A man she probably never would meet.
But she couldn’t help it. It didn’t matter if the summer sun was shining brightly across the lakes—with her brother gone, life in Derbyshire always seemed so gray. Her days rolled from one to the next, with almost no variation. She took care of the house, checked the budget, and tended to her father, not that he ever noticed. There was the occasional local assembly, but over half the men her age had bought commissions or enlisted, and the dance floor always contained twice the number of ladies as gentlemen.
So when the son of an earl wrote to her of wildflowers . . .
Her heart did a little flip.
Honestly, it was the closest she’d got to a flirtation in years.
But when she had made the decision to travel to New York, it had been her brother, and not Edward Rokesby, that she had been thinking about. When that messenger had arrived with news from Thomas’s commanding officer . . .
It had been the worst day of her life.
The letter had been addressed to her father, of course. Cecilia had thanked the messenger and made sure he was given something to eat, never once mentioning that Walter Harcourt had died unexpectedly three days earlier. She’d taken the folded envelope to her room, closed and locked the door, and then stared at it for a long, shaky minute before summoning the courage to slide her finger under the wax seal.
Her first emotion had been one of relief. She’d been so sure it was going to tell her that Thomas was dead, that there was no one left in the world she truly loved. An injury seemed almost a blessing at that point.
But then Cousin Horace had arrived.
Cecilia hadn’t been surprised that he had shown up for her father’s funeral. It was what one did, after all, even if one didn’t enjoy particularly close friendships with one’s relations. But then Horace had stayed. And by God, he was annoying. He did not speak so much as pontificate, and Cecilia couldn’t take two steps without him sidling up behind her, expressing his deep worry for her well-being.
Worse, he kept making comments about Thomas, and how dangerous it was for a soldier in the colonies. Wouldn’t they all be so relieved when he returned to his rightful place as owner of Marswell.
The unspoken message being, of course, that if he didn’t return, Horace would inherit it all.
Bloody, stupid entail. Cecilia knew she was supposed to honor her forebearers, but by God, if she could go back in time and find her great-great-grandfather, she would wring his neck. He’d bought the land and built the house, and in his delusions of dynastic grandeur he’d imposed a strict entail. Marswell went from father to son, and if not that, any male cousin would do. Never mind that Cecilia had lived there her entire life, that she knew every nook and cranny, that the servants trusted and respected her. If Thomas died, Cousin Horace would swoop in from Lancashire and take it all away.
Cecilia had tried to keep him in the dark about Thomas’s injury, but news like that was impossible to keep under wraps. Some well-meaning neighbor must have said something, because Horace didn’t wait even a full day after the funeral before declaring that as Cecilia’s closest male relative, he must assume responsibility for her welfare.
Clearly, he said, they must marry.
No, Cecilia had thought in shocked silence. No, they really must not.
“You must face facts,” he said, taking a step toward her. “You are alone. You cannot remain indefinitely at Marswell without a chaperone.”
“I shall go to my great-aunt,” she said.
“Sophie?” he said dismissively. “She’s hardly capable.”
“My other great-aunt. Dorcas.”
His eyes narrowed. “I am not familiar with an aunt Dorcas.”
“You wouldn’t be,” Cecilia said. “She’s my mother’s aunt.”
“And where does she live?”
Considering that she was wholly a figment of Cecilia’s imagination, nowhere, but her mother’s mother had been Scottish, so Cecilia said, “Edinburgh.”
“You would leave your home?”
If it meant avoiding marriage to Horace, yes.
“I will make you see reason,” Horace growled, and then before she knew what he was about, he kissed her.
Cecilia drew one breath after he released her, and then she slapped him.
Horace slapped her back, and a week later, Cecilia left for New York.
The journey had taken five weeks—more than enough time for Cecilia to second-and third-guess her decision. But she truly did not know what else she could have done. She wasn’t sure why Horace was so dead-set on marrying her when he had a good chance of inheriting Marswell anyway. She could only speculate that he was having financial troubles and needed someplace to live. If he married Cecilia he could move in right away and cross his fingers that Thomas would never come home.
Cecilia knew that marriage to her cousin was the sensible choice. If Thomas did die, she would be able to remain at her beloved childhood home. She could pass it along to her children.
But oh dear God, those children would also be Horace’s children, and the thought of lying with that man . . . Nay, the thought of living with that man . . .
She couldn’t do it. Marswell wasn’t worth it.
Still, her situation was tenuous. Horace couldn’t actually force her to accept his suit, but he could make her life very uncomfortable, and he was right about one thing—she couldn’t remain at Marswell indefinitely without a chaperone. She was of age—barely, at twenty-two—and her friends and neighbors would give her some leeway given her circumstances, but a young woman on her own was an invitation for gossip. If Cecilia had a care for her reputation, she was going to have to leave.
The irony was enough to make her want to scream. She was preserving her good name by taking off by herself across an ocean. All she had to do was make sure no one in Derbyshire knew about it.
But Thomas was her older brother, her protector, her closest friend. For him she would make a journey that even she knew was reckless, possibly fruitless. Men died of infection far more often than they did of battlefield injury. She knew her brother might be gone by the time she reached New York.
She just hadn’t expected him to be literally gone.
It was during this maelstrom of frustration and helplessness that she heard of Edward’s injury. Driven by a burning need to help someone, she had marched herself to the hospital. If she could not tend to her brother, by God, she would tend to her brother’s best friend. This voyage to the New World would not be for nothing.