If You Desire - Cole Kresley (читать книги полностью без сокращений бесплатно .TXT) 📗

Her eyes went wide. "You wouldn't!"

He nodded gravely.

"Whoare you?" she asked, blinking at him in bewilderment. Her father's personality had shifted utterly, just as Hugh's had. "I-I'll stay with my cousins. Samantha and Belinda and their families are going to Vinelands this week—"

"And how long will you flit from cousin to cousin? From estate to estate as a hanger-on?"

She crossed to him, determined to reason with him. "Father, you know I can't go back if I do this," she said with a light touch on his arm. "Once this is over, I will not be able to make another match."

"Certainly you will. John Ruskin got his marriage annulled just last year, and his former wife is already remarried. And think of all the girls who elope to Scotland. When their families find them and drag them back, the chits have their marriages annulled, and a couple of years later they marry again. If I had a pound for every time that happened during the last season—"

"Those girls are eighteen, nineteen. They have time to wait for another match." She lifted her hand from his arm and gripped her forehead. "I'm too old to wait! And you know my chances with Freddie would be ruined by this."

"If you still want him after all of this is over, then I would use all my influence to see it done."

She sank into a chair. "And why on earth would Freddie still want me?"

"He's waited this long."

She bit her lip at that, then said, "I still don't understand why Hugh has agreed to this. How can you make him take a wife he doesn't want?"

"Are you so sure he doesn't?"

"Of course he doesn't!"

"I believe he cared deeply for you when you were both younger. Don't you think he acted as if he did?"

"If he cared for me so much, then why would he leave without a word?" Looking back now, it was difficult to see him as anything other than a typical male, enjoying the attention she lavished on him.

"You know he told me to tell you good-bye. If you asked about him."

"If?" She gave her father the same expression she'd given him when he'd last voiced this nonsense. "It doesn't matter anymore. He's had a life of his own, and we hardly know each other anymore."

"Yes, he has had a life of his own, and in that time he's earned enough money to take care of you. I know that you two used to get along. Can't you charm him? Cajole him and win him over? It should be easy enough for you. Maybe you mighttry staying married?"

"Why would I ever choose Hugh over Freddie?"

"Because you never loved Freddie."

No, she didn't, but she cared for him, and they had fun together. And since she hadn't loved him, she'd known Freddie had no power to wound her. "Perhaps that's so—but Freddie's never hurt me."

"You don't believe Hugh purposely hurt you? I think you're forgetting all the times he took you riding, or the hours he spent helping you with your archery. He was patient with you, when I could scarcely be."

When she said nothing, recalling scenes from her childhood, her father said, "In the weeks to come, I want you to remember one thing. Remember that Hughtries . He's going to try to make you happy."

"You're assuming I'm going to agree to this."

"Just think, Jane, he'll likely take you out of England."

"Where? Far?" she quickly asked, then flushed at her father's knowing expression. Transparent Jane, eager to travel. "To Carrickliffe?"

"Yes, possibly among his clan. It's up to him. But I do know that he'll go north. And that he won't travel more than a day's ride from a telegraph. I'll be able to contact you the minute you can return home. If at that time you still want an annulment, it will be done."

Self-preservation, Janey. What if you get attached to him again?

When she was still shaking her head, he said, "Jane, this is not up for debate. You will leave London, and you'll do it this morning."

She'd concluded that she didn't recognize her father, but just when she determined that she didn't care for this new stranger, his face and tone softened. "Ah, daughter, you're so brave about everything, and yet you're terrified of this, aren't you?"

"Well, if I am, it's because Grey looked at me in such a disquieting—"

"Not about Grey. You're afraid of getting hurt again."

Her lips parted, but she couldn't deny her apprehension. "Hugh left me once and never came back. And I know you invited him again and again."

"But, Jane, he came back when it counted."

Chapter Eleven

Never! Never on your life….

With Jane's words running through his mind, Hugh rode for Grosvenor Square in a daze. There'd been too many developments this morning for him to digest. Simply seeing her kissing another man had nearly been his undoing.

And then, after so many years of fighting to stay away from Jane, to be forced to be with her—no, to marry her. He was shocked at how badly part of him wanted Weyland to succeed in persuading her.

Even as Hugh knew he couldn't keep her.

Did I truly just see Jane kissing another man?

When he arrived at the square, Hugh strode inside the MacCarrick family's mansion. They all called this place "the family's," though in truth it now belonged to Ethan. As the oldest son, Ethan had inherited all of the MacCarrick properties, as well as the Scottish earldom of Kavanagh—though he would likely pummel anyone who dared remind him he was a peer.

In the entry hall, Hugh ignored, as usual, his mother's messages to him, lying in the silver tray. He couldn't say he hated the woman, but she'd blamed her sons for their father's death, and that made it damned difficult to want anything to do with her. His brothers felt the same. All her messages to them were unopened as well.

Ethan hadn't banned her from the property, yet. By tacit agreement, she never stayed here when any of her sons were in London, though Hugh would bet she was still bribing the servants for information about them—everyone but Erskine, their butler. The dour-faced man was committed to his job of discouraging any and all visitors, and loyal down to his bones.

Hugh strode directly to the study, his boots drumming across the marble floor. He knew precisely where theLeabhar nan Suil-radharc, the Book of Fates, would be—still laid out on the long mahogany desk, where Hugh had found Courtland, staring at it almost pleadingly just weeks ago.

As always, Hugh was amazed that such an ancient book could be preserved so well after countless years had passed. Of course, the only marking it had ever accepted was blood.

Long ago, a clan seer had predicted the fates of ten generations of MacCarricks and inscribed them in theLeabhar . The lines within foretold tragedies and triumphs that had all come to pass.

Although Hugh had long since memorized it, he turned to the last page, written to his father…

To the tenth Carrick:

Your lady fair shall bear you three dark sons.

Joy they bring you until they read this tome.

Words before their eyes cut your life's line young.

You die dread knowing cursed men they become, shadowed to walk with death or walk alone.

Not to marry, know love, or bind, their fate;

Your line to die for never seed shall take.

Death and torment to those caught in their wake…

The last two lines were obscured by dried blood that could not be lifted from the page.

Tragedies and triumphs revealed? Hugh exhaled wearily. No triumphs were revealed to the brothers. No, they had sired no bairns among them, had killed their father by reading this very book, and continued to hurt everything they cared for.

Running his forefinger down the prediction on the crisp parchment, he felt his skin grow cold and clammy. There was something innate there, some palpable power in theLeabhar . The last person from outside the family who'd touched it had stared at it in horror and crossed himself.