by Buck, Gayle
“You’re talking all around it again, Thea,” said Mr. Stafford, shaking his head in disapproval.
“Then let me make my meaning perfectly plain! Papa, you cannot abuse Lord Cardiff’s good nature this way and threaten to coerce him into marrying me! You must see how wrong this is, Papa!” said Thea, desperate to make her father understand.
“I would have saved you soon enough, so his lordship’s good offices were superfluous, at best,” said Mr. Stafford, waving aside such trivialities. He eyed his daughter with some affront. “As for the rest, I am providing a handsome, chivalrous gentleman to be your husband. What more could you wish for?”
“What of me? Do I not have anything to say about your choice and, indeed, your methods?” asked Thea heatedly.
Mr. Stafford patted her shoulder and gently removed her restraining fingers from his sleeve. “You’re naught but a silly female. You’ll do best to be guided by me,” he said indulgently.
Firmly, he set her aside so that he could exit. “Now stand aside, that’s a good girl. I’ve another bridegroom to snare before nightfall.”
“Papa! Surely you’ll not countenance a union between Tabitha and Mr. Quarles now?” exclaimed Thea, amazement momentarily suspending her concern over her own situation.
Mr. Stafford looked down at his daughter, his brows knit in frowning puzzlement. “I don’t know what you mean, Thea.”
Exasperated, Thea said, “Papa, Mr. Quarles ran away with me for my fortune! You cannot wish for such a disgraceful connection! What must be Tabitha’s feelings?”
“Quite!” For once, a shaft of reason penetrated her father’s thick head and Thea marveled at it. She drew breath to renew her own argument while the rare understanding still existed. However, Mr. Stafford appeared only momentarily at a loss. Then his expression cleared, and with renewed determination lighting his gray eyes, he said, “Quarles will be made to withdraw his suit. Aye, that’s what I’ll make him do. Tabitha shan’t be made to wed a penniless scoundrel.”
“Tabitha is to have a choice, but I am not?” Thea shook her head. “Papa, that is scarcely fair!”
Mr. Stafford uttered an impatient exclamation. “Thea, you’d do well to accept your good fortune with a good grace. His lordship will appreciate a dutiful wife, I’ll be bound. Your shabby manners do no credit to your upbringing and must give a very poor notion of you to Lord Cardiff.”
Thea gasped, struck speechless by her sire’s skewed point of view. Mr. Stafford misconstrued her silence as proper abashment at his stricture. He kissed her on the forehead, and with a last fatherly pat, he left the parlor.
Thea rushed after him out of the door and into the hall. “I will not marry Lord Cardiff!” she shouted after her father’s retreating back. If Mr. Stafford heard her, he gave no sign of it but rounded the corner out of sight.
Thea stamped her foot and turned back into the parlor. Her eyes flashed at her brothers, and in particular at sight of the pistol. “Pray put that stupid thing away, Philip! I am not going to wed Lord Cardiff, not even though you drag us both all the way to Scotland!”
“Now, Thea, be reasonable. You must wed someone and his lordship is the best we’ve got,” said Thomas, gesturing in Lord Cardiff’s direction.
“Your brother has a valid point, Miss Stafford,” drawled Cardiff. He leaned negligently against the table, his weight braced on one hand flattened on the top.
At Miss Stafford’s bewildered stare, he pointed out, “I am the best they have.”
“Are you never serious?” asked Thea with pardonable exasperation.
“Never more so in my life,” said Cardiff, at once straightening away from the table and becoming somber in expression.
The Stafford brothers had drawn a little apart to confer in low voices with one another, every now and again glancing in Lord Cardiff’s and their sister’s direction.
Cardiff pointed towards them with a jerk of his chin. “Are your brothers such fools as to believe that I will submit tamely to this preposterous scheme?”
“Oh, yes,” said Thea bitterly. “Philip and Thomas will do precisely as Papa has bid them. If they can manage it, they will carry us off, willy-nilly, to Gretna Green and expect us to wed over the anvil!”
“But how utterly charming,” said Cardiff softly. He saw Miss Stafford wince and was instantly ashamed of his sarcasm. He reached out for her stiff hand and drew it up to his lips. In a quiet voice, he said, “Forgive me, Miss Stafford. I did not intend to insult you. One cannot be held accountable for one’s relations, after all.”
Thea attempted to smile. She withdrew her hand at once from his clasp. Her voice tightly controlled, she said, “It is quite all right, Lord Cardiff. I am inured to embarrassment. You see how I am afflicted with relations.”
“I thought you spoke in jest earlier when you said it would be better if I did not meet any members of your family,” said Cardiff lightly.
“I did,” muttered Thea, her brows contracting in a dire frown.
“I was attempting to leaven the moment, Miss Stafford,” said Cardiff chidingly.
“Perhaps my sense of the ridiculous has been murdered, my lord, for I find nothing the least amusing in this.”
“I am not at all surprised,” said Cardiff. “I myself am finding it quite hard to accept.”
Thea sighed, frankly meeting his sympathetic gaze so that he saw the distress in her eyes. She managed with difficulty to say, “Unfortunately, I spoke more truly than even I knew. I am very sorry for the trouble I have brought upon you, my lord. I—I almost wish you had not overheard Mr. Quarles and myself yesterday evening.”
“I do not agree, Miss Stafford.” Lord Cardiff smiled at her in reassurance. “Pray do not look so tragic. We are not turned up yet, you know.”
He lifted his voice to address the Stafford brothers. “Gentlemen, you have had enough time to come to the realization that what has been proposed by Mr. Stafford is utter nonsense.”
“We must do as Papa bids us,” said Philip, eyeing Lord Cardiff mistrustfully. He still held the pistol awkwardly pointed in his lordship’s direction.
“Quite so,” said Thomas, nodding in agreement.
“Allow me to suggest an alternative solution.”
The Stafford brothers exchanged a glance, then looked warily at Lord Cardiff. “My lord?”
“Rather than force your sister to marriage with a stranger, why do you not carry her away to some respectable female relation or family friend? Indeed, one who can provide a cover of all the respectability required should be easily enough thought of,” said Cardiff reasonably.
Thea instantly seized on his lordship’s suggestion with relief. “Yes! What could be better? It can be put about that I was sent for to tend someone who was very ill and remained the night.”
“I don’t know, Thea. You heard what Papa said for us to do,” said Philip dubiously. However, he appeared to be turning the matter over in his mind.
“But who is ill?” asked Thomas, his thick brows puckering in puzzlement.
Thea sighed impatiently. “No one is really sick, Thomas. That’s just what we’ll say. Perhaps our Great-Aunt Theresa!”
“I wouldn’t want to do that, Thea,” said Thomas, shaking his head. “Our great-aunt would not thank us to start gossip about her. She would turn mighty unpleasant over such a thing.”
“Whatever does it matter, if we can simply use our great-aunt’s name to our purposes?” asked Thea, an edge beginning to sound in her voice.
“Thomas is right. Aunt Theresa is a regular old tartar. She’d have our heads for starting such talk about her,” said Philip.
Thomas addressed Lord Cardiff, earnestly desiring him to understand the type of personage they were discussing. “Our great-aunt is a harridan, my lord. She lives all alone in that barrack of a house, she and those awful cats of hers. All of those unblinking eyes, pinned to one’s every move! It gives me the shivers even now to recall it. Why, a fellow expects to be attacked at any moment.”
“That’s just what I think,” agreed Thomas.
Thea stamped her foot. “Oh! Can you not stop to think for one moment? We are talking about my future and you are going on about Aunt Theresa’s horrid old cats! I don’t care how many stray creatures she has got. I would gladly go to her in order to salvage my reputation.”
“But Papa said -”
“If Papa had had the sense to reflect for just a few moments before he hared off, he would approve of me going to Aunt Theresa,” snapped Thea.
“Bravo, Miss Stafford,” murmured Cardiff.
Thea scarcely heard the interjection. Her blazing eyes were riveted on her brothers. “But as usual, neither Papa nor either of you have given enough thought to the consequences of what you do! Quite apart from my ignoble situation, what of my feelings, pray? I don’t wish to be married! And certainly not in such a scrambling fashion at this!”
As usual, Thomas grasped the salient point. Very matter-of-factly, he said, “Of course you wish to be married, Thea. All females do.”
Angered beyond discretion, Thea made a singularly rude declaration about the lack of intelligence to be found in her father and her brothers. Almost at once, she realized how she had betrayed herself before company and flushed scarlet, not daring to meet Lord Cardiff’s gaze. She pressed her hands against her hot cheeks in self-mortification. She did not wish to ever know what his lordship must be thinking about her unmannerly conduct.
“You oughtn’t to take that high tone with us, Thea. We’re concerned for your reputation, just as much as Papa is,” said Philip in an injured voice.
Thomas agreed, also wearing a hurt expression. “Exactly so!”
“I am certain that your sister realizes the truth of that,” interposed Cardiff calmly. “Even as I do. However, the purity of your motives does not alter the fact that there is a much better way to a happy conclusion than a forced flight to Gretna Green.”
Thea was grateful for Lord Cardiff’s generous words. Apparently he was willing to overlook her outburst, and she was thus able to recover a measure of her countenance. Taking her lead from Lord Cardiff, Thea said, “I know that you are anxious over my plight. I do appreciate it, truly I do! But can you not see? I’d much rather go to Aunt Theresa than wed Lord Cardiff.”
“I say, Thea! That’s hardly complimentary to his lordship,” said Thomas with starting eyes. He addressed Lord Cardiff. “Aunt Theresa is a horrible old bag. She screeches at her servants and anyone else unfortunate enough to be around and sets a table with boiled meat like shoe leather.”
“It is really too bad of you to prefer Aunt Theresa over me,” drawled Cardiff, looking over at Miss Stafford. There was a pronounced twinkle in his eyes.
Thea sent a look of burning reproach toward his lordship. She could not imagine how he could make fun when their futures hung in the balance.
Thomas nodded. He looked accusingly at his sister. “You’ve done it now, Thea. You’ve gone and insulted his lordship.”
“Indeed. I am cut to the heart,” said Cardiff, laying his palm on his chest.
“You should beg his lordship’s pardon at once, Thea,” said Thomas in stern accents.
Cardiff nodded with a mournful expression. “I suspect I shall be quite cast down otherwise, Miss Stafford.”
“Oh, hush, hush! Between the two of you, you will make me quite distracted with your nonsense,” begged Thea. She looked pointedly at Lord Cardiff. “It is really too bad of you to enlist Thomas to tease me.”
Cardiff laughed. “I have a peculiar taste for the outrageous, Miss Stafford. And you must admit, this situation has all the earmarks of the bizarre. It needs only one more element to make it a complete farce, and that would be a rare dustup.”
Chapter Five
At that precise moment, Lord Cardiff’s valet leaped into the parlor through the open doorway. He had come up soft-footed some minutes before and had hovered outside, pressed against the wall, long enough to acquire a fair grasp of the situation. When he overheard Lord Cardiff’s amused comment, he interpreted it as a signal.
With a roar of righteous wrath, Potter sprang straight at Philip Stafford with the intent of knocking the dangerous firearm from the man’s grasp. The valet seized the younger man’s gun arm and thrust it upwards. Philip Stafford instinctively resisted, and the two men swayed together, grappling desperately for control.
The suddenness of the attack took everyone by surprise. Cardiff recovered swiftly. Trusting his valet to keep Philip well occupied, he sprang lithely at the other brother.
Thomas was still staring stupidly at the fight between his brother and the valet when Cardiff delivered a smashing blow to his face. The force of the blow jolted Cardiff clear to the shoulder, and he grunted with the painful jarring.
Thomas’s head bobbed backwards, then straightened. He shook his head as though to clear it, then turned his astonished gaze on Lord Cardiff. His heavy brows lowered. “You ought not to have done that, my lord,” he commented, stolidly moving in on the shorter man.
Cardiff’s eyes widened. The man was built like a bull, he thought, marveling. Thomas Stafford had absorbed a blow that might have floored another man and, indeed, had done so not many hours before. He did not have time for further reflection because he was suddenly very much involved in protecting himself.
There were a few desperate moments when the outcome hung in the balance, but it all ended with a particularly telling and well-placed hit against Cardiff’s weakened shoulder. He reeled back with a strangled oath, clapping his left hand to his shoulder. Hot needles shot up and down his numbed arm.
With a cry, Thea threw herself between Lord Cardiff and her brother. She caught hold of Thomas’s corded forearm, tugging down on it. “Stop it! Stop it, you brute! He’s home on wounded leave,” she exclaimed.
Thomas gave way a step, sparing his sister an uncertain downwards glance.
Thea turned at once to look anxiously at Lord Cardiff. There was a pallor about his lordship’s mouth that alarmed her. She rushed forward, then abruptly stopped before she actually reached him. “Are—are you hurt, my lord?”
“I think my pride suffers more than I do Miss Stafford,” said Cardiff shortly, panting from exertion and pain. With the back of his hand he brushed the sweat out of his eyes.
He looked over to see how his valet had fared and was immediately filled with concern when he saw that the man was lying motionless on the floor. “Potter!” In two strides he closed the distance and went down on one knee beside his supine valet. He swiftly examined him. When he touched the valet’s head, a smear of dark blood came away on his fingers.
“He nearly had me, but I knocked him senseless with the pistol,” said Philip hoarsely. Sweat beaded his brow and he leaned heavily against the table.
“You’re a madman! And so are your father and your brother. You should all be locked up,” said Cardiff roundly. Anger roughened his voice and made twin points of ice of his blue eyes.
Thea approached tentatively. “Is there aught that I can do, my lord?” she asked. She had not missed how he had turned away from her, and she thought she would understand if he rejected her offer out of hand, for it was her fault that he found himself in such straits.
Cardiff examined his valet’s head more carefully before he replied. He was relieved that the wound was not as deep or as serious as he had initially feared. He glanced across at Miss Stafford, who had knelt across from the valet’s body, and shook his head. “I fear there is nothing to be done but see that his head is bound up and that he is put to bed. I suspect he has suffered a concussion. I shall want a physician to see him as quickly as possible, however.”
“Of course,” agreed Thea, looking compassionately down at the manservant. She felt strong guilt and regret, for the injury to Potter was also her fault.
“My nose is bleeding,” said Thomas in surprise, all of a sudden making the unwelcome discovery.
“Good!” s
napped Thea, rounding on him and glaring up at her brother from her kneeling position. “It is certainly much less than what you so richly deserve!”
“Aw, Thea!” Thomas mumbled something else through the folds of the handkerchief that he had pulled out of his coat pocket and pressed against his nose. Whatever it was sounded defensive in tone.
The commotion had inevitably been heard belowstairs, and several personages rushed to the open parlor door, the innkeeper in the forefront. “Here, what’s this? My lord! What is toward?”
“You would do best to ask those two idiots,” said Cardiff angrily, waving at the Stafford brothers. “My valet and I have been attacked. I want a physician sent to see to my man.”
“Aye, m’lord! I shall see to it at once!” The innkeeper ordered an ogling waiter to be off on the urgent errand. When he returned his attention to the tableau, he eyed the Staffords with extreme disfavor. They shifted uncomfortably under his hard stare. “Such goings-on in a respectable house! Will you be wanting a constable as well, m’lord?”
Without waiting for Lord Cardiff’s assent, the innkeeper dispatched another waiter. It was the innkeeper’s opinion that his lordship was the best patron the house had seen in an age and everything must be done that could conceivably mollify him. It but followed that the law was wanted to take charge of the two ruffians who had attacked his lordship.
At mention of the constable, Thomas made several distressed noises, but no one paid him any heed since he could not be understood in any event.
Philip said not a word. He stood as still as a statue, white-faced. Only his eyes looked alive, burning bright in his face.
“Innkeeper, oblige me by taking my man’s feet. I want to lay him in my own bed,” said Cardiff, carefully lifting the valet’s shoulders. The man’s head lolled alarmingly and Cardiff silently cursed his inability to do better.