But of course Marcia couldn’t go.
She couldn’t.
It would be so easy simply to say yes. Forget about Duncan. Stay in Ireland and make a life for herself here. Become the old auntie who visited everyone else and their spouses and children.
It would be a peaceful, fulfilling life.
Wouldn’t it? It still might happen, but she wouldn’t allow it to if it meant she was only hiding from a chance at happiness with Duncan.
She also opened the duke’s letter with some trepidation, and when she finished, she carefully folded it with trembling fingers and laid it on the tea tray.
How could things possibly get any worse?
“Are you all right, my lady?” Aislinn held out a brimming cup of tea on its saucer to her.
Marcia took it carefully. “Yes,” she said. Then, “No.” She put the cup and saucer down, sloshing the hot liquid on the tea tray. “No, I’m not.”
Aislinn stopped pouring her own tea. “My lady, how can I help? Shall I fetch the smelling salts?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” But she was far from fine.
Aislinn sent her an encouraging smile. “Lord Chadwick cares for you, so I will do anything to help you, including lending an ear if you need one, my lady.”
Marcia looked at her unlikely confidante. It wouldn’t hurt to tell her. “The Duke of Beauchamp just offered me the position of headmistress at Oak Hall in Surrey. He’s bought the school from Lady Ennis and wants me back in the autumn.”
“My goodness,” said Aislinn. “That’s big news.”
“Yes, it is. It’s quite a shock.” Marcia stood and strode to the window. The lake was smooth. Peaceful. The opposite of her thoughts right now.
Aislinn came up beside her. “Is it good news?”
“It’s everything I thought I wanted,” Marcia said softly. “But even better. The duke will be a much kinder benefactor to the school than Lady Ennis ever was. He’s already building a small theater on the back of the grounds for elaborate stage productions. We’ve never had anything like that.” She paused. “Why does life have to be so complicated? Why do things have to change? Why can’t we have everything? Everything?”
“I don’t know, my lady,” Aislinn said quietly. “All I know for certain is that we do change, and all our lives we say hello and good-bye. To people. And the seasons. Our pets. And for some of us, our jobs, our living quarters, and our money. It’s never ending.”
“You’re right,” Marcia said.
They stayed at the window, and she kept her gaze on the lake. “Tell me more stories of Joe, please, to take my mind off things.”
Aislinn gave a soft laugh. “I’ll never forget how shocked we were the day Joe said his first word. Dada. Although Lord Chadwick wasn’t actually there to hear it. When he came home that evening, he seemed devastated to have missed out on the event. But then Joe said it again, and the earl acted as if it were Christmas Day. He brought out his finest bottle of claret, and we all shared it.” She gave a long sigh. “It’s never been easy for him. He’s always been worried.”
Marcia turned to look at her. “About what?”
“About being a good father,” Aislinn replied. “Doing all the things a father should. He didn’t want to be like his own, you see. And he didn’t want Joe to be like Mr. Lattimore—”
She stopped abruptly.
“Why would he be?” Marcia asked.
Aislinn’s face paled. “I think I need my tea. Do you, my lady?” She hastened back to the tea tray.
Marcia watched her back, hunched over the tray, her hands fumbling with nothing.
And then she looked back at the lake.
Why would Duncan worry about Joe being like Finn?
A gust of wind blew across the lake at the same moment the realization hit her. It was another shock, a shock so great she put her palm on the glass pane to steady herself, knowing full well that Alice would take her to task for leaving fingerprints on her clean window.
How had Marcia not seen it before?
Finn was Joe’s natural father.
Not Duncan.
Chapter Thirty-six
Duncan was half drunk, but he never showed it. He’d gotten much better at it, lately, too. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and he was in a card room at White’s, conversing intelligently with Lord Westdale to his left, Cousin Richard to his right, and a few Oxford friends in the remaining seats around the table.
“Another brandy,” he called to the waiter.
“We’re out, sir,” the waiter said rather hesitantly.
Duncan made a face and looked at Westdale. “Out?”
Westdale raised his shoulders in a shrug. “I suppose it happens.”
“The French are unreliable,” Cousin Richard opined.
“That’s impossible,” said Duncan smartly.
At least, he thought he’d spoken smartly. When he heard the words, they sounded a little pushed together, as if they were one word with some syllables missing in between.
But that could be his ears. They were stuffy lately. Probably because ever since Marcia had left, his head always ached when he woke up each morning, and his mouth was like cotton, too.
It was a lingering ague, no doubt. He simply hadn’t been able to cure it with the rum punches he had each evening.
“Has anyone heard from Lady Marcia?” he asked the room.
“Yes.” Westdale cleared his throat. “Don’t you remember she sent my mother and father a note in which she said she’d made it safely to Ballybrook? I could swear I told you. At least ten times, Chadwick. Not that I mind”—he punched his arm, hard—“repeating myself.”
“Bloody hell,” said Duncan, rubbing his arm. “I do remember that now.”
“Where’s that coffee?” asked Cousin Richard of the waiter.
“On its way, sir,” the servant replied.
“You have to give her time,” Westdale reminded Duncan.
“I’m done with time,” he said, and pushed his chair back. “I’m heading to Ireland tomorrow.”
Westdale pushed his chair back, too. “The hell you are.”
“Sod off,” Duncan told him. No one was going to stop him. So he punched Westdale in the jaw, in case he were to try.
Westdale fell back against his chair, groaning. “You idiot,” he said, feeling his jaw with his hand.
And then he stood, slowly.
All the other men backed up from the table.
Duncan got into fighting stance. “Come on, Westdale. If I have to get you out of my way the hard way, I will.”
Westdale put up his fists, too. “If I have to knock you out to keep you from going to Ireland like a lovesick puppy, I will.”
They circled each other. A cry went up in the corridor. “Fight, fight!”
Duncan got in a good upper cut to Westdale’s jaw.
Westdale spat on the floor—he still had all his teeth, Duncan was sorry to see—and then he punched Duncan in the stomach.
“You ass,” Duncan said after he got his breath back.
Strangely, his head felt clearer now. He could hear every bloody thing around him.
“Where’s Lord Chadwick?” a man was asking outside the door. “I need to find him immediately. Please get out of my way.”
“Warren?” Duncan turned to the voice, and the last thing he remembered was the sound of his lip being split open when Westdale’s knuckles came into contact with his face.
* * *
“Mama?” It was late afternoon when Marcia found herself once again in the entrance hall of the family home on Grosvenor Square, a small bag in her hand. She’d brought next to nothing to Ireland, so she had very little with which to return to London.
Burbank came rushing down the long corridor. “Lady Marcia,” he said as if the house were on fire. “You’re home again.” He took her bag.
“Yes, I am, Burbank.” She smiled gratefully at him. “I’m beginning to enjoy all these reunions.”
Burb
ank dared not say he enjoyed them, too, but she could tell he did by the way he fussed with her cloak, removing it with extra care. “We saw Kerry in the kitchen,” he said. “Cook was so surprised, she dropped her spoon into the soup.”
“Yes,” Marcia said playfully, “Kerry wanted to surprise the staff, so she ran around the back. Where’s Mama and everyone else?”
“Lord Westdale had an appointment with friends. But everyone else went to the Duke of Beauchamp’s for lawn bowling and then an early dinner.”
“Did they?” That certainly was intriguing. “I had no idea Mama and Daddy were, well, friends with the duke.”
“They weren’t, my lady, until you left. That same day, the Duke of Beauchamp came to call on you to offer you his felicitations and heard that you’d”—he cleared his throat—“gone to Ireland to prepare for your nuptials.”
“Oh, yes,” she said faintly. “My nuptials.” She touched her collar. “Are they … are they still on, according to the gossip rags, Burbank?”
“Certainly, my lady,” he said in unruffled tones.
“And what of Lord Chadwick? Has he been to the house?”
“Oh, no, my lady. We’ve seen nothing of him. Your mother and father have called on him three times, but he’s never at home.” Burbanks’s tone was highly disapproving. “If it weren’t for Lord Westdale’s seeing him at White’s, we wouldn’t know if the earl were alive or dead.”
Goodness. That was the most colorful thing Burbank had ever said in her presence.
“Tea in the drawing room, my lady?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “I’ll be leaving again shortly. I’m going to freshen up in my room. Could you have it sent there?”
A knock sounded on the door before Burbank could answer her.
Marcia paused on the stairs. Perhaps she’d left something in the coach.
Or perhaps it’s Duncan.
They’d dropped Aislinn off at his house before coming home to Mama and Daddy’s.
Marcia had been bursting to stay and say hello to him and Joe, but she also believed Aislinn had a pressing need to see the earl in private. So reluctantly, she’d left the former maid there and asked her to tell Lord Chadwick that she was in Town again.
But it was Aislinn at the door, and she was shaking.
“What is it?” Marcia catapulted down the stairs to her.
Aislinn grabbed her arms for support. “J-Joe! Right after you left, Mr. Lattimore pushed his way in past Jenkins. He had two men with him with pistols, and he was carrying some papers—and he took Joe.”
“Took him?” Marcia tried to stay calm, but her voice was shaking.
Burbank signaled to a footman. “Send round for a carriage. Immediately.”
Tears poured down Aislinn’s cheeks. “He—he said he had all the papers he needed to take him away. That he was his father, dammit, and no one could stop him.”
“Did anyone try? Where was the earl?”
“Gone,” Aislinn managed to say. “Drinking at White’s. I was upstairs with Warren when we heard the commotion in the entrance hall. Jenkins tried to oust them, but he’s old and couldn’t do anything but stand there and say, ‘You’ll hang for this,’ over and over, to try to scare them away. They just laughed in his face.”
“Poor Jenkins. What else, Aislinn? Tell me!”
Aislinn took a shallow breath and went on. “I locked Joe away in his bedchamber with Margaret. Warren was with me. He told me to stand back. And then he grabbed his blunderbuss and stood on the stairs and brandished it at the men, ordering them out. But they pointed their pistols at Jenkins and said they’d shoot him if Warren interfered.”
“Oh, dear God,” said Marcia.
“So then Warren was forced to put his blunderbuss down, and Mr. Lattimore took the stairs two at a time, straight past him. But Warren tried to fight him.”
“Where was Rupert?”
“Oblivious in the stables.” Aislinn sniffed. “Mr. Lattimore pushed Warren down the stairs,” she said low.
Marcia’s heart lurched. “Is he all right?”
“Yes, thank God.” Aislinn’s face twisted. “And then Mr. Lattimore made me open the door to Joe’s room. He said I’d better be quiet and friendly so as not to frighten Joe.”
“And? Did he take him?”
At the girl’s nod, stark, cold fear gripped Marcia.
Aislinn’s expression showed disgust. “He told Joe he was taking him to Astley’s to see the horses.”
“Where are they now?”
“No one knows. By the time we got Rupert to saddle a horse and Warren up and about, they were long gone.”
“In a carriage?”
“Yes. A plain, black hackney. But there are loads of them around London.”
“Has anyone gone to find Lord Chadwick?”
“Warren did.”
The carriage was already at the front door.
“Let’s go,” Marcia said, and tugged Aislinn along with her.
* * *
Brandy. Ah, thank God. Why had it taken so long for more brandy? It was trickling into Duncan’s mouth, mixing with the taste of blood.
“Wake up!” a voice shouted in his ear. The voice was concerned. Desperate.
Duncan groaned. His lip hurt like the devil. And so did his stomach. And his jaw.
He felt a sharp slap to his cheek. “Lord Chadwick, Joe’s in trouble. Wake up now.”
His eyelids flew open, and he sat up, his head spinning. “What’s wrong with Joe?”
“Cor, it’s like he’s risen from the dead,” he heard a waiter say.
Warren pulled him to his feet. “Your brother took him.”
“Finn? Where are they?”
“No one knows.” Warren’s voice sounded shaky. Frightened.
Duncan would literally murder his brother if he saw him right now.
They strode quickly down the hall, past numerous rooms filled with gawking men.
Duncan stood stock-still at one point. “If any of you louts with the bad taste to run about Town with my brother has the least idea where he is, come out now and tell me. If I find out later that you knew and didn’t share the information, I’ll have your heads.”
He waited a moment. Only Lord Green appeared. And he certainly wasn’t a lout.
“He was staying with us for a while, you know,” the earl said timidly. “We had to ask him to leave when he came in one too many times drunk and made a pass at my wife’s maid.”
No surprise there. “Sorry about that, Green. I did warn you not to fall prey to his charm.”
Lord Green scratched his head. “You live and learn. He said he had a place to stay over by St. Paul’s. Above a haberdasher’s, actually.”
“Thank you,” said Duncan. “I owe you a great debt, Green, which I’ll pay slowly, one brandy at a time.”
Lord Green saluted him as he and Warren moved on.
Duncan finally realized that Warren looked bloody awful. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing worse than what happened to you,” Warren replied. “Your brother and I fought. He had two ruffians brandishing pistols with him and a bunch of papers saying he could take Joe and no one could stop him.”
“The cur.”
“Lord Westdale and your cousin are ahead of us. They left minutes ago. They’ve already gathered a team to check all the posting inns out of London.”
“Thank God.” Duncan took his cape from the doorman, threw it quickly over his shoulders, and donned his hat. The more he blended into the crowd, the better. “I’ll need to think about where he could have gone if he’s still here. He’ll want to bargain with me, of course. This is all about money.”
And possibly revenge. He wouldn’t think of what could happen if Finn merely wanted to get back at him.
Joe.
Duncan said the word in his head like a prayer.
Outside, he got a second shock. Amid the usual sights and sounds of London, all he could focus upon was one figure: Lady Marcia Sherwo
od, on a bloody horse. One of his, as a matter of fact. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Your lip!” she cried.
“It’s nothing. And I have no time for conversation.”
“I know that.” She lifted her chin. “I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t,” Duncan said sharply.
“I most certainly can,” she replied.
“A woman on sidesaddle in this traffic will slow me down.”
“I won’t slow you down,” she said, “and I’m going. We’ll find him together.”
He swung up onto Samson. There was no time to argue the point. “Hold down the fort at home,” he told Warren.
“Sorry, my lord.” Warren looked abashed. “Rupert said my lady insisted she accompany you. She even made him go fetch a sidesaddle from the neighbors.”
“She tends to be that way,” Duncan said dryly. “If I need you, I’ll send a message.”
“Right, my lord.” Warren left on his own chestnut stallion.
Duncan moved into the street, refusing to look behind him at Lady Marcia.
“Don’t worry,” she called, her voice softer. “We’ll find him together. I know we will.”
He heard her speak to her horse, and then they were side by side, trotting swiftly down the street.
He didn’t want to admit it, but her presence gave him strength and comfort. “We’re going to check the latest place I’ve heard he’s staying,” he said, keeping it businesslike between them. “The posting inns are being covered. Your older brother and my cousin are leading that group.”
“Good,” she said.
Twenty minutes later, they found a haberdasher’s near St. Paul’s, but it was the wrong one. No one there knew of a Finnian Lattimore living above the shop.
But ten minutes after that, they found another two blocks over—the right one this time.
“I threw him out last night,” said the proprietor. “He didn’t pay.”
So Finn was seriously desperate.
“I don’t blame you,” Duncan told the man and tossed a couple of sovereigns on the counter. “Will this cover his rent?”
Loving Lady Marcia Page 32