The Marquess Method by Kathleen Ayers
26
“Lady Haven? Where would you like the table?”
Theo turned to Rolfe and pointed to a spot just to the left of the window. “There, I think.” The delivery of the furniture yesterday was the final piece of her renovation of the drawing room. She’d spent most of the morning with her stalwart butler moving about tables, settees, sofas, and chairs until they met her vision. Drawing rooms were meant to be grand, but Greenbriar’s would also be cozy. Warm. Welcoming.
“’Tis beautiful, my lady.” Rolfe, still holding the small table with delicately carved legs, turned in a circle to admire her work. “The midnight sky. The constellations. You are a true artist, if I may say so.”
“You may, Rolfe.”
Theo was immensely pleased with the look of the drawing room. Haven and Jacinda had been sternly warned away, and no one had been permitted entry until she was finished. The staff had been kept out by Rolfe, who was the only other person to have seen Theo’s final touches. Only the sideboard remained empty. Erasmus had made off with the brandy the moment it had arrived. She’d had Rolfe lock the remainder of the spirits away.
After gently telling Haven about the theft of Jacinda’s books and her miniatures, Haven had gone to confront his uncle yesterday, so furious, Theo had been concerned for Erasmus’s safety. So Theo had followed, reminding her husband that Erasmus was a harmless sot.
His uncle had cringed at the sight of Haven, falling to the floor and scuttling away from his nephew like a terrified crab.
Theo had watched from her place by the door, determined to ensure that Haven didn’t unintentionally harm his uncle. She pitied Erasmus. He unsettled her, but she didn’t wish him hurt.
“My patience is at an end,” Haven had said after berating his uncle over the theft. He’d turned away, shaking his head as he headed in Theo’s direction.
“As it turns out, so is mine.” Erasmus had stiffened, bleary eyes focused for once, and full of loathing. “Don’t think, Ambrose,” he had said in a hushed, smug tone, “that I don’t know what you’ve done.” Erasmus turned his head slightly, catching sight of Theo, who watched him from the door, and smiled—a thin, gruesome thinning of the lips which had made her misgivings about Haven’s uncle seem not so wild after all.
Haven had stopped, turning back to his uncle. “What did you say?”
The hatred in his uncle’s eyes disappeared, replaced with the vacancy Theo had become accustomed to. Erasmus started to sing. He rose and shuffled away, headed in the direction of the tree where Theo knew a bottle of brandy probably awaited him.
“Haven.” Theo had taken his arm, meaning to finally tell him that . . . well, there was something not right with Erasmus. Something beyond the obvious.
He’d shaken her off, a grim look on his face, before disappearing for the remainder of the day, only returning after she’d already gone to bed. Theo had awoken with the press of Haven’s tongue between her legs before he’d taken her with an intensity that had frightened her. It hadn’t seemed the right time to speak of Erasmus.
“Lady Haven?” Rolfe interrupted her musings with a nod to the position of the table. “Here?”
Theo turned her head, taking in the glorious room she’d created. “Perfect.”
Everything was perfect, except for the tiny bit of dread which seemed to linger over her. It had formed immediately after Haven’s confrontation with his uncle and refused to leave.
“Should I check to see when Lord Haven is expected?”
Theo nodded to Rolfe, smoothing her skirts. “If you please, Rolfe.”
Haven had gone to the village very early this morning, pausing only to press a kiss on her forehead just as the sun rose. Something about the blasted pigs. He seemed obsessed of late with sows and piglets. He was due back shortly.
Jacinda and Mrs. Henderson had been sent to pick berries and wouldn’t be back for hours.
Betts had dressed Theo in a gown of midnight blue in keeping with the color palette of the drawing room. The neckline was indecent. She wore her hair down, spilling about her shoulders. Spectacles, she left firmly perched on her nose.
The entire room, including herself, was spectacular.
Settling herself on the damask of her new sofa, Theo fluffed her skirts and waited for Haven to arrive. She loved him. If the painting in the drawing room didn’t scream the words loudly enough to him, her seduction of his person would. Rolfe would ensure they were not disturbed.
Her butler, as if on cue, returned to stand before her, a packet of letters clasped in one hand. “Lord Haven approaches.” A tiny smile lingered on his mouth.
Bless Rolfe. He’d had one of the newly hired grooms watching for Haven.
“Thank you, Rolfe. Is there a letter from my mother?” Theo pounded on the cushion to her left. It didn’t look quite as plump as it should. She usually received at least one letter each day; from her mother, Olivia, Maggie, sometimes even Phaedra. Last week, she’d received an exceptionally long missive from Romy detailing her adventures with the Frost Giant in Italy and exclaiming over Theo’s marriage to Haven.
There it was again. The ping in her brain. Italy. Where Haven had been set upon by thieves, and they’d tried to kill him for his purse. A gentleman who looked impoverished.
“From the duke.” Rolfe handed her an envelope, bringing her attention back to the moment. “And one for Mr. Stitch from His Grace as well.”
Theo frowned as she took the envelope. Her brother rarely wrote to her. Sometimes there were two or three lines added to the letters from her mother or Maggie, but nothing from Tony. Perhaps he’d written to tell her the Averell coach and footmen should come back to London, as it seemed he’d written to Stitch as well. It made sense. She’d already mentioned to her mother she was happy and planned on staying at Greenbriar.
Rolfe left her to her letter, going in search of Stitch.
Breaking the ducal seal, Theo started to read, expecting him to say he wished his coach back or possibly to share news of her brother Leo.
The letter did concern Leo. In fact, a note from him to her was tucked inside.
The paper crinkled between her fingers, the words blurring before her as she read Leo’s note. A terrible sensation of dread blossomed inside her, finally bursting free. She thought it might be her heart cracking at the betrayal of everything Theo had thought to be true.
He lied to me.
Coldness set in as she placed the letter face down on the sofa, unable to look at it a moment longer.
Clasping her hands, Theo lifted her chin and waited patiently for her husband to arrive.
* * *
Ambrose stoppedas he came around the corner, seeing the Averell coach with the ducal coat of arms idling in front of Greenbriar. He inhaled sharply, nodding at Stitch as the driver came forward with a bow.
“The duke asked me to ready the carriage, my lord,” Stitch explained, face absent of all expression.
“Has the mail arrived today?” Ambrose’s mouth had gone dry. Murphy hadn’t come to fetch his sister, nor Averell. He supposed he should count himself lucky, except Ambrose knew, with a horrible shredding sensation in his chest as he climbed the steps, that it only meant the news had come in the form of a letter.
His butler greeted him with a bow, questions hovering in Rolfe’s eyes, though he was too well-trained to ask. “Lady Haven awaits you in the drawing room, my lord.”
Once again, Ambrose knew that prick Leo Murphy and his pompous brother were going to take everything from Ambrose. And this time, it would be much more excruciating than simply impoverishing the Marquess of Haven.
I should have told her. Made her understand.
Ambrose walked into the drawing room, shocked for a moment by the transformation of the space. Bloody beautiful. He prepared himself to dodge one of the recently purchased vases or knickknacks, but he should have known better.
Theodosia sat calmly, so stunning it hurt to look at her, a celestial body having fallen from the heavens to grace the drawing room. There was nothing left of the flirtatious, slightly empty-headed young lady, ripe for ruination, whom he’d met so long ago.
No, not empty-headed. Theodosia had only refused to see her own value. Stumbling about blindly to attract Blythe’s attention. Instead, it was Ambrose who’d been drawn to her. Seeing the look on her face, she might prefer Blythe now, after all.
Her shoulders were stiff. Chin tilted upward not in defiance but with disdain. There was no warmth for him in the swirling blue of her eyes. Only a flash of the wound he’d inflicted. His last hope that Leo Murphy had forgotten the Marquess of Haven evaporated.
How ironic. He’d lived for years wanting Murphy to remember him.
He approached the wall, unable to look away from what she’d painted. For him. He’d never told her he loved her. He should have. Theodosia would never believe those words, not now. And she had returned that love. The proof was before him.
The night sky above Greenbriar, the same one he’d seen outside the windows of the studio he’d given her upstairs, was depicted across the long wall facing the door. The stars looked exactly as they had on the untold evenings Ambrose had spent with his father, picking out the constellations. Dreaming of the moon and stars while his father instructed Ambrose how to navigate using the heavens.
He and his father would share pie and drink cider. Ambrose would tell him all about his day, the rocks he’d collected in his pockets. The frog he’d brought for Mother, though she wasn’t at all impressed.
The wall was stunning. Magnificent. Far more than Ambrose deserved.
Theodosia wore midnight blue, matching the sofa she sat upon, an opened letter next to her. Even from where he stood, Ambrose could see the seal of the Duke of Averell. He took a step closer, pained when her slender form fell back slightly as if his touch would soil her.
“It’s magnificent,” Ambrose said. “You are magnificent.”
“Did you want me the moment I spilled ratafia on you or only after you realized I was Leo Murphy’s sister?”
A fist clamped down on his chest—the pain of his heart breaking. “Theodosia—”
“Answer my question, Ambrose.”
“It’s complicated,” he said softly, taking a careful step in her direction, afraid she would run from him. “Please let me explain.”
“All this time.” Her words held such an acrid note, hardly sounding like Theodosia at all. “You had me believing—” She looked down at her lap before raising her chin again. “You made me believe you wanted me. But that wasn’t the case at all. You wanted Leo Murphy’s sister.”
“I didn’t lie about wanting you.”
“Only everything else.” Her words were sharp. Cutting. As if the last few weeks had never happened.
“One had nothing to do with the other. I fell in lov—”
“Don’t you dare. Do not say it.” Theodosia trembled slightly, blinking as if to stop from weeping, something he’d never seen her do, not even when Lady Blythe treated her with such scorn. “You promised to be honest with me.”
“I did. I am. You know how I feel about you.” He pressed a palm over his chest, directly above his heart. “You know.”
Theo’s gaze flicked over him, chilly and uncompromising. “You never told me Elysium was where your father beggared himself, Ambrose. Never explained to me that he gave away everything you held dear so he could play dice at the club my brother owns. Wasn’t that a truth you should have told me?”
“My father didn’t give it away,” he shot back. “Your brother coerced him into it.” He was angry now too. Incensed that one letter from Leo Murphy far outweighed the nights spent in his arms. The way they’d worked together to rebuild Greenbriar. The love Ambrose knew lay between them.
He took a step forward. “My father would never have gambled everything away, especially not my sister’s dowry, without someone drawing him along. I’m sure he made the perfect mark. Grief-stricken. Wealthy. Easy to manipulate. Your brother is a monumental prick who delights in destroying bits and pieces of the aristocracy because he will never belong to it. My father is doubtless only one of Murphy’s victims, all because your brother can’t tolerate being a low-born bastard.”
Theodosia didn’t even flinch at Ambrose’s snarling temper. Instead, she smoothed down the fabric of her skirts.
“My brother’s illegitimate birth in no way diminishes who he is or my love for him. He is a businessman. You behave as if Leo incited your father to drink and gamble away everything but his title. Edmund Collingwood,” her eyes narrowed behind the glass of her spectacles, “was a sot and a very poor gambler. Liked whores as well, I’m told.”
Ambrose thought he might snap in two. He backed away from her, horrified by this repulsive conversation. One he’d prayed never to have.
“He was only too happy to sign away your inheritance, Ambrose. The only inducement he needed was found at the bottom of a bottle of scotch. A truth you refuse to see but one I’ll acknowledge.”
Even as angry as he was, Ambrose admired Theodosia’s steel. Her absolute loyalty to her brother and her family. He just wished she felt a bit of that loyalty for him.
“I am not sure how you managed to be in the study at exactly the right time, nor do I wish to know. Maybe you and Blythe conspired together.” She gave a shrug. “I suppose when faced with both myself and my sister at Granby’s house party, you couldn’t decide which one of us would do. I suspect Granby claiming my sister deterred you, so you sought out second best.”
“You are not second best, Theodosia.” A wash of agony hit him in the chest, pushing aside his anger and frustration. “You are first, last, and always for me.” His voice broke. “Please—”
A contemptuous laugh came from her as she stood, ignoring his outstretched hand. “I’m leaving, Haven. I cannot bear to be near you right now.” She purposefully took off her spectacles and tossed them carelessly on the sofa. “I can’t stand the sight of you. I was much happier before everything was made so clear to me.” She bent to pick up the letter, careful to stay out of his reach.
Ambrose reached out and took hold of her elbow. The anger between them made it difficult for him to breathe. He wanted to lock her away until she listened to him. Let him explain.
“At least take your bloody spectacles, Theodosia,” he growled. “You won’t be able to see. You’ll trip and—”
“Grope some unsuspecting gentleman?” she whispered in a falsely flirtatious manner. “Dear God.” She leaned in purposefully so he could see down her bodice. “I hope so.”
Ambrose released her, temper flaring again at her words. “You would do well, Lady Haven,” he hissed, “to remember that this will not be a marriage of distance or one where you take lovers. That has not changed. Nor will it.”
“Oh, dear. Fight a duel over it. I beg you.” Theo strode from the room, her skirts swirling about her ankles. “Goodbye, Ambrose. Enjoy the painting and my dowry.”
