wanted a papa, a sort of rock of strength and dependability. Uncle Charles is a good man, but he was never you.”