The Sum of All Kisses

“No, you can’t,” Sarah said immediately. “Marcus would never forgive me.”

“Then we’ll bring him, too. And Daniel.”

“No!” Sarah grabbed Honoria’s hand and yanked her back even though she hadn’t taken more than a step. “Under no circumstances may Daniel go see Lord Ramsgate.”

“You cannot leave him out of this,” Honoria insisted. “He is as deeply involved as—”

“Fine,” Sarah said, just to cut her off. “Get Daniel. I don’t care.”

But she did care. And the moment Honoria dashed off to fetch the two gentlemen, Sarah yanked on her coat and raced to the stables. She could ride to the village faster than any carriage could be driven, even in—no, especially in this rain.

Daniel, Marcus, and Honoria would follow her to the White Hart; Sarah knew that they would. But if she got there far enough ahead of them, she could— Well, to be quite honest, she wasn’t sure what she could do, just that she could do something. She would find a way to placate Lord Ramsgate before Daniel showed up, irate and itching for a fight.

She might not be able to engineer a happy ending for all; in fact, she was fairly certain she could not do so. More than three years of hatred and bitterness could not be swept away in a single day. But if Sarah could somehow keep tempers from rising, and fists from flying, and—good heavens—anyone from getting killed . . .

It might not be a happy ending, but by God, it would have to be happy enough.

Chapter Eighteen

An hour prior

Whipple Hill

A different room

If Hugh eventually did become the Marquess of Ramsgate, the first thing he was going to do was change the family motto. He could do that, couldn’t he? Because With Pride Comes Valor made no sense in the context of the current generations of Prentice men. No, if Hugh had any say in the matter, he was changing the whole bloody thing to Things Can Always Get Worse.

Case in point: the short missive that had been delivered to his room at Whipple Hill while he was off in the little drawing room, breaking Sarah’s heart, making her cry, and apparently being a terrible person.

The card was from his father.

His father.

It had been bad enough to have to look upon his familiar sharp handwriting. Then he read the words and realized that Lord Ramsgate was here. In Berkshire, practically down the road from Whipple Hill at the White Hart, the most fashionable of the local inns.

How the marquess had got a room when all of the inns were full of wedding guests, Hugh could not imagine. But his father had always had a way of bludgeoning through life. If he wanted a room, he’d get one, and Hugh could only pity the cascade of guests who would be moved to the next-nicest room until some poor bloke found himself out in the barn.

What his father’s note had not indicated, however, was why he’d traveled to Berkshire. Hugh was not particularly surprised by this omission; his father had never believed in explaining himself. He was at the White Hart, he wanted to speak to Hugh, and he wanted to do so immediately.

That was all he wrote.

Hugh generally went out of his way to avoid interaction with his father, but he was not so stupid as to ignore a direct summons. He told his valet to pack up his things and await further instructions, and then he set off for the village. He wasn’t sure that Daniel would look kindly upon his using one of the Winstead carriages, but as the rain was still beating mercilessly against the earth, and Hugh was a man with a cane . . . He really didn’t see how he had much choice in the matter.

Not to mention that this was his father he’d been forced to go see. No matter how furious Daniel was with Hugh—and Hugh suspected he was irreversibly furious—he would understand the necessity of meeting with the marquess.

“God, I hate this,” Hugh said to himself as he climbed awkwardly into the carriage. And then he wondered if some of Sarah’s propensity toward drama was rubbing off on him, because all he could think was—

I’m off to meet my doom.

The White Hart Inn

Thatcham

Berkshire

“What are you doing here?” Hugh demanded, the words spitting from his mouth before he had taken more than two steps into one of the White Hart’s private dining rooms.

“No greeting?” his father said, not bothering to rise from his seat. “No ‘Father, what brings you to Berkshire this fine day?’ ”

“It’s raining.”

“And the earth is renewed,” Lord Ramsgate said in a jolly voice.

Hugh gave him a cold stare. He hated when his father pretended to be paternal.

His father motioned to the chair across the table. “Sit.”

Hugh might have preferred to stand, if only to countermand him, but his leg ached, and his desire to thwart his father was not great enough for him to sacrifice his own comfort. He sat.

“Wine?” his father asked.

“No.”

“It’s not very good, anyway,” his father said, tossing back the remains of his glass. “I really ought to bring my own when I travel.”

Hugh sat in stony silence, waiting for his father to get to the point.

“The cheese is tolerable,” the marquess said. He reached out for a slice of bread from the cheeseboard on the table. “Bread? They can’t really muck up a loaf of—”

“What the devil is this about?” Hugh finally exploded.

His father had been clearly waiting for this moment. His face stretched into a smug smile, and he leaned back in his chair. “You can’t guess?”

“I wouldn’t dare try.”