Godfrey met her eyes. To lie or… No, he couldn’t. Not to her. “No—it’s an abbey. A house built within an old abbey.”
Ellie’s eyes widened to rival Maggie’s. She drew in a long breath. “Your half brother is the Marquess of Raventhorne?”
There was a hint of panic in her tone, but “Yes” was all he could say.
“And Raventhorne Abbey is your childhood home?”
He nodded. Both Harry and Maggie were looking back and forth from Ellie—who now looked faintly horrified—to him.
“But…that means you’re a lord.” She made it sound like an accusation.
He wrinkled his nose. “Yes, but being Godfrey Cavanaugh and Lord Godfrey Cavanaugh… Well, there’s really no difference, you know.”
“But it does make a difference.” Ellie couldn’t immediately explain why, but she knew that was true. The nobility were a breed apart. To illustrate her point, she waved at Maggie and Harry. “See?”
Godfrey looked at her siblings, both of whom were now staring at him with mouths agape and amazed if not stunned expressions.
“It makes a difference to how people see you,” she insisted.
He raised his gaze to her face. “Yes, I know.” He let the words stand for a moment, presumably to let their meaning sink in. “That’s precisely why I don’t go around parading my title. People think it makes a difference to the sort of person I am, but it doesn’t. I’m Godfrey Cavanaugh, either way, and there’s only one of me.”
“I see your point,” Maggie said, and all attention deflected to her. “And I think it’s commendable—making your mark without using your title to smooth your way.”
Harry was frowning. “But most of those you deal with—in London, I mean—must know who you are. They’d be familiar with the nobility, so your surname would tell them.”
Godfrey returned his gaze to Ellie’s face. “That’s another reason why, when I’m in situations such as this where my family affiliation isn’t immediately recognized, I seize the chance to leave my title behind. It doesn’t define who I am.”
“Quite so!” Abruptly, Maggie uncurled her legs and rose. “You’ve been very accommodating, answering all our questions, but now Ellie is here to watch over you, Harry and I should—I’m sure she’ll say—leave you to rest before luncheon.”
Ellie was taken aback by the strength of Maggie’s declaration, but essentially concurred. “Yes, indeed.” She glanced at Godfrey and couldn’t help but add, “Lord or not, you should rest.”
Godfrey inwardly sighed, but smiled at Harry and Maggie and invited them to return when they had time. They grinned and waved and left him with their sister.
Before she could retreat, he sat up and tried to wrestle the pillows behind his back.
Ellie hesitated, then came to help him.
The instant she’d finished resettling the pillows, he reached up and back and caught her hand.
He used his hold to gently draw her to where he could meet her eyes, then twined his fingers with hers. “As ought to be obvious, I don’t conceal my title to deceive. I avoid using it because, on hearing it, people make assumptions that simply aren’t true. I’m a fourth son, and my being a lord matters not one jot to me or to my family. Other than for Ryder, our titles are accidents of birth that don’t mean much—except in the eyes of those who think they do.”
Shifting his hold, he slid his fingers over hers, searching her eyes and hoping she was getting his message, namely that, as far as he was concerned, socially, he and she were equals.
Before he could think of words to make that plain, she eased her fingers from his. “You really ought to rest, and I’ve just remembered I need to speak to Mrs. Kemp.”
With a smile that could have meant anything at all, she turned and walked quickly to the door.
Godfrey watched the door close behind her, then drew in a slightly shaky breath.
Revelations were often unsettling, and the last minutes had revealed more than he’d anticipated. The compulsion to ensure she understood how he saw her, that there was no impediment to a relationship between them, rather obviously illuminated the path along which his mind—consciously or otherwise—was leading him. Had been leading him.
At some point in the past days of being marooned in bed, he—his inner self—had seen her, observed her, studied and weighed her, and made up his mind.
Ellie Hinckley was the lady he wanted as his wife.
He’d always wondered if that particular type of lightning would ever strike him. Now it had, it was clearly up to him to seize the chance Fate had dangled before him.
Godfrey settled against the refluffed pillows and started to plan.
Just a touch rattled, Ellie descended the back stairs, hoping to find Mrs. Kemp in her office off the kitchen.
Inevitably, her mind replayed Godfrey’s—Lord Godfrey’s—assertions, his assurances that his title was essentially irrelevant.
But it wasn’t, was it?
Regardless of whether she believed him or not, the point in their recent exchange that had most struck her was that he’d made an effort to explain what he felt and, once they were alone, had underscored his argument. His assertion that his title was more or less meaningless to him and his family had rung true, but more than that, stressing the point to her had meant something to him.
“The question,” she muttered, “is what?” She frowned. “Or should that be why?”
She had no idea. Faintly grimacing, she stepped off the last stair and went in search of Mrs. Kemp.
Tuesday wore on. After consuming a satisfyingly substantial three-course luncheon, Godfrey lay back and set his mind to the task of assembling all the bits and pieces of information he’d gleaned about his hosts.
One early conclusion was that he should consider his hosts to be the whole Hinckley family and not just Mr. Matthew Hinckley.
He’d yet to gain sufficient facts to form any image, much less understanding, of Matthew Hinckley himself, but his view of Ellie was sharp and clear. She was plainly the anchor for both family and household, the lynchpin about which both revolved. She carried that responsibility as both duty and right and with a confidence that spoke of long years in the role. Of the staff, he’d as yet met only Mrs. Kemp, but the respect that worthy accorded Ellie spoke volumes; the staff would follow Ellie into battle if need be.
As for Harry… Godfrey had never had a younger brother, but from his own experience, he knew young men like Harry—quiet yet sensitive to the expectations of those about them—went through a stage of not being sure of their path. Of not knowing what they wanted of life as opposed to what others thought they should want. Having returned home after his years at Oxford, Harry, Godfrey sensed, stood poised on the cusp of making that decision.
The quiet steadiness that ran beneath Harry’s youthful exterior made Godfrey reasonably certain Harry would choose wisely.
Maggie, however, remained something of an enigma. On the one hand, she seemed relatively carefree, yet also willful, the sort of young lady who might require more protection than most, yet contradicting that, he’d sensed she was unusually clear-eyed and rather insightful. She understood what people didn’t say as well as what they did.