The Secret Heart, page 16
Torbridge lunged, slamming him back against the wall and grasping his right wrist. The valet struck him a couple of quick body blows with his left hand, but it was in desperation, for the inexorable squeezing of his wrist was opening his fingers.
Pennington, meanwhile, was recovering his senses. With a grunt of fury, he launched himself at Torbridge’s back. Lily stuck her foot in front of him, and he staggered forward helplessly into Torbridge’s out-thrust elbow.
The knife clattered to the wooden floor. Lily scuttled to pick it up, while Torbridge jerked Francis forward and back so hard that the valet’s head struck the wall with a sickening crack. Before the servant even slid to the floor, Torbridge spun around, blocked Pennington’s flying punch with his arm before punching him in the midriff. And as Pennington doubled involuntarily, Torbridge’s devastating fist shot back up into his chin and knocked him back against the wall.
Dazed and open-mouthed, Pennington stared up at him from the floor.
Torbridge swung on Lily, grasping her by both shoulders, devouring her with his eyes. “Did they hurt you?”
“They didn’t care about me,” Lily gasped. “It was you… I think they meant to kill you.”
Torbridge laughed. “Pennington has only ever beaten someone smaller. Which is why, no doubt, he brought his valet.”
“I beat you often enough,” Pennington said viciously.
“But not today,” Torbridge said.
Against the opposite wall, the valet groaned and stirred. Neither man seemed to be paying him any attention.
“Learned to box a little, did you?” Pennington sneered.
“Amongst other things,” Torbridge said evenly. “I thought it might help in my new line of work.”
“Protecting your sister and your whore?”
Torbridge held his gaze for so long that Pennington began to look confused. Across the room, the valet sat groggily upright, clutching his head, gazing at the scene opposite. Lily tried to catch his eye to warn him Francis was conscious, but something told her to stay silent.
“Do you really think I won’t hit you again?” Torbridge said softly. “Just because you are down? I’m not the man you thought me, Pennington.”
“He never was,” Lily said.
Pennington’s gaze flickered past her to Francis, but Torbridge still seemed oblivious of the valet’s recovery. He, too, had taken a few blows.
And then the valet hurtled to his feet, bolted across the room, and threw himself through the window in a cloud of shattering glass and splintered wood.
The crash and the tinkle of glass faded into silence save for the valet’s receding footsteps. As those left behind stared at each other, a sharp breeze whipped into the room. Outside, a horse snorted, and then hooves galloped away into the distance.
Pennington laughed. “But you see, you still lose, Torbridge. Francis has a valuable document in his pocket, which is also the only proof you have against me. You shouldn’t have let him get away.”
“Oh, we will let him get away,” Torbridge said gently. “All the way to France.”
It took several moments for that to sink in before Pennington’s frown of consternation vanished into a flash of horrified understanding. “You planted it. The plans are false.”
“Utterly,” Torbridge said.
The door burst open, and Millie and Sir George all but flew inside. They halted, stunned, presumably by the carnage of the fallen table, the shattered window, and a bruised Pennington on the floor looking sick.
“Close the door,” Torbridge said mildly.
Sir George obeyed. “What the devil has been going on here?”
“Oh, Pennington’s valet just resigned in a spectacular manner. What did you want?”
“A footman was looking for you and couldn’t find you,” Millie said. “He had an urgent letter.” Her gaze met her brother’s, and Lily understood.
So, it seemed did Pennington, who laughed maliciously. “That’s right, Torbridge. Run off and play at being marquess. Millie and I will carry on where we left off.”
Even without the dead or dying parent, the remark was in abominable taste, clearly designed only to sow discord. And indeed, Millie whitened, as though she could see all her recent closeness with her husband evaporating once more.
“I am at a loss,” Sir George drawled. “Not even some scum from the gutter would refer to my wife in such a way. I can only assume you refer to some other Millie, which is hardly appropriate or gentlemanly in the circumstances. Or you are an imbecile.”
Pennington laughed. He probably meant it to be sardonic, but it sounded merely angry.
“Since you have clearly hit him already, Torbridge—several times by the look of him—I’ll leave him there.”
“His hospitality certainly palls,” Torbridge agreed, strolling past them to open the door. “Shall we go and find this message?”
“I wouldn’t, George, I wouldn’t,” Millie whispered passionately to her husband as they filed out in front of Lily.
“I know. You have more taste.”
She seized his arm almost desperately. “I do, but that is not the reason. I would never, could never, consider a lover. Because I have only ever loved you.”
Sir George came to an abrupt halt. In spite of everything, Lily had to hide her smile as she brushed past them to catch up with Torbridge. He was silent, unusually grim. She didn’t speak either, merely walked beside him until, at the ballroom stairs, they encountered the footman with the silver tray.
The footman bowed to him. Torbridge took the letter with a mechanical word of thanks and turned his back on the ballroom as he broke the seal.
Lily looked anxiously up into his face, watching his eyes scan the paper. Then his hand dropped to his side.
“Is he dead?” she whispered.
“Not yet. But he won’t last more than a day or two according to the doctors. He wants to see me.”
Millie and Sir George appeared, and without a word, Torbridge passed his sister the letter. She looked almost frightened. There seemed to be little love between the children and their father, but still, the death of a parent was a solid rock taken away.
“It’s an excuse to leave,” Lily said shakily.
“Then let us take it,” Torbridge said briskly. “Begin packing. I will speak to Lady Pennington.”
*
It was an understandably subdued party that left Pennington Place around the same time the ball was ending. Sir George and Millie sat side by side, tightly holding each other’s hands. Torbridge stared out of the window.
“Was it done?” Millie asked him at last. “Whatever your business was here.”
“Oh, yes, it’s done. I was wrong about the culprit, but Lily kept me right.”
“Lily,” Millie repeated, frowning at her. “What are we to do with you now?”
Lily smiled painfully. “Let me off at the nearest town, preferably with a little money for the stagecoach. It’s time I went home.”
“Not yet,” Torbridge said abruptly.
Millie blinked at him.
Lily, clutching her leaping heart, waited. But he seemed far away from her, from everyone. It was neither the time nor the place to be discussing inappropriate love.
“Exactly,” Millie said brightly. “More than ever at Hayleigh, I shall need my companion.”
Chapter Sixteen
Hayleigh House was probably even larger than Pennington Place, but parts of it were clearly much older, including the original medieval great hall which served now as the entrance hall. Although it was too dark when they arrived to make out details, Lily thought it was surrounded by parkland and forest, but nothing so frivolous as formal gardens or mazes.
It was only nine o’clock in the evening, so there was no shortage of servants spilling out of the house to see to bags and horses, ushering everyone up the imposing front steps into the house.
No distraught mother ran to receive or offer comfort. Instead, a lugubrious butler informed Torbridge that her ladyship was in the small drawing room.
“And my father?” Torbridge asked.
“Still with us, my lord, God be praised. But I believe her ladyship would like to see you first.”
Lily, after being swept up an impressive staircase and along a broad passage to a set of double doors, wondered if she should wait outside for the emotional greeting. But Torbridge merely took her elbow and ushered her in before him.
The room was dimly lit by the standards Lily had become used to, but it was enough to see a thin, severe lady seated in the chair nearest the fire. She looked up at their entry, her eyes sharp, her lips thin. As they drew closer, Lily sensed unease but little grief in her.
“Well, Torbridge,” the lady said coolly, extending her hand.
Any hopes Lily harbored that this was not Lady Hay were immediately dashed when Torbridge replied with equal coldness. “Mama.” He took her hand, pressed a perfunctory kiss on her cheek, and stood back.
“Sir George,” Lady Hay acknowledged, offering her free hand to her son-in-law before her daughter. “Millicent.” Inevitably, her gaze landed on Lily. “Who is this?”
“My companion, Miss Darrow.”
Lady Hay immediately dropped her hand back into her lap. “What do you want with a companion? You aren’t yet thirty years old.”
“I’m one-and-thirty,” Millie replied. “And I have found her most helpful.”
Lady Hay, clearly, was not remotely interested. “Where is Ella?”
“Following with Barham,” Torbridge said impatiently. “Your letter said my father wanted to see me.”
“Indeed. He has a list of instructions as long as your arm, and he does not trust you to read it. Or understand.”
“He gave me them the last time,” Torbridge said.
“Then he will reinforce them on this occasion. You had better go up and get it over with. All of you. I imagine, Millicent, you’ll need Miss Darrow to carry your smelling salts.”
It was, Lily suspected, an opportunity for malice, mingled with an aversion to entertaining a stranger of little rank. Lily, while grateful not to be left alone with a woman who chilled the blood in her veins, doubted she wanted to be anywhere near the marquess.
It was only the stiffness of Torbridge’s figure in front of her that prevented her from hanging back in the dressing room. In some way, she didn’t understand he needed her support. He needed her there.
An elderly valet answered the door to Millie’s timid scratching. “Oh, my lady,” he almost wept. “My lord, come in. His lordship has been asking for you constantly.”
“Stop sniveling, man,” came a weak yet profoundly irritable voice from the depths of the huge bed that loomed before them. “Can’t see what you’re complaining about. It’s not you who’s dying. If that’s my son, bring him here.”
They walked further into the room, although Lily then hung back, as did Sir George, letting Torbridge and Millie face their father on his death bed.
“Ha,” uttered the fond father between rather horribly wheezing breaths. “Did you read the papers I gave you?”
“No,” Torbridge replied. “I shall probably tear them up.”
The only man’s fingers curled around the bedclothes in fury. “Is that supposed to be funny? I cannot bear you to ruin everything I have built here.”
“Of course, he won’t,” Millie said indignantly, and immediately attracted her father’s ire.
“What do you know of men’s business?” he snarled.
“Nothing,” Millie replied. “But I know my own brother. As should you.”
“Ha. My daughter grows claws. You should beat her, Masterton.”
“He won’t beat her,” Torbridge said at once. “He is not a monster.”
“Bah.” The marquess’s hand lifted feebly in dismissal, then fell back on the covers. “You were always too soft, too cowardly to be the son I wanted. But you’re still my heir, and you will do my bidding. For God’s sake, don’t be more of a fool than you can help.”
“Why do you insult him?” The words fell from Lily’s lips before she could stop them. She didn’t know why, except that he didn’t deserve the insults, and that the very air in the room felt poisonous.
Everyone stared at her, even the sick old man in the huge bed, who peered at her with more curiosity than anger. “Who the devil’s this?”
Lily stepped forward. “My name is Lily, and I think it is a shame you are not prouder of your son, who works tirelessly for his country and has done more to prevent French victory than most other people you know put together. Moreover, he is nobody’s fool, but a man of great courage, wit, integrity, and wisdom, and if you cannot see that, then I pity you.”
Torbridge turned his head, gazing at her with something approaching wonder. Millie moved instinctively to draw her back out of the line of fire, then dropped her hand because Sir George said simply, “She is right.”
“And who is she?” he demanded. “Well, little girl?”
The old eyes were fierce in his sick face. The eyes of a man who was always obeyed and rarely crossed, directly at least.
She leaned forward. “Lily. I’m no one, just an innkeeper’s daughter.”
To her surprise, he laughed, which turned into a fit of coughing, and the valet appeared to shoo them all out.
“Come and see me tomorrow, Lily, the innkeeper’s daughter!” he called breathlessly as they left the bedchamber. “I’ll still be alive then, whatever the stupid quacks say!”
*
Lily woke the following morning after a long and refreshing sleep. She lay for a few minutes, soaking up the atmosphere of the house, and shivered. Sitting up, she pulled open the bed curtains. Sunlight squeezed through the cracks in the shutters, enticing her to slip out of bed and throw them open.
Her chamber looked out over a magnificent lawn and the edge of a wood. Blackbirds were singing on the roof above, then stopped and flew over the lawn toward a glistening lake. Drawn to it, she hastily washed and dressed as best she could without help, and hurried downstairs to find the quickest way outside, preferably without encountering the marchioness.
A cheerful maid scrubbing the passage floor pointed her to a side door and laughed as Lily tried to avoid where she had already washed. With a feeling of relief, Lily followed the path away from the house, then skirted the woods, and headed toward the inviting lake.
As she drew nearer, she noticed a male figure sitting at the water’s edge, throwing stones into the lake and watching them bounce across the surface. A child’s trick the local boys had practiced at the beach below the Hart. Ned, she remembered, had been the champion.
But this was not Ned. This was Lord Torbridge in a shabby coat and muddy boots.
“Good morning, Lily,” he said without turning.
She came and sat beside him. “How did you know it was me?”
He picked up a stone from the little pile at his side. “No one else brings peace and comfort with them.”
“It’s not a peaceful or a comfortable house,” she noted.
“Far from it.” He threw the stone, and they watched it bounce four times across the water before it sank. Finally, he turned his head and looked directly at her. “The house is better with you in it.”
She swallowed. “You seem to look on me as some kind of magical creature or a talisman.”
“Perhaps you are.”
“No. I’m just a woman. Out of her class and out of her depth. And I was rude to your father.”
“Good for you. No one’s been rude to him for years, except me, and most of my incivilities go over his head.”
“You hide from each other.”
He shrugged. “I suppose it makes life bearable for both of us.” He picked up another stone but didn’t throw it. Instead, they sat in silence until, slowly, she laid her head against his arm. She felt rather than saw him smile. After a few moments, his arm came around her, drawing her closer, and they sat in silence, gazing out over the lake.
*
Restless and on edge, Torbridge wished his father would die. It wasn’t a totally selfish wish. The old man was clearly in terrible pain and discomfort, and his son wanted his suffering to end. He knew how helplessness irked his father. But he also hated the purgatory of waiting, of this weird space he seemed to inhabit. Although his relationship with his father would be difficult and hostile up to the end, he understood he would still grieve in his own way. And he wanted to move on.
Lily.
Lily felt like his anchor, his rock, as well as the center of all his hopes.
“That girl of Millicent’s,” his mother said abruptly after a tense luncheon, just as he was about to follow the others out of the dining room. “She calls your sister ‘cousin’. Is she one of the Darrow cousins?”
“Something like that,” Torbridge said vaguely. “I believe her to be well connected.”
“But poor.”
Torbridge acknowledged it with a nod of his head and waited impatiently for his dismissal.
“Sit down, Torbridge,” his mother said impatiently, indicating the chair opposite her own.
He owed her that much. Walking back to the table, he sat, and waited, meeting her frowning gaze.
“Have you thought about this place?” she asked abruptly. “This will all be yours in a matter of days. Hours even. How do you want to arrange things? I suppose you will leave it up to me.”
“No, I won’t do that,” he said gently. “But I suppose you are asking what your position will be. I mean to marry shortly, so you should consider what you would like to do and where you want to live. There is the Dower House, or if you prefer somewhere farther away—even London or Bath—I am happy to accommodate you.”
For a moment, she looked stunned and then outraged. But it was her gaze that fell first.
“I hate this house,” she observed. “It always felt like a mausoleum.”
“You certainly made it so. I have different plans for it.”
“You, Torbridge?” she sneered. “You never had plans in your life.”
