Redemption Of The Rake. Elizabeth Beacon

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       Chapter Three

      At last James took Virginia’s letter from his pocket and examined the outside as if it could take him back to the moment she had finished, folded it precisely and directed it in her familiar, flowing hand. He imagined her getting to the end of her self-imposed task of writing four letters to her ‘boys’ and leaving them to be read after her death—one given out for every season of the year after she died. Missing her never seemed to fade, however many months he had to get used to it.

      Luke had been ordered to do what he’d always wanted and discover all Chloe’s secrets, then Virginia’s godson, Tom Banburgh, Marquis of Mantaigne, had to face his childhood demons next, before Gideon took on a summer of abiding love and startling revelations. Now it was his turn. It would be a workaday ending to a year of changed lives. The others were lured into doing what Virginia wanted by the promise of James being independent of his half-brother and wasn’t that the biggest irony of all? He smiled wryly at the thought of Virginia baiting her hook with a lie. She knew he could buy a house and estate like the tumbledown one he’d acquired without feeling a dent in his ill-gotten gains.

      He wondered why she had done it and why he’d failed to mention his fortune. Even a brother who wasn’t supposed to care a snap of his fingers for anyone could see Luke had lived half a life since he wedded his first wife Pamela. The woman was ten years dead, but some of the damage could never be undone, James concluded bleakly. At least Virginia made the stubborn great idiot change his mind about love and marriage and his great-aunt’s mysterious housekeeper. Now Tom Banburgh and Gideon Laughraine were happy as well and Luke’s new wife had given him his letter with a look that said she knew he wanted to sob like a child at the sight of it. Heaven forbid Virginia expected some impossible love match from him because he’d hate her to be disappointed. Not that she was here to be anything. He tested the weight of several pages of closely written hot-pressed paper and still hesitated to break the familiar seal of two Vs interlocked that always made him smile at their effrontery.

      For goodness’ sake, boy, why don’t you get on and open the dratted thing?

      The voice popped into his head as if Virginia was pacing about this manmade glade waiting to have her say and as impatient with shilly-shallying as ever. James looked round as furtively as he’d done as a boy when his great-aunt caught him in mischief and she felt so acutely present he only just stopped himself peering round this glade to see where she was hiding herself.

      Don’t be ridiculous, it didn’t take supernatural powers to read the mind of a grubby schoolboy then and you’re not so different now.

      So much for the calming effects of nature and a serene autumn day; fighting a superstitious shiver, James fixed his gaze on the only part of her that could be real today and lifted the seal with a neat penknife she would have confiscated on sight in the old days. Anything was preferable to the madness of conjuring up the beloved, infuriating, marvel of a woman he missed so badly nine months on from her death.

      Darling James

      Now don’t sit there thinking, Who? Me? I love you and always have done. From the very first moment I laid eyes on you as a squalling brat I knew you were special when you decided to trump your mother’s cast-iron certainty you would follow her family and came out a Winterley instead. Now I love you for your own sake and you have to accept that, James. You are a good, loving and, yes, a lovable man, and it’s about time you realised it.

      So why did I do all this? You know as well as I do there’s no need to provide you with the fortune you will receive the day Gideon carries out his task to dear Chloe’s satisfaction. I hope she and Luke are happy together by now and Gideon attained his heart’s desire, by the way? I set the other boys quests they were eager to carry out, deep down, except perhaps for my beloved Tom. I had to push him to going back to the place he least wants to go to for his own sake.

      You know almost as well as he does how it feels to be damaged and manipulated by those who are supposed to care for you the most and yet do not. I trust you to watch out for Tom and see he is not going wilder than ever since I made him return to Dayspring Castle and face his demons.

      James looked up from his letter with a broad grin at the idea of Tom doing anything wild without his rather fierce new love at his side. The new Marchioness of Mantaigne was sure to outrage the ton as carelessly as her husband, but she would love him until their dying day. James felt the lightness of knowing all three were deeply and abidingly happy with their chosen brides and realised Virginia was right, he had worried about them—at least the ones he knew about. Gideon was a new comrade-in-arms and for some reason his wife, Callie, felt almost like a sister. Who would have thought he’d feel fraternal towards such a spectacular beauty as Lady Laughraine, bastard daughter of Lord Laughraine’s СКАЧАТЬ