An Unexpected Gentleman (9 page)

T
he study’s dark paneling, slivered windows, and oversized mahogany furniture gave Adelaide the impression she was walking into a crowded cave. Uncertain of what to do with herself, she stood in the middle of the room while Lady Engsly and Lady Winnefred took seats on a small settee, Lord Engsly and Lord Gideon positioned themselves in front of the desk, and Connor leaned a shoulder against a bookshelf.

Sir Robert stopped three feet inside the door.

“I would have a word with Miss Ward before we begin,” he announced suddenly. “And I would have that word alone.”

“No.” The sharp refusal came from Connor.

“Miss Ward?” Lady Engsly prompted.

Adelaide considered it. She’d faced his censure in public; there was nothing to be gained by facing it in private as well.

“I would prefer we speak here.”

Sir Robert sighed the sigh of an eternally beleaguered man, but he didn’t argue. He walked to the middle of the room, took her hand, and held it between his own.

“Miss Ward,” he began, “you have my most sincere and abject apology.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He nodded thoughtfully and patted her hand. “I have told you some of my family’s story, but much of it . . . most of it, I kept hidden from you out of fear of disgrace. And now, my selfish reticence has put you in grave danger. This man”—he flicked an accusing glance at Connor—“is indeed, and to my family’s eternal shame, an offspring of my father’s.”

“He’s not cattle,” Lady Winnefred muttered just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Connor flashed a brief smile. “Thank you, Freddie.”

“Don’t talk to my wife,” Lord Gideon ordered.

Sir Robert squeezed her hand. “Connor Brice is a most depraved individual. Until recently, however, he was safely removed from society.”

“He had me tossed into prison for a crime I did not commit,” Connor translated.

“His imprisonment was of his own doing,” Sir Robert insisted. “He is a violent man, Miss Ward. And consumed with jealousy of me. His lowborn mother poisoned his mind with—”

“Mention my mother again,” Connor said darkly, “and we’ll be getting round to that duel after all.”

Sir Robert cleared his throat but didn’t respond to Connor. “He nurtures a bitter hatred of me. Nothing would give him more pleasure than to destroy all I hold dear.”

“That’s true,” Connor agreed easily.

Sir Robert pretended to ignore him, but the new burgeoning flush of red on his neck betrayed the lie. “Knowing his nature and his capacity for cruelty, I kept watch over him during his incarceration. But his whereabouts were lost to me after his recent release. I—”

“What he means to say,” Connor broke in, “is that he had half the prison guards in his pocket.” He answered Sir Robert’s glare with a mocking curl of the lip. “Pity for you it wasn’t the clever half.”

The red expanded to Sir Robert’s face. He spun on Connor. “You have
no
proof of such a—”

“You have no idea what I have proof of.”

“I will see you—!”

“You were apologizing, Sir Robert?” Adelaide punctuated the quick interruption with a firm tug on Sir Robert’s hand.

He looked to her, to Connor, and back again. “Right. Yes, of course. I beg your pardon.” He took a deep breath, held it, and released. Adelaide was surprised to smell brandy. “I was apologizing because it is on my head that this . . . this
libertine
, this cad, this—”

Lady Engsly cut him off. “We have established your opinion of the gentleman, Sir Robert.”

“Of course.” Another long, dramatic breath. “What happened today is entirely my fault. I should have taken better care. I should have known he would seek out and attempt to injure what I hold of value. I failed to warn you, and I failed to protect you. I do, and shall always, regret this error bitterly. I can only beg your forgiveness now and plead for the opportunity to make amends.”

This speech was met with silence by the group, with the exception of Connor, who muttered something that sounded rather like,
“Bravo.”

Adelaide was inclined to agree. It was a fine speech. Unfortunately, it also confirmed the suspicion that he was a coward.

“Allow me to make this right,” Sir Robert continued. He cleared his throat in a dramatic, and regrettably affected, manner. And then he said, “My dear Miss Ward, I most humbly and arduously beg the honor of your hand in marriage.”

She had the sudden urge to yank her hand free and run.

“Oh. Oh, I . . .” She looked around her with the vague and inexplicable notion that someone else might answer for her. “Er . . . Sir Robert . . .”

“Don’t be a fool, Adelaide.” Connor’s voice was low and dangerous. It put the hair at the back of her neck on end.

Lady Engsly was not similarly affected. She leaned over and hissed at him, “She’d be a fool not to accept, thanks to you.”

“She has other options.”

“Not unless you’ve offered for her,” Lady Engsly snapped. When he merely lifted a brow, she blinked and straightened in her chair. “Have you offered for her?”

“I have.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Lady Engsly’s transformation was instant. Her pretty face lit up with a smile, and she very nearly bounded off the settee. “That changes things considerably.”

Bewildered, Adelaide could only stare and sputter a few halfhearted protests as Lady Engsly detached her from Sir Robert and ushered her toward the door.

“It seems you have quite a bit to consider, Miss Ward. I suspect a nice long lie-down will put everything into perspective. Come along, Freddie.”

Adelaide tossed a dazed look over her shoulder as she was bustled out of the room. “I thought we were to settle things.”

“We have,” Lady Engsly assured her with a quick pat of the arm. “You received an offer of marriage. Two in fact. We’ll leave the gentlemen to bicker over the details.”

“Shouldn’t she have some say in those details?” Lady Winnefred asked with a hint of indignation.

Adelaide nodded in enthusiastic agreement. If anyone was to be bickering, it ought to be her.

Lady Engsly stopped at the bottom of a back stairwell and turned to address Adelaide with the sort of gentle patience that put her to mind of a governess. “You have the only say that truly matters, Miss Ward. And you’ll be pressured from both sides to make that say known as soon as possible. Do you want to face that pressure now, or do you want a bit of time to think the matter through?”

“Time,” Adelaide replied without hesitation and wondered that she hadn’t seen the wisdom in leaving for herself.

“Excellent. Freddie and I will spread the word that offers have been made. It won’t silence the gossip, I’m afraid, but it will certainly temper the censure.”

She wouldn’t have seen the wisdom in that either. Her mind was so muddled, her emotions so turbulent, it was a miracle she was able to put two words together.

Adelaide looked at the two women before her and wondered what she would have done without their assistance today. Gone to her room without a much-needed proposal or accepted a proposal without much-needed consideration. Either might well have proved disastrous.

“Lady Engsly—”

“Lilly, dear. And Winnefred,” she added with a quick look at her sister-in-law for agreement. “I should think we’ve come far enough in our friendship for given names.”

Adelaide digested that silently for a moment. She wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t sure she could speak around the lump that formed in her throat. It had been so long since someone had offered to help, longer still since she’d had an offer of friendship. She couldn’t find the words to express what it meant to receive both.

“I’m grateful,” she managed at length. And because she couldn’t think of a more adequate sentiment, she repeated it. “I’m so grateful.”

 

T
he abrupt departure of the ladies from the study left Connor in what most men might consider an unenviable position—facing the suitor and two champions of a compromised lady. Connor didn’t mind the silent and tense atmosphere in the least. In fact, he took dark pleasure in ignoring the brothers and staring at Sir Robert until the man looked away, then shifted his feet, then squirmed, then caved.

“I will not remain in the same room with this libertine a moment longer!” Sir Robert announced and bolted for the door.

The entire process took less than thirty seconds. Which—to give credit where credit was due—was a solid twenty seconds longer than Connor had anticipated. Sir Robert had held his ground in the garden longer than expected as well. Apparently, the baron had grown some sort of backbone over the years. Connor estimated his half brother to now be in possession of two, possibly three, full vertebrae.

Connor straightened from the bookshelf and gave a passing nod at Lord Engsly and Lord Gideon as he headed for the door. He felt under no particular obligation to speak with the men. He’d not invited them into the affair.

“A word, Mr. Brice.”

Connor turned at the sound of Engsly’s order and considered each man coolly and carefully.

He knew little of Lord Engsly, and he’d met Lord Gideon only once before—through the bars of a prison cell. Their wives, on the other hand, had been regular visitors to the prison. Before they’d come to their fortunes by way of their husbands, they’d scratched out a meager existence by, amongst other things, mending the clothes of officers and well-to-do prisoners.

But, despite their brief acquaintance, Connor was inclined to like Engsly and Lord Gideon. They had reputations for being levelheaded and fair-minded men. They were also known as men who were not above a bit of brawling when the occasion called for it. In that regard, he wasn’t concerned about the marquess or his brother. He was, however, a little concerned about the marquess
and
his brother. Lord Engsly had speed. Lord Gideon had a sturdy cane and the strength to break it over a man’s head. Connor had honed his fighting skills on the streets of Boston and thought he might be able to take the pair of them, but not without cost.

“Have your word, then.”

“Where are you staying?” Engsly asked.

Lord Gideon answered for him. “He and his men are at the widow Dunbar’s cottage.”

“Spying on me, were you?” Connor inquired with a raised brow.

Lord Gideon’s lips curved. “I had the sense to bribe the clever half.”

Irritation bit at him. “You stand with Sir Robert?”

“I stand with my family,” Lord Gideon corrected.

“Ah.” That made more sense. “Thomas.”

Thomas Brown. The boy who’d been tossed in the cell next to his. No more than twelve, and naïve with it. Connor had looked out for the lad until his release. Lord Gideon and Freddie had taken over after that.

“Worried I might lure him back into iniquity?” Connor asked with a smirk.

“Oddly enough, I was concerned you couldn’t be trusted with an innocent.”

“That is peculiar.”

Lord Engsly took a step forward. “Did you force your attentions on Miss Ward?”

“I did not.”

“Did you mislead her into thinking you were a member of this house party?”

“I never lied to her.” About that, specifically.

“That was not the question.”

Connor shrugged. “The ladies do like a bit of mystery.”

“Was it your intention to compromise Miss Ward?”

“No.” A half-truth. It hadn’t been his intention when he’d begun, but it had certainly been his intention when he’d hauled Adelaide onto the path.

“And is it your purpose now to make her your wife?”

“Yes.”

“To spite your brother.”

“My reasons are immaterial.”

“Miss Ward is apt to disagree.”

Miss Ward was apt to want his head on a platter. But it couldn’t be helped. “Miss Ward is free to marry Sir Robert if she chooses.”

Connor was confident she wouldn’t choose Sir Robert. But it would be helpful if her champions, and their wives, were not openly opposed to a match with himself. Which is why, despite his distaste for the conversation, he tolerated another round of questions from Lord Engsly.

Did he have a home and the means to support a wife and family? Did he have children of his own or a mistress tucked away somewhere? What, exactly, had begun the feud between the two brothers? Connor answered each in turn, feeling much as he had on the day he’d gone before the magistrate on charges of highway robbery. Yes, yes, no, no, and . . .

“None of your bleeding business. Now, if there’s nothing else?” He didn’t bother to wait for a reply before heading for the door. Their support would be advantageous, but it wasn’t necessary. He was not obliged to go groveling for it.

“One more thing,” Lord Gideon said softly. He’d been mostly silent during the questioning. Connor suspected he’d already been aware of more than half the answers. “A bit of advice. You would be wise to remember that my wife is fond of Miss Ward.”

And Lord Gideon was madly in love with his wife. If she asked him to squash Connor like a bug, he’d not think twice before obliging her.

“Then Freddie and I have something in common,” Connor replied. He didn’t take offense at the implied threat, but he emphasized the use of Freddie, just a little, just enough to make the muscle in Lord Gideon’s jaw pop.

It didn’t quite make up for the inconvenience and insult of a half hour’s interrogation, but it was gratifying nonetheless.