Patrica Rice (27 page)

Rhys reluctantly surrendered Melanie’s arm to Michael’s care and bounded down the hillside. At the earl’s command, he put his fingers between his teeth and gave a whistle that caused the horses to whinny and jump in their traces. The ragtag band of ex-soldiers swarmed down the hill to the lane.

Daphne breathed a sigh of relief as Rhys ordered the men into a circle around the combatants and sent them into the brawl. She actually leaned on Michael’s arm for a moment when Rhys caught the back of Evan’s coat and Evan came up swinging. Rhys went down, but another man was there to jump on Evan’s back, and in a few brief moments, it was over.

She wanted to run to them, but seeing Gordon emerge from the fight, she wasn’t certain it would be appropriate. She wasn’t even certain how she knew which twin was which since all she could recognize of them were torn coats and mud. But she knew.

Her gaze lingered a moment longer while the earl and his son marched forward to give their verdicts, and then she squeezed Michael’s arm and looked up to him.

“Let us go now,” she urged softly.

Michael looked to the two women on his arm, down at his father berating the coachman’s attempts to right the barouche, and nodded. “Miss Griffin, would you care to accompany us to my aunt’s? I can’t think this is the healthiest place to linger at the moment.”

Melanie looked to Daphne, and at her friend’s resolute gaze, reluctantly agreed. The women gave a last backward glance to the shouting argument and mud-covered figures in the road, then silently returned to the only upright carriage remaining.

* * * *

Agatha had apparently been returned home by one of the viscount’s vehicles and was waiting in anxiety when the weary trio showed up on her doorstep. She immediately sent the servants into a frenzy of activity fetching hot water and tubs and clean clothing and relieving all concerned of any thought but of making themselves respectable.

Not that she would ever be respectable again, Daphne thought wryly as she resisted her aunt’s suggestion that she retire to bed. The bed looked exceptionally inviting, and she thought she must ache in every bone in her body, but she could go nowhere until she knew what had happened. Sooner or later, Evan would come for her. She had to be ready when he did.

She wasn’t ready for the whole lot of them, however. Daphne stared in disbelief and sank down into the nearest chair when a few hours later two carriages and two mounted horsemen rode up the drive. The twins together would be sufficient to wreck what remained of her sanity. Did she truly have to endure the earl and her father, too?

She ought to give thanks that Robert Griffin and his sons did not join the parade. She supposed someone would explain sometime why Captain Rollings wasn’t called Griffin, but she really did not need to know right now. She clenched her hands in her lap and waited for the butler to show them in. When she heard Melanie tripping eagerly down the stairs followed by the sturdy tread of her brother, Daphne gave a silent moan of dismay and considered fleeing out the back door like the coward she was.

“For the last time, I tell you, this is most impolite!” she heard Gordon shouting. “A delicate lady like Daphne must be given time to recover before you descend on her like locusts.”

The insistent tones carried from the foyer, and for once, Daphne almost agreed with Gordon’s verdict, but she had no intention of letting him know. She might be exhausted. Her knee might ache worse than after the accident. Her emotions might be thrumming in terrifying beats. But she intended to be as regal and composed as her aunt. She would give no one the opportunity to see her weakness.

The men burst into the room still arguing, growing quiet only when they found Daphne waiting for them. Freshly washed and groomed but sporting the vivid reminders of their fray, the twins bowed correctly and stepped aside to allow their elders to take seats. Melanie rushed in to hug them both and burst into tears, which she hastily dried upon Michael’s appearance. Daphne merely signaled the servant to fetch a tray.

“We regret the intrusion, Miss Templeton,” the earl began quite formally, almost giving the appearance of embarrassment as he glanced at his grandsons.

“But I want this settled once and for all, daughter,’’ Lord Thomas finished the sentence for him. “I never saw such a ramshackle lot in all my life. Actresses and highwaymen and murderin’ thieves! It’s a frippery lot for all their toplofty ways. My advice is that you come home with me. See what happens when there is no one to look after you.” He sent a murderous look toward the twins.

Tears sparkled in Daphne’s eyes at these words, but she was given no time to reply. Gordon stepped forward and made a formal bow before her.

“I realize you have not been given sufficient time to consider my suit, but events have made it necessary that some decision be made. If you will agree to be my wife, I will give you all the time that is necessary to grow accustomed to the idea.”

Leaning against the mantel, Evan watched this display with cynical disinterest. It was patently obvious that his brother had thrown his cap over the windmill to behave in such a manner. It was equally obvious that Gordon was the better choice for a delicate lady.

At the moment, he felt considerable sympathy for his Uncle Robert. A younger brother had little to offer a lady of station. If he did not wish to sell himself, he was better off looking among the petticoat line for companionship. But Evan’s expression of disinterest dissolved with Daphne’s reply.

Overriding Melanie’s cry of joy, she met Gordon’s gaze with equanimity. “I am no wife for you, Gordon, for all I know the honor you do me. I cannot know how much you know of me or my history, but suffice it to say that we would not suit. Your wife will be a countess someday, prepared to meet society on the highest levels. I would not let my past and temperament ruin your happiness.”

Before she could add any more such faradiddle, Evan interrupted with a vile curse. Striding forward, he glared at Daphne and his brother. “I never heard such drivel in my life, Miss Templeton. If you don’t want to marry him, just tell him so. What your mother did or did not do has no bearing on anything.”

Daphne returned his glare. “And who asked your opinion, Mr. Griffin? It seems to me you have been wrong more than once in these last weeks. Leave me to make my own decisions, if you please.”

Lord Thomas stepped in with a nervous plea. “Daphne, do not become overset. Perhaps I have rushed things precipitously ...”

Evan spoke as if there had been no interruption. “Your own decisions! It was your own hare-brained scheme that landed us in the suds last night. Anyone who would ride out in the rain like that hasn’t the wit to decide what to put on in the morning. The only fault with your past is that you’re an impudent hoyden with more temper than sense. You need a keeper, my dear. If Gordon isn’t strong enough, then it shall have to be me.”

“Now wait one minute—” Gordon protested, but Daphne gave him no time for reply.

“I wouldn’t have you if you were the last man on earth, Evan Griffin! You think I need a keeper? You are the madman who lived in the woods for no good reason at all. And they question
my
sanity?”

Several voices rang out in protest at this, but the couple looking daggers at each other had no heed for any interference. The earl and Lord Thomas exchanged glances, and interpreting that exchange, Michael offered his arm to Melanie, who accepted it with a worried look to her brothers over her shoulder as he escorted her toward the door.

“There is nothing wrong with your sanity, Miss Templeton. It is your wits that are lacking. Gordon is a damned viscount, for pity’s sake! And don’t give me that clanker about not being suitable as a countess. There are more harebrained countesses out there than I can count.”

When Daphne opened her mouth to interrupt, Evan rode roughshod over her words. “And I don’t want to hear about your damned limp or your mother again. If you love him, then marry him and be done with it! Noble martyrs give me a pain.”

“Martyrs! Of all the insensitive, idiotic ... Were I a man, I would call you out, Evan Griffin! If you think for one minute that I don’t know my own mind ... Never! Never in my whole life have I been so insulted.’’ Daphne rose with shaking rage and shook a fist in the face of the broad-shouldered man leaning over her.

Gordon’s shoulders visibly slumped as Agatha touched his arm and nodded toward the exit. He appeared ready to protest, but the old lady held an admonishing finger to her lips.

Ahead of them, Melanie and Michael had already disappeared from the room. The two older gentlemen shook their heads as the argument escalated into a shouting match that could be heard by the servants in the attic. It was more than evident, however, that no one would be able to come between these two.

With a slight smile as the ‘delicate’ lady rammed her fist into his grandson’s broad shoulder, producing a distinctive moan and wince, the earl took Lord Thomas’s arm and steered him toward the door. The north country lord turned and gave his “invalid” daughter one last doubtful look, then reluctantly followed. Even he could see that Daphne had made her choice. His last look showed the younger twin retaliating by lifting Daphne from her feet, but Lord Thomas didn’t think fisticuffs were the young man’s intention.

Chapter Twenty-one

“They say her mother was quite mad, you know,” the elderly lady with her hair in a turban whispered to the stout woman on her right as the bridal couple weaved their way through the crowd.

“The groom’s uncle is here!” The stout lady replied with rapture at the
on-dit
she would have to relate later. “They say he is married to a common actress. That’s his son over there, the one with the black eye. They say there was some sort of trouble—”

“And look at the groom!” A third lady interrupted in hushed tones. “He looks as if he’s just been in a fight. Such a fractious family!”

“He
has
just been in a fight,” the turbaned lady sniffed. “He and his cousin were threatening each other to a duel, but unfortunately, no one would provide them weapons. I believe the bride poured cold water over them to break them up. See, his jacket is still dripping. Mad as her mother, I daresay.”

“Just in love, I’d say,” Lady Agatha sniffed, coming up in time to hear this last. “Lord Shelce means to put Evan up for parliament, so you shall have plenty of opportunity to observe their madness. It’s about time the stodgy government heard some youthful voices.”

“Well, if fighting in the streets is the manner in which the young man makes his point, I daresay we will hear much of him.” The lady in the turban nodded stiffly to her acquaintance before whispering aside to her companion, “Madness runs in the family, you know. Parliament, indeed!”

At that moment, the subject under discussion was carefully manipulating his bride through the crowd toward the door. She sent him a nervous look as she recognized Evan’s direction, but his hold remained firm as he guided her through the shoals of gossiping relations and into the freedom of the hall.

“We cannot leave so early,” Daphne protested, throwing a last look to the crowd before facing the emptiness of the stairway ahead.

“We cannot leave soon enough for me.” Without a word of warning, Evan swung her up in his very wet arms and made his way toward the upper floor.

Daphne shrieked as the damp seeped through the fragile silk of her gown. “Put me down, Evan Griffin! You are ruining my gown.”

“Fair enough,” he replied with equanimity. “You have ruined my best coat. We shall have to shop in London for new clothes.”

He had looked so absurdly handsome standing there at the altar garbed all in brown and gold; Daphne’s heart pounded just at the remembrance, and she clung a little tighter to Evan’s broad shoulders. “I want to go to Italy first,” she murmured against his wilting cravat.

“We have to go through London to get to Italy. And if I am going to be the breadwinner of this family, I must present my credentials to the proper people before we go. Grandfather’s given me introductions to the ministers most influential in the interests of our ex-soldiers. Do you think you can behave yourself long enough for me to make a place for myself in their cabinets?”

That was a considerably appropriate question since now that they had reached the privacy of a spacious bed chamber, Daphne was busily decimating the knot of his linen.

“Oh, I shall be all that is proper. You, I fear, are the one who will make a cake of the entire process. Imagine inviting Rhys to be your best man instead of your brother! They will have naught else to talk about for weeks. And you never have told me his story.”

Grinning, Evan eagerly abetted his bride’s attempts to remove him from his sodden clothes. “Rhys will tell his tale in all due time, my love. And I think the biddies might think of one or two other things to cluck about. The bride’s pouring a pitcher of water over the groom is not a wedding custom that I can remember, but no doubt everyone else will for a long time to come.”

“You were the one who gave in to the urge for fisticuffs,” Daphne retorted, starting to pull away from the eagerness of Evan’s fingers as they strayed from his shirt to her bodice.

“Young Hugh needed to be set to rights. I wasn’t the one who sent his bloodthirsty brother to India. Grandfather did. If he wouldn’t listen to reason, he would have to listen to the point of a sword.”

“A sword? You would have fought with swords? How very quaint. And here I thought it was my honor you were defending.’’ Daphne gave a happy sigh as her fingers at last found the warmth of Evan’s hard chest through the linen of his shirt.

“Everybody knows that was already lost,” Evan whispered maliciously as he began to work on the row of tiny seed pearl buttons down her bodice front. “Which reminds me, I owe your brother Michael a good thrashing when I see him next for reporting that little incident to the earl. He knew I had every intention of marrying you. It wasn’t as if we were doing anything we hadn’t done before.”

Daphne laughed against her husband’s coat, then quivered a little as his hand eased into the openings of her bodice.  “He didn’t know that you made a habit of visiting ladies in their chambers in the middle of the night. I fear Michael has grown quite stodgy with age. He was most thoroughly shocked to find you there.”