Peter DeLucey hurried to the door and listened. “Oh, now we’re for it,” he said. “The family’s back from church.”
One hour later
When he got his hands on her, he would strangle her, Benedict told himself.
The aftereffects of the previous night’s debauch didn’t improve his temper. His head was an anvil, and Hephaestus, forger of Zeus’s thunderbolts, was beating on it with his giant hammer.
Seething, he made his way to the servants’ entrance.
He could have gone to the front door and announced who he was. . . if he wanted to be bodily ejected from Throgmorton, and hear a lot of country louts laughing when he landed on his arse outside the entrance gate.
He had had to borrow both money and clothes from Thomas. The clothes didn’t fit. Thomas was shorter than he and wider. Furthermore, thanks to the limited funds, Benedict had endured a long, hard ride on a bad horse, which did nothing to soothe his aching head.
To finish matters off nicely, he’d had to leave Thomas behind at the inn as surety for the bill that wicked girl might at least have paid.
Pure good fortune had got Benedict through the entrance gate in the first place. Not knowing what tale she’d told or who she’d claimed to be, he’d acted like a dolt of a country bumpkin and asked whether his mistress had come this way. Luckily for him, no other female callers must have arrived this day, for no one had asked who his mistress was.
Benedict was going to kill her.
But first he had to get at her.
He played the same thickheaded country lout at the servants’ entrance and had no trouble getting in there, either. He found the place abuzz.
“You’ve come for Mrs. Wingate, I see,” said the housekeeper. “They said she was in a state when she come. I reckon she wouldn’t wait for you. She wouldn’t wait for Mr. Keble, that’s certain. He backed right down, I was told. Joseph said he never seen anything like it. He said she would’ve walked straight through Mr. Keble if he tried to stop her. And Mr. Peter won’t take notice of anything but her face and figure, will he?”
“Both which is uncommon fine,” said a footman coming in with a tray of untouched sandwiches. “That being why he can’t take his eyes off her and sits there like a fish with his mouth opening and closing, like he never seen one of her kind before. Which I expect he never did, what with being wrapped in cotton wool all his life and gone away to school with a lot of spotty boys as horny as him.”
Rathbourne regarded him stonily. Such talk would not have been tolerated in any servants’ hall belonging to any member of the Carsington family.
“Did you hear anything more, Joseph?” everyone asked at once.
“Oh, she was telling ’em some Banbury tale like the females dote on, all about stolen children and pirate treasure and everyone in dire peril,” said Joseph. “As to the rest of ’em, who could tell what they was saying, when the females start clucking and squawking like a lot of tetchy hens the instant she stops?” he said. “But Lord Mandeville just come, and he’s looking like murder,” he added with malicious glee. “I bet James sixpence the old fire-breather throws the strumpet out on that pretty rump of hers.”
Benedict stood up from his chair and launched himself at Joseph.
“OUT!” LORD MANDEVILLE shouted. “Not another word. How dare you pollute this house—”
“Mandeville, were you not attending to the sermon this day?” said his wife. “We were counseled patience and forgiveness, as I recollect—”
“Forgive any of her lot, and they will cozen us out of our last farthing. When we are dead, they will steal the winding cloths,” the old man said. “It is a trick, and you are a lot of confiding morons to believe it. Atherton’s son, my foot.”
“I agree the tale seems dubious, Father,” Lord Northwick said in a bored voice. He was an elegant man in his forties whose keenly assessing blue eyes belied his jaded pose. “Nonetheless, one is obliged to give the lady a hearing.”
“Lady?” His father sneered. “She plays a part, the way they all of them do. You’re credulous fools, the lot of you.” He swept a glare over his wife, daughter-in-law, and grandson. “Everyone knows the Athertons are in Scotland.”
Bathsheba held on to her temper. “Lord and Lady Atherton are in Scotland,” she said. “Their son stayed in London with his uncle, Lord Rathbourne. As I have explained—”
“Oh, I don’t doubt you’ve explained to a nicety,” Mandeville said. “And a precious tangle of black falsehoods it is. Not that any of this lot has wit enough to see it. The women of my household let their soft hearts get the better of their brains—such as they are—and my fool son and grandson notice nothing but your allurements.”
“Really, Father—”
“But you won’t cozen me, Jezebel,” Mandeville went on, ignoring the sophisticated Northwick as one might a prattling child. “I’ve had doings with your kind before and learnt my lesson. I know your tricks and arts. It’ll be a bitter cold day in hell before I—”
A loud crash in the hall made everyone jump.
“What the devil is that noise?” said Mandeville. “Keble!”
Keble hurried in, face flushed. “I beg your pardon, my lord, for the disturbance. We have the matter in hand.”
Another crash, this time the sound of shattering crockery.
Mandeville started toward the door at the same moment a liveried footman sailed over the threshold. He landed at the earl’s feet.
Bathsheba shut her eyes. No, it was not possible.
She opened them.
A tall, dark figure appeared in the doorway.
He wore clothing obviously belonging to someone else. The coat was too short, the trousers too wide.
“Who the devil is that?” Mandeville shouted.
Rathbourne drew himself up. “I am—”
“My brother,” Bathsheba said. “My mad brother Derek.”
He scowled at her. “I am not—”
“You naughty boy,” she said. “Why did you not wait for me at the inn as I told you to do? Did I not promise to return as soon as I could?”
“No, you did not,” said Rathbourne. His dark eyes glittered. “You took my clothes. You took my money. You went away without a word.”
“You are confused,” she said. She looked at the ladies and twirled her index finger near her temple. Returning to Rathbourne she went on, patiently, “I explained several times why you must not come with me.”
The footman lying on the floor let out a weak moan.
Bathsheba threw Rathbourne a reproachful look. “That is one reason,” she said.
“He called you a strumpet,” Rathbourne said, sulky as a child.
“You lost your temper,” she said. “What have I told you about losing your temper?”
A throbbing pause. The glitter in his eyes was diabolical.
“I must count to twenty,” he said.
“You see,” she said softly to the others. “He is like a child.”
“He’s a deuced big child,” said Lord Northwick.
“He belongs in an asylum!” Lord Mandeville shouted, purple with rage. “Out! Out of my house, the pair of you, or I’ll have you taken up and locked up. Set foot on my property again and I’ll set the dogs on you.”
Rathbourne looked at him.
Mandeville took a step back, his color draining away.
“Derek,” Bathsheba said.
Rathbourne looked at her. She marched toward him, chin up, spine straight. “Lord Mandeville is overset,” she said. “We had better leave before he does himself an injury.”
She brushed past him through the doorway and continued on down the long hallway. After a moment, she heard angry footsteps behind her.
BATHSHEBA AND BENEDICT rode in furious silence until they passed the entrance gates.
Then, “You ruined everything!” she burst out.
“Everything was ruined long before I arrived,” Benedict said, gritting his teeth against the headache, which recent even
ts had not ameliorated. “I cannot believe you went to Throgmorton—as yourself—and expected anything from your relatives but insults and eviction.”
“I was doing well enough until the irascible earl came home,” she said. “The ladies were too curious about me to be rude, and the gentlemen—”