The Misfit Marquess (27 page)

"His name?" Sebastian asked, also not smiling for once.

"Mr. Radford Barnes," Frick said.

Elizabeth sank back hard in her chair, black spots whirling before her eyes.

Chapter 18

Gideon pulled up his horse, realizing there was a second carriage in the drive before his home. It bore no crest, but it was a private vehicle, not one for hire. It seemed today was a day for callers.

He dismounted, lightheartedly tossing his reins to the nearest groom, who caught them with a grin. "Extra oats, m'lord?"

"Extra oats," Gideon confirmed, thinking the contentment he felt must be showing, or at least contagious. He had learned two things at the alderman's house, not just what must be done with this young woman calling herself Lily. He could not wait to tell Elizabeth what he suspected he knew.

He hurried from the stables to the rear of the house, hearing Benjamin's deep voice rumbling, then Frick's voice, sounding strained. Gideon came upon the butler just as the man announced, "Mr. Radford Barnes."

"Who?" Gideon said, stepping around Frick to follow in the wake of the dark-haired man who preceded him into the library. A quick glance proved there were equally blank faces on Sebastian and Benjamin as the dark-haired man bowed to them. They offered shallow bows in return.

"Mr. Radford Barnes," Frick repeated unhelpfully. "The ... person insisted he must see you, my lord."

Gideon glanced at Elizabeth, and suddenly his good mood evaporated. He strode across the room, taking up her hand, alarmed by the lack of color in her face. "My dear!"

Elizabeth looked at him with horror in her eyes, in the way she held her shoulders. She was absolutely mute, her throat working without making a single sound. It was a simple thing to deduce who had just entered Gideon's library.

"Frick, please leave us and close the door," Gideon said, aware his voice had dropped to a growl.

Frick did as he was bid, collecting Radford Barnes's hat and gloves as he went out. The dark-haired, rather handsome man sauntered further into the room. "Lord Greyleigh," he said, beginning to bow, but then his vision settled on Elizabeth, and he offered her a bow as well.

"It is you!" Mr. Barnes said to Elizabeth. "I thought from what they said in the pubs that it had to be you, but I scarce dared hope."

"Hope?" Elizabeth rasped, her voice trembling. "You left me for dead in that ditch."

Gideon's gaze flew to take in the other man's reaction, now that it was confirmed this was the knave who had ruined and abandoned Elizabeth to her fate.

Gideon was across the room in a flash, the other man pinned against the wall next to the door, his coat caught in Gideon's two hands as Gideon shook the man like the cur Barnes was. "You have no business here," Gideon growled, even as his brothers crowded around him, their postures declaring they were prepared to support any action he chose. "Get out!"

"Not so quickly, Greyleigh," Barnes managed to get out even though there was a fist against his voice box. "That woman is my wife!"

Elizabeth made a strangled sound of protest, and Gideon pressed more firmly against the man's throat. Benjamin made a noise of disapproval, and Sebastian's face creased into lines of shock and puzzlement.

"Gideon," said Sebastian, "I do not know your quarrel with this man, but I would like to suggest he might not be worth the punishment of incarceration or hanging should you happen to kill him. I suggest you let him go, and that we escort him from the property. After a proper thrashing, if you like."

"Tell them," Gideon said to Barnes, giving him one final shake before letting the man go. "Tell them she is not your wife at all, you lying blackguard."

"Well, perhaps not in actual fact, not yet," Barnes said, putting a hand to his throat, from which issued the raspy words.

He flinched when Gideon made as if to seize him again, and quickly added, "But her stepmama wishes her to be."

"Stepmama?" Elizabeth echoed, and if color had been returning to her face, it was now gone again.

"Yes," Barnes said, straightening his cravat and the lie of his coat. "She has been visiting in Bath, and she saw me, unfortunately. I was forced to explain our, er, parting of the ways, my dear, and she was most displeased. She could not like what our .. . disassociation might mean to her consequence."

Barnes gave Gideon a long stare, then stepped to one side, where he could clearly see Elizabeth. "My dear, your stepmama has settled a handsome dowry on you. Our financial worries are past, so that now we can concentrate on cementing our bond, as she is most eager to see us do. Therefore, I now ask you to be my wife."

Gideon felt his jaw clench and his hands curl into fists, and it was all he could do not to smash Barnes's nose down his throat.

"Steady," Benjamin cautioned in his ear, a hand on Gideon's punching arm.

As awful as it was, Gideon had to admit that this offer by Barnes for Elizabeth would solve a great number of her difficulties. No one need ever know her elopement with Barnes had never ended in marriage. She would not be ruined. She could resume her position in Society. The two could lead entirely separate lives, living in different cities if they liked, taking lovers while living under the protection of the married state. Elizabeth would be foolish not to comply with her stepmama's scheme.

Do not do it, Gideon wanted to scream.

Elizabeth did not rise, but there was something in her posture, a lifting of the shoulders, a gleam in her eyes that made her seem to grow taller. It was clear she considered every word Barnes had spoken, that she realized the same advantages that Gideon had. All eyes fixed on her, awaiting her answer.

"You are lying," she said to Barnes, clearly, unemotionally.

"I assure you, I am not," Barnes protested, beginning to scowl.

"Yes, you are. As to my stepmama being humiliated by what has happened to me, that much is true. But what matters a step-daughter's foolishness? It has nothing to do with her, as she did not raise me. It is no reflection on her. She would be content enough to disown me. And Francine would never ask my father for the funds necessary to satisfy your excessive and craven needs, Radford. She does not love me well enough to be foolishly blackmailed on my account."

A hush fell over the room, a thick silence in which the clock on the mantel could be heard ticking.

"You only want your ring back," Elizabeth said, glancing down at the hand that no longer bore it. When she looked up again, there was fire in her gaze. "Once you had it from me, you would abandon me again. But that will never happen. I have the ring locked away, Radford. I will never give you the one piece of proof that you have lied to and deceived me." Her voice rose, becoming a command. "You will never speak of our association, never, or I shall take your ring to a magistrate who will force you to explain your actions in a court of law. When you have no defense against what you have done to me, you will find yourself in Newgate, where I will be happy to think of you rotting away."

"Elizabeth!" Gideon whispered in astonishment, knowing the truth when he heard it. proud of her for seeing past this man's lies and manipulations, proud of her for showing so little of the dread and aggravation she must be feeling. Many another woman would have succumbed to the hope of redemption, would have seized an offer of reputation-saving marriage, but not Elizabeth. Elizabeth's redemption would be of her own making.

Barnes glared down at her, any loverlike vestiges erased from his face. "You are exactly right, my dear. I want the ring. And I still know how to obtain it from you, how to make you hand it over to me. Have you forgot your sister?"

Elizabeth closed her eyes, as though he had struck her.

"I can still ruin her prospects with Mr. Broderick Mainworthy," Barnes said, his upper lip curling into a feral smile.

Gideon started to step forward, his hands curling as though to shape around Barnes's neck, but Benjamin grabbed him and held him back. "In war, it is best to know everything before you attack," he said, his quiet words scarcely making it through the fury fogging Gideon's brain.

"Do what you must," Elizabeth said to Barnes, rising from her chair to meet Barnes's stare, holding on to the small nearby table to maintain her balance. 'To abet evil is to become evil, and not even for Lorraine can I allow myself to become like you, Radford Barnes. I must hope that Mr. Mainworthy is a more honorable and admirable man than are you, that he knows what love is."

"You are a fool to wager your future and your sister's against that flimsy hope," Barnes said angrily, preparing to depart. He crossed the room to stand before her, and before Gideon could move to intercept him, had already whispered something fiercely to her.

"Were I him," Sebastian said in his own whisper, "I would be threatening to make her father pay even more, to protect both daughters." His lip curled in distaste as he glanced again at Barnes.

"If I were such an ass as him, so would I." Benjamin said on a glower. With the hand not holding Gideon's arm, Benjamin reached to his belt, which normally would support the military sword he wore, but which he had naturally left in Frick's care upon entering the house.

Gideon glanced at Benjamin's gesture and shook his head. "Sebastian was right. This halfwit is not worth killing."

He shrugged off his brother's hand and crossed to Elizabeth's side. He stood between her and Barnes, forcing the other man to take a step back, and then another. Gideon brought up his right hand curled in a fist that he held before Barnes's face. "This scapegrace is not even worth hitting," he sneered directly into Barnes's face. "Not that I will let that stop me."

Gideon threw a short, sharp blow directly to Barnes's mouth, sending the man reeling backward, blood instantly gushing from a cut on his lip.

"You bastard!" Barnes lisped, blood all over the hand he pressed to his mouth.

Sebastian tossed the man his handkerchief. "Lud's sake, man, you are getting blood all over the carpet," he scolded. "Have you no manners?"

Gideon turned his back on Barnes, ignoring the stinging in his knuckles from the blow, and stepped back to Elizabeth's side. He took up both of Elizabeth's hands, gazing into her face.

"Elizabeth." he said with quiet firmness, "there is a way to thwart this cretin, if you wish it. and that is if you marry."

She shook her head emphatically. "I would never marry him. not now I know what manner of man he is."

'That is not what I meant. Will you marry me?"

Barnes snarled, and Benjamin stared.

"Ha!" Sebastian cried at once. "I see your logic. Gideon! If Elizabeth is married to you. she is shielded from whatever Barnes wants to claim against her. What he says only reflects poorly back on him. And if you cared to grant his rumormongering any credence by protesting it—which I would not be bothered to do myself—you could always then call him out and kill him in a duel, defending your lady's honor!" Sebastian crowed. "Although you would have to be careful not to be caught at dueling, because then you would have to flee England, of course. But it might be worth it." Sebastian gave Barnes a dark look. "Or if you did not wish to call him out, I would not mind taking ten paces with the creature myself."

"Elizabeth." Gideon said, smiling ever so slightly at his brother's words as he gazed down into her confusion-filled eyes. "You have not answered me."

"Gideon." she said, sounding poised despite hands that had begun to shake within his grasp. "You have saved too many people in your life already. I cannot allow you to throw your future away on me. for my sake."

"You cannot allow it?" he said, his mouth pursing to keep from giving her the fierce grin that threatened to cross his lips. "My, are we not haughty? But you misunderstand me. my dear lady. I do not want to throw my future away on you. I want to regain it." The humor faded, and he spoke in a low. urgent voice. "I want to laugh again. I want to let you run my household and manage my staff, because I am so very poor at it. despite all the years of practice. I want to keep you selfishly near me. to remind me that there is more to life than duty. You have opened my eyes to the realization that we must seek out those who need help, not those who want to take and take and give nothing hack, like this churl here," Gideon said over his shoulder to indicate Barnes.

Elizabeth looked down where his hands covered hers, blinking back tears. Or perhaps she felt his own hands trembling as though to match hers.

"There is something else you should know before you answer," Gideon went on, now able to share the news he had discovered when he had gone to call the alderman. "I would not have yon believe there is no other recourse hot marriage left to you. Today, while I wailed for Alderman Wallace to return to his home, I read the
London Times
, dated two days ago." He reached into his pocket and handed a folded piece of news sheet to her. " I thought this must pertain to you when I read the female's name, but I was sure of it when Barnes mentioned Mr. Mainworthy."

She unfolded the sheet with unsteady hands. "Sir Edmund and Lady Hatton," she began to read, only to look up to him, startled.

"Go on", he urged.

"Sir Edmund and Lady Hatton announced today the marriage by special license of their daughter, Miss Lorraine Hatton, to Mr. Broderick Mainworthy. The ceremony took place in St. Clement Dane's at ten in the morning. Wedding breakfast to follow, by private invitation only."

"Devil take it!" Barnes muttered, and now it was his turn for the color to leech from his face, his trump card played and defeated.

Elizabeth lowered the sheet and gave a laugh, tears of happiness forming in her eyes. "Lorraine married? I never could have imagined a hasty wedding between those two!"

"I think your sister must have been concerned for your future, my dear, ever since she would have found the note you left for her," Gideon said, ignoring Barnes completely, "ans wished to clear an obstacle she knew would concern you if you not so happy with your choice of 'groom'. Or perhaps she was inspired by your example of elopement. But come, either way," Gideon coaxed, "you still have yet to answer me, even now that you know your sister has found her happiness. Will you save yourself and stick your thumb in Barnes's eye, all in truth to save me from myself? Will you marry me?"