Chapter One
Eight Years Later
Jane smiled politely at the Duchess of Elsingham as the sherry was poured. Dinner was shaping up to be another disaster in what had been a long list of disasters besetting their annual visit to the Duke of Elsingham and his wife. Each year, it became more and more difficult to get through the weeks without everyone in the house succumbing to fits of either the vapors or ill tempers, depending upon one’s proclivities.
“It is so lovely of you all to come and visit us here,” the duchess said, gulping her sherry more than sipping it. “Ever since the Battle of Corunna and poor Marcus’ disappearance, our society is so limited. No one quite knows what to do with us! Are we in mourning? Are we not? Is it within the bounds of propriety to invite us to dinners but not to musicales? I find it so tiresome to sit in the house and look at the same walls day in and day out! At least dear Charles made it home safely. Just imagine how awful it would have been had we lost them both to Bonaparte? How I despise that awful war! It’s done terrible things to society!”
The duchess paused in her diatribe long enough to cast a sympathetic glance toward Jane. “But it must be so much worse for you, my dear! To have your betrothed simply missing… your life perpetually in a state of limbo when you ought to be well married and setting up house with children of your own! You are not getting any younger either! Time does slip away so quickly!”
Jane’s only response was a tighter smile and a raised eyebrow. She was one and twenty, hardly in her dotage. Of course, as there was no end in sight to her strange period of half-mourning, that offered no comfort at all. She’d spent the last five years wearing nothing but drab gray or black. Their visits to town were infrequent and the stodgy country society near their home would never dream of inviting someone in mourning into their midst. Sadly, the dismal company of the Duke and Duchess of Elsingham was the closest thing to social interaction she could lay claim to.
Dull, dreary and always disappointing, it was hardly something to be anticipated, as they were trapped in the same state of limbo she was. Of course, she couldn’t blame society hostesses for their reticence in including them. What were they to say? What were their other guests to say? I’m terribly sorry your betrothed would rather run off to war than marry you. I’m terribly sorry your family had the misfortune to post the banns before he left and now you’re stuck in matrimonial purgatory. I’m terribly sorry that your betrothed, who couldn’t stand the sight of you, has been missing for five years and your life is in stasis because of it.
Upon further examination, Jane decided that it was simply better for everyone involved if she had limited social engagements and fewer opportunities to be insulted or reminded of how poorly her life was playing out. Of course, as she would rather spend her days with fictional characters than real ones, that really was not such a terrible thing. And if the Duchess of Elsingham wished to continue harping upon it, Jane intended to make certain that the woman’s sherry glass was refilled liberally and frequently so that the conversation might be shortened. If, Jane thought, she could get the duchess deep enough into her cups, she could call an early night for herself and retreat to her room and the trials of Lady Gray. That book had her in fits!
“It does, indeed. More sherry, your grace?” Jane asked softly.
The woman’s eyes brightened. “Yes, yes indeed!”
The Duchess of Elsingham was not all that much older than Jane herself. Just shy of thirty, she’d married the Duke of Elsingham and become stepmother to Jane’s betrothed only days before he left to join the fighting on the Peninsula. It always grated when the woman, who had not had children herself, reminded her that her own precious child bearing years were slipping away. Of course, she was still preferable to Jane’s own stepmother.
Mrs. Barrett, as she insisted upon being addressed even by Jane herself, was the very devil. Luckily, she had not yet come down. The woman was perpetually late, more so because she liked to make an entrance than because she poorly managed her time. She’d, no doubt, be wearing one of her new gowns, brightly colored and prettily trimmed. It was that, even more than her difficult personality and questionable character, which prompted the current intensity of Jane’s dislike of her at the moment. She resented the woman’s freedom and her seeming imperviousness to William Barrett’s foul moods and fouler temper.
As a footman refilled her grace’s glass, Jane asked the question that propriety demanded of her. “Has there been any word from the investigators yet or the war office on Lord Althorn’s whereabouts?”
The duchess shook her head sadly. It was an expression she adopted routinely when anyone asked about the fate of her stepson. She had taken to the roll of martyr with aplomb from the very moment of Marcus’ disappearance on the field of battle. No one had ever looked so fashionably grim in their mourning clothes as the lovely Duchess of Elsingham.
Jane had the sneaking suspicion that because black was so flattering to the woman’s cool blonde beauty, it was she and not the duke that delayed in having the Marquess of Althorn declared dead. It allowed her to draw out the period of mourning for ages longer.
“No, my dear. None at all. I fear we may never know what fate has befallen poor Marcus. So young and so handsome,” the duchess mused. “What a shame for Alfred! His only son and heir gone without a word of explanation! The poor dear… his health is failing him so dreadfully. He has been all that is kind and gracious to me. Why, I could not ask for a better husband! He says nothing of what I spend. He is content to entertain himself and does not require that I dance attendance upon him at all times. Why the thought of—well, not to be indelicate, Miss Barrett, but the rules of etiquette are quite muddied on this subject. Alfred is significantly my elder and, as such, will likely precede me in death. I will, of course, mourn him terribly.”
“Your grace, I cannot help but feel a question is buried somewhere within that soliloquy,” Jane said, hoping to hasten the woman to the point. She had found that the duchess frequently took a meandering route to the heart of any conversation.
The duchess smiled and looked coquettishly at Jane through her lashes. The woman flirted shamelessly with everyone regardless of age, gender, or infirmity. It occurred to Jane that the woman was so spoiled by her own beauty she had never thought to explore anything else she might have to offer in life beyond a pretty face and a charming smile. Age would be a cruel comeuppance.
After a deliberately dramatic pause, the duchess continued, “I cannot help but wonder if I would be thought badly of if I did not continue to mourn Marcus once Alfred is gone. Would it be very gauche of me to pack away anything resembling black bombazine after a suitable period has expired?”
“I don’t think so,” Jane said. “You hardly knew Marcus, after all. It would be quite unfair for society to expect you to mourn him as you would a son when I do believe he is, in fact, your senior by at least two years.”
Her grace sat back in her chair and beamed with a beatific smile. “I will continue to wear black on occasion, I think. It does look very lovely on me… and it camouflages any number of sins, particularly related to cook’s lemon cakes. I haven’t worn satin in ages. Do you not miss it, Miss Barrett? Opening your wardrobe and seeing an array of lovely colors spread out for your choosing?”
There had never been an array of colors in her wardrobe. Her father had always been quite the skinflint with her. As he’d already secured a husband for her, it would have been, in his words, a waste of funds to try and make her a silk purse from a sad, little sow’s ear. She’d had only a handful of gowns and they’d been worn only in society. At home, she’d worn simple day dresses of rough fabrics that would have easily seen her pass for a scullery maid.
“I don’t suppose I should speak of such things to you,” the duchess said, clucking her tongue sadly. “My poor dear! Unless Alfred relents and has Marcus declared dead, or if Charles can do so if my poor Alfred does pass, why you might never wed! You will be stuck mourning for a man who might have been your husband for the rest of your life. I do believe that might be the most tragic fate I could imagine.”
Jane nodded noncommittally. Had it not been for her father’s insistence that the banns be posted so early, right after Lord Althorn had left for the army and never returned, she’d have been free to marry as she chose with the belief that Lord Althorn was dead. Of course, it had been a strategic move on her father’s part. Announcing the betrothal had given him entree into the society that he craved. The connection to a dukedom had elevated his status just as he’d hoped. And her reluctant marquess had been conveniently absent to protest.
She was forever trapped and her own father had done that to her with his obsessive greed for a title. As it was, her grace was undoubtedly correct. With Althorn simply vanished, and no word of where he might be, dead or alive, there was no path open to her to move forward other than spinsterhood. Not that she wished for one, she reminded herself. Marriage was a fantasy best saved for pretty young girls with no notion of how cruel and unfeeling men could be. She was simply biding her time until her next birthday and the small settlement her grandfather had left for her would allow her to finally escape her father.
The duchess sipped her sherry. “Perhaps by next season we might slide ever so slightly into half-mourning? Perhaps dip our toes in the water by adding some lavender or lilac touches to these drab widow’s weeds, no? We could still go to some parties, just nothing too grand or gay. Surely, no one would frown upon that after so many years?”
The door opened and the butler entered, pausing with his toes directly even with the door. “The honorable Mr. Charles Balfour, your grace,” he intoned with all the gravitas of one announcing the Prince Regent himself.
Charles entered immediately after him, his dark hair dusted with snow and a too-bright smile on his lips. He might have been handsome had his nose been a tad shorter and less hawkish, and had there not been a coldness about him that even the brightest of smiles could not truly hide.
“Well this is a pleasant surprise! I had not realized you had come to visit, Miss Barrett!”
The sentiment was offered with a false warmth that always made Jane uneasy. While a small part of her was flattered by his attention, her discomfort far outweighed it. Lovely compliments from a tainted source certainly lost some of their luster.
“Mr. Balfour,” she said, inclining her head. Being in his company grated on her nerves. “I cannot imagine how you would find it surprising. We are here for two weeks following Christmas every year, are we not?”
He laughed, though there was an ugly gleam in his eyes at her slight rebuke. “What a wit you are, Miss Barrett! I find it quite difficult to equate the shy little girl you once were to the beautiful and witty woman before me. I daresay, you have come into full blossom.”
“My father is closeted in the library with the duke. I have no doubt their conversation would prove much more edifying to you than the humdrum gossip that her grace and I are indulging in,” she suggested gently.
His smile stretched into what could only be described as a predatory grin. “On the contrary! I’d much prefer to stay here. And if your conversation may be lacking in edification, I will still have a far superior panorama to console me, will I not? I daresay, the two loveliest ladies in all of London are before me!”
“Only in London?” the duchess questioned. “Surely in all of England at the very least!”
The door opened again and, once more, the butler stepped inside, toes even with the doorframe and his posture completely stiff. “Dinner is served, your grace,” he intoned, dry as the dust that was never permitted to settle anywhere in the house.
The Duchess of Elsingham nodded in acknowledgement and then looked to Mr. Balfour for his escort.
Charles smiled again, this time with a predatory quality. “Forgive me, your grace, but if I may… I’d like a private word with Miss Barrett before going in to dinner.”
The duchess appeared quite put out, her chin inching upward and her back stiffening like a cat’s. She was clearly offended that any man would choose to spend time with Jane rather than her. It was a stark reminder that while the Duchess of Elsingham could occasionally be pleasant company, they were not truly allies. Jane had no allies in that house and it was to her benefit to remember that always.
“Certainly, Charles,” she replied. While her words were congenial, her tone was anything but. It was quite evident that the slight had been noted and would not be easily forgiven. The duchess glanced at Jane, eyeing her figure and then her face before turning away dismissively. “I will leave you to your conversation. It is a certainty, of course, that nothing inappropriate would ever occur.”
Charles leaned in and kissed the duchess’ cheek. It was a gesture that was far too familiar. “I promise to make it up to you.”
The duchess smiled again and whacked his arm flirtatiously with her fan. She giggled and then cooed, “Yes, you will, you silly man!”
A feeling of dread had washed through Jane the moment Charles Balfour arrived. Watching the interplay between him and the duchess, earlier suspicions about the nature of their relationship reared their ugly head again. But more terrifying still was whatever it was that he wished to speak to her about. Anything he desired to say to her that required privacy was obviously nothing she would wish to hear. On that score, she was certain.
Helpless, Jane watched the Duchess of Elsingham sail from the room in a cascade of graceful black skirts. Her grace had been correct on one count. With her perfect, blonde beauty she wore the color well, whereas Jane always thought she herself looked like a sad but very plump crow. Even given the strange and quite charged exchange that had just occurred, Jane had to admire the woman’s stunning beauty with no small degree of envy.
When the door closed behind her, Charles looked back at Jane with that same smile. It made him resemble the confidence men who hawked elixirs which they claimed could fix every ailment from gout to a man’s loss of vigor, whatever that was. In reality, those elixirs only succeeded in making the unwary buyer poorer and too foxed to care. “My dearest, Miss Barrett—Jane—you must know why I’ve asked to speak with you privately.”
Jane rose from her chair, feeling very much at a disadvantage. He towered over her regardless, but at least on her feet she felt marginally better about the situation. “No, Mr. Balfour,” she stressed the formal address, hoping against hope that he’d take her meaning. “I cannot fathom that there would ever be any need for us to speak privately, for any reason.”
“Jane,” he continued, and his expression was both overly earnest and incredibly determined. It was a dangerous combination. “You must understand that over the years of our acquaintance, I have developed a deep and abiding admiration for you.”
“Our acquaintance has been just that, Mr. Balfour. We see one another socially perhaps a handful of times each year. It is hardly of any significance,” Jane insisted.
“Dare I confess it?” He continued as if she hadn’t spoken and, in truth, he was so doggedly focused on his own ends it was possible he had not heard.
“No. Do not dare. Do not confess anything, Mr. Balfour,” she said with greater force, her voice rising with panic.
“Jane,” he continued, blissfully ignorant or deliberately obtuse regarding the terror he had invoked. “While you are certainly not a fashionable choice and your appearance is not that which would inspire great sonnets to your beauty, during our acquaintance, I have come to see that your beauty shines from within!”
Jane’s lips parted in stunned offense. Panic gave way to umbrage. She gaped at him like a fish for several seconds as the magnitude of the insult sank in. Had he truly just said he wished to marry her because he’d known her long enough to overlook how unattractive he found her? He had! The pompous, puffed up idiot had, in fact, addressed how singularly unappealing he found her in his marriage proposal! His ineptitude would have been laughable had it not been so insulting. Only moments earlier, he’d been lauding her beauty. How quickly he had forgotten!
“I understand that you are still entangled with this kerfuffle of my cousin’s disappearance and that you are not free to wed… but as the heir presumptive, there is every possibility that your father might be amenable to extending or modifying the existing contracts so they would be inclusive of my offer for your hand,” he continued, his tone conciliatory.
Jane shook her head. “There is no offer, Mr. Balfour. There can be no offer! I am betrothed to your cousin—”
“Who is dead!” He stated it with a firmness that was somewhat surprising given that he had also been at the Battle of Corunna and had been unable to offer any information as to Marcus’ whereabouts or condition. More concerning was the complete and utter lack of feeling the sentiment appeared to invoke in him. They’d never been close, as she understood it, but they were family, after all.
“Who is missing,” she fired back quickly. “Missing and presumed possibly—maybe—could be dead, but not definitively dead. Certainly not so dead that I would feel compelled to throw off the marriage contracts that have been signed, the past reading of the banns and the scandal that would ensue were I to trade one member of your family for another! No, sir. Such an offer is beyond scandalous and it would be best for both of us to simply go on as if it never happened,” she stated firmly. It wasn’t really beyond scandalous. People did it all the time in slightly altered circumstances. But she was seizing upon any excuse she could to avoid a fate she deemed far worse than either spinsterhood or death.
The truth was, Jane realized, that being betrothed to a man who was not present and was most likely not alive, had given her a certain amount of freedom. It wasn’t as much as if she’d been married and then subsequently widowed. Regardless, it wasn’t something she wished to give up just yet. That small taste of freedom had given her a yearning for more and she’d made plans accordingly. They most certainly did not include being wed to a man of Charles Balfour’s ilk.
Certainly being in mourning for as long as she had been did require some sacrifice. She didn’t miss the parties and the balls. Wearing black and gray all the time was a bit of a set down but, in truth, it was a small price to pay. She was largely left alone with her books and her writing. Giving that up to marry a popinjay who was so utterly puffed up with his own importance—well, it would not and could not happen.
“Surely you are not seriously rejecting my offer, Miss Barrett? You only need time—”
“I am quite serious, Mr. Balfour,” she replied evenly. “Time is not and will not be a factor in my decision.”
“Even if Marcus is declared dead at some point, your marriage settlement and your father’s extensive fortune will not be enough to have suitor’s knocking down your door!” he snapped. “You haven’t the sense to recognize a decent offer when presented with one!”
“I’ve not yet been presented with a decent offer,” she replied quietly.
He drew back as if struck and, in some ways, Jane supposed she had struck the man. It didn’t matter that he’d all but called her ugly and offered up his willingness to look past it because she was a good person. That didn’t even brook commenting upon. But she’d refused him for sound and viable reasons that anyone else in society would champion, and he was insulted by it.
Rallying, he smoothed the front of his waistcoat and schooled his features into a neutral expression. It still reminded her of drawings she’d seen of crocodiles. The teeth might be concealed, but they still posed a very real threat. “I see, Miss Barrett. Perhaps, I have been overzealous in my pursuit of you and we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I understand that women prefer to be wooed slowly. I shall endeavor to move at far less frantic pace over the course of the remaining season as I attempt to sway your affections and secure your hand.”
Jane blinked in surprise. Surely not, she thought to herself. Surely, a man of reasonable intelligence was not so foolish as to think a grown woman did not know her own mind when refusing his courtship. “Let me affirm for you, Mr. Balfour, I am not open to courtship or being wooed. Not by you and not by any man. I am betrothed to your cousin. If he should ever happen to be returned to us, I will honor that agreement between our families but I will seek no other offers and I will accept no other offers… specifically, I will never accept yours. Is that quite clear?”
His expression altered, shifted into something dark and even threatening. For a moment, it looked as if he might actually strike her. In the end, he stepped back, smoothed his hands over his hair and stated bitterly, “He’s not coming back! He’s dead and rotting in a Spanish grave… or are you too addlebrained to realize that?”
Jane had stepped back as well. Instinctively, her hand had searched for a weapon, landing upon the neck of a priceless antique case. She drew in a deep and steadying breath, but kept her hand there, ready to strike back if it should prove necessary. She’d actually been afraid of him. It wasn’t simply her nerves or her overactive imagination. For that brief moment in time, Charles Balfour had dropped his mask and shown her a glimpse of all the nastiness that lurked beneath his well-polished surface.
Jane tried to retain a mask of poise and civility, and forced herself to let go of her makeshift weapon, her hands now resting at her sides. She clutched her skirts to hide their trembling. It was a better option than braining him. While the duchess was kind to her, Jane would never presume to say the woman was fond of her. Breaking an expensive vase against his impossibly hard head would likely strain the relationship. “I have refused you as kindly and firmly as I can, Mr. Balfour, and have done so in a manner that leaves you without question that my refusal would stand independently of your cousin’s return or continued absence. I believe I will beg off dinner and dine in my chambers. I bid you good evening, sir.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll not be insulted further by sitting at the dinner table and taking the scraps tossed my way while everyone bemoans the absence of a dead man who never deserved any of it to begin with!” he snapped at her as he turned on his heel and exited the room.
Left alone, Jane exhaled so forcefully that it left her quite dizzy. So much so that she had to grasp the back of the chair nearest her as she struggled to make sense of all that had occurred. She’d been aware of Mr. Balfour’s changed feelings for her. No, she corrected. It was not that his feelings had changed, only that his intentions had. It was quite obvious that he believed taking on the abandoned fiancée of his late cousin would be a strategic maneuver on his part to further cement his claim to the titles and whatever inheritance was also intended for him.
She simply had not expected him to act so soon or to be quite so fervent and intractable in his offer. Was he in dun territory and trying to get his hands on her marriage portion to save himself? It was a likely explanation as she knew he liked the cards far better than they liked him. Whether she wished to wed him or not, it was much more palatable to believe that his offer was not entirely related to what he thought marriage to her might gain him financially. But her own vanity did allow her to deny the voice of reason or logic. His motives, beyond a doubt, were purely mercenary. That didn’t mean she hadn’t bruised his pride with her refusal. Whether he truly wanted her or not, he’d fully expected that she would want him. Disabusing him of that notion could have consequences.
When she’d regained her equilibrium to some degree, Jane stepped out of the drawing room and into the foyer. Her foot was on the bottom step of the grand staircase as she prepared to retreat to her room. The knock that sounded at the door filled her with dread. Had Charles returned to further press his suit or to hurl more insults at her head? Glancing over her shoulder, Jane watched with trepidation as Riggs opened the door and a man stepped inside.
Swathed in a dark and heavy cloak with triple capes, it was difficult to tell much about him at first. The coat was of good quality and very new from the looks of it as he stepped deeper into the more brightly illuminated hall and out of the shadows of the doorway. There was something familiar about him, about the way he moved. When he removed his tall beaver hat and passed it to the butler, even Riggs appeared taken aback.
A ringing began in Jane’s ears as she watched him. It couldn’t possibly be, she thought. The light struck his dark hair and she could see the shimmering blue undertones in the deep black strands. She’d known only one man in her life to have hair that black, like ink spilled on parchment.
“Althorn?” she uttered the word on the merest whisper of breath. It was enough. He turned to face her, but he did not smile. Instead, he looked at her levelly, his expression guarded in a face much leaner and harder than she recalled.
“Miss Barrett,” he offered. “It seems you’ve quite grown up since last we met.”
She would have to be married. It was that thought, more than the man standing before her that prompted the very first swoon of Jane’s heretofore completely practical life. The breath whooshed from her body and the room seemed to spin about before her eyes. The floor was rushing up to meet her as the darkness closed in about her.
*
Marcus Balfour, Marquess of Althorn, heir to the Duke of Elsingham and a long list of other lesser titles, had fought his way back from the brink of death. He’d survived battles, injury, disease that had wiped out entire regiments, capture and torture at the hands of the enemy, and even five long years of hard, back-breaking labor in an island prison off the coast of Spain. But walking the city streets of London, navigating the polite society that had once been his home, those things struck fear in his heart like nothing else.
It was that fear which had prompted him to hide out, to seek refuge in the less than stellar accommodations of the Thorn and Thistle Inn. While he hadn’t intended to remain there forever, he’d hoped for a slightly longer reprieve to gain his bearings and decide how best to proceed with resuming his rightful place.
Back on English soil, he’d sought out one of the only allies on whom he could fully depend. Lord Highcliff had been a friend since they were boys at school. He was also one of the few men who knew precisely what sort of duties Marcus had undertaken while in service to the Crown. Highcliff still worked in secret, moving through the highest echelons of society and ferreting out those whose loyalties might be divided.
Not content to simply be a foot soldier, Marcus had worked in intelligence, providing false information to the French and ferrying back any tidbit he’d learned while in their midst. It had been dangerous work and Marcus had thrived on that. Until Corunna. Everything had gone wrong, from the moment he encountered his cousin in the small city to the second when he’d looked up and seen Charles’ face as he was being dragged away by French soldiers.
For a brief moment, he’d felt relief thinking that rescue would not be far off. But time had made both a liar and a fool of him. Charles had watched him being carted away. If what Highcliff had said was true, Charles had kept that information to himself in the years since, effectively leaving Marcus for dead.
So his return was a cautious one. He’d taken several days’ time to gauge the temperature of the waters that awaited him and to discover just what had been done in his absence. It had been something of a relief to discover that his family had at least waited and not already petitioned the House of Lords to have him declared dead. That would have added yet another layer of complication to the Gordian knot that required unraveling.
During his brief stay at the Thorn and Thistle Inn, far from anyone who had expectations of him, he’d been slowly working his way around to returning to the family fold. A late night stroll to his father’s home had ultimately made the decision for him. Marcus had watched Charles enter and then watched him leave. Cold fury had washed through him as he thought of that bastard taking his comfort in the house that was to be his after Charles had watched him being carted off to prison and an unknown fate.
But now, as he stood on the threshold of the life he’d left behind, ready to take up his rightful place as the heir apparent to the Duke of Elsingham, Marcus found that he was nervous. Far more so than he’d anticipated, in fact. It might well have been the bad terms on which they’d parted. It could have been that despite their parting, he didn’t anticipate that anything about his situation would have changed in spite of the fact that he had—very much so. The things he’d endured and the things he’d seen had eradicated the privileged and spoiled boy he’d once been so completely that it hardly seemed possible he would ever be able to fully assimilate to that life again.
Nothing could have made that more apparent than coming face to face with the girl he’d run from. But she was not a girl anymore. While she’d been little more than a child at his departure, the voluptuous figure so flatteringly displayed by the cut of her drab, gray gown was a stark reminder of just how long he had been gone. From the horrified expression on her lovely face, it was very apparent that she had neither forgotten nor forgiven their last meeting.
“Althorn?” The incredulity of her voice as his name whispered from her parted lips was to be expected, of course.
What did one say to a woman after so long? And she was a woman now. That was unfailingly clear. Whatever changes nature had wrought on her in the eight years he had been absent had marked her very sex very clearly. Ample curves and a face, that while not beautiful in the classical sense, was still quite arresting, made it almost impossible to reconcile the girl he’d known with the woman who now stood before him. But if his shock at seeing her so grown up was impossible to process, then what could she possible be feeling at seeing him very much alive? What on earth could he say to her when he’d left her to face the disapproval of their managing families while he’d run to another continent to escape their machinations? Nothing, he decided. Addressing that at all would be a terrible strategical error. Instead, he attempted to be flippant.
“Miss Barrett, it seems you’ve quite grown up since last we met.”
Her response was not at all what he’d anticipated. Marcus watched with dawning horror as her gaze went blank and she began to sink slowly to the floor. He rushed forward, managing to catch her just before her head struck the marble floor.
He winced as the muscles of his leg protested the added weight of another body. It had taken months of constant effort to rebuild his strength, to avoid walking with a limp for the remainder of his life. Even with that, it still pained him and likely always would.
“Riggs, would you have a footman carry Miss Barrett back into the drawing room?”
The butler was still standing there, his normally stoic face ashen. Reminded of his duties, he issued a curt nod. “Certainly, sir—my lord—Lord Althorn.”
The man was so agitated he couldn’t even fathom how to address him, Marcus thought bitterly. Immediately, a footman rushed forward and lifted Miss Barrett into his arms. Marcus straightened, winced as the muscles in his thigh contracted again, cramping to the point of agony. Willing the affected tissue to relax, he massaged the knotted muscles there with his hand until, at last, he could risk taking a step forward. The bullet he’d taken in his leg during their escape continued to provide many lingering reminders of the injury it had wrought.
The doors to the dining room opened and his stepmother emerged, followed by Mr. Barrett and a woman he did not recognize. He did not see his father.
His stepmother stopped mid-stride, stumbling as she gaped at him. “I don’t understand! Marcus! We thought you were dead!”
Hoped, he realized. She’d never had much use for him. Dead, he would have at least garnered her sympathy and attention. “Well, I am clearly very much alive. Your grief, Stepmother, was for naught. Where is Father?”
It was Mr. Barrett who spoke. “You’ve been gone for many years, Lord Althorn. Your father’s health has been deteriorating for most of them.”
The stab of grief was unexpected. He loved his father. It would take a monster to have no affection for one’s own parent, but it was much stronger than he’d anticipated given the contentious nature of their relationship. “Is my father dead then?”
“No. He is not deceased,” Mr. Barrett answered, “But he is quite changed. He had a fit of the brain nearly two years ago and has had some difficulty speaking since that time. He suffers with palsy and is unable to walk. I’m sorry, my lord. We had no way of keeping you appraised of his condition.”
There was a note of reprisal there, as if it had somehow been Marcus’ choice. He frowned at that, at all that it implied of just who was in charge now given his father’s ill health. “They were not amenable to the sending and receiving of letters in the prison where I was held, Mr. Barrett. You’ll forgive me for being unable to inform you of my direction, I hope. Now, if it is of interest to you, your daughter has fainted. I can’t be entirely certain, but given what I recall of Miss Barrett’s characters, that seems somewhat unusual.”
The woman who was unknown to him stepped forward. “I will check in on her, my darling.” The statement lacked anything resembling warmth or concern as she sailed past her husband toward the drawing room where Miss Barrett had been taken to recover.
Marcus shouldn’t have found it surprising that Mr. Barrett was remarried. His desire to do so had been one of the compelling reasons he’d put forth for pushing up the date of the wedding between Marcus and Miss Barrett, after all. What was it that his father had said all those long years ago? That her new stepmother didn’t wish to share a roof with her predecessor? Well, he’d certainly managed to muck up her plans.
“Perhaps we should all retreat to the drawing room,” Marcus suggested. “I’m certain that once she awakens, Miss Barrett will have many questions just as all of you will and I would prefer to answer all of them at once if possible.”