“That’s not it, Ford.”
The words were said much too calmly. If she truly loved him, shouldn’t her heart be breaking? Just as his was?
“I’m a bit more enlightened than you give me credit for,” she went on. “Money has nothing to do with this. And before you ask, I wasn’t lying about my feelings for you. But my feelings alone aren’t enough. I don’t want to marry for the wrong reasons.”
At least I don’t want to marry for the wrong reasons wasn’t an outright refusal. And though he knew what she meant, he would never understand how she could love him and yet not agree to marry him now. Not if love felt the same to her as it did to him.
“Question Convention,” he quoted woodenly.
He was beginning to understand what she’d meant when she said the Ashcrofts weren’t a conventional family…but he wasn’t at all sure anymore that he liked it.
FIFTY
FORD WAS SITTING at his desk the next morning, struggling to make sense out of a mound of Lakefield’s neglected paperwork, when his family showed up.
And showed up, and showed up—three carriages worth of them.
He’d known, of course, when he’d ordered Colin and Amy not to visit or bring the rest of the family, they were going to ignore him. But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. Especially on a day like this.
Lucky for him, most of them stayed outside while his twin, Kendra, came into the study, wearing an all-too-cheerful yellow gown.
“We’re here!” she announced, as though they’d sent notice ahead.
“I deduced as much when I heard the children shrieking.” All seven of the precious angels. For the first time in weeks, he was pleased with the sorry state of his garden—at least there was little they could do to harm it.
Kendra stopped beside his chair, her dark red hair glimmering in the too-bright sun that streamed through the window at his back.
He scowled up at her. “Who invited you?”
She leaned down to give him a hug. “I’ve missed you, too.”
“Right,” he grunted without rising.
Backing off, she went to find a seat. He’d piled ledgers on the only extra chair, so she perched on the old iron chest he’d never managed to open.
“How was Scotland?” he asked her grudgingly.
“Beautiful. Hamish is in good health, and Niall has done wonders with Duncraven.” He’d never met these people—her husband’s family—but felt he knew them from her lively descriptions over the years. “And Cait’s family is well, too. Cameron and Clarice had another baby.”
“That’s good.” And no surprise. Everyone connected to the Chases seemed to have plenty of babies. Assuming it would be the same for him, he thought amidst another round of shrieks that perhaps Violet’s refusal had been for the best.
“Well.” Kendra crossed her legs, the foot on top swinging up and down with its red-heeled shoe. “We’ve come to meet Violet, so enough of the pleasantries.”
“Have I been pleasant?” Ford wondered.
Her green eyes flashed with all-too-familiar annoyance. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“Besides the fact that the woman I love won’t agree to marry me?”
“Colin said you were over Tabitha,” she said, frowning, and then, “Oh. Oh! It’s this Violet, then, isn’t it? Od’s fish, I cannot believe you admitted that. Ford Chase in love, and ready to marry?” The annoyance faded from her eyes as they filled with compassion instead. “Why on earth won’t she have you?”
“Look around,” he said, gesturing toward the peeling walls. “I believe you’ll begin to get the picture.”
“Well.” Now her eyes filled with outrage. “If she values gold above love, then she doesn’t deserve you, anyway.”
“It’s not like that,” he said with a long-suffering sigh. “She’s more interested in books than material comforts. But she has money of her own, and she’s convinced herself no man would want her save to have it. I’m afraid the condition of this place has done nothing to reassure her my motives are otherwise.”
When Kendra came to hug him this time, he rose and let her wrap him in her arms.
“Poor Ford. You’ve always managed to get everything you’ve wanted before, haven’t you?”
Torn between taking comfort and bristling at his sister’s patronizing view of him, he opted for the comfort. “I guess so,” he mumbled into her flower-scented hair.
“Where is she?” Kendra demanded, pulling back. “I’ll talk to her and explain that your intentions are sterling. The sort of fellow you are—”
“She’s busy today,” he said quickly. The last thing he needed was his family poking their noses in—which was exactly why he hadn’t wanted them here. Violet’s family might be unconventional, but his was mad as a cell full of Bedlam inmates.
Violet was already dubious about the prospect of marrying him. One glimpse of the family she’d be marrying into, and her answer would change to an unequivocal no.
“Are you sure?” Kendra asked. “We’ve come all this way—”
“I’m positive.” He plopped back onto his chair, willing to discuss anything to get off the subject of Violet. “Sit down and catch me up on the gossip.”
She wandered back to sit on the chest. “Cait is with child again.”
“What took her so long?” he asked dryly. Jason and Caithren had two boys already. “And you?”
“Oh, two girls are enough.”
“Trick isn’t wanting an heir?”
“If one comes along, he wouldn’t mind, I suppose…” The faint blush on her cheeks told him she and her husband, Patrick, were trying to conceive. She looked down, her fingers tracing the decorative metal strips on the chest. “You know,” she said, also a master at changing the subject, “this chest has always reminded me of the treasure chest Trick and I found and brought to King Charles. Every time I see this one, I wonder what might be in it.”
“I’ve always wondered that myself.”
Her head whipped up. “You don’t know?”
He shrugged. “It came with the place, and there’s no key for the lock, and—”
“I’ll have Trick open it, you fool. Let me go get the others.” Before he could respond, she’d
