Kathryn Caskie (15 page)

“Miss Chillton,” Griffin said, his voice as buoyant as his mood seemed to be. “I am so happy to see you. Ecstatic really. I vow, so great was my desire to see you that I could scarce wait the moments for you to descend the stairs and walk the length of the passage.”

“Dear gel.” Lady Viola stood up from the settee and came to stand next to Hannah. She slipped her frail arm around Hannah’s waist. “Mr. St. Albans has something to ask of you . . . and sister and I will have you know that we support his request
fully
.”

For an instant, Hannah was more than a little confused. After the incident on the street that afternoon, it was inconceivable that Griffin would—

“Miss Chillton.” Griffin came down on one knee before Hannah.

Her stomach clenched. This could not be happening.

“Since the day we first met on the cliffs of Kennymare Cove, I was impressed by your wit, beauty, strength, and intelligence. I knew I wanted to know you, so much so that I followed you to Bath. How could I know the depth of the love that would develop in my heart for you. A love that I believe resides within you for me as well.”

Griffin lowered his eyes and said nothing for several seconds. When he raised them again, his green eyes sparkled with emotion.

Hannah’s eyes filled with tears upon seeing this, and she struggled to take back her hand, but he held firm and continued.

“My dear Miss Chillton, I know our time together has been short. But I know in my heart there will never be another I will love as deeply as I do you. And so I have asked your duennas for permission to marry you as soon as possible. I-I left early this morn to obtain a marriage license for us. The earl had to use a little influence to expedite matters, I fear, but I was insistent that no impediment lay between us and the altar.”

Hannah felt her bottom lip begin to quiver. She pulled her hand weakly one last time, but it was no use.

His gaze held hers fast, preventing her, as surely as his firm grip, from leaving before he made his final plea. “So please, Hannah, say you will. Say you will marry me.”

A torrent of unstoppable tears cascaded down Hannah’s cheeks for the second time that day.

Her throat was raw, words too hard to grasp. She shook her head violently and jerked away from both Griffin and Lady Viola.

She stumbled closer to the fire and rested her head in her hands, leaning for support against the marble mantel. “How can you do this to me, Griffin?” Her voice was a murmur.

“Hannah?” came Griffin’s deep voice.

She lifted her head from her tear-wetted palms and stared into his eyes.
“How?”

Abruptly, Griffin came to his feet. He made a step toward her, but she raised her palm and halted him before he could reach her. “I do not understand,” he said. “Please, what I have I done?”

“You used me. Oh, I do not know what game you play now. Perhaps you mean to salve your conscience for ruining me, or perhaps the earl has some part in this. But
I
shan’t.”

Hannah drew in a long breath through her nose, then expelled it with her next words. “I will not marry you, Mr. St. Albans. Not today.
Not ever.
I refuse to be a pawn in whatever game you play.”

Her words still hanging heavily in the air, Hannah grabbed a fistful of her skirts and ran from the drawing room.

Griffin charged into the house on Queen Square and without a word to his brother or the earl, who were jovially sipping brandy in the parlor, made his way straight to his bedchamber. He flung open his wardrobe and lifted his Newtonian sweeper from the wood-plank floor.

He would head for the bluff where he had shown Hannah the comet. And there he would wait for the skies to clear.

When he turned around to quit the room, he found the doorway blocked by Garnet and the earl.

“Congratulations, Griffin!” Garnet raised his bulbed brandy crystal into the air.

“Yes, yes. I do believe that a grand celebration is in order.” The skewed angle of the earl’s wig hinted to Griffin that the brandy in his hand was not his first this eve. “Pinkerton has already prepared the documents we shall require, but I see no reason, not one at all, why we should not toast to the future of Devonsfield this very night.”

Garnet caught the earl’s unsteady hand as he, too, raised his glass upward. His gaze locked with Griffin’s, and a look of concern darkened his eyes. “A moment, my lord. I fear something may be amiss.”

The earl peered up through his beady dark eyes at Garnet. “What ever are you going on about? Surely the gel accepted the lad’s offer. He is to inherit a bleeding earldom after all. She is to become a countess. Why, she’d have to be mad to—”

Griffin hardened his eyes, and the earl quieted immediately.

“Damnation.” Garnet released the earl’s arm and crossed the room to Griffin. “She refused, didn’t she? I knew something had happened when I met her on the street earlier.”

Griffin narrowed his gaze. “On the street today? You saw Miss Chillton . . . today?”

“Did I not just say that? She was in a damned odd state of mind, too. Still, you made an offer. Why did she not accept?” Garnet asked, but something moved warily in his brother’s eyes and told Griffin that somehow he already knew the answer to that.

An answer to which he himself was not yet privy.

“Will one of you explain to me what is happening?” The earl drained the last of his brandy, then glanced around unsteadily for the decanter.

Griffin lurched forward and seized the twist of his brother’s neckcloth. “You know what happened. Tell me now. Tell me what you did to destroy my life.”

Chapter Thirteen

A
loud rapping at the front door yanked Hannah cleanly from a dreamless sleep. She rolled onto her back and rubbed her eyes.

Who in blazes would be calling so early?

The pounding persisted, and she wondered if the servants were even awake yet.

Her mind was still fogged with sleep, but Hannah crawled from the warmth of her bed, drew back the heavy curtain, and glanced out the front window to the street below.

In the distance to her left, a dark carriage wheeled its way down Brock Street. There was no other movement. Nothing she hadn’t seen a hundred times or more.

She pressed her forehead to the cold glass for a better look at the carriage, but it had already disappeared from her line of vision.

The sky above was clear, and a vibrant blue swath of color developed on the horizon, promising a welcome change in the weather. But the day was far too young for visitors to come to the house.

Morning dew still glistened on the expansive lawn edging the grand sweep of the Royal Crescent. The sun could not have risen above the spa city more than an hour prior. Who had come to call?

As Hannah’s senses sharpened to wakefulness, she pulled the bell cord to summon Annie to help her dress.

If someone stood at the door at this bleak hour, they had not likely come there to deliver happy news. No, more likely the call was a derivative of the emotional events of last eve.

Hannah set her feet to pacing across the bedchamber while she nervously waited to be summoned before the Feathertons, for if she was correct in her assumptions about the caller, surely the ladies would send for her at any moment.

Her heart tapped in her chest as she passed the door, then turned around and paused to listen for the sound of footfalls on the stairs. Immediately, it seemed, she heard the thud of feet upon the treads. She held her breath and stepped backward several paces as the brass latch sank, and her door opened.

But it was only Annie. Thank heaven. Hannah released her pent breath as the lady’s maid hurried inside and secured the door tightly behind her.

“Oh, we’ve got trouble, Miss Hannah. Grand trouble indeed! I couldn’t make out none of what the earl was sayin’, but whatever it was, he was sayin’ it wickedly loud. I don’t think he was just bein’ kind, due to the ladies not hearin’ so well anymore!”

Hannah sat down on her bed. “The
earl
is here? The Earl of Devonsfield?”

Annie nodded her head. “Aye.”

“You are sure the caller is not . . . Mr. St. Albans perhaps, accompanied by the earl?”

“No, miss. ’Tis the earl for certain. His man—you know, the odd one with black-curtained hair and garbed as if he was always in mournin’—he asked Mr. Edgar to bring a chair for him . . . all bold and snooty, like he was the master and not of the serving class like the rest of us. He accompanied the earl.”

“But you are sure Mr. St. Albans has not also come?”

Annie huffed her frustration. “I am sure. ’Tis the earl’s man in the entry. You can go see for yourself if you like. He’s sittin’ right outside the drawing room this very minute, like a bleedin’ sentry.” She clapped her hand to her mouth. “My language. Lady Letitia is always scoldin’ me about my choice of words. Beggin’ your pardon, Miss Hannah.”

Suddenly there was a soft scratch at Hannah’s door. Annie’s eyes locked with Hannah’s, and for a moment neither moved or made a sound.

“Miss Hannah?” It was Mrs. Penny’s voice coming from the passage. “Are you in there?”

Hannah gave Annie a nod, and the maid depressed the latch and opened the door a hand’s width. Mrs. Penny stood in the passage, her face pinched with agitation.

“Miss Han—” The housekeeper rose on the balls of her feet to see over Annie and to meet Hannah’s gaze. “The ladies desire your presence in the drawing room, Miss Hannah. They said you should not tarry, for the matter is of great urgency.”

Annie nodded. “Right, I shall give my mistress your message.”

Mrs. Penny, suddenly perturbed with Annie’s blockade, pushed the maid aside and walked into the room. “Miss Hannah, the ladies did not give me leave to do so, but I feel I should tell you that the Earl of Devonsfield is with the Feathertons, so you will wish to dress.”

“My thanks, Mrs. Penny. I will certainly do so.”

The housekeeper’s gaze shifted to Annie, and she gave a disapproving sigh. “What are you doing standing there with your mouth open, Annie? Make haste, gel, before the earl gets it into his mind to come up the staircase to find Miss Hannah himself!”

Hannah gasped. She could not help herself. For Mrs. Penny was entirely correct in her assessment of the earl’s character.

Everyone he encountered learned very quickly that he was not the most patient of men, and coming up the stairs after her, well, it was just the sort of thing he might do if he had a mind to. Society’s rules did not seem to apply to his lordship.

Hannah’s first inclination, to remain in her room and send her excuses below, was not likely to stop the earl from seeing her if that, and it seemed likely, was what he wished to do. Her only other option, besides doing as the Feathertons requested, was to flee.

Carefully, so the focus of her gaze would not be noticed, Hannah peered across the chamber at the small window facing the back garden.

She could climb down the lattice. It was not the least bit difficult to accomplish. She had scaled the latticework on at least three occasions without so much as snagging her skirt.

“Oh no, Miss Hannah.” Annie was already shaking her head, as if she had divined Hannah’s thoughts.

“I-I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, nothin’ really. I was just thinkin’ that I wouldn’t leave the Feathertons waiting too long if I was you. Maybe you ain’t never seen Lady Letitia angry, but I have. And what good would it do you anyway? You would have to come home eventually, and as soon as you did, you would only be called before the Feathertons to explain yourself. But then you wouldn’t have their support, like you’d have now.”

Hannah gave Annie a little glare, like the thought of escaping had never even occurred to her. But the maid was quite right, and she’d do well to put the latticework out of her head.

She turned her gaze to Mrs. Penny. “Would you please let the ladies know I am dressing but shall be down presently?”

With an efficient nod, Mrs. Penny left the chamber, closing the door behind her.

Hannah turned her gaze to the two gowns Annie had pulled from the wardrobe and had just spread out upon the bed.

Hannah pointed at the frock on the left. “The blue one, I think. Always imparts a feeling of confidence when I wear it . . . and heaven knows, I will be needing all I can muster this day.”

Dressed in her favorite blue cambric frock, her hair twisted, pinned, and magnificently coiffed in the most time-consuming, intricate style Annie could manage, Hannah slid her hand along the balustrade rail and walked, as if to her death, down the two flights of stairs to the entryway hall.

Her kid slippers were silent on the floor as she approached the drawing room.

She paused before reaching the door, out of sight to grant her a moment or two more in which to gather her courage before facing the earl.

Hannah didn’t know why the earl intimidated her so. Very few people in this world did. And she shouldn’t allow him to affect her so.

She stood at least a head taller than the squat, physically inconsequential gentleman.

He did not strike her as overly intelligent or skilled in any worthwhile pursuit. In fact, when she considered the qualities to recommend him, she realized, to her shame, that she had allowed his lofty position within the realm to overwhelm her sensibilities. Nothing more.

No longer though. Not after this morn.

Peerage, or lack thereof, had nothing to do with their issue of contention. She was completely in the right when it came to this matter, and she had every reason to decline Mr. St. Albans’s offer of marriage.

Hannah raised her chin, and was just about to charge into the room and tell the gentleman so, when she overheard the earl mention her name in a most angry tone.

Her foot froze midstride, and she slowly lowered her slipper to the floor and cowered by the wall in the passage.

Wouldn’t do to enter ill prepared, now would it?
she told herself.
No indeed.

Stealthily, she edged along the wall, stopping as close to the open doorway as she dared. She strained to listen.

“The gel must see the advantage in such a match,” the earl was explaining to the Featherton sisters. “She’d be a countess. She’d have standing and influence within society, something, as a mere miss, she does not possess now except . . . by her association with the two of you.”