December 18 ~ Dreadful weather. Arrived before Meg and Clement. Lord Vyne indisposed to conversation. Port before bedtime an excellent vintage. Slept well. Breakfast ham was a little dry. Mysterious guests intrigue me.
Chore done, Hector closed the book. He’d kept a daily record of his life from the moment he’d inherited the title. In those pages were scandals and conquests, joy and heartbreak. All the things he’d experienced. He did not censor himself. He wrote the unvarnished truth so that his own son would know more of him than Hector had of his father.
He was about to rise from the desk when a child suddenly raced into the room—a small boy, wearing a rumpled brown suit. The child’s face was narrow and pointed, hair pale and falling to his shoulders. The child laughed before flopping onto a wide velvet chaise.
A willowy beauty raced into the room, scolding someone called Pip about daring to run away. They did not see Hector sitting across the chamber, so they carried on with their own business.
The woman punched her hands to her hips but smiled down at the boy. “What am I going to do with you, young man?”
“Love me,” the boy replied, giggling as he wriggled on his back on the velvet chaise looking up at her.
“Oh, I do love you, my lad,” the woman said as she scooped up the child and hugged him tightly. “More than you’ll ever know. Forever and ever and ever.”
It was a sweet scene, but it was a private moment he shouldn’t have witnessed. He ought to announce himself before they burst into songs about love and other such nonsense.
Hector stood and cleared his throat.
But he wasn’t quite prepared for the impact of the mother’s beauty when she turned to face him. The woman was stunningly pretty with wavy dark hair and wide blue eyes. Her full red lips parted in surprise; her delicate, ring-less left hand rose to the base of her throat. He feared for a moment that she might scream. But instead, she quickly curtsied and apologized.
The boy bowed, too, quite flawlessly for someone so young.
Hector approached them slowly, drawn in by the pair and the chance for conversation. The lady was a fetching wench indeed, one he felt keen to become acquainted with. Perhaps Hector might just get his Christmas wish for an enjoyable holiday after all.
Hector extended one leg and swept into a deep bow worthy of a court appointment. Women tended to enjoy being treated like queens in their own right. “Forgive the start my presence must have caused you. You must be another of Lord Vyne’s Christmas house guests.”
The woman nodded. “How do you do?”
“Very well, and all the better for seeing you and your son.” Hector glanced around, but there was no one to introduce them. He wouldn’t let that dissuade him from talking to her, though. “I had started to feel I might be the only soul about the house, save for the servants.”
She looked toward the boy for a moment. “My son has an energetic disposition and is still of an age to think it funny to elude me. Forgive us the disturbance.”
“No apologies are necessary.” Hector looked at the child now, feeling he should acknowledge the boy if he wanted to make the best impression with the mother. He extended his hand. “How do you do? Pip, isn’t it?”
The boy nodded.
“You shouldn’t run away from your pretty mama like that. You could be easily lost in a house this size, and she might never find you. Make sure you stay close to her from now on.”
The boy hugged his mama’s skirts. “I won’t be lost.”
The woman hugged her son to her side. “Forgive me, but who are you?”
He didn’t mind that the woman made a bold request to find out his identity. She’d saved him the trouble of dropping his name and title into the conversation. “Lord Stockwick, madam.”
“I see,” she said, then her eyes narrowed. “Stockwick, did you say?”
“Indeed. I see you are familiar with the family name.”
“I was, once, but I’ve been away a long time. I remember an older man—with gray whiskers—held the title then.”
“Ah, you must be thinking of my father, whom I am happy to say I don’t at all resemble. There’s no gray in my whiskers, as you see. Were you very well acquainted with him?”
“Only in passing. I recall a daughter, though I am afraid it has been many years since I’ve thought of her. I cannot remember her name.”
“Margaret. Or perhaps you knew her as Meg.”
“Oh, yes. That’s it. Meg. We spent some time together right here. Well, upstairs in the nursery.”
“Then we are likely already acquainted, too.”
“I don’t recall meeting someone like you,” she began, her frown growing as she peered at him. “Unless…”
“Hector,” he supplied, and then smiled as she appeared to recognize his name.
But her eyes had narrowed upon him. “Oh, it’s you. I don’t suppose you’re here to return the silver bell you stole from me.”
“I…” He gaped, stunned. “Ruby Clement?”
“Ruby Roper. Mrs. Ruby Roper.” She scowled. “So will you at last admit the truth?”
“I…” he began, but then her request sank in. “I admit you accused me of theft of that ridiculous thing when we were children.”
“It was not ridiculous,” she argued, voice rising. “That bell meant a great deal to me.”
Hector punched his hands on his hips. “Well, I didn’t take it.”
“Do you swear?” she asked.
“Every day and every way I can,” he shot back. “I was falsely accused, and you owe me an apology.”
For a moment, Ruby seemed taken aback by his statement, but then her face pinked with a blush, and she looked down. Her child had moved between them, looking up at them with a bewildered expression.
Hector took a pace back, appalled by his heated outburst. He hadn’t seen Ruby in a dozen years, and she could still stir up his temper over something so inconsequential as a silver bell. The way she’d done as a girl, too. He remembered they had become bitter enemies over the lost bell, but those childish fits of rage belonged in his past.
Ruby Clement had lost a silver bell somewhere in this vast pile, and Hector had the unfortunate luck to be the last person to admit that he had seen it. And because he had, he’d been suspected—by Ruby, mostly. His possessions had been searched, and he’d even been deprived of a meal in a bid to entice him to admit the bell’s location. He should have kept his mouth shut instead of trying to help with the search. He’d never coveted the stupid bell, since he had one of his own.
“Forgive me,” he murmured. “I should not have raised my voice to you.”
“No, I beg you to forgive me, my lord. Apparently, some losses never lie quietly in the mind. I hadn’t truly thought of my bell in years.”
“Well, no harm done.” He took pains to calm his ruffled feathers. He was no longer a little boy who needed everyone to believe he spoke the truth. He swept his hair back from his eyes, noting his brow was damp and hot. “Well, that little disagreement between us certainly got the blood pumping through my veins on a day I thought would be utterly uneventful. No chance of being chilled for a while now, eh, Mrs. Roper? Would you care to sit down with me so we might conduct a more civilized conversation and renew our acquaintance? It has been some time since we last met. I’m sure much has happened since that we could catch up about. I must admit, I haven’t kept up with news from that side of Lord Vyne’s family.”