The Gallant Guardian (20 page)

Max was no proof against such obvious delight. The hard, angry line of his compressed lips relaxed into a reluctant smile. “Why yes, William I shall show you my stock, but for the moment why don’t you go find Griggs? He is in the stables and I expect he will be just as surprised to see you as I am.”

The ironic tone was lost on the boy, but not on his sister, who blushed and gripped her hands even more tightly together in her lap. The marquess was not pleased. She had known it would be that way. He was someone who treasured his privacy and independence and who loathed interference from any quarter. She sympathized heartily with this, but William’s welfare was of paramount importance; what else could she have done?

“I do not blame you for being annoyed, my lord,” she began in a low voice as soon as her brother had raced from the room and clattered down the hall, “and ordinarily I would never intrude, but I…we…there have been developments.”

Max’s anger receded as quickly as it had come as he looked more closely at her and laid a firm, but comforting hand on her shoulder. The dark smudges of fatigue under the deep-set eyes, the grayish pallor of her usually glowing skin, and the dispirited droop of her shoulders told him more than he needed to know about her reasons for seeking him out. She was desperate and worried, with no one to turn to. The last remnants of annoyance vanished to be replaced by the strangest sensation of pride that she had looked to him as the person most likely to be able to help her.

His heart turned over at the exhaustion and worry he sensed in her, and his throat was strangely tight. It was a moment before he
could say anything. “My poor girl, you have had a nasty time of it, it appears. Tell me what has occurred.”

Grateful tears stung Charlotte’s eyes. He was going to help after all. It had not been a dreadful mistake to come. Observing first the raucous party in the dining room and then the fierce expression of irritation as he had entered the room, she had begun to doubt the wisdom of her actions and to wish fervently that she had not come. But then the rigid, angry lines of his face had softened and the iciness in those penetrating eyes had warmed. He was still her friend, the friend she remembered from his visit to Harcourt, the friend who had given her strength and support, enough strength and support that she had come running to him when she was at a loss as to what to do next.

“I…I do apologize for descending on you without the least bit of warning, but I had no choice.”

“I am sure you did not. Now, what is amiss?” Still grasping her shoulder with a warm hand, he sat down next to her and looked deep into her eyes.

The weight of his body next to hers on the sofa, the breadth of his shoulders, the alert expression as he prepared to listen to her story, had an amazingly calming effect. Charlotte drew a steadying breath and began. “I know that this may seem like the most absurd fantasy concocted by an overactive imagination, but William was narrowly missed by a poacher’s bullet yesterday.” Was it only yesterday? It seemed a week ago. The strain of it all had made every hour before they had reached the safety of Lydon Court seem like a day. And now, recounting it to the marquess, it sounded like such an ordinary event that Charlotte wondered if she had been foolishly precipitate in overreacting to one of the normal hazards of country life. “Now I know that my suspicions were correct, somebody
is
trying to hurt William. We do not have poachers at Harcourt, because there is never anything worth hunting and we have always allowed those who wished it full run of the woods and fields away from the house itself. Somebody is trying to hurt William and I didn’t know what to do to protect him, so I had to come here.”

Max was silent for a moment mulling it over. “Did you discuss this with anyone?”

“Only with Speen, and he agrees with me that it is too out of the ordinary not to be significant. He too mistrusts the groom that Cecil sent with Caesar. Furthermore, it appears that no one can account for the groom’s whereabouts at the precise moment that the entire episode was taking place.”

“Hmmm.” The marquess already respected Charlotte as a reliable, practical young woman who was not given to exaggeration, but, during his stay in Sussex, he had closely observed Speen and taken the man’s measure. It had not taken very long before he had reached the conclusion that the grizzled old servant was more than a coachman to the Winterbournes, but operated as something more along the lines of advisor and protector, particularly for William, who spent as much of his time as possible in the part of the estate under Speen’s jurisdiction. In Speen, Max saw another Felbridge and, indeed, his own loyal servant had confirmed this by his reports of what went on in the stables at Harcourt. “If that is the case, then it seems you made a wise decision in quitting Harcourt as quickly as you did. The question remains, however, as to how we should proceed. For the moment, I think it perhaps best that you remain here. I, ah, have been
entertaining
some guests, er, old friends from India, but they intend to leave tomorrow.” Max devoutly hoped that he would be able to convince his friends that the brevity of their visit was in their own best interest, that any more rustication on their part would result in a paralyzing boredom.

Stealing a quick glance at her guardian from under her lashes, Charlotte was surprised to see the faintest hint of red stain his cheeks under his deep tan and a slightly self-conscious look creep into his eyes, and she quickly surmised that his guests had intended no such thing. She hastily bit her lip to hide her amusement. It was a rare thing to see the arrogant Marquess of Lydon even the slightest bit discomfited, but discomfited he undoubtedly was. The urge to tease him was irresistible. “Please do not ask them to leave on our account. I should be delighted to meet them. I have so little opportunity to make the acquaintance of anyone except our nearest neighbors, and I have known them all for years. Your friends seemed to be most amusing; certainly you were all enjoying yourselves when we arrived. It would be a dreadful shame to spoil it.”

“You saw, then?” Max tugged irritably at his cravat, which he seemed to have tied too tightly. What exactly had she seen and, more importantly, what exactly had she understood?

“I caught a brief glimpse of the ladies, but they seemed to be quite pretty, gay, and amusing, certainly more amusing than Lady Winslow and her daughters or anyone else I meet around Harcourt. They looked as though they would be rather fun to know.”

Max choked and pulled harder at his cravat. “Believe me, you would not find them the least bit entertaining.”

“But you did. You seemed to find the dark-haired one next to you most diverting, so surely I should do the same.”

“But it is
not
the same, believe me.” For once in his life, Maximilian was at a loss for words. All his life he had condemned his parents and much of the society in which they had moved for being hypocritical, for maintaining rigidly proper exteriors while they committed every sort of indiscretion, for choosing people as friends based on their social standing rather than on their characters. Now he was about to do much the same sort of thing. But it was different. Charlotte did not understand the implications of it all; or did she? Looking down into those magnificent eyes, he detected what looked to be a mischievous twinkle.

“I suppose that is what Lady Winslow and the others mean when they talk about the scandalous doings of rakes and libertines, but it does not look so very dreadful to me. What is wrong with enjoying oneself? Those ladies seemed to be enjoying themselves, and they were not hurting anyone or causing anyone any harm. I know that you think that a gently brought up young lady should not know women like that, but I am not a gently brought up young lady. In fact, I was not brought up at all, except by myself.”

“What is wrong, indeed?” The marquess’s lips twitched in spite of the heroic self-control he was exercising. There was no doubt about it. Lady Charlotte was an original. No wonder Almeria and Cecil were desperate to marry her off quickly and force her independent spirit and questioning intellect into a more socially acceptable and conformable personality. As it was, even Max, iconoclast that he had always been, was being made distinctly uncomfortable by her unanswerable logic.

“Your dinner party seemed to be far more entertaining than the few I have ever witnessed.”

The wistful note in Charlotte’s voice brought him up short. “Believe me, these, er,
ladies
may be enjoying themselves for the moment, but there is not a one of them who would not trade places with you in an instant.” Even before the words were out of his mouth, Max knew that they would mean nothing to her because her wealth and social position meant nothing to her. Charlotte was, purely and simply, lonely, and she always had been. Position and wealth had given her nothing that she particularly wanted, and at
the moment, they were a source of complication for her, inspiring the envy and jealousy of Cecil and Almeria.

He went on. “And believe me, you would soon find that Tubby, Jack, and Colly, even though they tend to laugh a good deal more than most people, are rather limited in their conversations, which center around two topics, and two topics only—horses and the fancy. Believe me, I know.”

“Oh.” Charlotte wrinkled her forehead as she concentrated on recalling the scene in the dining room. At first glance it had appeared that everyone was laughing, joking, drinking, and flirting, but the more she pictured it, the more she realized that Lord Lydon, in spite of being physically entwined with his dinner partner, had worn the slightly remote expression of a spectator rather than a participant.

In fact, Max was realizing the very same thing. He had thought he was enjoying himself, but in truth, it was only the memories of India that he was enjoying. In India, he had chosen Tubby, Jack, and Colly as friends more because they tended to avoid the fashionable squeezes and matchmaking mamas as diligently as he did than because of any personal attractions they possessed or common interests they shared.

“At any rate, there is truly no need for them to leave on our account. William and I have no wish to intrude, only to be safe. We shall be quite happy to keep to ourselves and you may carry on as though we were still miles away in Sussex.”

“But I do not wish to do so.” And, smiling down into the big green eyes, the marquess realized with something of a shock, that this was quite true. He was rather looking forward to showing them around his estate and sharing quiet evenings in front of the fire again with Charlotte. He had missed those evenings, and he had missed her. He had not realized quite how much he had missed her until he had seen the slender figure seated wearily in front of the fire, too weary even to smooth the dark tendrils of hair that had freed themselves from the knot at the back of her head and now curled around the pale, strained face.

Max had to fight the urge to wrap her in his arms and comfort her. It was then he knew that ever since his leaving Harcourt there had always been at the back of his mind a nagging worry over her and an unconscious concern for her welfare. “Speaking of all the miles between here and Sussex, I realize that I am being an abominable host, however unexpected the visit. And you must be quite
done up. I shall have Mrs. Purdy show you and William to your rooms and see that you are fed while I attend to my other guests.”

He rose as if to leave, but stopped and, gently taking her hand again, raised it to his lips. “Sleep well, Charlotte.”

He had spoken so softly that Charlotte did not take in the precise words he had uttered until after he had shut the door behind him, but she sensed their meaning and the concern for her that lay behind them. Hot tears pricked her eyelids as she dropped her chin into her hands and stared into the fire.

Chapter Twenty-two

The dining room seemed almost garishly bright to Max in comparison to the flickering flames of the library fire and the fading light of the sunset that had suffused the library with a soft pink glow. And his companions’ hilarity was such that they hardly noticed his return. In fact, Tubby, bent double over his partner’s ample bosom by a hearty guffaw, did not notice his host at all until he grabbed for his glass of port, missed, and would have slid from his chair had not Max caught him. “What, back already? She must not have been worth it,” he exclaimed wiping his streaming eyes.

“What makes you think it was a she?” There was no mistaking the iciness in Lydon’s voice.

Tubby goggled at his host’s grim expression. “Of course it must be a she; nothing less could make you interrupt such a jolly party as this. No offense intended, old man.” Tubby eyed Max uneasily. Lydon did look rather fierce, and Tubby had no intention of aggravating a temper that was legendary on the Indian subcontinent.

The expression of alarm in his friend’s eyes brought Max up short. He quickly swallowed his anger to answer lightly, “No such thing, Tubby, it was merely duty calling.”

“Duty?” Tubby looked as blank as if Max were suddenly addressing him in a foreign tongue. “Duty? You?”

“Yes. Even
I have some obligations, and this one unfortunately compels me to cut short our little party. I am afraid that I shall have to ask you all to leave tomorrow.”

“Leave tomorrow! Ha, it
must
be a lady. You would not act so havey-cavey about it otherwise.” Colly Forsyth, catching the end of the conversation, hiccupped and waved an empty bottle at the footman, who had stolen in to replace a guttering candle. “And she must be a rare little ladybird if you are so anxious to keep her all to yourself,” He winked broadly at Max before turning back to his own companion. “You go ahead and be a dog-in-the-manger, I
don’t mind, for I’ve got lovely Bess here.” He planted a smacking kiss on the lady’s improbably red cheek.

Jack Standish, only a little less jug-bitten than his friends, was sober enough and close enough to Max to observe the muscles tighten in his jaw. “Here now, lads, Max invited us here and he has a perfect right to uninvite us. No need to turn it into a dust-up. I say we move the party to Newmarket to recoup our fortunes, and leave the man in peace. If he has got a duty, he has got a duty, and there’s an end to it.”