Behind the Marquess's Mask (The Lords of Whitehall Book 1) (22 page)

T
he morning did not bring
the encouragement Kathryn had been hoping for, but she hadn’t really expected it to. The missive she had sent to her mother as soon as she had woken had been returned unopened almost immediately, as expected.

Nick was at breakfast, which Kathryn chose to take with him instead of in her room like some sulking child. He looked quite cheerful for it being a mere eight o’clock in the morning.

The sideboard was filled with eggs, steak, toast, ham, sausages, potatoes, and gravy to slather it all in. Coffee and juice were already waiting for her across from Nick, and not a minute later, a cup of chocolate was brought in for her, as well.

“Proof that you do nothing halfway.” She waved a hand at the sideboard as she seated herself.

Nick looked up and smiled warmly before shoveling another forkful of steak and eggs into his mouth.

The food tasted even better than it smelled, which Kathryn would have sworn was impossible had she not experienced it herself. It was almost as surprising as seeing her friend wolfing it down. She had always pictured him a dainty type of eater.

“Nick, I wanted to thank you again. You are one of the most wonderful, tasteful, kind, and understanding—”

“Hey, there! Don’t you go off spouting that drivel! You will ruin my reputation,” he interrupted with a grin.

“Nick, I am serious.”

“You shouldn’t be. The day is far too lovely to be serious.” He leaned back and ran his tongue over his teeth contemplatively. Abruptly, he said, “I know! We shall go out. Shopping, perhaps.”

“Nick, after last night, not a single shop in town would dress me on Grey’s credit, and they would be right not to. I highly doubt Grey would foot the bills, and I have nothing of my own.” To say it aloud was a blow to her pride, and if it were anyone else, she would have simply refused the offer.

“He won’t get the bloody bills. I shall!”

“Nick, I can’t allow that. People will talk. It isn’t proper, and you have done so much for me already.” She wished she could just accept his offer. Oh, how she was tempted. Regardless, she couldn’t.

Nick set down his coffee and pinned her with a stern gaze. “For starters, people are already talking, and it has
nothing
to do with me. Secondly, after last night, what other people think to be good and proper is no longer your concern. You do what you like, and I assume receiving gifts from an old friend who’s practically family is not too abhorrent to you?” Now he softened his look, and one side of his mouth curled up. “Thirdly, I never gave you a wedding present. At the time, you didn’t know who I was, and I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. Now you
do
know who I am, so I don’t care if I make you uncomfortable.”

The smug grin on his face was irresistible.

“You are impossible,” she scolded teasingly. “Thank you, for everything.” With a chaste kiss on his cheek, Kathryn hurried up to her room to change.

As soon as Kathryn disappeared from the breakfast table, so did Nick’s smile as his food soured in his stomach.

“Oh, old chap. How could you let this happen?” he murmured as he pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket and lit it in the fireplace. Once it was long disintegrated, he turned and walked out of the breakfast parlor.

* * *

“
R
ight
, here’s Hatchard’s bookshop. I have a man to see whilst we are out, so I shall leave you to your own devices, if you don’t mind?” Nick stopped just outside of a shop with its windows full of books.

Kathryn studied them before turning back to him with a pleased expression. “Oh, I think I can manage by myself for a few days in there, Nick. How long will you be?”

“No longer than an hour,” he promised, touching his cane to his gray top hat. “I shall just be down the street.”

“Very well.” Kathryn stepped into the shop, slowly browsing the tomes.

The shelves were filled to the brim with encyclopedias, poems, novels, scientific journals, classic literature, biographies, other historical accounts, and all sorts of other knickknacks. It didn’t take long for her to find a selection to keep her occupied and settle in the corner to read.

“Did you know he threw her out on the street?” The exaggerated whisper caught Kathryn’s attention.

She had spent not more than thirty minutes reading when the women walked toward the back of the shop and stopped around the corner of where Kathryn stood.

“No! I cannot blame him, though. What a scandal!” came a second voice.

Kathryn stayed perfectly still, unable to move even if she had wanted to. She only prayed they weren’t talking about what she thought they were.

“Yes, I know. What do you want to wager Ainsley divorces her before the week is out? That would open him back up to our more
appropriate
young ladies.”

Kathryn dropped her book involuntarily with a decided thud.

She had never thought he might remarry. He wouldn’t, would he? But why should she care? She was leaving, going to Italy.

She bit down on her bottom lip to keep the tears from spilling over onto her cheeks.

Lud, but she was such a watering pot these days.

The two women must have heard the book and realized they were being listened to, because they shuffled upstairs to the next round of books.

Kathryn turned to face the wall and pressed her cool hands to her cheeks. She began to count to ten silently. By six, a warm, fat tear had escaped and was trailing down her cheek, blazing a trail for two more in quick succession. By nine, another tear had slipped down to her dress from the other side.

“I came back as quickly as I could.” Nick had walked up behind her, the dropped book already in hand. “I say, Kathryn, what’s happened now?”

She tried to laugh, but it came out pathetic and ended with her burying her face into her hands.

“Oh, Kathryn. This won’t do at all.” Nick looked around as he handed her a handkerchief, making sure no one was slinking about, watching the display. Then he took her by the shoulders and led her out of the shop and into his carriage.

“What happened back there?” he asked, shaking his head when she offered him back his soaked handkerchief.

“Oh, Nick!” She buried her face into his monogrammed cloth again for a few moments before continuing. “I know I shouldn’t be like this, and I
certainly
shouldn’t be listening to gossip.”

“Ah,” Nick said, nodding. “So it’s the gossipers who have you so distraught. I should have guessed as much.” He sat back against the squabs and crossed his arms over his chest, much as Grey did. “And what wisdom, pray tell, did they grace the world with today?”

She swallowed and sniffled before she spoke. “That Grey was g-going to divorce m-me… re-m-marry.” Her bottom lip began to tremble. Just seconds later, she came apart again into the handkerchief.

Nick shook his head sadly at her. “And you believed them.” It was more of a statement than a question. It was obvious she believed them.

“W-well, yes.”

“Why should you care what the man does?” Nick asked, shrugging. “You didn’t even want Derbyshire, even though the countryside there is the stuff of poems. Breathtaking.”

“I-I love him, Nick,” Kathryn sobbed.

“Obviously. Does he know that?”

Kathryn breathed deeply, composing herself. She had to face the facts.

“Yes,” she said, sniffling. “He knows.”

“What did he say?”

“That love had nothing to do with it,” she answered, the wound still fresh in her mind. “He was so angry.”

“Grey and I both know what Wheeling is, but it looked very bad, Kathryn. Grey is likely a bit sore about it.”

Kathryn took a deep breath and looked out the window of the closed carriage.

“I shouldn’t have told you about that library,” Nick murmured, his head bowed.

“Oh, Nick. You can’t blame your—”

His hand cut through the air. “Honor is one thing I shall not brook argument on, Kathryn. The least I can do is talk to that imbecile. Then we can have the truth instead of rumors at any rate. We shall see if there’s anything to it.”

Dread had Kathryn silently pleading for a carriage accident and a quick death.

“Which I am sure there isn’t,” Nick stressed.

Kathryn just nodded and looked back out the window.

“If there is, he will see the light by the time I am through with him,” Nick murmured under his breath through clenched teeth. “Or he won’t see any light past his own swollen face for a week.”

“
A
h
, Nick! What brings you to my humble abode?” Grey’s
humble
abode
did not refer to his townhouse of marble floors and columns with its army of servants, but instead, his study with its warm fire, dark leather chairs, and decanter of brandy.

He held two full snifters, one he proffered to Nick. He had discarded his coat over the back of his chair and his cravat somewhere near the bookshelf by the window. His waistcoat was somehow still on and buttoned, yet the shirt underneath it was open down his chest with the sleeves rolled up about the elbows.

“Good God, man. What’s happened to you?” Nick grimaced in astonishment as he accepted the snifter.

“Me?” Grey chuckled as he looked down at himself. “Oh, I am right as rain, Nicky boy. What’s happened to you?”

Oh, he was three sheets in the wind, no doubt about it. He had been since Kathryn had left based on the sad state of that shirt.

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing’s happened to me, my good fellow. I assure you.” He eyed Grey’s snifter warily before adding, “Perhaps you ought to hand that to me.” He reached for Grey’s drink, only to be swatted away. “All right, all right. Perhaps, instead, might you be inclined to tell me what in hell you think you are doing?”

“Why, Nick, I am drinking brandy in my study. I thought that was obvious,” he answered with one raised brow.

“Grey, this is no time to be flippant. Your wife is—”

“My
wife
,” Grey cut him off with a growl.

“Yes, your wife!” he shot back. “Kathryn is in residence at Pembridge House because she has nowhere else to go. Do you intend to legally abandon her as the gossipmongers suggest?”

Grey paused, and the fire in his eyes cooled. “Kathryn is in residence at Pembridge House?”

“Yes! Can you not hear? Has the brandy affected your hearing as severely as it appears to have affected everything else on your person?” Nick impatiently waved an arm, gesturing to Grey’s condition. “For God’s sake, man, pull yourself together!”

“She told me she was going to Lady Grenville’s.”

“Lady Grenville isn’t in town at the moment, and the servants won’t allow Kathryn inside the house.” Nick was fairly shaking with restraint. He hadn’t felt such desire to horsewhip a man in his life.

“She could always come home,” Grey mused.

“To this? I came here under the impression you had some sort of plan, but good grief, Grey. Grown tired of saving her, have you?”

“That’s not it at all, not even bloody close.” Grey closed his eyes as he sunk into his chair, and after carefully setting his drink on the side table, he buried his face in his hands. “How did it come to this, Nick?”

Nick raised his brows mockingly. “Hm? Come to what, Grey? To an unmanageable pile of rubbish?”

Grey ran his hands through his hair, raising tortured eyes to his friend. “That troublesome, little cactus utterly annihilated me. I have survived war, assassins, prison, but her? Now that I barely know my left from my right, she’s gone.”

Nick dropped into the matching leather chair. “What do you intend to do to fix it?”

“Nothing,” he said with a humorless half smile.

“
Nothing
?” Nick repeated.

“Why, Nick, you don’t seem to approve of my plan.” Grey picked up his drink, sloshing it over his wrist as he brought it to his mouth. It was now clear to Nick why Grey’s sleeves were rolled about his elbows.

“That’s quite astute of you,” Nick muttered with narrowed eyes. He reached out, snatching Grey’s snifter, careful not to spill any on his own sleeves. “I don’t approve of the pity party you call a plan, and I believe you have had plenty enough to drink for the both of us, my good fellow.”

“It’s not a pity party, and I have not had nearly enough.” He grunted, turning his wedding band about his finger.

“Enough to what? To kill yourself?” Nick snorted and turned to set the snifter on the sideboard. “Give it up, Grey. The Devil won’t have you.”

“No, not that. Enough to forget.”

Grey’s despondent tone had Nick turning back around to face him.

“You can’t forget her, Grey. ’Tis dashed idiotic to try.”

“Not her, Nick. I want to forget what an utter arse I have been—am.”

Grey went to grab the snifter from the table, only to be reminded Nick had already taken it. Instead of fighting for the glass, he buried his face in his hands, his elbows digging into his knees.

“I used to think I had no heart,” Grey said, his voice muffled by his palms. “I was sure of it.”

“Of all the idiotic nonsense,” Nick muttered as he took the snifter to the sideboard, topped it off with more brandy from the decanter, and brought it back to Grey.

Feeling the cool glass nudge against his head, Grey looked up, half smiled, and accepted the snifter. “Thanks, Nick,” he said as he set the glass aside, untouched. “Is this why you have come? To see how miserable I am? To tell me my wife has taken up residence with London’s second most notorious rake?”

“I am keeping an eye on her. What was I supposed to do? Leave her out on the street?” Nick’s eyes narrowed on Grey. “You are a damned fool if you let her get away.”

“Yes, I know, but I have to. She isn’t safe here.” Grey frowned at the floor. “Keep her with you, will you?”

“You must be joking.” Nick began plotting where exactly he was going to land the first blow.

“Just for a while.” Grey held up a hand in mollification. “Until one of us can convince her to take the settlement I offered.”

“Derbyshire. One of your only holdings not entailed that pumps out a profit,” Nick said. “So you do love her.”

Grey nodded.

“You love her, and you want her to accept a separation agreement.” Nick ran his fingers through his immaculate coiffure, something the gentleman simply did not do. “What the bloody hell is wrong with you?”

“She said she never wanted to see me again.” Grey looked at him expectantly. “Any better ideas?”

“Yes, you treat her like the wife she is and run off with her like the normal, besotted fool you ought to be.”

At this suggestion, Grey just shook his head.

Nick continued casually, “Italy is lovely this time of year.”

“It’s hot as hell, and you know it.”

“Paris, then.”

“Oh, ho, ho! Because I just
love
Paris. All of the fond memories!” Grey’s grimly sarcastic smile matched his tone before the smile vanished, leaving a black expression.

“Oh, for Christ’s! Then…” Nick looked to the ceiling, grasping for a destination, any destination. “Scotland,” he suggested hopefully.

“Too close.”

“Why not kidnap her and force her to sign your ridiculous settlement at gunpoint?”

“She’s too stubborn,” Grey mused with a furrowed brow. “The impossible chit would choose the bullet on the off chance she might live.”

“I wasn’t serious, Grey!” Nick berated in disbelief.

“I should hope not. It was a terrible idea.”

Grey remained very calm, which reminded Nick he was quickly becoming overwrought. Getting worked up with a man deep in his cups would get him nowhere.

“Remind me never to converse with you whilst you are foxed.”

“Done. Although, I hardly see what that has to do with this issue.”

Nick pointed an unamused glare at Grey. “Grey, you are half-seas over, and you know it.”

He held up the snifter Nick had passed him with raised brows. “This is my second drink, my good fellow.”

“Beginning when?” he asked caustically. “From the time I arrived?”

“Since she left me,” Grey admitted quietly before he set the snifter back down, still barely touched, and took in a deep breath.

After a few seconds, Nick broke the silence hesitantly. “Perhaps I should stay.”

Grey stopped him with a raised hand. “No, I am quite all right.”

“You are far from all right.”

“Well, thank you for your encouragement, Nick. I can’t tell you how much better I feel from your comforting words,” he said with one raised brow as he stood. “Now I do hope you can handle her safekeeping for just a little while longer. Wheeling is Bexley’s patsy, but we don’t have time to waste on him. We need to focus on Bexley.”

“Of course, Grey. Just tell me what else I can do.”

* * *

H
alf an hour later
, Nick left with all the details. It was high time for Grey to get out of this house. He needed a good run. Drogo could, too, no doubt. Perhaps he could get enough wind to blow out the cobwebs and clear his muddled brain. He had never been this daft over a chit before, and he never meant to be again.

He caught sight of his coat discarded earlier and realized he would have ridden without it had he not happened to glance in that direction. He would have been lucky if Bow Street Runners didn’t drag him from his horse and lock him up in Bedlam within minutes of him leaving his house.

* * *

A
s soon as
Nick stepped out onto Berkeley Square, he cursed like a sailor until he hopped into his carriage where he quieted temporarily then started back up again.

After a few minutes, he calmed down enough to tap his cane against the carriage ceiling. He had decided who should have the misfortune to take the brunt of his cantankerous condition, a condition that was rare enough not to be wasted on an empty carriage.

“To our devious friend on Wimpole Street, Coachman. Swiftly now, I don’t want my temper to cool. The bastard doesn’t deserve it.” He folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes as he stared out the window at the passing houses.

The person Nick was furious with was none other than the Earl of Pembridge. He wasn’t used to disappointing himself, which boded ill for the man he was about to take it out on.

The carriage rolled to a stop, and he darted out before the footman had even had the chance to put down the steps.

“Open up, you coward!” He banged on the door until a very irritable and lofty looking butler opened it. Nick shoved past him. “Tell Matthews the Earl of Pembridge will see him,” he roared. “Now!”

The servant disappeared, and Pembridge found his own way to the study. The sideboard held a decanter of decent port and a set of four glasses; so naturally, he threw the first glass into the hearth and took the second for himself. The lack of satisfaction had him itching to throw a few more at the grate. He took down the first glass full in one gulp, and the second, he sipped until Matthews entered minutes later.

“Ah, I see, along with ordering about my servants, you also helped yourself to my port. May I offer you my robe and slippers, as well, my lord?” Matthews walked to the sideboard phlegmatically and helped himself to the port, indifferent to Nick’s obvious foul mood. “With the way you peers act, I would not be surprised if you asked that I lay prostrate in your presence.”

“I came here to tell you I am done with you. I consider the port a parting gift.” He had a deceptively light tone as he raised the glass in a mock toast and silently congratulated himself for not lunging as soon as the man had entered and beating him to a bloody pulp. The idea gave him a grim smile.

Matthews held a faintly amused expression. “I am afraid you don’t have much of a choice, my boy. After all, we made a deal. A gentleman’s agreement, if you will.”

Nick’s blue eyes flashed. “The devil! You tricked me. I wouldn’t have done it had I known it would ruin Kathryn. You, my slimy friend, are no gentleman.”

“I wouldn’t have asked you had I known. I swear it.”

He studied Matthews for a moment, his eyes narrowed and chin lifted.

“You mean to tell me you were not aware of anything which may ruin the woman’s reputation?”

“I was not.”

Nick scoffed. “That hardly takes the blame from you. How could you have not seen this coming?”

The older man puffed out his chest. “I have taught you everything you know,” he huffed. “Don’t presume to judge my decisions.” He yanked out a folded letter from his inner pocket and shoved it toward Nick. “Here, deposit this in Grey’s study. Put it in the bottom left drawer of his desk. That’s where he keeps the important documents.”

Nick’s brow knit incredulously. “What makes you think I shall go along with this?” he asked as he accepted the paper.