The Marquis’s Misstep by Kathy L. Wheeler

Seventeen

G

inny untied her bonnet and handed it off to Kipling, her parents right on her heels. Right on her blasted heels. She sidestepped her mother. “Where are the girls, Kipling?”

“I believe they are taking their baths, my lady.”

“Thank you.” Lord, it was good to be home. Three hours with her parents visiting the Exeter Exchange, the milliner’s, and her favorite modiste on Bond Street. All the while, anxious to learn how the lessons had gone between Brock and the girls.

She started for the staircase, tugging off her coat. On the third step up, she tossed it over the bannister to Kipling, smiling.

“Virginia,” her mother said sharply. “We leave for Drury Lane at seven.”

“I’m not go—”

“You’ll heed your mother, Virginia.” Her father was as bullheaded as she remembered. She ignored them and took the two flights up, pausing outside the nursery, grinning at the lighthearted laughter reaching through the door. How she adored that sound. With a short knock, she entered. “What is all this racket?” she bellowed.

“Mama.” Celia jumped out of the tub and threw her wet body against Ginny’s printed day dress. Ginny couldn’t have cared less.

“You are going to catch your death, you silly girl.” She grabbed the nearby towel and wrapped her younger daughter tight as a sausage and planted a big kiss on her warmed cheek. “How was your lesson with Lord Brockway?” She cast a quick look to Miss Lambert, whose jaw tightened. So, she didn’t approve of Ginny’s plans. “I can take it from here, Miss Lambert. Feel free to take your supper early.”

She dipped into a shallow curtsy. “Yes, my lady.”

“Hello, Mother. We survived Lord Brockway’s instructions. They were quite thorough.” Irene stepped into the room as Miss Lambert departed. “You needn’t worry over Celia. She seems immune to the hazards of normal humans.” Of course, Irene was entirely serious. No sign of even the slightest twist touched her lips. The sight broke Ginny’s heart, at the same time, loving her all the more for her imperturbable manner. She was truly special.

“Hello, darling. Young children do seem prone to avoiding the worst of mishaps.”

“I suppose that is fortunate,” she returned. “How was your shopping excursion?”

Ginny made a mental note to speak with Miss Lambert in supplanting Irene with language more appropriate to her age of nine, not forty. “I survived, but I’m more interested in how your safeguarding instructions fared.”

Irene frowned. “’Tis more complicated than I expected.”

“Oh?”

“I broke Lord Brock’s snare,” Celia crowed.

“Snare?” Ginny asked faintly.

“He showed us how to escape someone who might grab our wrist.” Ginny took no comfort in Irene’s unpretentious discourse. In point of fact, Ginny thought she might need her smelling salts as she fell into a nearby chair, her gifts clattering to the wood-planked floor.

“Did Lord Brockway happen to explain how one might end up in such a situation?”

Irene slipped a fan in Ginny’s hand. “You look pale, Mama.”

“He ’splained how someone might try to hoodwink us to do their bidding,” Celia said.

Ginny snapped open the fan and frantically fanned her face.

Irene took Ginny’s face in both hands, eyeing her critically. “Mother, are you certain you are up for this?”

Ginny’s dread deepened. She tried for a steadying breath, having to settle for a weak nod.

“He used two examples an ordinary person might fabricate in a situation to take an unfair advantage.”

Ginny rubbed her temples. “Irene, could you simplify your meaning? I’m afraid the inside of my head must resemble a mesh of mashed vegetables.”

Celia scrunched her nose. “Eew.”

With one look, Irene quelled her. She turned back to Ginny. “He said someone might tell us something has happened to someone we love.” Ginny should have been stunned at her pronounced affront. Instead, she felt ill.

“He was talking about me, wasn’t he?” she whispered.

“Not just you, Mama,” Celia said, clearly undisturbed. “He said someone might use a hurt dog or kitty too.”

“I’ll kill him,” she said under her breath, hating herself more because it was herself she wanted to shoot. He was only doing what she asked of him.

“Celia, I believe Mama needs a… a hug.” For once Irene was unnerved.

She snatched both girls into her arms. “Yes, that’s exactly what I need.”

Irene held herself stiff while Celia squeezed her neck until she couldn’t breathe. Within a minute, Irene’s hug was just as tight. Ginny shut her eyes against her own tears, terrified at what she’d unleashed. Right now, she held the child of nine, not forty.

Ginny nodded just as a tap sounded at the door. Peg peered in. “Ma’am. Kipling sent me to inform you that Lord Brockway awaits you in the parlor. He also said to mention he is dressed for a night on the town.”

Irene’s head jerked up. “Thank you, Peg.”

Eyes skyward, Ginny stood. Irene was definitely not a child, if ever she’d been one. “Thank you, Peg. Tell Kipling I’ll be down momentarily.”

“He’s with the baron and baroness.”

Good heavens.She almost tripped on her gown racing from the room.

The urge to pace or not was a physical pain. Brock planted his feet and stared out the windows, wishing he could smash his fist in Wimbley’s pug nose. How could Ginny have sprung from the loins of this simpleton? Her mother, a pretentious baroness, was even worse.

“Why, when I caught her sneaking in through the kitchens with straw poking out of her hair at all angles”—her hand splayed against her chest—“well, I knew at that moment, all our plans were for naught. She had to marry immediately.”

“I told her I would be back within two weeks,” he bit out. Why was he letting them get to him?

“How were we to know that? That girl was an undisciplined hoyden. She wasn’t the delicate miss we spent years instilling,” she twittered. “She didn’t even afford her late husband a full year of mourning. We’ll be the laughingstock.”

In a deliberate, slow turn, Brock pierced the baroness in place with all the haughty disdain learned at his father, the Duke of Addis’s, knee. “Laughingstock? That’s what you’re worried about? Those marks on her arms you inquired about, did you truly wonder where they originated?”

“How did you know I—” Her large frame dropped into a sturdy chair. The baron put a tumbler of whiskey in her hand, and she gulped a large swallow. “No, I-I—”

“I’ll tell you where they came from. From that very husband you sold her off to for the sake of ruin. He took great pleasure in putting out his half-smoked cheroots on her skin. He broke her wrist. Shall I go on?” Brock brushed his palm along his shoulder.

“You heard the baroness,” Wimbley blustered. “Virginia couldn’t follow a rule to save her life, and when we discovered she’d spread her legs for the first vagrant—”

At the force of Brock’s hit, the chair toppled back with Wimbley still stuffed in it, blood pouring from his snout. Brock leaned over the man. “Do I look like a vagrant to you?”

“What the devil were we supposed to do? At the least she would be ruined. At the worst, saddled with a bastard. All of her own making.”

A child. Irene? It wasn’t possible. Maudsley had been dead almost a year. Surely Ginny would have told him if that had been the case, but the seed took and refused to be rooted out. Grabbing Wimbley by his starched neckcloth, Brock rose, pulling him and the chair upright. “Children are not made by a mother’s own making, you fool.”

The door to the parlor flew open, and Ginny hurried in. She marched straight over to him and poked her finger into his chest. “This is my home. You have no right telling tales about my marriage.”

“They need to kno—”

“No, they don’t. It’s no one’s business but mine.”

A dead calm iced his veins. His fingers were numb with the sensation.

But she didn’t appear to notice his absolute fury. She spun around and spotted her father’s bloody face. Hers paled, starkly highlighting the freckles across her nose. “What the devil happened here?” She hurried to the bell cord.

Kipling appeared seconds later. “Madam?”

“Ice, Kipling. Cloths and water. Right away.”

The baroness seemed stunned into a slab of marble, not an inch of her swaying. “Mother.” Ginny snapped her fingers in her face. “What happened?”

She flinched, jerking back to life. “Lord Brockway. He hit your father.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Did Maudsley truly burn you? Did he break your—”

She shot Brock a withering look that would fell a lesser man. “It appears Lord Brockway could rival the rumormongers at Almack’s with his loose tongue.”

As furious as Brock was, he couldn’t help the admiration that filled him watching her. When he’d found her on the floor of her bedchamber the year before, she’d been almost dead, unconscious for several days. At the time, he hadn’t believed he would ever bask in the fire of the girl he’d tumbled in that loft ten years before. “How old is Irene?”

The air in the parlor dissipated. Ginny froze, all but her left hand. It trembled. Kipling chose that moment to enter with his tray of medical necessities that rattled with each step.

Ginny took advantage, ignoring his question. “Just set it on the secretary, Kipling. Thank you.” She dipped the cloth in the water and set to the process of cleaning the grime from Lord Wimbley, starting with his forehead. “Did he break your nose, Father?”

“I fear he might have.”

The baroness sprang to life. “Your father cannot possibly go to the theater now. We shall have to cancel.” She took the cloth from Ginny.

Inspiration struck Brock like a bolt of lightning. “That’s not necessary. I shall accompany you, Lady Maudsley.”

Ginny opened her mouth as if to refute him but snapped it shut, finally speaking as if the words were being drug from her. “Yes. I should enjoy that, my lord.” Meaning clearly she wouldn’t.

The baroness’s gaze moved between Brock and her daughter with a calculation he was altogether familiar with, but this was one time the tactic would work in his favor.

“Yes. That should suffice.” She lifted her nose with a sniff in Ginny’s direction. “I do hope you are not planning to attend Drury Lane dressed as a peasant, my dear.”

Ginny’s eyes flashed fire. She glanced down at her damp skirts. “Yes, I suppose I should change. Please pardon me, my lord.”

The carriage pulled into the lane of traffic, and Ginny closed her eyes against the accusation Brock leveled on her. The breath squeezed from Ginny’s lungs. A feverish hot so fierce, scorched her skin. She was surprised her clothes did not combust from standing too near a sun that would singe her into a pile of ashes.

“Is Irene mine?”

She’d dreaded this question Irene’s entire life. The sting of tears burned. With every ounce of stamina she possessed, Ginny faced him. Fury rose off him in waves. She’d never been frightened of him before, but—

“You’ve no need to worry, Lady Maudsley. I shan’t murder you in a carriage on the way to the theater. It’s much too messy.”

His words unleashed the banked fires of her own temper. There was self-preservation, and then there was survival of the fittest. She fell in the latter of the two categories. She blasted him with a furious glance of her own. “You have no right—”

“Oh, but I do.” Spoken softly, each word was etched of glacial chips. The fog of danger filling the confined space made it difficult for her to breathe. The conveyance crawled. “You’ve kept my daughter from me. Nine years. Nine years you’ve lied to me.”

A red haze squeezed from Ginny’s attempts of remaining calm. His heavy breathing registered, and she lifted her gaze. The air was fraught with his surprise, his anger, his frustration, but his had nothing on hers. The gall to equate his deserting her to this. She leaned in, putting her nose to his. “You deserted me, in case you’ve forgotten.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

“I begged you to let me come with you. Begged.” Tears constricted her airflow. “The minute I snuck into the house, my father caught me. Called me names so vile I can’t stomach to repeat.”

“I wrote to you,” he shouted. “I explained.”

The finger that poked him curled into a fist. “Wrote to me? You think my parents gave me a single note from you?” She laughed, a maniacal sound even to her. “Your reputation preceded you, in case you don’t remember.” Her fist pounded his chest. “They paid Maudsley to take me off their hands, far beyond my dowry. I was a ruined woman.” The memories flooded her, sucked her down into the whirlpool of horror she’d spent the last year trying to survive. The nightmares, the attacks of anxiety, the reentering of society. It was a wonder Brock and Kimpton hadn’t located her in that asylum in their search for Harlowe.

“He tried to kill me! My parents heard how horrible he was. Everyone had. There were rumors he’d murdered his first wife.” Each word, each accusation rose in pitch and hysterics. “They knew.” Her voice broke, her tears, hot and thick, fell down her face, ruining the bodice of her new bronze gown. “They knew. They knew. How could they? How could you? How could you not have come back for me?” She ended on a whisper, sliding to the floor. “I loved you.”

“Irene? Is she mine?” The glacial chips warmed to something flowing.

He lifted her from the floor and set her on the bench across from him. She fell back against the squabs. “I-I don’t know. How could I?” She shrugged, leveling her own accusation. “I held them off for ten days. It was a fight. I came away with two or three bruises from my father. Even if I had known, Irene’s life would never have been safe if Maudsley believed she belonged to another.”

She looked out the window then back to him, unable to disguise the agony of those horrific days in her voice. She dared him to pity the triumph over her survival, Irene’s survival. It would hurt, but she’d endured worse. Much worse.

She didn’t have to look to feel Brock’s piercing stare on her, but she looked anyway. The streetlamps flickered against his tightened jaw. “That’s true enough,” he said roughly.

Her tears pooled and spilled over, but she didn’t turn away or blink. “I could never have lived with myself if something had happened to her. You can’t know how I wish—” She tried cloaking her spiraling emotion with a calm she didn’t feel. Would never feel. ’Twas a farce not fit for stage.

Brock’s eyes snapped to her, his teeth clenched so hard they would likely shatter. He stared at her for the longest time.

She dropped her gaze to the hands twisting tightly in her lap, watching the tears stain the satin of her gloves. “I am sorry,” she said, anguish ripping her heart from her chest. “Perhaps I should have said something, but in the end what does it matter? I don’t know the truth. I can only wish it true, can’t I?” She lifted her gaze, bracing herself for his hatred. It was what she’d been expecting all along anyway. It mattered not. “She is mine. And Maudsley is dead.”

Another minute went by, his jaw slowly relaxed, and she read—hoped she read—acceptance in his eyes. He took her right wrist and yanked her across the space into his lap. He brushed the tears from her cheeks, setting his forehead to hers. “You’re right, of course. She’s yours.”

A small chortle escaped her, releasing the tension, though she couldn’t imagine how. “I think you should show me how you taught Celia how to break someone’s hold on your wrist.”

Booming laughter rumbled up his chest. Brock took Ginny’s face in his hands and kissed her. Thoroughly, possessively, soundly as the shatter of something thin and delicate cut through the thickness of his hide, the hardness of his head. The shards shredded the lining of his stomach into a bloodied massacre. It took a moment to realize the sound was his heart—no, his body—breaking into a million irreparable fragments.

It was amazing how his arrogance could truly have managed to fuck up his life. Ginny was right. Maudsley had almost killed the woman Brock loved and would have disposed of Irene in as nefarious a manner as one’s mind could summon. Violence against women and children were considered of far less import than stealing a man’s horse or wife. Maudsley had been an unworthy brute.

A sliver of darkness reached toward him. Beckoned him to follow, reminding him of the day he’d learned Maudsley had taken a wife during the darkest moment of Brock’s life—in his search for his sister. A wife that should have been Brock’s. The sliver widened, and he felt the jerk on his cravat, pulling him in. They—Ginny and the girls—deserved better than him. But could he give her up? Irene? Cecilia? No.

Ginny’s laughter was his life’s breath. The darkness receded immediately upon his silent admission. He pressed his lips to her forehead, caressing her neck and arm, amazed that after all these years, he was finally allowed the liberty.

“You want to tell me why you wouldn’t let my mother cancel the theater outing with Griston?” Her breath whispered against him, igniting his senses.

He breathed in her rose-scented skin and tightened his hold on her. “I feel better having him in my sights. In fact, I sent a note over to Kimpton asking them to join us.”

The carriage pulled to a stop on Catherine Street. “We’re here.” Brock forced himself to release her as the carriage shook with the removal of the steps. She put her hands to her hair. “It looks fine,” he told her. The door opened, and Brock alighted then assisted Ginny to the walk.

He turned to his driver, speaking softly, “Punkle, be at the ready. I don’t anticipate staying for the entire production.” He wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to stomach Griston’s flowering attentions on Ginny.

“Ginny!” Lady Kimpton hurried over and hugged her.

Brock shook Kimpton’s hand. They hung back behind the ladies. “Any more word on Harlowe?” he asked softly.

“Nothing. The trail has gone cold.”

Inside the Theatre Royal, Brock gently set Ginny’s left hand on his right arm and led her up one side of the double staircase from the vestibule. The notion that he could appear in public with her struck him with renewed veneration as they worked their way up through the throng of theatergoers to the boxes under the Corinthian rotunda.

Griston’s box stood empty when they arrived. Brock stepped away, allowing the women to visit while Kimpton departed for refreshments.

“I’m terribly worried,” Lady Kimpton said.

Brock’s gaze moved from the mob below to the frown covering Ginny’s face. “Surely you don’t believe Corinne will—”

“Of course not,” Lorelei interrupted her. “She would never desert Nathaniel. He’s just a babe. Still, hiding my concern becomes more difficult by the day.”

“Suppose the girls and I come for a visit tomorrow?” She glanced at Brock, a smile hovering her lips. “After our safeguarding instructions. Say, two o’clock?”

“Yes. Corinne does enjoy watching Irene with the children. That child is a natural.”

“I came to the conclusion earlier today that my firstborn is considerably older than my own age of nine and twenty.”

Lady Kimpton’s laughter filled the box. “Good heavens, I believe you have the right of it.”

Ginny’s own laugh followed. The curtains moved aside, and Kimpton appeared, his hands laden with glasses. “What did I miss? Still no Griston?”

The same thought occurred to Brock.