The Wicked Lord Montague. Carole Mortimer

these past ten months, and so lost to all of us for ever?’

      No, Giles would prefer never to have to speak of anything ever again which forced him to acknowledge that his brother Edward was dead. Indeed, he had spent the past nine months avoiding returning to Castonbury Park in an attempt to do just that. Without any success, of course, but there was not a fashionable man, or willing woman, in London who could not confirm how vigorously he had attempted to achieve that oblivion, in the company of the former, in the beds of the latter.

      How ironic that the first person Giles should meet upon returning to Castonbury should be the one woman guaranteed to remind him of the losses he had been trying so hard to avoid!

      His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘No doubt ten months has been more than long enough for you to have recovered sufficiently from your hopes regarding Edward, and to have some other unsuspecting—and, for your sake, I hope wealthy!—young man ensnared by your charms?’

      Lily drew her breath in sharply, so deeply wounded by Giles Montague’s dismissive scorn of the affection she had felt for Edward that for several minutes she felt completely unable to speak. She almost—almost!—pitied Giles Montague for his lack of understanding.

      No—she did pity him, knowing that a man as arrogant and insensitive as Giles Montague could never appreciate or attempt to understand the love she and Edward had felt for each other, or how their friendship had been of such depth and duration that Lily had come to regard Edward as the brother she had never had, as well as being her dearest friend in all the world.

      A year ago the haughty and disdainful Lord Giles Montague had been blind to the nature of that affection, and chosen instead to believe that as she was only the adopted daughter of the local vicar—her real parentage unknown—then she must necessarily be out to ensnare his rich and titled youngest brother into matrimony. It must have been a match he considered so unsuitable he had felt no qualms in arranging to talk to Lily without Edward’s knowledge, so that he might inform her of such. It had been a conversation that had so stunned Lily by its forthright audacity she was ashamed to say she had felt no hesitation in returning that frankness in regard to her own less than flattering opinion of Giles Montague.

      She raised her chin now. ‘I will continue to love Edward until the day I die,’ she stated softly and evenly, too heavy of heart to feel the least satisfaction when she saw the way Giles Montague’s eyes widened upon hearing her declaration. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, my lord, I believe it is past time I returned to the vicarage.’ She continued to hold that guarded and icy grey gaze as she sketched the slightest of curtseys before turning on her booted heels and walking away.

      Her head was held high as she refused, even for propriety’s sake, to resume wearing her bonnet. Giles Montague already believed her to be socially inferior to him, so why should she care if her actions now confirmed that belief.

      Except Lily did care what people thought of her. She had always cared. Not for her own sake, but for the sake of the kindly Mr and Mrs Seagrove.

      Lily had only been eight years old, and had not understood, when one of the children from the village had first taunted her and called her ‘Gypsy.’ She had questioned Mrs Seagrove as to its meaning as soon as she had returned to the vicarage. That dear lady had taken Lily gently in her arms and explained that it was merely another name for the Romany families who stayed at the Castonbury estate during the spring and at harvest time.

      Again, having rarely bothered to waste time looking at herself in a mirror, Lily had not understood why one of the village children should have chosen to taunt her with such name. Until Mrs Seagrove had stroked Lily’s long and curling black hair and explained that she was not the true child of Mr and Mrs Seagrove, but had in fact been left, as a baby of only a few weeks, on the doorstep of the vicarage eight years previously; of how she and Mr Seagrove suspected that Lily’s real mother had perhaps been one of the young and unmarried Gypsy girls who travelled the roads of England with their tribe.

      Gypsy.

      Lord Giles Montague had made it obvious a year ago that he was both totally aware of such a heritage, and disapproving of its being connected with his noble family.

       Chapter Two

      Giles had put aside the encounter in the glade with the beautiful Miss Lily Seagrove by the time he handed over the reins of his horse to one of the grooms at Castonbury Park. His thoughts were now on the signs of neglect, both to the outside of the house itself and other parts of the estate, which he had noted as he rode down the hillside and along the side of the lake.

      Several tiles were missing from the roof at the back of the house, the stonework at the front was also in need of attention and there were weeds growing in several places about the foundations. The gardens that surrounded the house seemed to be well tended, but Giles had noted that several trees had toppled over in the woods at the back of the house, and the lake was also in need of clearing of the debris that had accumulated from the past winter. And they were only the things that Giles had noted at first glance; there were sure to be others he had not had the chance to see as yet.

      They would no doubt confirm that things here were as dire as his sister Phaedra had warned they were. Something which did not please Giles at all, if it meant he would have to prolong his stay here …

      Lumsden—the butler who had been with the Montague family for more years than Giles could remember—opened the front door as he reached the top step. ‘Master Giles!’ His mouth gaped open in surprise. ‘I mean, Lord Giles,’ he corrected as he obviously recovered his usual calm equilibrium. ‘We had not been told to expect you.’

      ‘I did not send word of my coming,’ Giles assured as he strode past the older man and into the house.

      It was almost ten months since Giles had last stepped through this doorway, on the occasion of Edward’s funeral, and whilst the inside of the house was as clean and neat as it had ever been—Mrs Stratton, Giles knew, would allow nothing less from her household staff!—there was nevertheless an air of emptiness about it, of a house that no longer felt like a home.

      An emptiness that Giles had expected—and so determinedly avoided these past nine months.

      His mouth tightened as he turned back to hand the butler his hat and riding crop before shrugging off his outer coat. ‘My father is in his rooms in the east wing?’

      ‘Yes, my lord.’ Lumsden’s seriousness of tone somehow managed to convey so much more than was said in those three words. ‘I will go and enquire of Smithins if he considers His Grace well enough to receive you—’

      ‘No need, Lumsden,’ Giles dismissed airily. ‘I am sure I will be able to judge that for myself once I have seen my father.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘What is it, Lumsden?’ He frowned his irritation with this further delay, anxious now to see his father for himself, so that he might best decide what needed to be done here in order that he might leave again as soon as was possible.

      The butler looked uncomfortable. ‘Smithins has issued orders that no one is allowed to see His Grace without his permission.’

      Giles raised autocratic brows. ‘Am I to understand that my father’s valet now says who is and is not to visit him?’ He conveyed his incredulity in his tone.

      ‘I believe that sums up the situation very well, my lord, yes.’ The butler looked even more uncomfortable.

      ‘We shall see about that!’ Giles assured determinedly. ‘If you could organise a decanter of brandy brought into us, Lumsden, I would be most obliged?’

      The elderly man straightened with renewed purpose. ‘Certainly, my lord.’

      Giles turned with that same sense of purpose, his expression grim as he strode through to his father’s suite of rooms in the east wing of the house, more than ready to do battle with the man who was employed to be his father’s valet and not his jailer!

      ‘His Grace will be overjoyed, I am sure.’