Lady Engsly took pity on her. “Perhaps we should discuss this inside.”
“There is nothing to discuss.” Sir Robert stepped forward and slapped Connor across the face with his glove.
The challenge elicited gasps from several of the guests, a roll of the eyes from both Lady Engsly and Lady Winnefred, and—unless Adelaide was much mistaken—an amused snort from Lady Winnefred’s husband, Lord Gideon.
Connor met the challenge with a long, chilling silence followed by the single most menacing smile Adelaide had ever seen.
“Name your weapon,” he said at length. His tone was frigid, and he stared at Sir Robert as if he were imagining running the man through on the spot.
A shiver skittered along Adelaide’s skin. This was not the Connor who had teased and laughed with her in the garden. This was not the kind gentleman who had patiently listened to her plans and dreams. This man was . . . Well, she had no idea who this man was, except terrifying.
Sir Robert paled, spluttered a moment, and finally managed a shaky, “That . . . is not how it is done.”
“You pick the weapon,” some idiot explained.
“Fists,” Connor growled. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than tearing you apart with my bare hands.”
“Good gracious,” someone breathed.
“Such brutality,” someone else said with unmistakable relish. Adelaide guessed it was the same helpful idiot who had set Connor straight on the rules.
Sir Robert’s swallow was audible. “That . . . is also not how it is done.”
Lady Engsly appeared to be one of the few people present who was not morbidly enthralled by the scene.
“Oh, what stupidity,” she said on a huff. “Duel, indeed.”
Adelaide was inclined to agree. “Enough. There will be no duel.” She wedged herself between the men and faced Connor. “Mr. Brice, this is not help—”
She broke off mid-word when Connor grasped her by the shoulders, lifted her off her feet, and simply set her aside . . . all without taking his eyes off of Sir Robert. It was as if she didn’t exist.
And all she could think was: Now? Now, he chose to pretend not to see her, when it wouldn’t do either of them a speck of good? He couldn’t have brushed her aside last night, this morning, five bloody minutes ago?
She heard Lord Engsly sigh a moment before he walked forward into her line of sight. He was an imposing figure, both as the highest-ranking member of the house party and as a man in his physical prime.
“Miss Ward is correct. There will be no duel,” he announced.
Sir Robert immediately stepped back from Connor and began to replace his glove. “If you insist.”
Every head in the group swiveled to Sir Robert in perfect unison, an unusual bit of choreography Adelaide was able to note by virtue of her eyes going very, very wide.
Insist? There had been no insisting. A hint of chiding, perhaps. A clear note of impatience. But nary a whisper of insistence.
“Well, that was very quick,” someone commented.
“Instantaneous, really,” Lady Winnefred said.
Mrs. Cress leaned toward her and whispered, “This does not bode well for you, my dear.”
Indeed, it did not. A duel was out of the question, of course. It was illegal, immoral, and as Lady Engsly had pointed out, stupid. But there wasn’t a soul present who would be willing to believe Sir Robert had capitulated for any of those reasons. Not now.
Sir Robert had backed down because he’d reconsidered the value of her honor. There would be no offer of marriage. No five thousand pounds a year. No secure future for her family.
Or perhaps he was simply a coward.
Please, please let him be a coward, she thought, and immediately wondered if any woman before her had ever prayed for the existence of such a dreadful attribute in a bridegroom.
Had it come to this, then? Had she lost all sense of hope? Was marriage to a coward now the most advantageous match she could expect? She refused to believe it.
I am not pathetic.
I am not without worth.
I can do better for my family than this.
“I . . .” She began in a loud voice. All eyes turned to her and she realized, belatedly, that she couldn’t announce to all and sundry what she had been thinking. “Am . . . going inside.”
And with that spectacularly feeble finish, she turned and strode toward the house without any clear idea of what she would do once she reached it. Go to her room, pack her things, leave for home, and wait there until it was time to go to the poorhouse. That was the best she could come up with at present.
She knew she was being followed by everyone, but it was only Lady Engsly and Lady Winnefred who made the effort to catch up with her. They flanked her like a pair of guards.
“There is a study off the library,” Lady Engsly said. “May I suggest we—”
“I am going home.” She kept her eyes on the house and increased her pace.
“I understand you’re upset, Miss Ward,” Lady Engsly said, “but it would be better for you, and your family, if you settled matters before you left.”
The mention of family silenced the dissent on the tip of her tongue. A vision of George and Isobel formed in her mind. She couldn’t imagine how such a mess could be settled, but she owed it to them to at least try.
“The study, then.”
“A wise decision,” Lady Engsly said placidly. “Our husbands will mediate on your behalf, if you like.”
She threw a surprised glance at the lady. “They would do that?”
Lady Winnefred brushed impatiently at one of many light brown locks of hair that had slipped from its pins. “Yes, of course. They’re quite fond of you.”
Adelaide blinked at that admission. She hardly knew them, really. It was their wives with whom she’d began to develop a friendship over the last few months. Adelaide said a small prayer of thanks for that friendship. Lady Engsly and Lady Winnefred were clever, sensible, and levelheaded women. More, they were the only ladies who hadn’t eyed her a moment ago like a temporarily amusing but ultimately pitiable creature. And the only two who weren’t even now trailing behind her like starving dogs after raw meat.
“I would be grateful for their assistance.”
She doubted the marquess and his brother would welcome the responsibility, but even reluctant interference was better than dealing with Connor and Sir Robert on her own.
Lady Winnefred nodded and sidled closer to speak in a low tone. “Perhaps you would like to slow your steps, so that your champions might keep pace.”
If Adelaide had not already been shame-faced, she would have blushed. Lord Gideon was as fit as his brother, but an old war injury required the use of a cane. A quick glance over her shoulder told her he was keeping up well enough, but the pace couldn’t be comfortable for him. Nor for Mrs. Cress, who also required the assistance of a walking stick.
She slowed down for Lord Gideon’s sake. Mrs. Cress she would have been happy to leave behind.
Doing her best to ignore her audience, she pushed through a side door and turned her feet toward the study door.
Lady Winnefred caught her arm. “Wait a moment.”
“What for?”
“Your pride, of course.” She gestured at Lady Engsly, who’d stepped over to confer with Lord Engsly and Lord Gideon. “She’ll only be a minute and then—”
Lord Engsly nodded and stepped away from his wife. “Mrs. Cress, would you be so kind as to take the guests . . . elsewhere?”
There was a murmur of discontent amongst the guests, and Mrs. Cress’s round face scrunched in annoyance. Clearly, no one wished to miss the next chapter of the sordid tale. One didn’t argue with a marquess, however, not even in one’s own home. After a bit of cane thumping, a harrumph, and finally a heavy sigh of resignation, Mrs. Cress began to herd the disgruntled guests down the hall.
“The two of you as well,” Lord Gideon told his wife and Lady Engsly.
“We shall leave t
hat for Miss Ward to decide,” Lady Engsly said.
Adelaide’s immediate inclination was to make as many people as possible go away. She changed her mind, however, after looking over who would be left if the ladies were sent away—Lord Engsly, Lord Gideon, Connor, and Sir Robert. A marquess, the marquess’s brother, the man who’d compromised her, and the man she’d betrayed.
“Oh, please, do stay.”
Chapter 6
The study’s dark paneling, slivered windows, and oversized mahogany furniture gave Adelaide the impression she was walking into a crowded cave. Uncertain of what to do with herself, she stood in the middle of the room while Lady Engsly and Lady Winnefred took seats on a small settee, Lord Engsly and Lord Gideon positioned himself in front of the desk, and Connor leaned a shoulder against a bookshelf.
Sir Robert stopped three feet inside the door.
“I would have a word with Miss Ward before we begin,” he announced suddenly. “And I would have that word alone.”
“No.” The sharp refusal came from Connor.
“Miss Ward?” Lady Engsly prompted.
Adelaide considered it. She’d faced his censure in public; there was nothing to be gained by facing it in private as well.
“I would prefer we speak here.”
Sir Robert sighed the sigh of an eternally beleaguered man, but he didn’t argue. He walked to the middle of the room, took her hand, and held it between his own.
“Miss Ward,” he began, “you have my most sincere and abject apology.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He nodded thoughtfully and patted her hand. “I have told you some of my family’s story, but much of it . . . most of it, I kept hidden from you out of fear of disgrace. And now, my selfish reticence has put you in grave danger. This man”—he flicked an accusing glance at Connor—“is indeed, and to my family’s eternal shame, an offspring of my father’s.”
“He’s not cattle,” Lady Winnefred muttered just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
Connor flashed a brief smile. “Thank you, Freddie.”
“Don’t talk to my wife,” Lord Gideon ordered.
Sir Robert squeezed her hand. “Connor Brice is a most depraved individual. Until recently, however, he was safely removed from society.”
“He had me tossed into prison for a crime I did not commit,” Connor translated.
“His imprisonment was of his own doing,” Sir Robert insisted. “He is a violent man, Miss Ward. And consumed with jealousy of me. His low-born mother poisoned his mind with—”
“Mention my mother again,” Connor said darkly, “and we’ll be getting round to that duel after all.”
Sir Robert cleared his throat but didn’t respond to Connor. “He nurtures a bitter hatred of me. Nothing would give him more pleasure than to destroy all I hold dear.”
“That’s true,” Connor agreed easily.
Sir Robert pretended to ignore him, but the new burgeoning flush of red on his neck betrayed the lie. “Knowing his nature and his capacity for cruelty, I kept watch over him during his incarceration. But his whereabouts were lost to me after his recent release. I—”
“What he means to say,” Connor broke in, “is that he had half the prison guards in his pocket.” He answered Sir Robert’s glare with a mocking curl of the lip. “Pity for you it wasn’t the clever half.”
The red expanded to Sir Robert’s face. He spun on Connor. “You have no proof of such a—”
“You have no idea what I have proof of.”
“I will see you—!”
“You were apologizing, Sir Robert?” Adelaide punctuated the quick interruption with a firm tug on Sir Robert’s hand.
He looked to her, to Connor, and back again. “Right. Yes, of course. I beg your pardon.” He took a deep breath, held it, and released. Adelaide was surprised to smell brandy. “I was apologizing because it is on my head that this . . . this libertine, this cad, this—”
Lady Engsly cut him off. “We have established your opinion of the gentleman, Sir Robert.”
“Of course.” Another long, dramatic breath. “What happened today is entirely my fault. I should have taken better care. I should have known he would seek out and attempt to injure what I hold of value. I failed to warn you and I failed to protect you. I do, and shall always, regret this error bitterly. I can only beg your forgiveness now and plead for the opportunity to make amends.”
This speech was met with silence by the group, with the exception of Connor, who muttered something that sounded rather like, “Bravo.”
Adelaide was inclined to agree. It was a fine speech. Unfortunately, it also confirmed the suspicion that he was a coward.
“Allow me to make this right,” Sir Robert continued. He cleared his throat in a dramatic, and regrettably affected, manner. And then he said, “My dear Miss Ward, I most humbly and arduously beg the honor of your hand in marriage.”
She had the sudden urge to yank her hand free and run.
“Oh. Oh, I . . .” She looked around her with the vague and inexplicable notion that someone else might answer for her. “Er . . . Sir Robert . . .”
“Don’t be a fool, Adelaide.” Connor’s voice was low and dangerous. It put the hair at the back of her neck on end.
Lady Engsly was not similarly affected. She leaned over and hissed at him, “She’d be a fool not to accept, thanks to you.”
“She has other options.”
“Not unless you’ve offered for her,” Lady Engsly snapped. When he merely lifted a brow, she blinked and straightened in her chair. “Have you offered for her?”
“I have.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Lady Engsly’s transformation was instant. Her pretty face lit up with a smile, and she very nearly bounded off the settee. “That changes things considerably.”
Bewildered, Adelaide could only stare and sputter a few halfhearted protests as Lady Engsly detached her from Sir Robert and ushered her toward the door.
“It seems you have quite a bit to consider, Miss Ward. I suspect a nice long lie-down will put everything into perspective. Come along, Freddie.”
Adelaide tossed a dazed look over her shoulder as she was bustled out of the room. “I thought we were to settle things.”
“We have,” Lady Engsly assured her with a quick pat of the arm. “You received an offer of marriage. Two in fact. We’ll leave the gentlemen to bicker over the details.”
“Shouldn’t she have some say in those details?” Lady Winnefred asked with a hint of indignation.
Adelaide nodded in enthusiastic agreement. If anyone was to be bickering, it ought to be her.
Lady Engsly stopped at the bottom of a back stairwell and turned to address Adelaide with the sort of gentle patience that put her to mind of a governess. “You have the only say that truly matters, Miss Ward. And you’ll be pressured from both sides to make that say known as soon as possible. Do you want to face that pressure now, or do you want a bit of time to think the matter through?”
“Time,” Adelaide replied without hesitation and wondered that she hadn’t seen the wisdom in leaving for herself.
“Excellent. Freddie and I will spread the word that offers have been made. It won’t silence the gossip, I’m afraid, but it will certainly temper the censure.”
She wouldn’t have seen the wisdom in that either. Her mind was so muddled, her emotions so turbulent, it was a miracle she was able to put two words together.
Adelaide looked at the two women before her and wondered what she would have done without their assistance that day. Gone to her room without a much-needed proposal or accepted a proposal without much-needed consideration. Either might well have proved disastrous.
“Lady Engsly—”
“Lilly, dear. And Winnefred,” she added with a quick look at her sister-in-law for agreement. “I should think we’ve come far enough in our friendship for given names.”
Adelaide digested that silently for a moment. She wasn’t s
ure what to say. She wasn’t sure she could speak around the lump that formed in her throat. It had been so long since someone had offered to help, longer still since she’d had an offer of friendship. She couldn’t find the words to express what it meant to receive both.
“I’m grateful,” she managed at length. And because she couldn’t think of a more adequate sentiment, she repeated it. “I’m so grateful.”
The abrupt departure of the ladies from the study left Connor in what most men might consider an unenviable position—facing the suitor and two champions of a compromised lady. Connor didn’t mind the silent and tense atmosphere in the least. In fact, he took dark pleasure in ignoring the brothers and staring at Sir Robert until the man looked away, then shifted his feet, then squirmed, then caved.
“I will not remain in the same room with this libertine a moment longer!” Sir Robert announced and bolted for the door.
The entire process took less than thirty seconds. Which—to give credit where credit was due—was a solid twenty seconds longer than Connor had anticipated. Sir Robert had held his ground in the garden longer than expected as well. Apparently, the baronet had grown some sort of backbone over the years. Connor estimated his half brother to now be in possession of two, possibly three, full vertebrae.
Connor straightened from the bookshelf and gave a passing nod at Lord Engsly and Lord Gideon as he headed for the door. He felt under no particular obligation to speak with the men. He’d not invited them into the affair.
“A word, Mr. Brice.”
Connor turned at the sound of Engsly’s order and considered each man coolly and carefully.
He knew little of Lord Engsly, and he’d met Lord Gideon only once before—through the bars of a prison cell. Their wives, on the other hand, had been regular visitors to the prison. Before they’d come to their fortunes by way of their husbands, they’d scratched out a meager existence by, amongst other things, mending the clothes of officers and well-to-do prisoners.
An Unexpected Gentleman (The Haverston Family Trilogy Book 2) Page 6