Dangerous Weakness

by Warfield, Caroline

  “I have a headache,” she told him. “I planned to tell Walter I would stay in today.” She forced herself to keep her eyes on his, willing him to leave.

  The moment dragged on, something hot and crackling in the air between them, until he looked away, turning to face the window.

  “I came to discuss something.”

  Lily did sit straight up then. “My father?”

  “No, no.” He looked back. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “What then?”

  He paced to the window, leaned on the sill, and looked back at her.

  “You look ill.”

  “I told you, I don’t feel well. Why are you here? Not that certainly.” Get on with it and be gone.

  Richard paced back in front of her, turned and began to fidget with a Dresden shepherdess on Aunt Marianne’s mantle. The Marquess of Glenaire does not fidget. I can’t fathom what he means to say.

  “Am I to wish you happy?” she asked, glancing at the discarded papers.

  He shot her a pained look. “No. Not yet, but that is part of why I’m here.” He walked closer and stretched his hands toward Lily where she sat. “What happened during our stay at Chadbourn Park—”

  Lily squeezed her eyes shut. Not that. Please not that again.

  “—compels me to remind you what lies between us.”

  “Nothing lies between us.”

  “So you say. Nevertheless I am obliged to offer you marriage. That is the least that I owe you after what I took.”

  “My lord, you took nothing I did not give freely. You owe me nothing. We settled that at the time. You offered marriage.” You demanded. “I refused.”

  “But you are my responsibility.”

  Dear God, he wants to take me on as a burden to be borne as he carries England on his back.

  Richard began to pace and point out the advantages to Lily: money, position, title. He outlined marriage settlements.

  “We will, of course, live in London primarily. My work demands it. If you prefer the country—you don’t by chance prefer the country do you?” he swung around to ask.

  She gaped back at him, unable to answer.

  “Marry me, Lily.”

  Tell me that you love me. Tell me you want a partner. Tell me you want me to join my life to yours. He did not. Of course he doesn’t want any of that.

  “No, I—Richard this is nonsense. I will not marry you.”

  “Why not?”

  Why not? What kind of suitor, once rejected, asks why not?

  “Your family will not approve, for one thing.”

  “Of course not. Your family background, while adequate, will not add to my consequence, and your fortune, to be kind, is modest. What they want is of no consequence.”

  Your dragon of a mother is of very great consequence indeed. She will make us miserable.

  He rushed forward, not waiting for a response, and took both her hands. “What happened between us demands—”

  “Nothing. It demands nothing. I have not suffered for it. I am not shunned. I am not with child.” She almost choked on the lie. She pulled her hands away. One went instinctively to her belly where his child even now grew, where she felt it move the day before.

  He offers safety and comfort, Lily. Doesn’t your baby deserve that? Marry him. Accept his offer. Safety and comfort called out to her, but when she closed her eyes to wrap that sense around her, a vision of long years, she and a child trapped in a loveless marriage, relegated to the far corners of his life, took its place. Immense loneliness pushed all other feelings away.

  When she hesitated with her answer, Richard resumed his pacing, his scowl deepening. In that universe I would be on my own, more lonely in that marriage than I am now. If I must be alone, I can bear it better on my own than I could manage inside such a marriage.

  “My answer doesn’t change. I will not marry you,” she said at last. What he offers will not do. It will never do.

  “Nevertheless, I am not free to look elsewhere with that between us,” he insisted.

  She did choke then. “Are you asking my permission to offer for Lady Sarah?”

  He stopped in his tracks, snapped upright. “No. Of course not.”

  “Ask for her. Everyone expects it. I wish you well of each other. We are finished.” She hoped the steel in her voice and in the look she gave him would move him.

  Eventually it did.

  “Very well, Miss Thornton, I will not trouble you again. Be aware this is the last time I will offer you the protection of my name.” He waited, expectant.

  “Keep it,” she answered, “Offer it elsewhere.”

  He made his bow in silence, grim faced.

  Lily began to shake when the door closed. Weeping seized her, and she doubled over. She wept until it threatened to make her sick; only fear for her baby gave her control.

  Papa, forgive me, but I just turned down a duke’s heir. I must leave with Sahin Pasha, she sobbed. Pray God I get away unseen.

  The Malta report failed to distract Richard; it also failed to engage his attention. He stayed at his desk late into the night after visiting Lily, picked it up repeatedly the day after, and still it lay in pieces around his office one more day after that.

  This is not how I work, he thought, pushing the report back one more time. Women make me crazy. The sooner I offer for Sarah Wharton and get my life back to normal, the better.

  He picked up a group of forms and requests requiring signatures, signed eight, and sent five more back to underlings with sharply worded notes. The clock chimed half past eleven in the morning.

  The day gaped in front of him. For an odd moment, his entire life gaped in front of him. Damn, he thought, tossing aside his pen. When did you become melancholy? Will would laugh at you for this.

  The earl could lighten anyone’s mood, but Richard remembered he planned to leave for the country the next day. I need to see him one more time before he escapes to his turnips and his children. The walk may do me good.

  It didn’t. He arrived at Chadbourn house in a worse mood than he left Horse Guards.

  “What has you so blue-deviled?” his friend asked over a heartier meal than Richard would have gotten at Sudbury House. They ate informally in the family’s sunny breakfast parlor.

  “I am not blue-deviled. Not all of us are blessed with a frivolous nature,” Richard said, even though a black mood lay behind his visit.

  “So you say.”

  “I’ve decided to offer for Lady Sarah.”

  Will grunted. “You don’t look happy about it. Trap is yawning?”

  “No man goes to it willingly.”

  “Some of us do.” The earl smiled beatifically. “It depends what bliss awaits.” He raised his eyes up, but whether to heaven or his bedroom, Richard couldn’t say. When he looked back at Richard, he sobered.

  “What of Lily Thornton?” he asked softly.

  “The Thornton woman is not my problem!” ‘We are finished,’ she said. I’ll be damned if I act like a mooncalf over that woman. “Lady Sarah is. I have three days until Lisle’s deadline.”

  Will’s eyebrows shot up. “You make it sound like an execution! Don’t do it.”

  “I need to get it over with,” Richard told him, “before this marriage business interferes with my work any further.”

  “Nothing interferes with your work.”

  Richard ignored that salvo. Perhaps coming here wasn’t a helpful idea.

  “What’s new with you?” he asked.

  “Very little. Catherine is anxious to get home; she’s too busy packing to join us. Children are more easily managed and certainly better enjoyed in the country. Have you seen Jamie lately?”

  “Not for two weeks. Why? What is our new
ly elevated baron up to?”

  “I don’t know, That’s why I asked. He’s been even more blue-deviled than you for over a week, something deep and not at all like him. He turned down a dinner invitation. He never turns down a free meal. I went over to his rooms yesterday to see about him.”

  “And?”

  “Gone. Scampered without paying his tab. No one could tell me where.”

  Richard reached inside a pouch cunningly sewn into his waistcoat and pulled out a tiny fold of paper with notes in his most crabbed handwriting. He scribbled another note. “I’ll look into it,” he said.

  “I hoped you would. Finding people, including lost majors and barons, is a bit of a specialty for you.” He raised a teacup in salute.

  “My agents found you well enough that time in the Peninsula.”

  “They got Andrew out of that hell of a French prison, too. You never told me how you managed that one,” Will said, looking at him under lowered lashes.

  “I never will, either.” The two men grinned at each other in the pleasure of a long-shared friendship.

  The conversation turned to the earl’s impending trip, to crops and livestock, Will’s dearest endeavors. Richard let it, content to lay his own baggage down for a bit.

  “Pardon me, my lords,” a liveried footman broke in. “There is a gentleman here to see the Marquess of Glenaire.”

  “Show him in,” the earl said.

  Walter Stewart bustled in moments later.

  “Thank goodness I found you, my lord,” he said without preamble. “She’s gone again.” He didn’t need to elaborate on “she.”

  “Where?” Richard threw down his napkin.

  “That’s just it. We don’t know. Don’t know when either.”

  “Tell me,” Richard demanded through clenched teeth. Damned foolish woman.

  “When I saw her two days ago, she pled headache and declined to go out. Heaton went yesterday, and they told him the lady was ‘indisposed.’ He didn’t push it, thinking to allow the lady her privacy.”

  Richard suppressed a groan. Heaton’s stunning lack of guile infuriated him. “And?”

  “I got the same story this afternoon, but I didn’t like the sound. Turned out the blasted aunt hadn’t spoke to her in two days. She returned a tray night before last and told them not to bring more until she specifically requested it. The story didn’t sound right. I made the old woman go up and check.”

  Richard knew what came next, but he asked, hoping he was wrong. “Go on, go on, man.”

  “Room empty. Bed never slept in. Must have left that same night.”

  “Servants?” Richard rose to his feet.

  “Yes, sir. Questioned them all. Most are a worthless collection of elderly retainers who neither see nor hear what is under their nose. Her maid had some information to offer. She said Miss Thornton had taken to keeping a carpetbag packed with overnight things. She said her mistress had been ‘as nervous as a bug on a hot brick.’”

  Richard called for his hat and gloves.

  “And our men?” Who will find themselves looking for work alongside Roger Heaton before today is out. He held out a hand to the footman who handed him his things.

  “Reported nothing. No visitors. No sign of Miss Thornton. No comings and goings except for merchant deliveries to the tradesmen’s door, of course.”

  One of which left with Lily Thornton. He paused at the door to the breakfast parlor, another thought making bile rise in his throat.

  “What’s the latest on Volkov?”

  “No good news there, either. I checked back before I tracked you down. He’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Last seen at a tavern in Portsmouth. We had a man on him, but we’ve had no report in three days.”

  Richard cursed loudly. “Retrace Volkov’s steps. Get our best agents on it.” He started for the door, remembered his host, and turned to see Will watching him with concern.

  “Sorry to leave so abruptly. I need to see to this myself.”

  “Find her, Richard.”

  “We’ll find Volkov. If Miss Thornton foolishly declines our protection, we will let her go without it.” Walter Stewart didn’t try to hide his shock nor Will his disapproval. Richard ignored them both and stalked to the door.

  Lily Thornton made it clear I’m not her keeper. So be it.

  Chapter 18

  Doubt clung to Lily like the mold and damp that assailed her nose and congealed on her skin. Tepid tea did little to settle her stomach. Dockside inns were ever such. The diplomatic delegation sailed from the naval port, and Portsmouth held no exceptions.

  As a diplomat’s daughter, she had seen more than her fair share of such establishments in many ports of call. Before, her papa’s bluff good humor always distracted her with his fantastical tales of coming sights and sounds. “An adventure, Lily, a magical time, have you but the eyes to see it!” he would say with a twinkle in his eye and dramatic gestures. Not so this time.

  She took another sip of tea, grimaced, and stared at Ahmet—tall, black, and silently efficient Ahmet, dressed now in Ottoman dress. He was, after all, a eunuch, a man who could be left alone with a woman. Sahin Pasha assigned him to assist Lily along the way. Assist or guard? She couldn’t be certain. Nothing felt certain.

  She pushed her cup away and fidgeted with her reticule, anything to block out the reverberating question. Am I doing the right thing?

  “The lady is restless,” her companion remarked, his voice rich and rough, echoing up from deep in his huge chest.

  “We’ve waited long.”

  “Tedious, yes, but necessary.” The voice was rough but gentle, and his eyes, now that she looked closely, looked sympathetic. Lily merely nodded in response. A moment passed.

  “Do you regret your decision? Do you question whether you have you done the right thing?” he raised an eyebrow, but a gentle smile took any sting from his words.

  She shook her head. “I’ve considered the alternatives,” she said.

  “All of them?”

  All except marrying an arrogant marquess who would disdain my background.

  Before she could answer him and put a lie to her thoughts, a messenger came.

  “We leave now,” Ahmet said. “If you wish to turn back—”

  “I don’t.” She rose and sped to the door, anxious for air.

  Ahmet led her down the quay toward their waiting ship. She put one foot onto the gangplank to step up. A shout rose over the general noise of the docks. Lily turned her head toward the sound.

  One man pushed another and ran between buildings but not before Lily got a look at him. She glanced at Ahmet. His alert expression sent a frisson of fear through her. Did he see what I saw? For a moment, just a moment, the man who disappeared looked like Volkov.

  She climbed the gangplank and stepped onto the deck. Only one thought reverberated now.

  I’m doing the right thing.

  A message reached Glenaire’s office the following afternoon.

  You may call upon me at the fashionable hour tomorrow afternoon. The matter will not wait seven full days.

  Lisle

  Her earl must be getting impatient.

  His parents expected him at the ducal mansion that evening. Richard’s routine included a monthly meeting to go over estate with his father, followed by dinner over which his mother harangued him about his unmarried state. His parents’ expectations in this matter were locked in stone. Richard generally found it easier to simply comply. Lisle will have to wait his turn.

  By the time he climbed the marble stairs of Sudbury House, he knew the words of Lisle’s message by heart. His seven-day reprieve had ended. He assumed the duke and duchess already knew about it also. He didn’t need his father’s dictates to ti
ghten the noose around his neck. He got them anyway.

  I’ll marry the chit, he thought irritably. She’ll do. His Grace can cease the lecture. Even Lily Thornton expected him to marry Lady Sarah Wharton.

  I damned well resent being strong-armed by two dukes and a duchess over the thing.

  “Once you’ve safely secured the lady’s hand,” His Grace droned on, “we’ll pressure Lisle for those sweet acres boarding Mountview, the ones with the decent little house. It is one of his minor estates, part of his mother’s dower, but free now. We’ll get it written into the settlements.”

  The Sudbury estate doesn’t need any more blasted land. Richard knew better than to voice that notion. A ducal family could never hold too much land.

  “Her dowry will be substantial,” the duke went on, certain his son would obey without question. “You must set up in something more suitable in town, of course. That hole in the wall of yours will not do once the lady takes her place in society.” Richard’s snug little townhouse, the hole in a wall, far outshone the houses of ninety-nine percent of the population of England, Scotland, and Wales. It would make an Irishman weep with delight.

  “Good,” he said, “for a moment there I thought this contract would be all gain to us.”

  His Grace pinned Richard with his eyes. “The chit will be a duchess. No small prize that. We won’t sell it short.”

  “Sell it.” I thought she was the one on the cattle market. Am I to be trussed and branded before sale also? Bile rose and a sour taste took hold in his mouth. Will she do? Will the whole damned deal do? Any more on Sarah Wharton and I’ll run screaming into the night.