Read Online Love's Reward by Jean R. Ewing - Free Book Online Page A

moment. Surely her mother could soften him? But, no, at the bottom of the letter was a terse note in Lady Acton’s flowing hand.
    “He is not to be moved this time, Joanna. After what happened with Harry, like the lamb you are to be led to the slaughter. Your father has no compunction in destroying the tree along with the fruit thereof. I’m very sorry, my dear girl, but not every forced marriage is a bad one. You must make the best of it that you can.”
    Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may no more be remembered.
    It was one of Miss Able’s favorite passages from Jeremiah. Lady Joanna Acton had done something even more unforgivable than her brother Harry, who had married a Scottish governess, and her father was not going to excuse her. He was prepared to see Quentin Mountfitchet hanged at Newgate if she did not give in—a slightly uneven return for the loan of a curricle and an escort to Harefell, however ineffective he had been in delivering her there.
    Even if she called Lord Acton’s bluff over Quentin, her own future was doomed: to live out her days in that great marble mausoleum, King’s Acton, cut off forever from the world.
    She could stand it, perhaps, and surely they would not really hang the son of an earl?
    Joanna glanced up at the ring of faces.
    “I cannot,” she said. “I cannot marry this man.” She turned to Lord Evenham. “My lord, you will not allow my father to harm one of your sons, surely?”
    “I must have a suitable heir in the direct line in the next generation,” the Black Earl replied without blinking. “If it is necessary to sacrifice one useless son to compel the other to do his duty, then so be it.”
    Fitzroy watched Joanna with an oddly conflicting range of emotion. She was headstrong, willful, spoiled. She was at least ten years his junior, little more than a schoolgirl. She was beautiful.
    And at first glance she looked—if one did not concentrate too long on the pure English skin and the full curve of upper lip—decidedly like Juanita, his Spanish bride, who had died in circumstances that had made honorable Richard Acton want to execute her husband without compunction.
    Fitzroy turned to his father. “Sir, if you would kindly allow me a few moments alone with my future bride, I would be most grateful.”
    “I shall be waiting in my carriage, sir, to escort the young lady back to town. You may have five minutes. Then I would be pleased if you would do something to sober Quentin and bring him back with you in your phaeton. Smithers may retrieve my curricle, and this unfortunate incident will be behind us. Lord Lenwood, perhaps you would accompany us?”
    Richard bowed his head and with one quick, agonized glance at Joanna, followed Lord Evenham from the room.
    * * *
    Joanna could not bear to meet his gaze. She let her eyes wander across the dull plaster—faded prints hung on the walls, of birds and flowers—then up at the low, timbered ceiling where traces of paint hung in small green peels, so that the beams had the look of lichen-covered tree trunks in an ancient forest. The Swan was Tudor, no doubt, with its lead-paned windows and crooked doorways.
    How odd that in this busy, modern world, so many post houses should still echo that long lost past.
    “Evenham Abbey is Tudor, also,” Lord Tarrant said quietly, although still with an echo of anger and derision. “Stolen from the monks for the benefit of my ancestors. Strange that such a hallowed place should spawn such an unholy family, isn’t it?”
    “They will not hang Quentin,” Joanna replied.
    He dropped onto the chair opposite hers and stretched out his long legs.
    “Are you prepared to take that risk? I am not.”
    “I thought you hated him. Aren’t you glad to have an excuse to see him hanged?”
    “I do not hate him.” It was said flatly, without emotion.
    Silence echoed for a moment.
    Joanna studied the carved leaves