by Jane Goodger
“How could you do it? I want to know!” Marcus said this last with so much raw intensity, his throat hurt, as if the words had been ripped from his throat by brute force.
“What is the meaning of this, Granton?” his father asked, coming round the table to stand next to his oldest son.
“The meaning?” Marcus asked politely, calmly. “Let’s see, the meaning. Oh, yes, I know. I wanted to know why my brother fucked my wife.”
The women in the room gave a collective gasp, and Marcus’s father jerked his head back as if the words somehow hurt him. Stephen, still lying on the floor, started weeping silently, tears falling unbidden.
“Is this true, Stephen?” his father asked, his face gone white. Stephen could only nod his head, and Marcus had the terrible urge to punch him again. “My God, Stephen.”
“I was nineteen, Father. And she . . . she told me she loved me. Marcus, I’m so sorry. More sorry than I can say. Please, Marcus.” His pleas fell on deaf ears.
Marcus swallowed heavily, suddenly feeling ill. “You have betrayed me in the worst possible way. You have taken everything from me, do you understand that? Do you?”
And then, his little brother had the audacity to say, “But you didn’t even love her.”
It was almost as if everyone in the room froze, waiting for Marcus to explode, which surely he would. He could feel it building, building. Instead, the same strange calm that had come over him in the carriage ride from Birmingham settled around him. “I wasn’t referring to my whore of a wife. I was referring to my daughter.”
“Marcus.” Lilian had come up beside him and laid her hand on his arm, which no doubt felt like a steel rod beneath her palm. He ignored her, unwilling to release the growing rage in his heart.
His brother looked momentarily confused, as if he couldn’t fathom why Marcus was bringing Mabel into the conversation. Then, again, the dawning realization came, and Stephen braced himself, no doubt expecting another blow. “I didn’t know, Marcus. I didn’t. I swear to you.”
“Do you think that matters? She was my daughter and now she’s yours.” Marcus could feel his eyes burning, feel his throat tighten on that last word, but he’d be damned if he cried in front of his family like some weak little boy. “I’m going to be sick,” he said distractedly, and staggered from the room, feeling everyone’s pitying gaze on him. At that moment, he felt everything good he had managed to salvage from his ruined life had suddenly been snatched away. He flung open the door and stumbled down the steps, his stomach heaving. He barely made it to the small shrubs lining the drive before he lost the contents of his stomach, retching painfully.
He was still bent over, swallowing convulsively, when Lilian came up to him and laid a hand on his back. “I’m so sorry, Marcus.”
“We’re leaving. Now. Have your things packed immediately.” He stood, bracing himself, suspecting she would argue.
“Of course. I’ll go fetch Mabel.” She turned and headed toward the steps.
Just hearing his daughter’s name made his stomach clench painfully. “She stays.”
Lilian spun around so quickly, her skirts twirled, wrapping her legs momentarily before settling back down. “No, Marcus. She belongs with us.”
“She belongs with her father.”
His wife marched up to him, and he recognized the stubborn set of her jaw. “You are her father,” she said, pointing a finger into his chest, not ungently.
Just hearing those words caused the rage he’d felt all day to surge. “I am not, Lilian. Saying it does not make it so. My God, she’s only been with me for three weeks. She’ll forget about her time at Merdunoir, she’ll forget that I was supposed to be her father. She’s a child. She’ll forget.”
Tears flooded Lilian’s eyes, and Marcus somehow found the strength to meet her gaze unflinchingly. “Will you forget, Marcus? Do you think for one moment that I will?”
“It doesn’t matter. The fact is that Mabel is not mine. And she’s not yours.” He knew he was being cruel, but he had to make her understand. When Mabel was the daughter of some nameless, faceless man, it hadn’t mattered. Hell, even if he’d known who it was, it wouldn’t have mattered. But Mabel’s father was his own brother. That mattered, more than he could ever possibly explain. From the corner of his eye, he saw a servant and called to him.
“Robert, please tell them to ready the carriage.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Marcus, no. Please.” Lilian sounded on the verge of losing whatever composure she had left. He turned and in that moment, he almost gave in to her, almost told her to have her things packed and to fetch Mabel so they could return home and pretend all of this was some horrible nightmare. But he knew that whenever he looked at Mabel, he would picture his brother with his wife. It was too much to bear.
“I can’t,” he said, unaware of how very disconsolate he sounded. “Please try to understand.”
“Marcus, no. Don’t make me choose.”
He stepped back, her words a physical blow, the silence behind them seemingly endless. He hadn’t seen that coming, hadn’t thought in a million years she would say such a thing. Marcus knew she’d be sad and angry and perhaps would hate him for a little while, but he never thought she would even think of choosing to stay and allowing him to leave. “Don’t worry, my love, I won’t make you choose. I’ll choose for you.” He gave her a mocking bow. “Good-bye.”
He turned, ready to mount the first horse in his father’s stables, ready to ride to the ends of the earth so he might forget the look in Lilian’s eyes when he’d said that last word. He thought she might run after him, might clutch at his arm and make him stop. He thought she might beg him to stay. But she was silent and he knew he’d made the right choice.
For both of them.
Chapter 17
“He’s gone.”
Lilian stood at the entry to the breakfast room and looked from one shocked face to the next. They had the look people got when something truly horrid had happened, like an unexpected death. Indeed, that was how Lilian felt. How could she have been so happy not one day before, and now everything had gone wrong. She was here, alone, with a family who tolerated her at best, abandoned by the husband she loved with all her heart.
At that moment, Lady Chesterfield stepped into the room from behind her, smiling a greeting that quickly turned into a look of worried puzzlement. “Oh God, who’s died?” she asked, holding her hands over her heart.
“Nothing like that,” Lord Chesterfield said, walking to his wife and placing her hand in the crook of his arm. “I’ll explain everything, my dear, in private.”
She looked back at the group even as Lord Chesterfield drew her away. “What happened to Stephen’s face?”
“In due time, my dear.”
Lilian was left alone with the younger Dunfords. Georgette stood next to Adam, and Stephen stood alone, his red-rimmed eyes tortured.
“Did he say where he was going?” Adam asked.
“No. He wanted to leave Mabel and I could not do it. And so he left.” Lilian’s eyes burned from unshed tears and her throat felt on fire.
“He just needs to cool off. And if he doesn’t return by tomorrow, I’ll go find him. He’ll either be in London in his townhouse or Merdunoir.”
Lilian hugged her arms around herself. “I couldn’t just leave her. She called me Mama last night, you see.” Then, the tears that had been threatening fell from her eyes, and she spun around and attempted to pull herself together. When Georgette came up to her and laid an arm across her back, Lilian began crying in earnest. It was such a sisterly gesture, and she couldn’t help but think about what had happened earlier that day with Theresa. Everything seemed to be crumbling around her and she had no one to run to. That arm around her back was more comforting than Georgette could ever know.
Georgette handed her a handkerchief, and Lilian dabbed at her eyes and cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” Lilian whispered, mortified that she’d cried in front of the Dunfords.
Lilian shook her head. “You didn’t see his face. He was so hurt.”
“Bloody hell.” This from Stephen, who looked close to crying again.
“What in God’s name were you thinking, Stephen?” Adam asked angrily. “If Marcus hadn’t already ruined your pretty face, I think I would do it for him.”
“I’ve no excuse other than the fact I was young. She came to my room one night. Of course I told her to leave, but she kept on. I . . .” He looked at the women as if trying to gauge whether he should continue or not. “I was inexperienced and she made me feel as if I was something special. A man, I suppose. I kept telling her to leave. Of course, she didn’t and after, she threatened to tell Marcus if I didn’t do as she said. It was horrible and wonderful and wrong, and it went on for far too long. I was so ashamed. I couldn’t even look at Marcus, and she would give me these looks behind his back. Looking back, I think I was a little bit mad.”
“And now you have a daughter,” Adam said, shaking his head in disgust.
“No. Mabel is not my daughter.” He looked to Lilian. “I’d never seen Marcus so happy as he was when he arrived. He adores that little girl, and I know he loves you. I can’t take that away from him too. Please, you have to convince him to keep Mabel.”
Lilian swallowed past a growing knot in her throat. “I shall try, but I fear this has hurt him more than anything could.”
“I wish I could make it all go away, but I can’t. I need to talk to Marcus, to convince him,” Stephen said.
“Bad idea,” Adam said. “I think if he sees you anytime soon, he’ll likely do more than punch your face. Let me speak with him once I find him. I’ll try to reason with him.”
Lilian had only known her husband for three weeks, but even she knew reasoning with him about this would be difficult at best.
Chapter 18
Constable Conroy was finishing up a tedious report about a burglary. The station was quiet, and the only sound was the scratching of his pen and the ticking of a clock above him. His desk was clean and neat, but on one corner sat a thick pile of papers, bound together with a strap, with the red ink CLOSED stamped on top of the cover sheet. He had no idea why the report was still on his desk, and he certainly had no idea why, when Smithers had come to file it away, Conroy had stopped him.
“Not yet,” he’d said. Not yet. Why?
Conroy put his pen in the stand and closed his ink pot, then sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Why, why, why?
He suddenly sat forward and stood, his heart pounding in his chest. Walking over to the registry, he looked at the names of those who had signed in the day prior, stopping when he got to the Maines. He stared at those names a long moment, breathing harshly. M-A-Y-N-E.
Conroy ran back to his desk, back to that large stack of papers still lying on the surface with the word CLOSED stamped upon it, and began riffling through the stack until he reached Silas’s suicide note.
“You son of a bitch,” he said beneath his breath. “You brilliant son of a bitch.”
Then Conroy took the cover sheet, crumpled it up, and threw it in the trash.
* * *
Marcus got as far as Cannock before he stopped, which wasn’t saying very much, for Cannock center was but a ten-minute ride from his home. He would have gotten farther if he hadn’t seen them, the little girl with her mother, walking across the street. There was nothing at all remarkable about them and nothing at all to remind him of Lilian and Mabel. The woman was stout with bright red hair and the little girl quite a bit older than Mabel with blonde braids swinging down her back. So he couldn’t have said why the sight of them stopped him cold, made him realize that he couldn’t leave—or at least not go as far as he’d intended.
Marcus turned his horse toward the Cow and Plow, a small inn he’d frequented as a young man, an inn that drew locals, gentry, workingmen, and peers alike. He was suddenly so weary and the sun was about to set, so he dismounted and handed his horse off to a stable boy, flipping him a coin for his trouble.
When the barkeep saw him walk in, he came around the front and greeted him. “Lord Granton. Good day, sir.” The barkeep’s smile, at first quite sincere, turned into something less so after a time, and Marcus realized his remarkable talent for hiding his emotions had somehow been misplaced.
“I’ll need a room if you have one available,” Marcus said, knowing how ridiculous it was for him to ask for a room when he lived only walking distance away.
The barkeep’s thick brows rose a bit, but he said nothing and grabbed up a key with a wooden square attached to it and the number 2 carved inexpertly into its surface. The inn had but two rooms to let, so a number was hardly needed, but Marcus took the key and headed up the stairs where the inn’s two rooms were, his feet feeling nearly as heavy as his heart.
“Can I send a supper up for you, my lord?” the barkeep called as he trudged up the stairs.
Marcus waved him off. “I’ll come down.” For now, he wanted nothing more than to sleep, perhaps forever, or at least until he lost memory of what he’d discovered that day. But sleep would not come. No matter how hard he tried, he could not stop the images that crowded his mind: Stephen weeping, his father’s shock, and Lilian, the way she’d looked when he’d said good-bye. And yet, she hadn’t called to him, hadn’t tried to stop him from leaving. Hell, he hadn’t left, not really. When Eleanor had died, he’d run from the snide remarks, the smirks, the humiliation. His pride, he supposed, couldn’t take such a pummeling.
This, though, this was different. This time it was his heart that had been pummeled and he knew the only way to heal it was to go back, face what had happened, try to fix what he’d done. Had he truly thought he could leave Lilian? Or Mabel? God, just the thought of her little face when Lilian told her he was gone forever caused the ache in his chest to flare.
He turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling, illuminated only by a gaslight outside. It was raining, and the rivulets on the window created a shimmering pattern on the ceiling. A flash of lightning brightened the dark sky outside, followed a few seconds later by a rolling rumble of thunder. It was just as well, he thought. He wasn’t certain he could face his family this night. Tomorrow, after a good night’s rest, God willing, he would go back home, collect his family, and try to repair the terrible damage done this day.
His stomach rumbled, protesting the fact that he hadn’t eaten since his breakfast. Despite everything that had happened that day, or perhaps because of all that had happened, he was starving.
Though he dreaded the thought of seeing someone he was acquainted with, Marcus made his way down to the taproom, where he knew he could get some good, hearty country fare. He’d no intention of drinking, as he’d rarely been a man to embrace the bottle even in the worst of times.
Thankfully, the room was nearly empty when Marcus entered; the only other seat was taken by a well-dressed gentleman Marcus did not recognize, thank goodness.
“Good evening, Lord Granton,” the barkeep called out. Upon hearing his title, the other gentleman lifted his head, but Marcus ignored him.
“What has Sally made for dinner this evening?” Marcus asked, trying to sound jovial. Sally and Peter Riordan had owned the Cow and Plow for as long as Marcus could remember. They kept the place clean and served the finest ale in Cannock, and Sally was a splendid cook, but he’d never spent the night there. He knew Peter must find it odd that he’d taken a room, especially given the fact that it was well known that he’d just married. No doubt rumors would abound that he and his new bride had suffered some sort of tiff.
“Roasted chicken with Brussel sprouts and boiled potatoes, my lord.”
At that, the other gentleman turned fully toward Marcus. “Lord Granton?”
Marcus gave Peter a smile that was more like a grimace at having been recognized, then turned. “I am. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” he said with the utmost politen
ess. A true gentleman would have taken the correct meaning from his cold response and wished him a good evening and gotten back to his meal. But Marcus could tell that, for all the fine clothing the man wore, he was not a gentleman.
“You’re the bloke with the sister what ran away from Weston.”
Marcus gave the man a steely look but said nothing.
Apparently, the man had no ear for subtleties, for he continued. “I worked for Weston. May the man rot in hell.” He lifted up his glass, filled with an amber liquid, and Marcus gave a mental shrug. He wouldn’t be averse to talking with the man, particularly as they shared the same opinion of His Grace. When Marcus sat, the man extended his hand. “John Munroe, at your service. I worked as Weston’s secretary for ten years, the bastard. Ten years and only a half day off a week. He wouldn’t let me go visit my poor mother when she was on her death bed.”
“You don’t say.”
“Whoever killed the man deserves a medal.”
At that, Marcus smiled. “A similar thought had occurred to me. Unfortunately, the man in question is dead and unable to accept any accolades.”
Mr. Munroe frowned at that, then smiled. “What are you drinking?”
“Tea, I’m afraid,” Marcus said, casting a quick glance at the bottle next to Munroe’s glass. It appeared to be half empty, and the man’s cheeks were unnaturally flushed. He was clearly in his cups, for no sober man would say such things about a member of the peerage in such a public place, even if it were deserved.
“Don’t tell me you’re a teetotaler. I’ll have to find me another dinner companion,” Munroe said before letting out a laugh. “Ah, don’t mind me. I’m celebrating. I’m gettin’ married soon. Going to America with my sweetheart.” He’d leaned forward and lowered his voice as if he were imparting a secret.
“My felicitations.”
Munroe grinned, and winked. “You’ll never guess who it is.”
“I couldn’t begin to.”