Heron House
“N ot you,” the deep voice growled from across the long study.
Callum glanced quickly back over his shoulder at the retreating form of the butler, who seemed as if he was actually seeking cover in a scenario that was about to turn warlike.
And there was the fact that Lord Ajax Briarwood was polishing a pistol, for who else could the massive man with icy blond hair framing his rather stoic face be?
The man was cleaning it with the sort of love, care, and devotion that one might show a beloved wife.
Callum hesitated, but only for a moment. “Do forgive me, my lord,” he said firmly. “But I am not here to see your esteemed self. I am here to pay call to your daughter, Miss Cymbeline.”
Lord Ajax continued to clean the pistol, working carefully, his eyes trained upon it. “Whom you met in the dead of night. Is that what I am to understand?”
Callum did not hesitate again. Instead of retreating, he took another step forward.
Fear was quite foolish in the face of such moments.
After all, if he wanted something, he had to go forward for it.
He could not go back. “That is correct, my lord. It was a most advantageous meeting. I did not realize I was going to meet such an interesting young lady and my potential wife.”
Lord Ajax looked up from the pistol.
He was a shockingly handsome man. The tradition of Herculean sculpture came to mind, but there was also something rather terrifying about him, for if Lord Ajax wished, he could cross the room in a few strides, rip Callum’s arms off, and then play croquet with them.
Now, Callum was not exactly afraid of engaging in the martial arts.
He had been trained, at the request of his father, from quite a young age by a variety of men in how to handle himself.
Still, he did not like the idea of coming to blows with the large man who was the father of the young lady that he had largely decided to marry.
Though perhaps things weren’t going according to the plan that he had begun to formulate.
Being a duke, and a powerful one, the circumstances felt quite odd. Usually, he was the one who had to be appeased. That did not seem to be the case at present. “Now, why don’t you wish to see me, my lord?”
“No, no, I’m perfectly happy to see you,” Lord Ajax said with a dangerous smile. “The not you meant you are not going to marry her.”
Callum cocked his head to the side. “What an interesting thing to say, my lord. Surely, it is she who decides and not you.”
“What century are you living in? Are you living in some modern fantasy?” Lord Ajax retorted. “She’s not reached her majority of twenty-one years. So, you need my permission.”
“Well, I had heard that the Briarwoods were rather progressive about things like love.”
Ajax narrowed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, lifted his booted feet, and put them quite casually atop the long, polished table before him as if Callum was not the slightest threat in the entire world.
He cradled the pistol. “Are you suggesting that you love my daughter?”
The question was phrased quite calmly, but it felt loaded, unlike the pistol.
“My lord, I have not known her long enough to do so,” he said.
“But I think that I could attribute the sentiment of Shakespeare here. It is my duty to love a young lady who is so fascinating, beautiful, and clearly intelligent.”
“Your very clever words actually make me like you even less,” Lord Ajax said.
Callum’s brow shot up. This was not going at all as he had foreseen. But then again, perhaps he was approaching this entirely in the wrong way. Ajax was a man who did not care for flowery words. The truth was Callum loved words, he loved word play, and he loved to have a good time with them.
But Ajax, of course, loved his daughter and did not wish for anything silly from Callum.
“Look,” Callum allowed quite truthfully, “we met under rather odd circumstances. I’m sorry if you did not know that she was going out on such adventures.”
“I did know, and she had my blessing. I’m not pleased that she got caught, but I suppose I will have to be pleased that it was by someone like you.”
“Well, if you are pleased that it was by someone like me,” he interjected, “why can’t you be pleased that I am interested in pursuing her as a future wife?”
“Because I know about you,” Lord Ajax said. “And I knew your father.”
“And that is what is prohibitive?” Callum countered, suddenly tensing. He had loved his father. He had loved him dearly, and to suggest that knowing his father was a reason for dismay immediately put him on alert.
“Yes, he died quite young, didn’t he?”
“Is that a crime?” Callum challenged.
“Of course it’s not a crime. But your father was a strange man.”
“Strange?” Callum echoed, a muscle tightening in his jaw. “This from someone like you?”
“Someone like me?” repeated Ajax, leaning back in the high-backed chair.
“Yes, someone who lives largely outside the bounds of society. A Briarwood.” Callum forced himself not to rise to whatever bait Ajax had laid out for him.
So, he pivoted in his tactic. “I would’ve thought you would’ve liked someone like my father.
Surely, we are on the same sort of mission to improve society and not leave it to the old guard. ”
Ajax drew in a long breath. “You are not wrong about that, but I’ve seen the way you burn the candle, Your Grace. I don’t think you’re going to be able to stop long enough to marry my daughter or even have children.”
“I promise you I will be able to stop long enough to do that,” he said.
“Ah,” Lord Ajax replied. “You see, it is my job and my duty, and I am not at all convinced that you can—”
“I can most certainly make her happy,” he cut in.
“Can you?” Lord Ajax said, his gaze assessing.
Callum nodded, drawing in a breath, knowing that he had the lord here. “Oh, indeed, because no one, I guarantee you, in this town will allow her to behave as she wishes to except me.”
The lines around Lord Ajax’s mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. “And how do you know so very well what my daughter wishes and does not?”
“Because she was in an all-male club, dressed as a man, acting like a man, and convincing everyone that she was a man. How many lords do you think would allow their lady-wife to do such a thing?”
Lord Ajax stilled, then asked quietly, “You are suggesting that you are going to let her go about dressed as a man if she so wishes?”
“I’ll let her live the life that she chooses,” he said softly. “I want someone who’s like me.”
“And my daughter is like you?” Lord Ajax queried, still seemingly unmoved, save for the way he was now speaking so quietly.
“Yes, and I think you know it, and I think you’re going to say yes at the end of this meeting.”
Lord Ajax tensed. “You seem to know a great many things, Your Grace.”
“Indeed, I do. It is one of the challenges of being so well-educated and also of understanding people the way I do,” Callum stated factually.
There was no point in denying it. “I have been raised to study people, my lord, so that I can use them and get things done. Now I know that might sound terrible—”
“It doesn’t,” Lord Ajax allowed. “We are not so very different in that, and certainly my brother, Leander, the Duke of Westleigh, is not so very different from you. And luckily for you, he doesn’t seem to find you as appalling as I do.”
Callum gave a slight, almost—but not quite—mocking bow. “I’m glad to have a character reference from the duke.”
“I didn’t say that,” another voice called from the hall.
Callum’s lips curled in a smile. This was quite the meeting. “Ah, you have brought reinforcements, my lord.”
“If that’s what you wish to call me,” the Duke of Westleigh said, striding into the room.
The man was tall, dark-haired, with the first streaks of silver hair tracing through those raven locks, and a look that was electric and powerful.
He was the sort of duke that very few could gainsay.
Perhaps Callum could, but he had no wish to.
“You think it’s a good idea, don’t you, my marrying Cymbeline?”
Westleigh crossed slowly to the fire and propped his foot on the grate as if they had all the time in the world. “You are not the first duke to wish to marry into this family.”
“Ah, yes. The Duke of Ferrars,” Callum mused. “It does seem that you breed ladies who are adept at taming dukes.”
“Do you wish to be tamed?” Ajax growled.
He hesitated. “If I’m honest, I don’t know if I can ever be tamed,” he said. “I am a feral creature, wild through and through, but I give a good guise of being tamed, which allows me to move about society and get things done. Surely, Westleigh, you can understand that.”
Westleigh eyed him carefully. “Oh, yes, I understand going about with a guise to get things done. And hiding who one truly is. But I don’t think you hide who you truly are, Baxter.
I think you present exactly who you are, and that’s what gives us the slightest pause.
We don’t want our darling girl to be made a widow too soon. ”
He cocked his head to the side. “I see. You are not like everyone else, which is, of course, no surprise, given the fact that you are Briarwoods. You’ve spotted what no one else has.”
“And what is that exactly?” Lord Ajax drawled, standing slowly, placing the pistol carefully in its case.
“I have no fear of death.”
“That makes you stupid,” the Duke of Westleigh said.
He let out a long, slow laugh. “No, it doesn’t.
It makes me a realist. We could all die at any moment.
I mean, I’m not going to do something stupid like go out and step in front of a coach.
But I could contract smallpox tomorrow. I could drink bad water.
I could make someone angry, and they could assassinate me because I’ve supported an unpopular bill.
Look, if I went about my life being afraid of death, well, then I wouldn’t be able to live, now would I? ”
Westleigh and Ajax exchanged a quick glance.