Page 90 of Appointment in Bath

Meg saw it then, more clearly than she ever had before. He wasn’t indifferent to her. He wasn’t without remorse.

Her temper gradually began to ease.

“That man…,” he said slowly, fingers tightening on his cane. “The noble Lord Allendale. He ruined my youth. Stole the lady I was meant to wed. Diminished me in the eyes of my father. Because of him, I was denied everything I wanted.”

“The world doesn’t end just because a m-man doesn’t get what he wants,” Meg said. “We none of us get what we want. Not all the time. We don’t make other people’s lives a misery over it.”

“Your life, you mean.”

Meg didn’t answer. Not directly. “If you hadn’t always been looking backward, you m-might have seen the harm you were doing in the present day. Not just to me, but to Roddy.”

“Roddy hasn’t been harmed.”

“He was unhappy. Why else do you suppose he went so far away?”

“Because he wants to be master of Letchford Hall. He wants the baronetcy. He’ll return soon enough when I cock up my toes.”

“You’re always talking about us wishing you dead.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Had you given us cause to love you—”

“Love?” he said. “Don’t speak to me of love. I’ve given my children something better. Something of substance. A position in local society. The best tutelage. The finest clothes. Roddy has had the larger part of my fortune already. And you! You exhibited skill at music, so I purchased that pianoforte for you, for no small sum. And what about your mare? I chose her at the sales myself, exercising the utmost care. There’s nothing you’ve required that I haven’t provided.”

Meg was poised to tell him that all he’d done for her—and even for Roddy—had been done without affection. But a sudden realization arrested her speech. It struck her, all at once, that, to her father, duty was affection.

Perhaps, just perhaps, it was even love.

His kind of love, anyway.

It didn’t excuse his many criticisms over the years. And it didn’t excuse his bluster or his unreasonable fits of temper. But when coupled with his having followed her to Bath, it was nevertheless enough to convince Meg that she did have some measure of value in her father’s eyes. Recognizing the fact was a salve to her spirit.

“I thought I had always been a disappointment to you,” she said. “That’s why you wouldn’t give me a season.”

“Rubbish. I never refused you a season. I’d have brought you to London in two or three years, and spared no expense in the bargain. Had you been content to wait until you were older and a trifle more mature—”

"I couldn’t wait any longer. I m-must have a season this year. It’s the only way I’ll find a suitable gentleman to marry.”

“Not Ivo Beresford, then?” He frowned at her. “Am I to assume you’ve given up on him?”

Meg couldn’t deny it. She had come to Bath to forget Ivo. To find herself someone new to love. Someone better.

But there was no one better than Ivo Beresford.

She felt, much to her sorrow, as though she would never get over him. As though the anguish in her heart and her soul would go on aching for decades to come, giving her too much pain to allow for anything else. Anyone else.

“It was he who encouraged me to look to the future,” she said. “I don’t want to live in the past, fixating on old heartbreaks. I want a chance for my own happiness. Miss Adams says that, n-now I’m here—”

“Yes, yes. She expressed the same sentiments to me. Infernal, managing female. Where is this elusive Mr. Philips, I wonder? Does he not realize he has women who need taking in hand? Were this my household—”

“Mr. Philips is in London on business. He’ll return for their wedding in April. I should like to stay until then. To have m-my season and to see Miss Adams married.”

Sir Frederick leaned back on the settee. A weariness came over him. He heaved a sigh. “Very well,” he said at last. “Let it be as you wish.”

Meg stared. “Do you mean that? Oh, Father—!”

He waved her thanks away, uncomfortable with her show of emotion. “None of that. It’s as much for my own health as to indulge your whims. Spragg mentioned that the waters would do me good. I shall take a house in Camden Place. You’ll join me there presently. Church has sent along some of your clothes. In the meanwhile, Miss Adams has recommended a dressmaker, along with various entertainments at the Assembly Rooms—”