Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(46)

“Why?” Devlin asked. Why would Ben not be staying for long?

“Ravenswood is not really my home,” Ben said. “It is where I grew up because my father took me there after my mother died. Now my father is dead too.”

It was the first time that fact had been mentioned openly between them since the day Ben had forced those two letters upon him—the ones from the solicitor and the countess—looking as he did so as if he might have been weeping. Though even then they had not talked about the fact that their father was dead. Devlin had read both letters, folded them carefully, and handed them back. Ben had disappeared for a few weeks after that. Devlin suspected he had gone to see Nicholas. Perhaps they had grieved together. He had half expected that Ben would not return, but he did.

“But your brothers and sisters are not dead,” Devlin said. “I am not, and Ravenswood is mine.”

Perhaps that was the problem, of course. Ben was older than he, the eldest son of the late Earl of Stratton, but it was Devlin, his second son, who was now the earl and owner of Ravenswood in his place. He was the one who bore the name Ware. Just because he had been born within wedlock while his elder brother had not.

“I will not be staying for long,” Ben said again. “I need to make a home for my daughter.”

“Where?” Devlin asked.

It seemed Ben had been thinking about it. “I was wondering if you would sell Penallen to me,” he said.

Penallen? It was one of the minor properties Devlin had inherited from his father. It was close to the sea and a picturesque fishing village, twenty miles or so from Ravenswood. They had gone there once when Devlin was a very young boy and Nicholas had been little more than a baby. He had a sudden vivid memory of the salt smell of the sea and of the fish Ben had brought back from a morning spent out on a boat with some of the fishermen. He had been almost bursting with pride as he displayed them for everyone’s admiration. The family had not gone there again. The house, which Devlin could not remember at all, was not large enough for his father’s tastes. Ben had been there a few times, though, in his capacity as their father’s steward. It was not one of the entailed properties. It could be sold. For the first time Devlin wondered why his father had not left one of the unentailed properties to his eldest son.

“There will be no need to—” he began.

“Do not tell me,” Ben said, cutting him off, “that you will give it to me. I will buy it. If you will sell. I can afford it.”

Devlin wondered if his father’s not leaving him one of the properties had hurt Ben, implying as it did that only the gentry were worthy of owning land. The legitimate sons of the gentry, that was.

“You do not know my price yet,” Devlin said, flashing his brother a grin. “But don’t leave too soon, Ben.” I am going to need you. He almost said the words aloud, but it would be grossly unfair. His brother had stuck by him all this time, though it could not have been easy. Now he had a life to get on with. A life that centered about his daughter.

Joy had flung up one arm to touch Ben’s face. He held her tiny wrist and kissed her hand, gently pulling back her fingers with his thumb, and she smiled without opening her eyes, smacked her lips a few times, and curled deeper into him.

And Devlin realized the fathomless depths of Ben’s love for his child. He held the whole of his world in his arms. His own flesh and blood. His family. Whereas Devlin’s family, large and extensive, was estranged from him. By his own doing? By theirs? A bit of both? His mother was the only one of them who had actually told him to leave. She was also the only one who had summoned him back home. Though, to be fair, he had not given any of the others an opportunity either to invite him to return or to tell him to go to the devil.

And he had ignored the only summons he had received—summons or invitation, depending upon one’s perspective, he supposed. For two years.

“We are going to be there soon,” Ben said, and Devlin glanced with a heavy heart at the increasingly familiar landmarks beyond the windows.





Chapter Twelve





Gwyneth was out riding. She had been feeling restless and in need of air and exercise—and solitude. She was riding sidesaddle, her riding habit both smart and fashionable. Her hair was dressed neatly beneath a matching riding hat. She had refused the company of a groom, having assured him that she did not intend leaving her father’s land. She was up on the highest point of the hills on its western border, looking down upon the river and the village of Boscombe and miles of land beyond it. And, on this side of the river, Ravenswood’s park and the hall itself in the middle distance.

She had drawn her horse to a halt. For a carriage drawn by four horses had just crossed the bridge from the village and was passing through the gates on its way to the hall. It was impossible from this far away to see if it was a carriage she would recognize. But no one coming from a mere few miles away to pay a visit would be using four horses. If, on the other hand, that vehicle had left London this morning, this was about the time it would be arriving.

Word had spread to every corner of the village and the surrounding countryside, as even lesser news and gossip invariably did, that the Earl of Stratton was coming home today. He had written to the countess, advising her to expect him. It was doubtful that the countess herself had spread the word except to inform her immediate family and the servants who would be involved in preparing for his arrival. But that had been more than enough. Many of the Ravenswood servants, though possibly warned of dire consequences if they gossiped, would not have been able to resist whispering the exciting news to a relative in the village or to one of the Misses Miller at the shop or to Mr. Holland at the smithy or to a fellow servant at another house. One would have a better chance of containing a wildfire in a hurricane than gossip in the English countryside.