Perhaps, she thought, she was merely digging a deeper and deeper hole for herself. For perhaps she had read all the signs wrong. And if so, then she had surely just committed herself to the very future she was most intent upon avoiding.
She willed him to turn his head and laugh at her. He could not possibly think she was serious. She was a walking, talking cliché.
He got to his feet, and she took his arm and deliberately steered him along the path toward the house, even though he had his cane and had used it without mishap to find his way out here earlier.
She really had sealed her own doom.
Oh, Julian!
She shivered in the chill of the wind.
Julian’s first sight of Middlebury Park was intimidating—first the ivy-clad outer wall stretching as far as the eye could see to either side of the gates, then the long, winding driveway through dense woodland, and then the sudden vista of the imposing mansion and the formal gardens before it with closely scythed lawns stretching away to either side.
It was late morning, and the early mist had burned off to be replaced by sunshine.
He still did not know quite what he hoped to accomplish by coming here. But he did at least have his story clear in his mind. He hoped it would not seem hopelessly thin.
The butler looked dubious when Julian presented his card and asked to see Viscount Darleigh. He would see if his lordship was at home, the man said, and away he went, leaving Julian standing in the tiled hallway with its high ceiling, marble fireplaces on either side, and marble statuary—and a silent footman.
It was a hall meant to reduce callers to size, he thought—and it succeeded admirably. Not that he would have been intimidated if, as was entirely possible, he really was passing by and had thought to call upon an acquaintance and friend of his uncle’s in order to pay his respects.
Julian could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, as though he were some sort of impostor. Philippa was staying here. Would he see her? But to what purpose? Was he already too late? But too late for what? He had come here without any clear plan.
Would Darleigh merely receive him in a private salon, shake his hand, offer him refreshments, make polite conversation for a while, then send him on his way?
Would Julian allow that to happen? But what could he do to stop it?
“If you will follow me, sir.” The butler had returned on silent feet.
Julian was led into the west wing of the house and along a wide corridor until they stopped outside high double doors, which the butler opened.
“The Honorable Mr. Julian Crabbe, ma’am,” he announced.
The room—a large, comfortable-looking apartment that Julian assumed was the morning room—was crowded with people. One of them, a lady of middle years, was on her feet and coming toward him, her right hand outstretched, a look of eager anxiety on her face.
“Mr. Crabbe,” she said, “how do you do? What can you tell me of Vincent?”
Vincent? He felt stupid for a moment as well as dazed. For two of the occupants of the room were Mr. and Mrs. Dean, who were seated opposite the doorway, close to the fireplace. And off to one side of the room, by the window, standing apart from everyone else, was Philippa, her startled face turned his way.
Good God. All else fled from his mind, though he dared not turn his head to look fully at her. And yet he knew that her face was parchment white, as pale as her muslin dress.
Vincent, he realized, his mind coming back to him with a jolt, was Viscount Darleigh. Vincent Hunt.
“How do you do, ma’am.” He took the lady’s hand and bowed over it. “Lord Darleigh is a friend of my uncle, the Duke of Stanbrook. I met him at Penderris Hall once when he was there recovering from his war wounds. I am on my way to visit friends in this part of the country and called to pay my respects. I hope this is not an inconvenient time?”
Her shoulders slumped.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Crabbe,” she said. “I thought perhaps you brought news of my son.”
“He is … not here?” he asked. “I beg your pardon for intruding upon you, ma’am.”
Philippa, he could see with his peripheral vision, was as still as a statue.
“Not at all,” the older lady said briskly. “I am sorry that you have come out of your way for nothing. He is not here.”
“Perhaps he has merely gone somewhere for the day, Mama, and forgot to tell us,” a young lady said from her seat to Julian’s left.
“With his trunk and half his clothes and his valet?” a gentleman who was standing before the fireplace said. “Not to mention his traveling carriage and his coachman and four horses? Hardly, Ursula.”
“Anthony!” another young lady said sharply.
“He has bolted,” the man called Anthony said. “That is what he has done. I said it at breakfast, and I say it again.”
“Anthony!” The same young lady sounded mortified.
“He has indeed gone,” Mrs. Hunt said with weary resignation.
Julian felt acutely embarrassed—and something else too, which he was not yet at liberty to explore.
Darleigh had gone? Left home? Run away? Just when he had been presented with a prospective bride and was expected to make her an offer of marriage? And she was here in this very room with her parents—no doubt a horrible embarrassment for his family.
“I do beg your pardon, Mr. Crabbe,” Mrs. Hunt said. “You will think we have the shabbiest of manners. Allow me to introduce everyone, and then we will all have coffee and cakes. Vincent has gone away quite abruptly, and I invited you in here in the hope that you brought word of him. No matter. You must stay awhile anyway.”