by Mia Marlowe
After a week of excitement over her new things, Rhys led her to the front parlor, covering her eyes. More than a dozen gaily wrapped boxes were stacked on the tea table.
“You were so taken with the trousseau, I decided it would be all right to wait a bit to show you these. Mr. Clyde was entrusted with seeing these wedding gifts safely here and has been fair to bursting for you to open them.”
She settled on the settee and eyed the presents, feeling giddy as a child on Christmas morn, but she wouldn’t touch a single ribbon until Mr. Clyde fetched a traveling desk. “We must have something on which to record each gift and who sent it so I can send thank you notes,” she explained.
Lady Harrington sent a china chafing dish. Pinkerton and Amanda sent a collection of colorful scarves with fantastical beings possessed of a multiplicity of arms in unlikely poses on them. The Baron and Baroness Ramstead sent an ornate silver snuffbox. Neither she nor Rhys took snuff and weren’t likely to start.
“But it’s the thought that counts,” Olivia said as she carefully set down a description of the useless gift for her records.
Even some of the Barrowdell staff sent simple homespun presents—a woolen shawl from the housekeeper and a pressed orchid and progress report on her mare Molly from Mr. Thatcher. Olivia treasured them all.
But one of the last gifts she opened threatened to turn her into a hopeless watering pot.
“Oh, my!” she said when she unwrapped the heavy silver teapot. “It’s Great-grandmother Gentry’s tea service.”
Olivia had only seen it once. Her mother had brought it out of storage and explained its significance when the Duke of Clarence first indicated interest in her. The tea set had belonged to Beatrice Symon’s mother’s mother, handed down from mother to first wedded daughter. Olivia knew her mother’s family hadn’t been wealthy. This tea service was the dearest thing they owned, and even though the family might have faced lean times, nothing would induce them to part with it.
The tea service wasn’t as fancy as the ones the Symons used now. The surfaces were polished smooth with no intricate filigree, and a few of the handles were worn thin. But Great-grandmother Gentry’s tea service signified an unbroken line of women whose goal in life was to make a proper home for their husbands and bring gentility to the menfolk who undoubtedly needed the civilizing influence.
When she’d first learned of the tea service, Olivia hadn’t been impressed, but now she hugged the teapot to her breast. It was her mother’s way of saying she understood about the elopement and wished her well.
“And this one’s from me,” Rhys said, pulling a small box from his pocket.
“When did you have time to go shopping?” And where would he have done it? As far as Olivia knew, there wasn’t even a decent-sized hamlet nearby.
“I didn’t. You’re not the only one who can write a letter you know.” He settled beside her and pressed the box into her hands. “Mr. Clyde picked it out for me.”
She gave the valet who’d stood in the corner while she opened gifts a broad smile.
“No credit to me,” Clyde said. “Lord Rhys was most particular in his instructions.”
The anxious expression on his face told her Rhys was also most particular that she open this present quickly, so she tore away the ribbon and raised the lid of the satin-covered box.
It was a ring. A lovely sapphire set with small diamonds round about winked up at her from its bed of pale pink velvet.
“Oh, it’s beautiful.”
“Not compared to you, but it’ll have to do,” Rhys said as he slipped the curved nail from her left hand and replaced it with the new ring. He started to put the nail in his pocket, but Olivia eased it out of his hand.
“I want to keep this one too,” she said, putting it on her right hand. “So I’ll always remember how we started.”
Rhys pulled a face. “And here I thought you were keeping it to use for my nose in case you have difficulty leading me about.”
“That too,” she admitted with a laugh. Finally, there was only one box left. Rhys picked it up and gave it a shake. A rattling sound came from the package. “Who sent this?”
“I don’t know. There’s no card attached.” Olivia took it from him and untied the lovely red ribbon. “Perhaps the sender put the note inside the box so it wouldn’t be lost along the way.”
Olivia lifted the lid and saw only cotton gauze inside. She lifted a corner of it to see what delicate finery the cotton was cushioning. A small gasp escaped her lips and she dropped the box to the stone floor.
“What is it?” Rhys bent down and scooped it back up.
“Careful,” she said, putting a hand to his forearm. “It’s just like the others.”
“Other what?”
“The other thorns,” she whispered.
Rhys set the box on the low table before them and removed the gauze to bare the thorn to their gaze. He studied it carefully. “Not exactly like the others. It’s not shiny like the ones we found with Mr. Weinschmidt. I think it’s safe to assume this one is not tipped with poison. Someone is only sending a message.”
“What does it mean?” she asked, her joy over the other gifts evaporating under the relentless heat of some unknown person’s hatred.
“It means this is not over,” Rhys said, pulling her into his arms. The attacks weren’t motivated by her possible match to the royal duke. They were personal. “It means you’re still in danger.”
Chapter 30
Winter still held Scotland and the Lake District in its icy grip, but as Rhys and Olivia’s coach neared London, the roads became increasingly muddy and rutted. Just outside the city, one of the wheels bogged down in the muck. Rhys was forced to disembark and put his shoulder to the side of the conveyance while the driver whipped the horses cruelly in order to get them moving again.
As a result, he was more than disheveled from travel. Rhys was an unholy mess, with mud caked from his boot tips to his elbows.
It was not the way he’d hoped to greet his father after more than three years in exile.
He had no choice.
Warrington House was the safest place he could think of, and though he detested asking the marquis for help, Olivia’s security came before his battered pride.
Warrington House was a four-storied Georgian with rows of windows peering into the street from each floor. The panes were graduated in size, slightly smaller the higher in the house they were situated. The architectural trick gave the illusion that the imposing edifice soared even higher than it did.
A set of granite steps led up to the ornate double doors where stone statues of lions en couchant lay in wait for any who deigned to approach unworthily. When the Symon coach, which Rhys had commandeered without his father-in-law’s permission, came to a stop on the elegantly curved Mayfair street, he experienced a moment’s trepidation. His father might turn them away.
He couldn’t allow that to happen, he decided.
Rhys climbed out of the coach and ordered Babette and Mr. Clyde to see to their baggage. They’d left the whining Monsieur du Barry and his seamstresses at Braebrooke Cairn. Sarah and Blakesby had promised to return them to Barrowdell after the designer and his helpers produced a small wardrobe of baby clothes for their coming new arrival.
Rhys helped Olivia down from the carriage. Her complexion was sallow from exhaustion. She hadn’t slept well at the coaching inns at which they’d stopped, and Rhys hadn’t wanted to chance veering off course to stay at the country homes of even his friends, Lord Nathaniel Colton or Sir Jonah Sharp. The fewer people who knew their destination, the better.
Putting a hand to her back, he guided Olivia to the door of Warrington House. He almost lifted a hand to knock, but then he realized the servants would be more likely to obey him if he acted like a returning son of the house instead of a wandering beggar.
He turned the brass doorknob and went in. It was almost sacrilege for him to tromp across the Italian marble foyer in his muddy Hessians, but there wa
s no help for it.
The family butler heard their footfalls and appeared almost immediately. Mr. Tweadle had been with the Warringtons since before Rhys’s father had come into the title, and the stiff-backed majordomo guarded the family honor as fiercely as the Tower Beefeaters did the crown jewels. Tweadle stopped midstride for half a second in surprise over seeing Rhys, but then he recovered and made a correct bow.
“Lord Rhys,” Tweadle said, eyeing Rhys’s disreputable appearance with a censorious expression. “Welcome. How may I be of assistance?”
“You can show my wife, Lady Olivia, to a guest room.” He helped her out of her pelisse and handed it to Tweadle. Then he removed his muck-spattered garrick and loaded it onto the butler’s waiting arms. “I assume my old chamber has been turned into a lumber room by now.”
“No, my lord,” Tweadle said. “Everything is exactly as you left it. Your mother’s orders. But I wonder if Lady Olivia wouldn’t be more comfortable in the parlor while I see if Lord Warrington wishes the linens aired first.”
It was Tweadle’s subtle way of letting Rhys know they wouldn’t be accommodated without the marquis’s approval.
Fair enough. No point in putting Mr. Tweadle in the crossfire.
“Where is my father?”
“His lordship is in his study, but—”
“Good. Wait here and Mr. Tweadle will see to your needs directly, my love,” Rhys said to Olivia before starting down the correct hallway. Over his shoulder, he called to the servant, “See my wife to the parlor then, and I’ll show myself to the study.”
“But his lordship isn’t receiving this morning.” Tweadle scuttled after him, extending his arms before him so as to minimize his contact with Rhys’s filthy coat.
“You mean he isn’t receiving guests. Like it or not, I’m his son. He’ll receive me.”
“Perhaps you would prefer to freshen up first, Lord Rhys,” Tweadle said, still scuffling behind him.
Rhys stopped and rounded on him. “Tweadle, clean boots won’t make me any more acceptable in my father’s eyes and, in any case, I cannot afford the delay.”
If the marquis refused to shelter them, Rhys would have to make other plans quickly. He’d already decided to make for the dock at Wapping should the doors to Warrington House slam shut to them. If there were any passenger ships bound for New South Wales or Nova Scotia or, as a last resort, even America, Rhys and Olivia would take passage on the next available vessel leaving with the tide. Any place would be safer for Olivia than the British Isles.
But Rhys preferred not to flee. If Olivia were safe in his father’s house, he could run the threat to ground and deal with it permanently. If they fled, he’d always be looking over his shoulder wondering if the assassin behind the thorns was still in pursuit.
He put a hand on Tweadle’s thin shoulder. “See to my wife’s comfort, if you please, Mr. Tweadle. We’ve had a long weary trip from Scotland. If you can coax her to eat something, I’ll be grateful.” Rhys jerked his head in the direction of his father’s study door. “I’ll make sure the marquis knows you tried to stop me.”
“Thank you, my lord.” A look of utter relief washed over the old servant’s face.
His father must be in rare tyrannical form if even Mr. Tweadle was treading so lightly around him. Rhys silently vowed not to allow anyone else to be harmed when he bearded the old lion in his den.
“Very good, sir. I’ll attend Lady Olivia immediately,” Tweadle turned and hurried back down the hall to where Olivia waited, muttering under his breath as he went. “Cook has some fresh-baked scones that should be just the ticket. Oh, yes, quite.”
Rhys put his hand to the crystal doorknob. On the other side of the door was the man he both loved and feared as he ought to love and fear God. It had devastated him to be cut off from his family. But this time, if the marquis cast him out, it wouldn’t be only Rhys who suffered. Olivia would still be on the run and in danger.
He couldn’t allow that to happen. Family had to count for something. Rhys straightened his spine, turned the knob, and went in.
At first, Rhys thought he’d made a mistake and stumbled into the wrong room. A wizened man was seated at the marquis’s outsized oak desk, scratching away with a quill on the parchment before him. The top of his pate shined through thinning white hair. His stooped shoulders were draped with a shawl.
That dotard couldn’t possibly be Rhys’s father.
Then the man looked up. Illness had scraped all excess flesh from his face, leaving jutting cheekbones and sharp angles. He’d aged a pair of decades in a few short years. His complexion was ashen, but the marquis’s cobalt eyes blazed under a pair of scrub brush brows.
Rhys’s father replaced his quill in the inkwell and steepled his skeletal fingers before him on the desk.
“You have respected my wishes and not darkened my door for these past three years,” the marquis said. “To what do I owe the dubious honor of your unrequested return?”
Rhys was normally never at a loss for what to say. In some circles, he was even counted a wit. But facing his father set his stomach churning and his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth. He blurted the first thing he could think of. “I’ve taken a wife.”
“Damned irresponsible of you,” his father said with a scowl. “And damned irresponsible of Tweadle to allow you in against my express orders.”
“He didn’t allow it. I bullied my way in,” Rhys said as he approached his father’s desk. “An unattractive trait, to be sure, but one I inherited from you.”
“Insolent as ever.” The marquis’s scowl deepened, turning his lean face into a road map of wrinkles. “Taken a wife, you say. Unconscionable that you should do so without so much as a ‘by your leave’ from me. Especially since you’re dependent on the largess of the marquisate for your living. I suppose now you’ll want a raise in your allowance to support this doxie of yours.”
Even though Rhys had been cast out of the family for all social intents and purposes, he had not been cut off financially. It wasn’t due to any tender feeling on the marquis’s part, he knew. Rhys was simply his responsibility, and Lord Warrington never shirked responsibility. Of course, to the marquis, the support of his youngest son was of no more import than any of several hundred retainers on the marquisates’ far-flung estates who depended upon him.
Rhys’s hands clenched into fists, then subconsciously clasped them behind his back in the same pose he’d always adopted for dressing-downs when he was a lad.
“I’m not here for your money,” he said. “If you consult your man of business, you’ll discover I haven’t touched a farthing of it since I returned from France.”
Lord Warrington’s brow arched in surprised puzzlement.
“And Olivia is no doxie,” Rhys went on. “She’s the finest young woman I’ve ever known.”
“From what I’ve heard, you haven’t exactly gone out of your way to associate with fine women, young or otherwise, in the past few years.”
So his father had taken note of his doings, just as Rhys had gleaned rumors of the major events in his family’s life.
“That’s correct, sir,” he admitted. “I wasn’t in search of a good woman, but one found me nonetheless. We were married in Scotland about a month ago.”
“In Scotland. I should have expected as much.” Lord Warrington snorted. “An elopement. Is the girl big-bellied with child then?”
“No, sir.” But Rhys hoped she would be soon.
“Her name?”
“Olivia Symon.”
“Horatio Symon’s daughter?” Even though Mr. Symon wasn’t part of the aristocracy, a man of his wealth hadn’t escaped the marquis’s notice. “Sit down, Rhys. It wearies me to look up at you.”
His father hadn’t said he was tired of looking at him, but the sentiment was close. Rhys sank into the Sheraton chair opposite Lord Warrington, but he kept his weight forward, ready to rise if he needed.
“Seems to me I heard the Symon girl was going to
marry Clarence. That monumental dowry of hers was supposed to clear out some of His Highness’s confounded debt without further burdening the state with it.”
Now it was Rhys’s turn to frown in puzzlement. “Parliament forbade the match because she was a commoner. Weren’t you there for the deliberations and vote?”
The old man’s jaw went rigid. “Other considerations have kept me from the House of Lords of late. As my heir, your brother has taken the seat in my stead. I regret to say he apparently keeps me damned ill-informed.” Lord Warrington arched a wiry brow. “No wonder you’ve no use for your allowance since you’ve come into a well-heeled wife.”
“I didn’t marry Olivia for her money, if that’s what you’re thinking. Her father set up a trust to which only she has access. I agreed with the arrangement,” Rhys said. “It is how I would have wished matters in any case. I’ve managed to support myself. I’ll support my wife as well.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of how you’ve kept yourself. A man who gambles for a living is a fool.”
“Only if he risks more than he can afford to lose,” Rhys said. “I’ve been banished from your sight, yet you’ve made a point of knowing my business. Why?”
The question seemed to flummox his father. His jaw worked furiously, and there was a slight tremor to the hand that pulled his shawl closer. “Do not attach any significance to my interest in your activities. A man in my position must make it his business to be informed on a number of things.”
Despite his words, Rhys thought he sensed a slight chink in the old bear’s armor.
“Then let me inform you further,” Rhys said. “I didn’t marry Olivia for money. I married her for love.”
The marquis made a derisive snort.
“And for her protection.” Rhys told his father about the attempts on Olivia’s life. The marquis listened without comment until he was finished.
“And to what do you attribute these attacks?” his father asked.
“I’m not sure. At first, I assumed someone wished to end her prospective match with the duke in the most egregious way. Since the last threat arrived after our marriage, it’s more likely that her father has made a deadly enemy.”