Finding Miss McFarland (20 page)

She folded the remains of her stockings in her hand and stepped into her soggy, ruined slippers. Before she could walk to the door, he turned.

“Then we will marry in name only.”

Delaney rarely cried and she never expected to do so in front of Griffin. The fountain she’d suddenly become annoyed her. Hot tears burned as they forged a path down her cheeks, dripping onto the damp muslin. “I am sorry, Griffin, but I refuse to do that to you.”

“This makes no sense at all. If you would just tell me—”

“Please,” she said, lifting her hand to his mouth to silence him. “If you care at all for . . . my honor, please let me return to the house, and don’t follow too closely behind.”

He withdrew a damp handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and dried her tears before pressing the soft linen into her hand. “I won’t follow too closely, but I will come to call on you tomorrow.”

She nodded and walked out of the little cottage without looking back. As for tomorrow, she planned to be far away from Danbury Lane.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

D
elaney McFarland had refused him. Griffin had offered her everything she wanted and yet, she’d still refused him. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand her reasoning.

At his aunt’s house, he hadn’t had the chance to speak with her. They’d returned separately, but soon after he’d walked through the door, his mother had whisked his sisters, along with Delaney and her sister, into the waiting carriages without so much as a word to him. He’d been left to wonder what he could have done to earn such a rejection, first from Delaney and then from his own mother. In the end, he’d spent the entire ride back into town in trying to figure it all out.

Hours later, he still didn’t have a clue. Did Delaney’s desire to have a marriage in name only truly have everything to do with money and her desire to have control of her own fortune?

But hadn’t his involvement with the young men of Warthall Place reassured her on
that
account?

“Griffin, come in here.”

He’d been wandering the halls of the house after everyone else had gone to bed, or so he thought. Only now did he realize he stood directly outside his father’s study. The last time he’d looked at his surroundings, he’d been in the upstairs gallery.

He moved into the room. “Yes, sir?”

His father’s face was lit by a brace of candles beside him. And for some reason, he didn’t look pleased. “Sit down. I want to speak with you in regard to your behavior this day.”

George Croft wasn’t usually so abrupt. Concern filled Griffin as he sat on the edge of the chair across from his father. Had something happened earlier that he didn’t know about?

Looking at his father now, he wondered how he could have thought that the man no longer possessed command of that large wingback chair. If so, he was merely fooling himself. Right now, Griffin felt as if he were ten years old. “My behavior?”

“Your mother informs me that Miss McFarland was alone in that little cottage in Springwood during a storm,” George Croft said, his voice hard and disapproving. “In that same span of time, you rode off to look for her. Yet according to both you and Miss McFarland,
you
never made it to the cottage.”

Griffin sat up straighter. “Yes, sir.” At least that was the story they’d agreed upon. He claimed to have lost his seat and spent the entire time looking for his spooked horse.

“Had you been at the cottage earlier that day, perhaps?”

“No, sir.”

His father released a long, drawn-out exhale. “Is there something that would explain how your mother spotted one of your monogrammed handkerchiefs in Miss McFarland’s grasp when she returned to the house?”

He closed his eyes.
The handkerchief
. He’d been hoping to spare himself the humiliation of explaining what had transpired—how she’d refused him, not once but twice. He’d planned to leave tomorrow morning, speak with her father, and then come back shortly, announcing his engagement.

It was no use. “Yes. I found her in the cottage during the storm. Needless to say, we both knew what it would mean if we were to return to the house together after a lengthy time away.” Griffin stood. Unable to contain his restlessness, he moved to the hearth. “Even so, I asked her to marry me.”

His father looked at him with surprise. Then he smiled and laughed a familiar and hearty “Oh ho!” that had been heard more often when his father’s heart was not as fragile.

“When your mother came to me with her suspicions, I must admit to being worried. After all, you’ve done nothing but pace the halls since,” he said and made a sweeping gesture to him as Griffin poked the logs in the grate. “You can imagine my relief, though you are a sly devil, never to speak of your intent—”

“She declined, Father,” he interrupted, still feeling the sting of it.

The iron poker clanged against the rack as he returned it to its place. “What’s this? You finally find a woman you
want
to marry . . .” His father’s expression altered once again, from happiness to speculation. “Or is there another reason you
must
marry?”

Griffin knew what his father was asking. “She is yet untried.” Though not by any lack of desire on his behalf . . . or hers.

“Then you offered your hand in order to save her reputation.”

“Yes.” Griffin’s hands flew up in an impatient gesture as he began to pace the room. “However, as I just mentioned, she declined the offer. That was when she asked to return to the house and for me not to follow too closely.”

“Does she have designs on another gentleman?”

He believed matters were settled between her and Montwood. There were no other paupers in her sights that he knew of. “Not to my knowledge.”

“And yet, by all rights and purposes, a Season in London indicates that Miss McFarland is open to the idea of marriage.”

“Yes, sir. Just not to me, apparently.” He stopped and gripped the back of the chair as if the action would keep him immobile inside. It didn’t. So, he went back to pacing. “She wants a marriage in name only. Since I require an heir, she declined. And yet, even when I cast my own desires for my future—not to mention the security of my sisters—and offered to marry her in name only, she still declined, if you can believe it!”

The room fell silent. The events and disappointments of the day pressed on him.

“Then this is no passing flirtation,” his father mused calmly, which frustrated Griffin to no end. It was as if he hadn’t been paying attention to the crux of the matter. “When a man is willing to set aside his own needs for that of a woman, there must be love involved.”

“Of course there is. I love her! Otherwise, I’d never—” It took time for his own words to reach him after he cast them to the ceiling. But when they came back, he heard the truth for the first time. “
Blast it all,
” he whispered, mimicking a certain auburn-haired termagant.

He was in love.

“And did you tell her?”

“No, Father,” he said absently, still reeling. He loved her. He loved Delaney McFarland down to the very fire that fed her soul. Why had it taken him so long to realize it? Surely if she knew how he felt, she wouldn’t refuse him again. He knew she cared about him. He’d seen it in her eyes. She’d never looked at Montwood with such affection. If she had . . .

Then, I would have to kill Montwood,
he thought with a laugh.

“Well, why not?”

“Because apparently, your son is a complete idiot.”

D
elaney had never run from any challenge in her life. Yet for the first time, she was doing exactly that. She’d spent the entire journey home from Springwood House fabricating a terrible but wholly necessary lie.

“In short, Emma needs me, and I will not abandon her,” Delaney concluded. She managed to continue eye contact throughout the entire
untrue
tale.

After scrutinizing her for no fewer than four entire minutes without a word, her father offered a nod. Apparently, he was in no mood to argue.

Delaney did not pry. Instead, she turned to go to her room to pack a few things. She was grateful that convincing him had been so simple. One must not look a gift horse—

“Before you go,” he said, his commanding tone raising the downy hairs on her nape.

She stilled and then slowly turned back. “Yes, Father?”

Gil McFarland’s thick wiry brows straightened into a flat line over his icy blue gaze. “Miss Pursglove is not my only source of information regarding your behavior. I trust you understand what is expected of you.”

Under normal circumstances, such a statement would raise her ire. She loathed being treated like a wayward youth instead of a fully grown woman of marriageable age.

Marriageable
. . . Griffin Croft had proposed marriage. She still couldn’t believe it. More than that, she couldn’t believe how much she’d wanted to accept. Yet when she’d refused him, he’d surprised her even more by offering her everything she wanted—a marriage in name only, the key to her freedom, a life without the fear of falling in love and having her heart torn to pieces.

The only problem was, she’d already fallen in love with him. Now her heart lay in a tangle like last Season’s ribbons.

She could barely meet her father’s gaze. “In regard to your expectations, I am without a doubt of my worth.”

And with that, she quit the room while trying to hide the anguish she felt.

A short while later, Delaney stood in her chamber, packing only the essentials into a satchel.

Miss Pursglove entered her room without knocking, announcing her presence with an austere sniff. “Friend or not, if you leave before dawn as you’ve planned, irreparable damage to your reputation will result.”

Delaney was in no mood for this. “I’m certain, with your extensive training, you’ve learned that eavesdropping is impolite.”

“You are on the verge of breaching a line that can never be uncrossed,” the wretched woman hissed. “Your behavior is unacceptable.”

“Never fear, I’m sure Father will merely add to my dowry, making me irresistible,” she spat back, hands on hips. Her temper was climbing quickly, as if in defense of her own broken heart. The rage felt much better than complete and utter despair.

Miss Pursglove sneered, her dark eyes narrowing as she stepped further into the room. “You are rich, to be sure, but there is a certain degree of character even the most basic husband requires.”

“You forget yourself, Miss Pursglove,” Delaney warned. “You are an employee, not a part of this family.”

“Do not think for a moment that it has been easy for me to withstand the association. My only accomplishment here has been instructing your sister. You defy me
and
the rules of society, again and again. In the end, I cannot stand by quietly and let you sully my name as well.” Raising her voice, she pressed a fist to the center of her own bosom. “If your father will say nothing, then it falls upon me. You will not leave this house!”

Delaney stared at her
decorum instructor
, with a mixture of fury and satisfaction seething within her. After all this time, she’d actually done it. She’d broken Miss Pursglove.

Striding across the room, Delaney retrieved a box from the bureau. “First of all,” she began, her voice calmer than she felt, “you cannot tell me what to do. Frankly, I’m surprised you even try.” She moved toward Miss Pursglove, a practiced smile on her lips. “Second, you cannot take any credit for my sister, because she has absorbed none of your overweening, condescending mannerisms. Even our father would agree, you were never hired to instruct her. Therefore,” she said, presenting the box containing the ugliest brooch in existence, “without my presence in this house, you no longer have a purpose here.”

Miss Pursglove blinked as her hand closed over the box.

“Consider that a parting gift,” Delaney added, herding the apparently dumbfounded decorum instructor out of her bedchamber. “I could think of no other person who could make such an object look pretty by comparison.”

And with that, Delaney closed the door as one would a pocket watch, with a satisfying click.

At an hour before dawn, she set off for Hawthorne Manor, Emma and Oliver’s estate. First light had yet to bloom over the horizon. While she hated to arrive unannounced—and at such an unseemly hour—there was no help for it.

She had to leave London before Griffin Croft came to call and asked her to risk everything for him. Because for the first time, she was afraid she would.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

“I
f you’ll forgive me, sir, but the elder Miss McFarland is not at home.”

Griffin didn’t believe it for an instant. Most likely, she’d left instructions with her butler to state that she wasn’t at home when he came to call. After all, he’d warned her in advance.

Thinking of her sitting up in her bedchamber with the belief that this would stop him, he almost laughed. “Then I should like to speak with her father.”

“Mr. McFarland is not at home.” The butler’s expression gave nothing away.

Griffin bit back an oath and took a deep breath. “Would you be able to tell me when he might return?”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge Mr. McFarland’s schedule, sir.”

This was obviously getting him nowhere. “Would the younger Miss McFarland be receiving callers, then?” If the butler uttered another excuse, so help him, Griffin was going to explode.

“If you’ll forgive me, sir—”

“Mr. Croft! What a coincidence,” Bree McFarland said as she descended the stairs behind the butler. “I was just heading out now to see your sisters. Am I mistaken, or did I hear you ask Hershwell if I was at home?”

“Apparently, neither your sister nor your father is at home,” he said, studying her closely for any sign of deception.

“Hershwell would lose his post if he revealed anything of father’s whereabouts. As for my sister, I’m surprised you’ve not heard. It was such a big fuss. Last night when we arrived home, Delaney told Father that she’d received a message from one of her friends requesting her assistance on an urgent matter. Though I do not know the particulars, I do know that she had to leave before dawn this morning.”