His lips tightened even further, before relaxing into what might almost be called a smile. “I would ask the story of your life, but I expect it might take a week or so for you to relate it and we are nearly to Danbury House.”
“Your Grace is incorrect,” she said. “It would take at least a month.”
He laughed then, a short burst of mirth that transformed his shadowed face. His smiles were never grins, but more like secrets he shared. “I wonder, Miss Barrett, if you will not end up being the story of my life.”
With those words, the carriage crossed through the gates. It was late, the dinner hour, but a crowd materialized as they clattered round the front of the manor house. There was her brother at the front, looking red-faced and furious. Stephen yanked open the door the moment the carriage stopped.
“I can hardly believe it, Courtland.” He glared into the coach at the two of them. “And you’ll drive up here to the front door with all the pomp of a bloody king. No, I can’t fathom it at all.”
“This will not be handled publicly,” His Grace said. “If you will meet me in Darlington’s library, we will discuss the situation.”
“Discuss the situation?” Stephen snarled as the duke stepped down. “If you think you can talk your way out of this with your fancy, pompous—”
“Stephen!” Harmony pleaded. “Do not speak to him so. This was all my fault. Let me explain.”
Stephen cursed and leaned into the coach. “Yes, you had better explain, sister. What were you thinking, to run off this way? The gossips have come up with the most vicious names for you, all of them deserved.” She cringed as he raised his hand but it was halted before it could fall by the duke’s rigid grip. Harmony stared as the two men locked eyes.
“I wouldn’t do that,” the duke said in an icy murmur.
Stephen’s mouth fell open. “Oh, that is rich, coming from you.”
The duke’s grip tightened around her brother’s wrist. “We will go talk—privately—before you humiliate Miss Barrett any further.”
Her brother gave her one last aggrieved glare, and then he and the duke were gone, and Lady Darlington reached in to her.
“Oh, my dearest. My darling girl. Whatever has happened?”
Harmony regarded the white-faced matron. This was so uncomfortable, this fall from grace. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “What must I do? If you wish me to leave tonight, I will go at once to pack my things.”
“Leave? Oh, no.” The lady squeezed her hands. “Darlington will clear everyone away and then you must come inside and let me help you. I am so, so sorry, my dear. Everything will be made right, I am sure of it. But what on earth have you done?”
*** *** ***
The entire house reverberated with the thrill of a scandal. It sickened Court, but there was nothing for it.
Lady Darlington had wisely steered Miss Barrett upstairs. Court had enough on his hands dealing with her brother; he couldn’t tolerate female histrionics, not now. Lord Darlington accompanied Court and Mr. Barrett to the library, although he kept a discreet distance from the two men. Tension thickened the air, but Court, for one, was not anxious. Fate had made a comic but inexorable circle. It was in this very room he’d first stumbled upon Miss Harmony Barrett, and in this room that their betrothal would be set.
“Before you cut up at me again,” he said to the red-faced Mr. Barrett, “I will marry your sister. It shall be done before the holidays, in London, in a large, lavish ceremony so there will be no hint of scandal attached to our match.”
“It’s a little late for that.” Her brother approached him, shoulders squared. “How dare you? How dare you abduct my sister?”
“There was no abduction. Are you mad?” He pushed past Barrett and threw himself into a chair by the fire. “As it happens, she wanted to go see the wall.”
“What wall?”
Court glared at him. “The wall she asked you to take her to. Repeatedly.”
“She didn’t ask me to take—” The man stopped. “Well. She went on about some Roman wall but I didn’t have the least idea what she was talking about.”
Court sighed, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other. What he wouldn’t give to have this nonsense over with, and go upstairs for a wash and a fresh change of clothes. Not to mention a bloody drink. “There is an old Roman wall a few hours north of here. Since you wouldn’t take her, your sister decided to go alone and very nearly did.”
“How would she do that?”
“She hired a wagon in town, if you can believe it, and he put her off not halfway there. If I hadn’t come upon her walking the road to Newcastle, who knows where she’d be now.”
The young man paled and started pacing the length of the library. “Stupid girl,” he cried out. “Not a bit of sense. No brain, no anything. She’s always been that way.”
“You speak of my future wife,” Court reminded him in a brittle tone. “The future Duchess of Courtland, who shall outrank you by a fair margin.”
“Well, you ought to know, sir. She is blasted difficult to manage.”
“Is she? I hadn’t noticed.”
The young buck ignored his dry wit, blustering on. “Now she is yours, like it or not. The both of you have been gone all night. You have to marry her.”
“I’ve already said I would. But I would not lay this matter completely at her feet, nor mine.”
His words seemed to shame her brother into some small amount of remorse. Barrett rubbed his ear and sank down in the chair across from him. Seeing enough amity to suit him, Lord Darlington stood and left.
“So…Your Grace…” Court was edified to see the young buck’s manners had returned. “Your Grace, you will not…you will not be cruel to my sister?”
“As I imagine you frequently are? She was terrified to face you.”
Barrett’s gaze flew to his. “I don’t mean to be gruff with her. It’s only that she’s so difficult to control. She’s my responsibility, now that my father’s put his feet up in Hampshire.”
“She’s a woman. They are easily controlled with the right methods.”
“You say that now, but you’ll see. She thinks too much. She’s bookish and headstrong, always yammering away with questions and bumbling about with her head in the clouds, when she isn’t smarting off.”
“Do you want me to marry her or not?” Court interrupted wryly.
“I am only saying—” He seemed to screw up his courage. “I wouldn’t think it right if you resented her for this match. If you treated her badly in your marriage and so on. My sister addles me no end, but I would not wish a life of misery on her.”
Court leaned forward in the chair, working hard to rein in his ire. “A life of misery, Barrett? What an unflattering assumption you make.”
The man did not back down. “It is not an assumption. It is common knowledge why Tremayne’s daughter jilted you. I hear talk from those who know you. I know what you get up to and I don’t like to think of my sister being exposed to that nonsense. She’s crazy, perhaps, but she’s been gently raised.”
Barrett held his furious gaze for long moments, and Court felt an unwilling softening of his feelings toward the wretch.
“If you care for your sister, why did you let this happen?” he asked.
Barrett’s lips tightened and he tugged at his cravat. “I suppose because I’ve always cared more about myself than whatever she wants.”
“Well, you see,” Court said, “I intend to care at least as much about her happiness as I care about my own. So it seems your sister will be better off under my protection than yours.”
“I’m not perfect. I admit it, but you can understand why I have misgivings. I am only warning you—”
“Warning me about what?” Court knew the point Barrett was dancing around, but he enjoyed making the man squirm.
“Don’t abuse my sister,” he burst out. “I haven’t the power and fortune you wield, but if you torment her I will not hesitate to call you out.”
Out of respect for Mr. Barrett’s brotherly bravado, which he believed was motivated by a sense of honor, Court did not smile nor laugh, although he found the idea of Barrett saving his sister from him a rather ironic one.
“I swear on my honor I will never hurt your sister. Will that do? In fact, I cannot imagine any man so weak and soulless that he would stoop to torment a gentle soul such as her.” He saw the barb hit home. Barrett swallowed any further protests or excuses. Court regarded him, pressing his advantage.
“Why won’t you take her to libraries and bookstores if she wishes to read?”
Barrett looked confused. “What?”