The Accidental Elopement (Scandalous Miss Brightwells Book 4) Page 23

  He was not about to do that.

  “George, you look like something the cat dragged in,” his mother told him, not looking at all pleased to see him when the clearly reluctant butler showed him into the dining room. “And you’re making great puddles where you stand. You’re as bad as a ten-year-old. Really, you must change your clothes but did you think to bring something with you? I cannot believe you did not.”

  Derry, realising something of import must have occurred to have his friend riding hell for leather, apparently did not want to bring attention to their collusion, for he merely directed his valet to take George away and provide him with something appropriate.

  But first, the others wanted to know if he’d passed Jack along the way. Jack. That’s all they were concerned with. They were cross when he told them he’d passed Jack’s equipage but had not stopped.

  The others seemed to see this as a deficiency in George, and he’d been only too pleased to leave before he’d answered all their other questions.

  When he presented himself, dry and respectable, in the drawing room after dinner, some of the urgency had dissipated, and he was starting to feel foolish. Not only that, he felt as if his presence were being regarded more like an intrusion. Not even his mother was pleased to see him.

  Why Katherine’s cutting words had spurred him on so, he had no idea. What had he been thinking, racing off like that when Katherine had made it clear she’d be happy if she never saw him again—or whether he lived or died? It was cruel and painful. Then he saw Derry lounging against the mantelpiece, looking tall and debonair in his ancestral home; the home that was not quite as grand as Quamby House, yet he looked like the lord of his domain in a way George had never felt. Truth be told, George had spent his whole life feeling like an interloper. The odd boy out. The boy nobody wanted to talk to but was obliged to.

  Jack had been good to him. But Lord, it was only because of George that Jack had ever been invited to Quamby House. Jack was supposed to have been George’s playmate. Instead, he and Katherine had become as thick as thieves leaving George on the outer.

  George approached Derry, who looked up and ran a hand through his hair, saying, “Miss Worthington and I have been discussing the weather.” His nostrils flared and he looked quite unwelcoming.

  “The weather?” George repeated stupidly. He’d come here on a life-altering mission, and yet all these people could talk about was the weather.

  “Yes, the weather,” Miss Worthington said. She was seated demurely by the fire nearby.

  He eyed her suspiciously. Was she mocking him?

  Her clear-eyed gaze seemed to neither approve nor deride. Good God! Couldn’t she decide whether to accept or reject him? Was he so unworthy of notice? Of any kind of feeling either way? A powerful compulsion to stamp his foot and smash every ornament off the mantelpiece before delivering a great punch in his lordship’s self-satisfied face, was replaced by a mild enquiry as to whether they supposed the weather would be fine enough to continue the ride in the morning.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t stop to learn from Jack his plans,” remarked Miss Worthington.

  George clenched his fists as he tried to rein in his temper. Why, even Miss Worthington thought he wasn’t up to the mark. She was criticising him like all the others as to the decisions he’d made in coming here. They didn’t want him. None of them did. They made him feel as if he were as welcome as the dirt he’d brought in on his boots.

  For a long moment, he stared at her. Then he said, “If he’s headed for the Northcote Arms, it’s only half an hour’s ride by carriage from here. He’ll arrive soon enough.” He couldn’t hint at the truth, which was that he’d gone through hell to get here himself—falling from his horse twice, which had only hardened his anger towards Jack so that he didn’t trust himself to face his old friend knowing what only he and Katherine did. Well, maybe Jack did know that Katherine loved him. But not that she’d loved him for seven years and had intended to run away with him. That she would have if Freddy hadn’t intervened. And by God, George had had his hand in that one. Yes, when Katherine had turned him down all those years ago he’d felt glad that he was hurting Katherine in denying her Jack.

  Well, Jack would never know any of this from his lips. Not that it would have made a jot of difference. George knew Jack’s reasons for marrying Odette had nothing to do with love and everything to do with honour. That was another reason George hated him so much right now. Jack, who’d had nothing, had proved himself the bigger man. Everyone loved Jack even though he was an orphan.

  No one loved George.

  Everyone thought Jack a great hero filled with virtue and honour.

  No one attributed a jot of the honourable to George.

  Miss Worthington sighed. It was a peevish sound that set up George’s bristles. Lord, he didn’t think he could survive a lifetime married to such a creature. Jack deserved her.

  “Jack should be here any moment now. He must have reached the Northcote Arms and been directed here quite some time ago. Don’t you think, Lord Derry?”

  Not George. Oh no, she didn’t address George. He was beneath her notice.

  Derry smiled at Miss Worthington. He actually looked at her with indulgence as if what she’d said weren’t the most clinging and pathetic of utterances. “I’m sure we’ll hear him pounding on the door before we’ve finished our Madeira. Another glass, Miss Worthington?”

  “I might just have one myself, Derry,” said George, looking down at the borrowed trousers that were straining across his thighs and too long at the ankles. He felt as ridiculous as he surely looked. He drew himself up. When he was the Earl of Quamby, everyone would want to be his friend. He’d have money and influence. Lord, he had all the money he knew what to do with now, for his father didn’t keep him on short strings like some. True, from time to time Quamby drew in the reins, usually at his mama’s instigation if he’d been on a losing streak for too long. But George didn’t need money. Not generally, although it had been useful to contemplate the funds that would be his price for bringing Derry and Katherine together.

  A spasm of pain caused by his disordered thoughts ripped through him, and for the first time, someone showed him concern.

  “Are you quite all right, George?”

  He smiled gratefully at Miss Worthington. She had a heart, after all. He forgave her.

  She frowned at him. “For a moment, I thought you were about to cast up your accounts all over my shoes, as my father is wont to say, though I daresay it’s very vulgar. Still, it’s what came to mind.”

  She tittered, and Derry tittered too, and George decided he’d had enough.

  With a fulminating look at them from over his shoulder, he marched to the door. Let them all have joy of one another or rather being endlessly unhappy as George had been his entire life, he thought piteously.

  His mother sent him a concerned look as he strode past her but she made no attempt to stop him. He traversed the entire length of the drawing room past Uncle Bertram, and nearly tripped over the trailing hems of his trousers before he reached the door, and still no one stopped him.

  It had been a wasted effort. He’d come here to make a difference. He wasn’t sure exactly how, but he knew Katherine and Jack loved each other, and he’d hoped to facilitate something good for them. For the first time that he could remember, his motivations were entirely selfless, but no one appreciated his nobility, and he was damned if he was going to exert himself if this was all the appreciation he was going to get.

  His bedchamber had been assigned to him—the red room on the second floor. He’d changed there and now he was returning, but Derry detained him at the bottom of the stairs.

  “I say, old chap, you’re in rather a flame of indignation, eh? What’s got you so hot under the collar?” he asked. “Why are you here, really?”

  George felt some of the advantage had returned to him by being able to turn on the third step enabling him to look down at Derry, who was lounging against t
he newel post.

  “Why am I here?” He repeated it in clipped tones, trying to inject the words with sarcasm. “Why am I here, Derry? Because a little matter on home territory has changed matters somewhat, and I wish to have no part in any wager that feeds you to Katherine through blackmail, coercion, or underhand lies.”

  Derry blinked. “My, my, George, but that’s rich coming from you.”

  George bunched up his fists.

  Derry smiled. “If I recall, it was you who proposed the wager.”

  “A foolish lad’s throwaway line seven years ago. I never imagined it would come to anything. But tell me, does Katherine wish to marry you?”

  A shadow crossed Derry’s face. Evading the question, he said, “I spoke to Lady Hale earlier today, and she assured me she had no intention of allowing Katherine to keep Diana unless Katherine married me.”

  “I believe the stipulation was that Katherine was simply to marry a man who’d keep her wanton impulses in check. Which means that husband could be either you, or it could be me.”

  “You!” The derisive way Lord Derry laughed at that was enough to make George lunge at him and wipe that smirk off his face, but George was stronger than that. Or rather, he had ammunition stronger than fists.

  “Katherine has no desire to marry you. I think you know that, Derry.”

  Derry raised his chin. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, George.”

  “Katherine has no wish to marry you or to marry me. She has no wish to marry anyone except…” Would he say it? Was more harm to be caused by revealing the truth or not? George held back.

  “Except who?” Derry’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not going to tell me the stupid girl is still in love with Jack.”

  “Is it not as plain as the nose on your face that Katherine is in love with Jack, and Jack is in love with Katherine, only Jack is pledged to Miss Worthington, and his honour is stronger than the inconvenient beating of his heart whenever his childhood sweetheart is near.” George blinked at his unusual expressiveness, just as Derry did.

  When Derry seemed unable to respond, George went on, “Do you have so little pride that you’d coerce Katherine into marrying you using Diana as your weapon? Would you?” he prompted. “Would you really want to marry Katherine when you know her heart belongs to Jack, and it always will? She’s loved him since she was seven years old, and he her. Nothing will ever change that. I thought I could. But even I can’t.” His words felt lame, but there had been power in speaking the truth. Little matter that George was relinquishing all hope of Katherine or the thousand pounds he would make through seeing a wedding occur between Katherine and Derry.

  It was satisfying to see the bleak look on Derry’s face.

  And finally he felt like the bigger man when he turned and, leaving Derry with no words, continued up the stairs towards his bedchamber.

  Jack was exhausted by the time he reached Derry House. It was late, and the travelling had been tedious. Three times they’d been stuck in mud past the axle.

  He supposed he’d be welcomed. Odette was there, as were Lady Quamby and her brother, he’d learned.

  During the entire journey, he’d replayed in his mind his last encounter with Katherine. Had he phrased what he’d needed to in a manner to inflict the minimum pain? Regardless, she’d let him off easily.

  Then he wondered whether it was cowardice. Was he too afraid to break it off with Odette knowing she’d scream and wail and accuse him of deceiving her?

  He was very certain by the time he arrived that he’d acted in the only way possible. He’d ascertained that Odette’s father was in tolerable health before he’d left. There’d been no cause to bring her home, nor did his relief stem from the fact that there was consequently no reason to bring forward the wedding?

  He realised he’d have been happy to postpone it for as long as possible, yet every moment was one closer to that when he’d walk down the aisle with his joyful bride. And that was what he’d pledged—to make Odette happy when her world was falling apart around her. She’d lost her mother when she’d been a child. Her brother had died of fever the previous year. All that was left to her was her father and when he died, whom did she have to rely upon? A disinterested cousin and elderly aunt who played chaperone from time to time?

  The mood seemed strangely jovial when he was ushered into the drawing room with its lofty, gilded ceilings and expansive pale green Aubusson carpet. Lady Quamby appeared to have consumed a great deal of champagne; her brother was even more intoxicated. Even Odette seemed oddly affected as she stood up and wended her way a little shakily towards him, although he’d obviously bade her remain seated as he went to her.

  “You took your time, Jack.” George was pressing a glass of brandy into his hands. He was very oddly dressed, Jack thought, before he dismissed any thoughts regarding George apart from wondering what he was doing here.

  “Jack! Are you pleased to see me?”

  It was a very odd question from Odette, Jack thought, narrowing his eyes at her. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair looked a trifle disordered. But then, it had been a long day’s travelling.

  “Did you think you had to ask such a question, my dear?” He knew his words sounded stilted, but perhaps that was because he was the only sober member of the party. Yes, he was sure of it.

  Odette hooked her arm through his and walked with him to a cluster of chairs a little apart. “Tell me what you thought about during your long, dull journey?” she asked, putting her head close to his, leaning across the small space between their two wing-back armchairs. “Did you think of me, and me alone? Did you wish it wasn’t so long before our wedding? Did you regret having to go back to Quamby House with that child? Oh, do let’s get out of here, Jack. Let’s go for a stroll along the Gallery.”

  Jack didn’t know how to answer as she led him up a rear staircase to the old part of the house where they wandered past a collection of old suits of armour and pikes. Odette, however, seemed content enough to do all the talking. She stopped to gaze through the window. “You came into my life just when I needed you, Jack. You were my knight in shining armour. Indeed, you were. And Papa loves you. He loves you like the son he’d lost; I think you know. He was very good to you when you worked for him, wasn’t he?”

  “He taught me so much. I credit him with my success; you know that. I owe him everything.”

  “And me, Jack. You owe him the care of me.”

  Her words sounded slurred. Jack looked at her with concern. He turned her to him, holding her shoulders so he could look into her eyes.

  “Kiss me, Jack.” She closed her eyes and offered him her lips, and there was nothing Jack could do but as she asked. But every fibre of his body rebelled against the touch, even as she twined her hands behind his neck to deepen the kiss.

  With the greatest effort, he purged his mind of thoughts of Katherine. It was so wrong to compare the intoxication he’d felt only hours before in that forbidden, dreadfully sinful encounter with the lack of enjoyment he was feeling now.

  She stepped back, and he forced himself to smile while he berated himself internally for his disloyalty and wicked, unforgivable behaviour.

  But he’d atone. He’d spend the rest of his life atoning.

  For a long moment, she stared at him, as if reading in his face all the hopes and dreams she harboured for their long union together.

  Then she reached up her hand and touched his cheek, her smile one of the sweetest he’d seen. Yes, she was perfect for him. She was.

  “Let’s go back now, Jack. After all, we’re not married yet, are we?”

  Antoinette reached out her arm to arrest Bertram’s progress and waggled her fingers. “What a thoughtless brother you are. Can’t you see my glass is empty?”

  “I think you’ve had more than enough, Antoinette.”

  Since Bertram gave an inelegant hiccup at this juncture, Antoinette considered she was within her rights to up her demands, until Bertram wove his way over to t
he sideboard where Jack was sipping a glass of claret a little distance from George, though neither appeared to have anything to say to the other.

  After downing her drink quite quickly, Antoinette felt the need to succumb to the call of nature. There was no one to whom to offer her excuses, so she left the room with no fanfare, sailed up the passage, and then happened to glance left where a small flight of stairs descended to a dim passage that snaked through the darkness to the bowels of the house. The sight that greeted her made her first wonder if her eyes were playing tricks on her, then whether someone had put something in her drink, and finally to wonder if she truly was a sorceress before she realised the need to make as silent a passage past as possible.

  “Mother, are you all right?” George asked her as she returned to the drawing room. Jack was now talking to Bertram, and George appeared to have been eyeing the doorway with unusual keenness.

  “Of course, darling.” She brushed him off, hardly able to wait until she could tell Bertram the wonderful news.

  However, Bertram’s conversation with the other gentlemen appeared to have gained intensity so, unable to stop herself fidgeting, she went to the window and looked out into the darkness.

  “It was awfully good of Jack to deliver Diana all the way home. It’s been a long day’s travelling for him.”

  Antoinette glanced up to see George at her side, as if he’d come to see what it was she was staring at. Irritated, she waved a hand in the air. “Oh, it’s just the sort of thing Jack would do. He wants to be everybody’s hero.”

  “Mother!”

  She put her hand to her mouth, realising the cruelty of her words, when in truth, she’d been thinking of Jack’s need to be Odette’s hero in particular, at the expense of Katherine. Indeed, she’d been unable to think of anything else.