Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (63 page)

“
Three days
…”

Tam winced at the wretchedness in the deep
voice. “I’m—I’m sorry, sir.”

There was a long silence. It was broken by
Jenny who rushed out of her mistress’s bedchamber, saying something
over her shoulder, and ran straight into Tam. She fell back a pace
and put a hand to her hair. “Tam? What are you doing—Oh!” She saw
Alec and dropped a respectful curtsy. “Mr.—Mr. Halsey? Sir!” Her
eyes went very round and she glanced at Tam, who kept his eyes
lowered and his hands behind his back.

There was a rush of silk petticoats behind
her, one or two voices raised in protest, and then Emily stood
there in all her fair loveliness, straw-blonde curls caught up off
her shoulders with a couple of long pins. She had on a new gown of
patterned silk that was held together with tacking and needed
alteration at the bodice, for it was cut far too low for the
Duchess’s liking.

Madame the French dressmaker was at her
elbow, urging her to come back into the room so she could continue
with her work. Catching sight of a gentleman she gave a French
squeak of alarm. Jenny spun about to shield her mistress from
prying eyes but when Emily saw who it was she forgot Madame’s pins
and threw herself at Alec’s inanimate form.

“You’re home at last! You’ve no idea how
much we’ve missed you. Grandmamma said not a word. Did you two
conspire to surprise me? How like you! Oh, it’s
so
good to
see you.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him into the bedchamber,
oblivious to the fact his mood did not match her own. “Careful
where you step. It’s fitting day today. Jenny? Jenny! Forget the
tea. Bring champagne.
Yes
. Champagne. We’re going to
celebrate Alec’s return.” She shooed Madame and her assistants
away. “I’ll get out of this wretched thing and then I can give you
a proper welcome home. So, tell me: What do you think of this gown?
Do you approve?”

“The bodice is indecent.”

“So Grandmamma says. But it’s the fashion.”
She disappeared behind an ornate screen set in one corner of the
sunny room and Madame followed, clucking over her in broken
English. “You’ll be pleased with me. I’ve kept Phoenix well
exercised,” Emily called out from behind the screen. “To the
detriment of
my
horses. I was out on him this morning.
Remember that problem he was having with his left hock? Well, it’s
all better, so you needn’t worry. I suppose you’ll be taking him
back to St. James’s Place? There!”

When she reappeared, Alec was by the window
looking out on the long sweep of east lawn and not seeing any of
it. He wished himself anywhere but here. He felt suddenly weary.
When she came over to him and playfully tugged his sleeve he could
not bring himself to look at her.

“I’m decently dressed,” she said, sitting on
the window seat beside where he stood. “All up to the neck and
shoes on my feet too!” When he made no response to her playful
banter she added conversationally, “How was Paris? Did you bring me
something wonderful? Something to wear? Or something for this room
perhaps? And I must thank you for the fan you sent at
Christmastime. It’s beautiful. Grandmamma was quite envious.”

Alec turned and looked about the untidy
room, at the deep carpets covered in dressmaking patterns and
fabrics, at the familiar pictures on the patterned-papered walls,
but not at her. Everything was as he remembered it. He had often
come up here. To have tea at the little table by the window. To
hear the latest news of town and to tell her in return the
happenings at the Continental Courts. The look on Tam’s face! The
boy had no idea, had he? He wondered if Jenny was at this moment
giving him a good tongue-lashing.

Jenny came back into the room then, followed
by Tam carrying a tray. He put it down on the small table by the
arrangement of sofa, chaise longue and chairs and glanced at Alec
to find him staring at him in a vacant sort of way. Jenny saw it
too and with a quick word Tam left them alone.

“I brought you a brandy, sir,” Jenny said
gently.

“No, Jenny. We are going to drink champagne.
Aren’t we, Alec?”

Alec took the brandy glass and drank without
tasting.

Emily sipped her champagne thoughtfully.
“Will they give you a post here now? You—You aren’t going away
again so soon, are you?”

“What’s his name?”

Emily blinked at his bluntness. “I beg your
pardon?”

“The name of your
betrothed
,” he
enunciated coldly. “What—is—his—name?”

There was a scratch on the outer door and
Jenny was glad to go in answer to it, leaving Emily all alone and
feeling for the first time in her life uneasy with her
grandmother’s godson. She did not understand his coldness. She
thought her own happiness would be sufficient for him to be happy
for her. How many times had he lectured her in the manner of an
elder brother, on the importance of being guided by her elders but
not to be forced into a marriage she disliked. And she had done
precisely that. Perhaps he needed reassurance? Fortified with a
gulp of champagne she bravely stared up at him and said,

“I want to marry Edward. When he sought my
hand in marriage Grandmamma let it be known that the decision was
mine, that I did not have to accept him if I did not want to. But,”
she said in a clearer voice, her happiness giving her strength, “I
do want to marry him. I want to marry him very much.”

“Edward? Edward…” Alec repeated quietly.
“That isn’t much to go on. Who is this fellow?”

“We had only met on a few occasions, and
those at public gatherings, but I knew straight away that if he did
ask me I would accept him,” Emily continued, because Alec looked
wholly unconvinced. “Grandmamma is very happy for me, especially so
because I am to marry an earl.” She looked down at the bubbles of
champagne, adding nervously, “Not that that circumstance means much
to you—”

“It doesn’t. I don’t care for title,” he
stated. “Edward, Earl of
what
?”

“—but it matters to Grandmamma,” Emily said
firmly, finishing the sentence despite being close to tears. She
wished Jenny would return. She didn’t know for how much longer she
could sit here with Alec looking for all the world as if her
engagement was the worse news he had ever heard in his life.
“Edward warned me you’d take it badly,” she confessed naively. “But
I assured him you would only want for my happiness. And you do want
me to be happy, don’t you, Alec?” she asked in a small voice.
“Regardless of the ill feeling between the two of you, I hope
you’ll see that he wants to make me happy. He is very solicitous
and caring and, oh—
everything
a girl could ask for in a
husband. I know you’ve been estranged since small boys. You could
very well be strangers, not brothers at all…”

He stopped listening the moment he realized
she was engaged to his elder brother. If he was shocked into
senselessness to discover she was engaged to be married, he was now
beyond rational thought knowing that the man who had robbed him of
her was his own brother; this, not the first time his brother had
interfered in Alec’s life.

Six years ago Delvin had put a stop to
Alec’s engagement to Selina Vesey. A second son with a thousand a
year wasn’t entitled to marry an heiress, whatever his brilliant
prospects in the Foreign Department. When his elder brother, who
was also head of the family, publicly voiced his opposition to such
an unequal match Alec’s fate was sealed. Alec not only endured the
humiliation of having his suit rejected by Selina’s father but was
forced to stand by while the love of his life was married off to
George Jamison-Lewis, who had ten thousand a year, grandson of a
Duke and one of his brother’s cronies.

Alec never expected to fully recover from
his disappointment but time helped close the wound. And just when
he had convinced himself that in asking Emily to marry him he would
finally be moving his life forward, his brother’s timely
interference had robbed him once more of personal happiness. What
was he to do?

Before he knew what he was about he found
himself half way down the curved staircase, full of purpose, to do
what, he had no idea. He just knew he had to get out of St. Neots
House, to escape from a thousand memories locked within its walls,
and to get away from Emily. He had to find a place where he could
think calmly and rationally. Failing that, he would find a place
where he need not think at all…

A lady in black mourning crepe had just
ascended the staircase and it was inevitable that they would
collide; such was the width of her hooped petticoats and Alec’s
blind determination to quit St. Neots House. The lady’s quick
thinking saved her from taking a tumble. She grabbed the banister
rail with a gloved hand, while the other clung to the gentleman’s
sleeve; a small party taking leave in the foyer below breathed a
collective sigh of relief.

It was not until the woman’s body fell hard
against him and he instinctively caught her that Alec realized he
had run full force into someone coming up the staircase. He held
her hard against his chest, their hearts thudding as one as he
waited for them both to be steady on their feet. In the brief
moment she was in his arms he breathed in the pleasing flowery
scent of her hair and inexplicably felt a stab of nostalgia. He
knew her identity at once. Instantly he released her with a curt
apology for crushing the silk of her petticoats, and would have
passed her then but she unintentionally moved in the same
direction, and again they blocked each other’s path. The woman’s
quiet apology finally lifted Alec’s gaze to her face.

She was one step below him and had gathered
up her billowing petticoats, positioning herself with her straight
back up against the mahogany balustrade to let him pass. Yet, Alec
remained as if fixed to the marble step. He stared at her, as if at
an apparition for he had not been within ten feet of her in six
years. He never dreamed of seeing her in mourning, though in the
darkest days of his despair he had wished it upon her time and
again. But not here, not now, not on this of all days. Large dark
eyes full of sorrow stared up at him and he turned his head away,
color flooding his close-shaven cheeks.

“Did Emily tell you her news, Mr. Halsey?”
Selina Jamison-Lewis asked quietly, the blood drumming so loudly in
her ears at this unexpected encounter that she couldn’t keep the
tremble out of her voice. “Her engagement it—it came as a surprise
to all of us.”

Alec’s blue eyes stared pointedly at her
mourning gown before again meeting her eyes. “No doubt an ill-timed
and disappointing announcement for you, Madam…?”

Selina’s lips parted but she did not trust
herself to speak and so stood mute as he made her a short bow and
went on his way, her blush as red as the young footman’s hair who
rudely bumped her shoulder in his pursuit of Alec Halsey.

Alec ignored the knot of persons leave
taking by the door and pushed through the ministering footmen
without a word or a look. When the butler stepped forward with his
greatcoat he demanded his sword and put out a hand for his gloves.
Neave said something to him, but he wasn’t listening. A bejeweled
hand touched his arm. It was his godmother. But Alec angrily
shrugged off the Duchess of Romney-St. Neots as he snatched his
sash and sword from a footman, over setting the Duchess who
stumbled backwards to be caught at the elbow by her butler. Five
footmen rushed to her aid. An old man with gray-grizzled hair
stepped forward, but it was the Earl of Delvin who took matters
into his own hands.

The Earl poked his brother in the kidney
with the end of his Malacca cane.

“You’re in a hurry,
Second
,” Delvin
drawled. “Can’t go bargin’ about other people’s houses knocking ’em
willy-nilly. It’s not done. Not done at all. Dear Mrs.
Jamison-Lewis could’ve broken her neck on the stairs just now, and
you of all people certainly wouldn’t want to see the beautiful
young widow join her dearly departed so soon, would you? For a
diplomatist you certainly show a marked lack of man—”

It needed only that. Alec snatched at the
cane and threw it away from him before pushing his brother up
against the nearest wall, a hand about the layers of lace at his
throat, long fingers pushing the Earl’s chin up until he was forced
to look Alec directly in the eye. No match for his younger
brother’s rage of strength, Delvin offered little resistance.

“You cold-hearted blood sucker,” Alec spat
in his face. “I wish to God you were no brother of mine!”

The Earl attempted a moment of bravado.
“You’re a
fool
, Second,” he hissed viciously. “Time you
learned your place: no female wants second best.”

“If they want you then they’re not worth the
having,” Alec sneered, fingers convulsing about his brother’s
throat until the Earl spluttered for breath and clawed at his
strong hand.

A cluster of open-mouthed footmen stared at
the two gentlemen struggling by the open front door. As mesmerized
as his fellows, the butler stood rooted to the spot until the
Duchess demanded that someone do something to break up the fight.
With an imperious snap of his fingers, Neave scattered the footmen.
It was left to the grizzled haired old man to step in and put a
stop to the one-sided fight between his nephews.

“Alec! Stop!” growled Plantagenet Halsey.
“Let him be!”

Delvin was released at once and fell to his
silken knees, gasping great gulps of air into his deprived lungs.
He quickly picked himself up and attempted to regain his arrogant
bravado by brushing the sleeves of his velvet frockcoat and
straightening the lace at his wrists as if he had been touched by
something unclean. Alec stared at him with contempt, hands balled
into fists of frustrated rage. He saw the butler with eyes suitably
lowered, and standing beside him the freckled-faced footman who had
introduced himself as Tam. And when he glanced at his uncle, he saw
so much unspoken sadness in the old blue eyes that Alec turned away
from him with impatience. A glance up at the staircase and there
was Selina still on the step where he had left her. God, what had
he done to deserve her silent witness? His humiliation complete,
Alec made the Duchess a curt bow and strode from the house.