Notorious Pleasures (26 page)

“She never spends the money necessary to employ musicians of any talent,” Cousin Bathilda continued, “and thus we are all forced to listen to off-key violinists and tipsy sopranos while partaking of squashy cakes and watered wine.”

“If her events are so awful, why go?” Phoebe asked reasonably. It was the first morning she’d felt well enough to come down to breakfast. Her right arm was bound tight to her chest, and she used her left a little awkwardly to eat.

“My dear gel,” Cousin Bathilda said severely, “Mrs. Vaughan is sister to the Duchess of Chadsworth, who is mother to the future Duke of Chadsworth, a very fine catch indeed. It would not do to insult her.”

Phoebe wrinkled her nose. “Well, Hero is already engaged and
I
think the future Duke of Chadsworth is mentally deficient.
And
he has no chin.” She popped a bite of roll into her mouth.

“Hero, explain to your sister the importance of remaining in the good graces of duchesses, irrespective of whether their sons have chins or not,” Cousin Bathilda commanded.

Hero opened her mouth to say something vague. Her mind wasn’t really on the conversation. All she could think about was the appointment she intended to make immediately following breakfast.

Fortunately, Cousin Bathilda hadn’t really wanted someone else speaking for her. “No matter one’s own rank, one should never irritate the sister of a duchess. It’s simply bad form.”

“
I
think it’s bad form for her to hold boring musicales,” Phoebe said pertly.

“You are but a child,” Cousin Bathilda pronounced. “You’ll understand better when you come of age, won’t she, Hero?”

“Um…” Hero looked at the older woman blankly for a moment as her mind caught up with the breakfast-table conversation. “I suppose so.”

Cousin Bathilda was feeding Mignon a bit of bacon and wasn’t paying much attention to her, but Phoebe looked at her curiously, squinting a bit through her spectacles. “Are you feeling quite the thing?”

“Oh, yes.” Hero took a sip of her tea and found it had gone cold. “Why?”

Phoebe shrugged. “You seem distracted.”

“Wedding nerves,” Cousin Bathilda said. “I’ve seen it before. A gel gets all fuzzy-minded the closer the date comes. Soon she’ll not make a lick of sense at all.”

“You make getting married sound like a debilitating disease,” Phoebe laughed.

“For some it is,” Cousin Bathilda said darkly. “Now finish up your breakfast. Maximus said he’ll be calling on you this morning.”

Bathilda gave Hero a significant glance, and Hero realized that Maximus must be coming to tell Phoebe the bad news about her season—or lack thereof.

On that ominous note, Hero excused herself and called for a carriage to be brought round. She couldn’t bear to sit at the table any longer, listening to Cousin Bathilda talk about her marriage, and she was worried about Phoebe. Poor Cousin Bathilda was going to be so upset when she heard what Hero was about to do.

The thought wasn’t pleasant, and it brought with it the realization of all the other people she was about to disappoint. Dear Lord, her family might never forgive her. But her plan was the right thing to do, even if it was not the easiest, so she held her head high as she stepped down from the carriage outside Mandeville House.

The hour was unfashionably—indeed scandalously—early, and she hadn’t brought a chaperone. The butler lifted his eyebrow faintly when she requested to see Mandeville, but he showed her into the sitting room readily enough. Hero paced to the mantel and stared sightlessly at some Mandeville ancestor’s portrait. What she planned to do would infuriate Maximus, nullify their bargain, and put Griffin in danger. After talking to Thomas, she would have to go to Maximus and throw herself on his mercy. Perhaps if she promised to—

Thomas opened the door.

He crossed to her immediately, his handsome features worried. “What is it, my dear? Has something happened?”

Now that he was before her, tall and imposing, Hero found she had trouble putting together the words. “I…” She cleared her throat and looked about the room. A group of chairs sat together in one corner. “I need to talk to you. Will you be seated?”

He blinked and she fought down nervous laughter. No doubt he was rarely if ever told to take a seat in his own home—or anywhere else for that matter. He was a marquess. What she was about to do suddenly made her quail. Before she could change her mind, she hurried to the chairs and sat down. Mandeville followed more slowly, frowning now.

Hero waited until he sat across from her and then just said it. “I cannot marry you.”

He shook his head, his expression clearing. “My dear, such bridal nerves are common, even for a woman as level-headed as you. Don’t worry that—”

“No,” she said, causing him to abruptly close his mouth. “I’m not suffering from nerves or… or any kind of womanly hysteria. I simply cannot marry you.”

She bit her lip as he stared at her.

“I am sorry,” she offered belatedly, conscious that she was making a hash of this.

He stiffened at her apology, possibly realizing for the first time that she was serious. “Perhaps if you explain to me the problem, I can help.”

Oh, Lord, if only he weren’t so reasonable!

She looked down at her hands. “I’ve simply come to the understanding that… that we won’t do together.”

“Is it something I’ve done?”

“No!” She looked up quickly, leaning forward earnestly. “You’re everything a lady could hope for in a husband. This has nothing to do with you. It’s me, I’m afraid. I just can’t marry you.”

He shook his head. “The marriage contracts have been drawn up and our engagement announced. It’s too late to change your mind, my dear. You protest otherwise, but I believe this is simply a case of bridal anxiety. Perhaps if you go home and rest, spend the day abed with some tea. I do feel—”

“I’m not a virgin any longer, Thomas.”

His head reared back as if she’d struck him. “My dear…”

“I can’t with good conscience marry you,” she said softly. “It would not be fair to you.”

For a moment he simply stared at her, and she thought he’d realized that this was final.

Then he spoke.

“I cannot pretend joy at this news,” he began ponderously. “But it isn’t as earth-shattering as all that. I will, of course, want to wait long enough to make sure any offspring is mine, but—”

Dear God, but she wanted to scream! “I lay with your brother, Thomas.”

He stared at her, his face slowly going red.

She stood. “I’ve compromised myself and sacrificed both my virtue and perhaps more importantly my self-worth. I’m sorry, Thomas. You do not deserve this. If I’d—”

One moment she was babbling and he was staring at her stony-faced. In the next he was towering over her, his expression red and awful and completely terrifying. She had only a second of fear.

And then he struck her full in the face.

He nodded to the butler as he entered. “Where’s my brother?”

“The marquess is in the crimson sitting room,” the butler intoned.

Griffin began striding in that direction. “I’ll just show myself in.”

“He has a guest, my lord.”

Griffin turned, still backing toward the sitting room. “Who?”

“My Lady Hero.”

Griffin paused. Hero had been very quiet yesterday as she’d left him. He’d hoped that her silence meant she was rethinking marriage to him, but surely she wouldn’t say anything to Thomas without—

A shout came from the sitting room.

Griffin pivoted and ran toward the sound. A crash came and then another shout.

He flung open the door as the shout coalesced into a single screamed word. “Whore!”

Thomas was standing, shoulders hunched, face bloodred, over something on the floor. The place where he glared was concealed by the settee. Griffin felt his blood turn to sharp, stabbing ice in the second it took him to cross the room and look over the settee.

She was alive. That much he saw and comprehended. She lay in a pool of emerald green skirts but she was alive.

Then his attention was drawn to the red mark on the side of her beautiful face.

It was in the shape of a man’s hand.

Roaring filled his head, white and complete, drowning out sound, sight, and reason. He took Thomas low, his shoulder slamming into his brother’s belly. Thomas staggered back, hitting a chair, and they both went over, chair and all. Thomas swung a fist, and Griffin took it on the shoulder, not even feeling the blow.

Not feeling anything but murderous rage.

He lowered his head and beat, fists balled, teeth clenched, the roaring in his ears loud and total. He saw only Thomas’s bloody face, his brother’s mouth moving, saying something, perhaps pleading, and Griffin’s heart swelled with gleeful rage.

He’d touched her. He’d
hurt
her. And for that he deserved to walk upon crippled legs.

Someone pounded on his back, but he didn’t pay attention. Not until Hero shouted in his ear. “Griffin, stop!”

He became aware, slowly it seemed, of people in the room. Of an ache in his shoulder and, strangely, his jaw. He glanced up and saw Mater’s face.

She was crying.

His arms fell to his side, and he stared at her, his chest heaving.

“Oh, Griffin,” she said, and he wanted to weep as well. To howl his shame and sorrow.

He looked down and saw Thomas lying between his knees, trying to staunch the blood flowing from his nose with one hand. Over his hand, his brother’s blue eyes glittered with rage and an answering shame.

“Griffin,” Hero said, her hand on his shoulder as light as a bird’s, and finally he turned to look at her.

Tears sparkled in her eyes, and one side of her face was reddened and beginning to swell. The sight enraged him all over again, but this time he didn’t glance at his brother. Instead he reached for her face, his hands bloody and trembling.

He cradled her with his bruised hands. “Are you all right?”

“No,” she said. “No.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry.”

He rose and tried to take her into his arms, to somehow try and make right this bloody, awful mess.

But she shook her head, backing away. “Don’t.”

“Hero,” he pleaded, and his vision blurred. “Please.”

“No.” Her hand rose, delicate and pale, to halt him. “No, I can’t… just don’t.”

And she turned and fled the room.

Griffin looked around. The butler, a footman, and several maids were standing about gawking while his mother’s frail shoulders shook.

“Get out, the lot of you,” he barked to the servants.

They fled silently.

He took Mater into his arms, feeling the fragile bones of her shoulder blades. “I’m so sorry. I’m a beast.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What has happened?”

“Griffin seduced my fiancée,” Thomas said indistinctly through swelling lips. He still lay on the floor. “He couldn’t keep his hands off her any more than he could keep his hands off poor Anne.”

“Griffin?” Mater looked at him, her eyes bewildered, and it nearly broke his heart.

“Shut up, Thomas,” he growled.

“How dare you—”

Griffin turned his head slowly and glared at his brother silently, his upper lip lifting in a threat so primal, even Thomas understood. “You’ll not talk of this. You’ll not insinuate. You’ll not even speak her name—do you understand?”

“I—” Thomas shut his mouth.

“Not a word, or I’ll finish what I began.”

Mater laid a protesting hand on his shoulder, but this was too important, even if it distressed her further. Griffin held Thomas’s gaze until his elder brother nodded and looked away.

“Good,” Griffin said. “Come, Mater. Let’s have some tea and I’ll try to explain.”

And he led her from the room, leaving Thomas on his arse on the floor.