Married to the Marquess (9 page)

“Then may I joyfully rot in hell,” he barked as he brushed passed them both and headed for Dennison’s stables, walking briskly and recklessly, not caring if either of them followed behind.

“Well, it
is
a beautiful animal, but I just don’t think…”

“What did you
do
, Derek?”

All of the men silenced at once and froze at the terrifying cry of one Moira Hammond, Countess of Beverton. Slowly, they all turned to face the approaching threat, who was marching very purposefully towards them, her expression murderous.

“Moira?” Nathan asked tentatively, but she silenced him with a look.

“Darling, I will speak with you in a moment. Currently, I only have business with Derek.” She flicked her gaze to him, and the other men around Derek each took a large step away from him, as if to protect themselves from the fire in her eyes.

“Hello, Moira,” Derek offered with a half-smile, his voice steady, even as his knees trembled just a touch.

“What. Did you. Do.” There was no hint of a question in her voice, and Derek could not help but swallow involuntarily.

“When?”

“Just now.”

His brow furrowed. “I’ve been here, Moira. We came over early to check on your stables and the horses.”

“Before.”

“Before?” He had a nagging sense about what she was trying to get at, but he would feign ignorance as long as he could. Much as he liked, respected, and, yes, feared Moira, he was not about to discuss his wife with her.

“Would you like me to elaborate and refresh your memory, since you have obviously lost the ability to recall your actions this morning?” Moira asked, folding her arms, her blue eyes lancing into his green ones.

“Please.”

“Derek,” Nathan warned softly, looking at his wife with anxiety, but Derek ignored him.

Moira snapped her brows together. “I went over to your house just now, as I have every morning and afternoon, to call upon your wife and ask after her. I, unlike so many others, present company included
,
feel sorry for her and for what she must be going through.” Her tone was harsh and scolding, and Derek rather imagined this was what her children would experience when they came along and misbehaved. She would be a very good disciplinarian. “When I was told, yet again, that she would not see anyone as she was still mourning, I asked if the butler thought there was anything I could do to lessen her grief. He confided to me that he did not know, as Lady Whitlock had been crying in her room since breakfast, and nobody had seen her since.”

A small, guilty feeling started in Derek’s chest and with each beat of his heart, it stretched further and further outwards until it encompassed just about every part of him. “Well,” he said uneasily, “perhaps she simply wanted some peace and quiet and to not be disturbed. She is in mourning, after all.”

“That is why she stays at home, Derek,” Moira said with a slow shake of her head, her eyes never leaving his. “Why is she staying in her room, Derek?”

“I don’t know,” he lied, trying to appear confused.

Moira flicked her gaze to Colin first, who flushed a bit and looked away, then to her husband, who steadily met her gaze, but it was clear he was uneasy. For a long moment, she continued to stare at Nathan, and he at her, as if they were communicating silently. Then Moira looked back to Derek. “I think you had better tell me, Derek.”

“I don’t think it is your business, Moira,” he said tartly, though without malice.

She snorted. “Nor is it Colin’s or Nathan’s, and yet they know all. And you had better tell me yourself, or I will have Nathan tell me later.”

Derek’s eyes widened. “He wouldn’t…”

“Oh, he would,” Moira interrupted with a smile that was not kind. “He doesn’t approve of whatever it was, and even if that were not the case, I have ways of making him talk that I cannot employ with you.”

Fighting the impulse to look to Nathan for confirmation, Derek swallowed and gave in with a nod. He very briefly told her what had transpired that morning, and, along with the occasional add-in from Colin, who possessed a keen memory for exact words, the story was told without variation.

When he had finished, it seemed that everybody stood yet further away from him. He glanced around and found Duncan and Geoff, who had not been privy to the details looking at him in shock. Colin and Nathan had no expression at all.

“Well,” Moira said finally, as she glanced to Nathan, who nodded his affirmation of the details, “that was enlightening.”

“Was it?” Derek could not help but asking.

“Yes. Now I understand why Katherine cannot stand you.”

Though the group had been silent before, the air became quieter still at her words, and nothing in all of creation moved.

“I beg your pardon?” Derek asked softly, his voice taking on that dangerous tone that seemed its habit of late.

“Oh, don’t you think you can put on airs with me,” Moira said with a shake of her head, her eyes bright. “I do not care how rich you are, how important you think you are, or that you have any title at all, let alone a high ranking one. If I could slap you right now, I would do so. But I don’t think I could stop with just one, and I am really not in the mood to be hauled off by my husband for beating the sense out of you in front of all your friends.”

A number of his friends choked back a laugh, but they were all stifled rather quickly.

Derek put his tongue over his teeth for a moment, and focused on breathing. “What gives you such righteous indignation, Moira?”

“The notion that you would treat Katherine in that way, that you think so little of her and her situation to attack her in such a way. I know I don’t know her,” she said as she raised a hand to the protests that she somehow knew were rising in him, “but did you even think what it meant for her to come and face you after hearing those words?”

Derek suddenly felt his throat tighten, and he could not have spoken should he have wished to.

“Knowing how the two of you feel about each other,” Moira continued, “I can only imagine how it must have felt for a woman who is as proud as she is to come and tell you that she needed you to stay. Did she really say that it was about your reputation?”

He nodded slowly, his mind working as though through mud.

A smile flickered across her lips. “I doubt she really thought that. Everybody knows how Society feels about you. It wasn’t about you at all, or at least, very little. She told you it would involve you because she couldn’t admit that she would be the only one affected, and considering the arrangement you have, she would be left here all alone to deal with the shame and the gossip and the rumors.”

Derek opened his mouth, but Moira went on without giving him opportunity to answer.

“She just lost her mother, Derek. Her
mother
. Yes, she was, by all accounts, a horrible woman, and nobody else misses her, but did you ever consider that Katherine might? I don’t care if she is the spawn of Hades, she deserves a little understanding from her
husband
, of all people.”

“Moira,” Nathan said softly as he watched Derek.

“I’m almost finished,” she assured him, still looking at Derek as well. “I’m not saying that she is blameless, Derek. But the fact remains that at this moment, your wife, whom you consider a tyrant and a cold-hearted witch, is upstairs in her room, refusing everything and everyone. I am asking you to put aside your need to spite her just for a while. Show her that there is a man with a heart inside her husband.”

Derek could not move, could not breathe. He had never felt more ashamed of himself in his life. While he knew perfectly well that he was exactly the same height and weight and stature that he had been only moments before, at the moment he felt about three feet tall and barely the weight of a blade of grass. She could have knocked him over with a whisper.

He felt Moira’s hand on his arm and found himself looking into those eyes of hers again. “I wouldn’t say these things if I didn’t like you, Derek,” she said with a smile. “You know that, right?”

He nodded almost mechanically, but he did know it, and he liked Moira in return. He could not say it at the moment, though his throat worked as if it wanted to anyway.

“But don’t think I won’t smack you later,” she said, her grin turning impish. “A good whack on the back of the head can do wonders for a man.” She looked around at the lot of them, then winked at her husband, who smiled broadly. Then she turned on her heel and left without looking back.

For the longest time, nobody said a word. Then, because he could not stand silence, Colin said, “I don’t know that I will ever understand women, nor wives in particular, but I think that Moira might be the most terrifying woman I have ever met, including Katherine.”

“And how I love her,” Nathan sighed proudly as he watched his wife stride away.

“Shut up, Nate,” his friends replied in unison as they went back to the horses.

Derek joined them, but he knew that Moira’s words would haunt him for quite some time. He vowed silently to himself that he would try harder to attempt to see beyond Kate’s prickly shell.

But he couldn’t deny that he was more than a little nervous of what would happen if he did not fight back when Kate tossed her harpoons at him.

With a tender rub to the back of his head, as if he could feel the threatened slap from Moira, he pushed the thoughts of his wife out for the time being.

They would come back later, as would the guilt.

If it ever left at all.

C
hapter
S
ix

K
atherine very studiously avoided contact with anybody after her appalling behavior with Whitlock. She shut herself up in her room for the remainder of the day, went to sleep rather early, and woke rather late the next morning.

She slowly made her way downstairs, desperate to avoid her husband at the moment. She could not bear the awkwardness that would stem from yesterday’s words. He had been cruel and had hurt her deeply, but she had not been kind either. If she had been more composed, as a duchess always should be, then he would not have reacted so strongly.

A duchess has no regrets; she never has cause for them
.

Well, it was a good thing that Katherine was not a duchess yet, for she had quite a few regrets, and could not begin to imagine how many of those would have to improve before she ever became one.

“Good morning, ma’am,” the butler, Harville, said with a fond grin. Of all the servants in the household, he was one that seemed to take special care where Katherine was concerned. Most days, his smile was the only one she received.

“Good morning, Harville,” she replied with a smile.

“A bit late getting the day started, are we?” he asked, flirting with the line of propriety for a servant, but Katherine always allowed him a bit of leeway.

“A bit, I am afraid,” she admitted. “It has been a rather exhausting few days.”

He nodded soberly. “That it has, ma’am. Is there anything I can do for your ladyship this morning?”

“I am quite hungry, but I imagine that the marquess already had breakfast cleared,” she said with regret as her stomach growled.

Harville shook his head slowly. “His lordship was up and about quite early, ma’am, and did not eat. He did leave instructions that we were to hold breakfast for you, if you should wish it.”