Chapter 30

Dawn was just beginning to break when Imogen heard it: a pounding at the heavy front door, not loud enough to wake the entire household but with enough sound to capture the attention of someone who had lain awake all night long, listening for something just like it. Her eyes flew open and she threw off her covers, bounding from bed. She quickly donned her spectacles, night robe, and slippers before hurrying from her room.

Billsby was just opening the door when Imogen raced into the front hall. The sight that greeted her eyes, however, had her skidding to a shocked stop.

Large, jolly Donald Samson, proprietor of the Regal Swan Inn, was propping up a very disheveled, very inebriated Caleb.

“Dear me,” Imogen breathed. She stepped forward. “Mr. Samson, is Lord Willbridge injured?”

“Miss Duncan, lovely to see you, though perhaps not under the circumstances.” He grinned at her. “No, he’s not injured, though it’s not from lack of trying.”

“Perhaps we’d best get him to bed and you can tell me what has become of the good marquess.” She turned, Donald trudging along behind her, half guiding and half carrying Caleb.

Suddenly the butler intervened, his hands flapping frantically. “Miss Duncan, you cannot accompany Lord Willbridge to his bedchamber. It isn’t proper.”

“Nonsense,” Imogen said, stopping to face Billsby. Donald halted behind her, heaving a bit at Caleb’s weight. “Lord Willbridge is in need of care, and I would rather it not be common knowledge below stairs what has become of him. I also would not want to upset his mother any further with his behavior.”

Luckily the butler reacted to the note of command in her voice and dropped back. Unluckily, Caleb chose that moment to realize she was there.

He raised his head, gazing at her blearily. His eyes were red-rimmed and heavy-lidded, a day’s growth of coppery beard shadowing his face. “’S that you, Imogen? Donald,” he said in a loud whisper, “it’s my Imogen. I want t’ marry the girl but she wo—won’t have me. Can’t figure ’t out, m’self.”

Donald turned his head away from his friend and wrinkled his nose, presumably from the strong odor of liquor on Caleb’s breath. “I don’t know, I can think of a few reasons right now.”

He grunted as Caleb suddenly made to step toward her. The loss of balance almost sent them both tumbling to the tiled floor, but the larger man kept his hold on the marquess, widening his stance to provide support. Even so, Caleb was a tall man, and Donald was breathing hard from the exertion of holding him upright.

Imogen stepped toward Caleb, her face burning. “Now you listen here,” she said firmly. “You are going to help poor Mr. Samson as he brings you to your room, and you will remain quiet to keep from waking the rest of the household. Am I understood?”

To her surprise Caleb nodded meekly. Just catching Donald’s approving look, she turned and marched away, the two men lurching along behind her, slowly but blessedly quiet.

Several stumbles and near topples later and they finally reached the master bedchamber. As Imogen opened the door and made to enter the room, Donald stopped and made a distressed sound in his throat. She raised one brow in question.

“You shouldn’t be going in there I think, Miss Duncan.” His face was red, and not just from his exertions.

“I assure you, Mr. Samson, I am no milk and water miss. Lord Willbridge requires my help at the moment, and I have no qualms helping him into bed.”

She entered the room and Donald reluctantly followed. He reached the bed, heaving Caleb onto it. Caleb fell into the soft mattress with a grunt.

“M’ heads spinning, Donald. What the devil?” he said before his head fell to the side. At first Imogen thought he was unconscious, until a healthy snore reverberated from his chest.

Imogen sighed and took hold of Caleb’s foot, pointing to the other. “If you would be so kind, Mr. Samson? And while we’re at it, perhaps you can fill me in on Lord Willbridge’s whereabouts over the past day.”

“Well,” he began, grabbing Caleb’s leg and working at removing his boot, “as you probably know this one’s as stubborn as they come. He came to the inn early last evening, his horse in a lather, calling for drink. We sat about for some time talking, and before I knew it he’d gone through a good portion of a bottle of my best scotch. By then he was more than a bit drunk. Even though the hour was late and it was darker than the inside of a witch’s cauldron, he insisted on returning home. I tried to get him into a bed at the inn, but he would have nothing to do with it, said he wanted to return home.”

He’d finished with the boot and together they moved to his jacket. While Donald rolled Caleb onto his side, Imogen worked the material from his arm. “And so, though I hate to admit it, I kept him at the inn drinking, hoping he’d just pass out and that would be an end to it. It was either that or risk him toppling from that beast of his and breaking his damn foolish neck. Oh, my pardon, Miss Duncan.”

Imogen waved one hand in the air. “Please, think nothing of it. I am just grateful you were there for him.” She looked up at him. “You are a very good friend to his lordship.”

Donald blushed, dipping his head in acknowledgement before turning Caleb on his other side so she could reach his other sleeve.

They worked in silence for a time, the only sound their labored breathing as they worked to divest Caleb of a portion of his clothes, and Caleb’s own soft snores. Finally they had him down to his breeches and shirt. Propping him on his side with a pillow behind his back in case he vomited while sleeping, Imogen and Donald stood back, looking down at the blissfully slumbering marquess.

As one they turned for the door. Imogen closed it quietly behind them and they started down the hall to the main staircase.

“What I cannot figure,” Donald said in a hushed voice, “is what got him so riled up to begin with. I’ve never seen him in such a state.”

Imogen’s eyes narrowed. “You can be assured, Mr. Samson, that I will find that out.”

• • •

The first thing Caleb was aware of was a bright, burning light. It shined through his eyelids in a haze of red, tearing into his head with a searing, hot pain.

“Close those damn drapes,” he growled. But even that sound made him gasp as it ricocheted about his skull. He winced, and at the indrawn breath felt the dryness in his mouth. He smacked his lips together ineffectively. His throat felt raw, his mouth like cotton.

He sensed movement at the side of his bed—it was his bed, wasn’t it? Must be his valet. Several violent thoughts coalesced in his head. He’d be sure to dock the man’s wages after this. What kind of a human being woke a man up in so brutal a manner after he’d spent the better part of the night drinking himself into a stupor?

He received an answer to that a moment later.

He sputtered and gasped as what felt like the entire contents of the River Spratt was poured over his face. The utter unexpectedness—as well as the chill—of it shocked him to complete wakefulness. His eyes flew open in outrage, his hand coming up to slough the water off of his face.

Who he saw standing over him, however, was not anticipated.

Of course, he’d really had no idea who would be nearly drowning him in his own bed. But he certainly hadn’t expected Imogen. Holding an empty water pitcher. With a glare like an enraged Fury.

“What the devil are you doing?” he bellowed.

To her credit, she didn’t even so much as flinch. “I want some answers from you, and I feel I’ve waited long enough,” she said with impressive hauteur. He had never seen her thus, and felt he would have been aroused if he wasn’t so damn mad. And wet.

He glanced in disbelief down at the bed, the sheets dripping, the pillow sodden, his shirt and breeches clinging to him in an uncomfortable, clammy way. “And you had to drown me to get them?”

She cocked one eyebrow, her lips twisting. “As it is already late afternoon, I thought it prudent to wake you.”

His head swung in disbelief to the window—he winced again at the sudden movement—and sure enough, only indirect light filtered in. His window faced east, which meant the sun was well on its daily journey at the other side of the house. He had slept all day? What in hell had been in that whiskey last night?

He turned with careful movements to Imogen. “And what answers would you be wanting, madam?”

She placed the pitcher on the bedside table, a muscle in her jaw ticking. “I would like to know why you reacted so harshly to your sister yesterday morning when you found us at the cemetery.”

With a sudden flash of insight he remembered everything, why he had stayed away all day yesterday and why he had drunk himself insensible. Emily and Imogen at Jonathan’s grave; Imogen proclaiming to Emily that she could not marry him; their fight after; the pain he had felt at Imogen’s betrayal.

Rage began to pound within him, pushing aside the thickheaded befuddlement that had been present since he had been woken in such an abrupt manner. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood slowly, breathing deeply, trying to rein in his temper. Rivulets of water dripped from his clothes, pooling on the polished wood floor, but he paid it no mind. He towered over Imogen, expecting to see her shrink back, but she only stuck her chin out and narrowed her eyes.

“Perhaps you are the one who should be providing answers,” he said in biting tones.

“I get the distinct feeling,” Imogen said, not in the least cowed by his demeanor, “that you believe yourself to be wronged somehow.”

“No, just unfairly judged.”

“I assure you, the only thing I am judging you on is your asinine behavior to your sister yesterday.”

“Is that true?” He curled his lip. “Then why did I hear you declare that you cannot marry me? Do you mean to tell me that comment was not brought on by something Emily told you?”

Imogen blushed, but her eyes narrowed. “You know I have always been opposed to marriage,” she said, her voice low and saturated with pain.

A twinge of doubt crept in.

“You seem to be under the impression that somehow your sister sabotaged your chances,” she continued. “That could not be further from the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

“I did not lie yesterday when I said Emily has been your champion. She had just gotten through with trying to convince me to accept you before I declared I could not marry you.”

He stared at her a long moment. “That cannot be.”

“Why, because you cannot conceive that I made my decision on my own? You think my mind would be altered by anything she could have told me?”

Pain washed through him. “Yes.”

Her eyes tensed at the corners like they used to when she went without her spectacles. “Perhaps you had best explain.”

Bitterness mingled with the pain. “What is the point? You have already declared you will not have me.”

He suddenly turned from her, unable to bear being so close to her now that he knew she was lost to him. He strode for the door to his dressing room.

“Where are you going?” Imogen cried. He could hear her scuttling after him but didn’t turn around.

“I’m going to change out of these clothes,” he said, the weary defeat in his voice apparent even to him, “and then we can see about getting you ready for your journey back to London.”