Page 43 of Buon Natale, My Wicked Rogue
“You are as beautiful as ever, my love. And you don’t obsess about such matters as I do, remember?
She laughed despite the warring feelings of fear and excitement within her. And she was grateful for his attempt to use humor to distract her. She’d just realized that he was not being incredibly self-centered at this moment but was trying his best to help her. She stood, though she felt wobbly once on her feet.
“Oh well,” he said, coming closer and linking his arm with hers. “If he wanted a grand ceremony, he ought to have sent word ahead that he was coming here. And in any case, it looks as though the old boy is in his nightclothes, too.”
She smiled at his assessment of the situation and allowed their arms to link.
“Shall we go face him together?”
“Yes,” she said, though inside part of her wanted to run and hide, never to know if this meeting would disappoint her or not. To keep the mystery of who her father was as a person. It seemed safer than facing all the questions she’d ever asked herself, suchas What had been wrong with her that her father had not wanted her? Had not missed knowing her. Had not loved her.
“Are you all right?” Evan asked.
“I think I am,” she said with a shaky laugh.
“You’re very pale.”
“I am just tired.” What an answer. They had been resting all day.
His gaze searched hers. “Are you ready for this?”
“As ready as a person can be in such a situation.”
He smoothed her hair back and looked deeply into her eyes. “You don’t have to meet with him now. Damn the old imperious tyrant. This is so like him. Sometimes, he just doesn’t think about how his actions will affect others. But you do not have to allow him to rush you into anything. I can go and speak with him.”
“No, I want to meet him. I don’t know the state of his health. I don’t even know if he really should be here. This could be my last opportunity to meet him ever.”
“I am so sorry, Angela, but I did not know that my wife kept you from seeing me,” her father said as his brows, a fading shade of reddish blond, drew together. Sadness and regret showed clearly in his piercingly gray eyes.
Angela stared at her father, with a huge growing lump in her throat. Up close, he seemed so frail. She had always imagined him as a tall, elegant gentleman. But he was no less imposing than she had pictured. Maybe more so with his piercing gaze. When not ill, he must be absolutely formidable.
Earlier, they had not simply gone downstairs and greeted her father in the drawing room as they had thought they would.Instead, Lady Wyndam stopped them at the head of the stairs and ordered them back to their bed.
Lady Wyndam had greeted the Duke of Amesbury and had seen him sent up to a guest chamber and given him hot tea and chicken stew and allowed him to rest. Angela was so grateful for Lady Wyndam’s wisdom and guidance. There was much she could learn from the older woman in the ways of graciousness and caring for others, body and soul. And when she thought of all the kindness she’d been shown by the lady, she knew it was a debt she’d spend years repaying.
In the evening, her father called for them all to come to his rooms.
“I had marked the days on my calendar since my last letter from you when you told me you were leaving Boston for England. And I knew you should have been here by then. I worried that some mishap might have befallen you. My wife and son assured me that they were trying to find out where you were. Finally, my wife told me that you’d sent a letter saying that you had second thoughts and had not boarded the ship but stayed in America.” His gray gaze seemed troubled yet sincere.
She gasped and placed her hand to her throat. “I was there, in your house. They told me that you were too ill to have a visitor. When I said that I was not just any visitor but your own daughter, they had the doctor speak with me. He said that the strain of meeting me for the first time would cause you to ...” She caught herself and swallowed several times against a lump in her throat, then continued, “He said it would be too much for you.”
She couldn’t help but stare at her father and search his face for something familiar. Something that reminded her of herself. Yet, she saw nothing except a stranger who bore a hardness to his features that was frankly intimidating. Maybe he had givenher the reddish highlights in her dark brown hair, but she couldn’t see anything else.
Her father closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “Oh, my child. I did not know.”
“I had come so far and then to be rebuked by your family. My spirit was crushed. I didn’t know what to do. I reached out to my husband’s cousin, only to find that his wife was a widow like me. And she welcomed me to come and stay with her and her family.” And she’d thought that she had made a dear friend.
Now that friendship was dead, killed by Susan’s betrayal.
Was she destined to find betrayal each time she gambled on friendship or love? No, she had Evan now.
“Your mother wrote to me all those years ago and told me that you had run away to America to marry some wet-behind-the-ears boy, as she had called him,” her father said. “She said that you had eschewed the dowry I had bestowed upon you, and you had taken such a chance on this unknown boy and his family.” His voice broke. “I admired your daring spirit. Not many have the courage to gamble on love like you did.”
She skipped a breath. Her father was proud of her. Really? She had never expected to hear anything like this from him, especially not about having rejected his generous dowry. But he gazed at her with respect. Warmth blossomed in her chest and radiated outwards through her whole being.
Her father was proud of her. He respected her.
She turned to Evan. He was gazing at her, his eyes soft and adoring.
