Page 53 of The Trouble with a Dare

Rothborn sighed. He’d done all he could do. “If you wanted to come back and stay at the Priory, we would be pleased to have you. I know Jemima would love to see you. It’s been too long. She misses you, especially now Grace has left us.”

Raphe’s expression softened. “How is Lady Rothborn?”

“She’s well, and as lovely and kind as ever,” Rothborn said, experiencing a pang of longing to be back with his wife, to tell her how damned useless he felt when faced with Raphe and his urge to self-destruct.

“Give her my fondest regards.”

“You could give them to her yourself,” he suggested hopefully.

Raphe shook his head as he’d known he would. “Are you staying?”

“Tonight. I’ll get the train back tomorrow. Well, I must tidy myself up, but I’ll see you at dinner, I hope.”

He nodded and so Rothborn turned to leave.

“Sir.”

He turned back to Raphe, who had stood and looked strangely diffident. “You do have the right. To speak to me as a father, that is. More right than any other man who ever lived, and I thank you for it. I will try to be better. My word on it. I won’t let you down. Not this time. I know I went too far—went wrong, but don’t—don’t give up on me. I… please.”

Rothborn stared at Raphe in surprise. He’d always taken his scoldings, listened attentively and rarely spoken back, and then gone on his merry way. This was different. Rothborn could see it in his eyes: the desire to change, to make things right.

“All right, Raphe,” Rothborn said, smiling at him. “Then make me proud, will you, lad? I know you can.”

There was doubt in his eyes, but he firmed his jaw and nodded. “Yes, sir. I will. I give you my word.”

“You could begin by apologising to Lady Roxborough,” Rothborn suggested.

Raphe looked very much like he’d rather throw himself into a pit of venomous snakes, but he took a breath and nodded again. “Sir.”

“Excellent,” Rothborn replied, feeling lighter at heart than he’d dared to hope just moments earlier. “I cannot wait to see how you get along.”

Still the 31st of October 1839, Thistley House Farm, Sussex.

By the time Sterling returned to the house, he was in a stew of unhappiness and confusion. He told himself he ought to be in high spirits. The rams he’d bred were fine lusty beasts who had done their job of tupping the ewes with a thorough enthusiasm he could only envy. Frustration gnawed at him, and he batted it away, smothering it beneath a more pressing worry. Being a man with a brain in his head, he was aware Grace was unhappy with him after this morning’s row and the way he’d walked out on her. The trouble was, he did not know how to set things right. That he did not understand all he ought to about mixing in polite society was unarguable. Nor was he entirely clear about what a proper gentleman expected of his wife and what that position entailed. There was one thing he was very clear on: the wives of gentleman did not work except within very precise parameters. They did not bestir themselves further than the running of the household, all matters pertaining to children—except the education of sons—and an interest in horticulture. Hobbies were allowed, encouraged even, so long as they were appropriate. He was in the right, he knew he was. Except Grace was not at all happy about it, and that was making him wretched.

Sterling stomped into the house via the back door, careful to remove his boots and set them down on the step for cleaning before setting a toe on Mrs Gladwish’s clean floor. He washed his hands with the water left ready for him and instead of going upstairs to change, went in search of Grace. She was not anywhere to be found downstairs, so he hurried up to the bedroom, wondering if she was taking a nap. He knew from the housekeeper that she was getting increasingly tired in the afternoons, and worried that she was doing too much.

On finding the bedroom empty, Sterling experienced a sharp stab of alarm, followed by the irrational but terrifying idea that she’d packed her bags and left him. One glance at her dressing room proved this idea as foolish as he’d known it had been but was nonetheless a relief. Except, if she hadn’t run away from him in a fit of pique, where the devil was she?

Another, colder, more insidious idea filled his heart, and he ran down the stairs to the kitchen in a frenzy of panic, bursting through the kitchen doors with such force and speed that Mrs Gladwish gave a shriek of alarm and dropped a glazed bowl which smashed to pieces on the stone flags.

“Oh, my stars!” she said, clutching at her heaving bosom. “Whatever is amiss?”

“Where is she? Where’s Grace? I can’t find her anywhere. When was the last time you saw her?”

Mrs Gladwish glared at him and gave a tut of annoyance. “This is why you burst in upon us? Good heavens, the poor creature is confined to the house and garden unless you deign to take her into town, and now she can’t even leave the house without you throwing a fit?”

Sterling jolted in alarm. Confined to the house? He had never confined her to the house! Her pregnancy confined her to the house, not him. He’d never— Except perhaps he had. Her friends visited her when they could, but she found it difficult to return the visits. For she was pregnant and could not walk as far as she once had and he did not like her to take the carriage by herself in her condition—and he had never offered to take her to her friends, or anywhere but into town once a week. Well, yes, but he was working, and there wasn’t the time….

“You know where she is?” he demanded, grasping at this, and deciding he could be held accountable for any other wrongdoing once he knew if she was well. “Ought she not be home by now?”

“Well, I expected her home before this,” Mrs Gladwish admitted stiffly. “But I doubt she’s come to any harm five minutes down the lane.”

“Five minutes—” he began, puzzled, and then his eyes widened in alarm. “Hell and the devil! She’s with my mother?” he exploded, before rushing to pull on his boots and run outside without stopping to grab his coat or his hat.

Sterling flew down the lane, arriving at his mother’s door a very short time later and pounding to be let in.

His mother opened the door, scowling at him. “All right, I’m not deaf, am I? What are you doing, trying to break the door down?”