Chapter 12
“Shh, be quiet.”
Nathaniel put a finger to his lips and shook his head. It was better that they both stay back against the stable wall unseen for now. The truth was sometimes more likely to be spoken unawares than deliberately.
“Let’s see what we are dealing with first,” he urged her quietly. “Something tells me that these two haven’t been to Gretna Green and back.”
“Do not be absurd. They have been together alone since Mary absconded,” Cecily whispered back. “Why have they come back? What happened?”
Her face was pale and worried, whereas just moments ago, it had been soft and rosy with desire, her warm lips against his and her hands further rumpling his already rumpled clothes.
In his head, Nathaniel cursed Patrick anew.
His brother had caused a great deal of trouble—admittedly some of it very welcome trouble—by running off with Miss Mary Holt.
Now his return had proved equally inconvenient, interrupting a most exciting embrace that boded well for the marriage bed—if Nathaniel could ever get that far.
His main hope of reaching the altar with Cecily surely depended on Patrick and Mary. If his bride slipped away now, he would be back to square one without a duchess, not to mention the frustration of a half-finished seduction.
Why couldn’t Patrick and Mary stay on the road?
Nathaniel had been quite prepared to follow them all the way to Gretna Green, imagining how far he could tease his bride-to-be at each of the inns on the way.
Once the young lovers were found and ascertained to be wed, he might as well have married Cecily there and then before the blacksmith’s anvil, too.
How amusing that would have been, and how enjoyable the slow journey back.
How droll too, riding into Greyhaven Park and introducing his new Duchess to the household so soon.
Besides warming his bed, Cecily could have quickly taken on the estate and duties, relieving him of the lingering worry about Lilian.
Now, he accepted gloomily that this series of pleasant daydreams had to be discarded.
The two instigators of the crisis that had brought Cecily into his life sat glaring at each other in a rather impractical open-top carriage, pulled by a tired-looking pair of horses.
Both were red-faced and irritable, and the words they shouted at one another sounded anything but tender or loving.
“I told you it would take days to get to Scotland, Mary! You said you didn’t care as long as we were together. It’s a fine time to make a fuss about the journey now.”
“I thought you were teasing me. Anyway, none of this is about Scotland, and you know it. It’s about you, Patrick!”
“Oh, of course, it’s all my fault again! You haven’t stopped complaining since the moment we set off. Patrick, do this. Patrick, do that!”
“Running away with you has been the biggest mistake of my life!” Mary snapped, trying and failing to open the door of the small carriage.
“Really? Would you rather have stayed and married that old goat?” Patrick scoffed.
“No! I should have run away by myself.”
Despite their ongoing argument, Patrick opened the carriage door and helped her down. Her once white dress was covered with dust, and her golden hair was more tousled than up. If Patrick was going to charge his transport back to the estate, he might as well have hired a more suitable vehicle.
“Ha! As if you would have gotten as far as the end of the road by yourself, Mary. I don’t even know what you think you will do now that I’ve brought you back here.”
“Nor do I, but it’s better than traveling any further with you!”
“In all my life, I have never met a more insufferable woman!”
“Do you think those horses are tired from their effort or from listening to this nonsense for hours?” Nathaniel murmured to Cecily as the loud and fractious back-and-forth continued.
She looked back with unhappy eyes, clearly more worried than entertained by the situation.
“They’re not married yet. They can’t be,” she thought aloud, her mind running only along this one track. “But if they’ve been alone together for so long, they must get married.”
“If you think me insufferable, you had better not marry me!” Mary shouted the next moment, taking a ring off her finger and throwing it at Patrick. “After seeing your true colors, I’m certainly in no hurry to marry you!”
“I dare say that’s mine too,” Nathaniel muttered, watching the silver band roll in the dust before Patrick picked it up. “He probably pinched it from the family collection at Greyhaven Park.”
He watched his brother’s face contort painfully with anger, shock, hurt, and confusion as he stared at the ring in his hand. If he had any sense, he would have given it straight back to her, but sense had never been Patrick’s strong suit.
“Well then, I suppose you’ve saved us both the trouble of getting all the way to Scotland and finding all this out too late,” Patrick said with unconvincing insouciance.
At this point, Mary burst into tears, and Cecily could hold herself back no longer, rushing to her side.
“Mary!” she called out. “Thank God I found you, Mary.”
“Cecily! What are you doing here?”
“I came to look for you. Do not fret, everything will be all right.”
“Oh, Cecily! I’m so sorry.”
Mary threw herself into Cecily’s arms and sobbed inconsolably on her shoulder as Nathaniel strolled forward to confront his brother.
“Ladies, you had best go and wait in my carriage,” he announced crisply. “I expect the horses are hitched by now, and I will join you shortly. But first, my brother has some explaining to do.”
Pushing Patrick ahead of him and ignoring the mutinous expression on his face, Nathaniel went back to the inn and asked for a private parlor.
* * *
“I tell you, it wasn’t my fault!” Patrick insisted for the hundredth time. “What was I supposed to do? Leave her there at the mercy of her drunken uncle and old Ashworth?”
“It’s never your fault, is it, Patrick?” Nathaniel scoffed. “Anyway, you’re talking as though I’m angry that you eloped with Miss Mary.”
“But you are angry, Nathaniel,” Patrick stated. “If you weren’t, you would have just laughed and walked off. That’s what you usually do.”
“I’m angry that you haven’t finished what you started, as usual,” Nathaniel clarified through gritted teeth. “You ought to be halfway to Gretna Green by now, if you’d shown any real determination. Why did you have to come back here?”
“That wasn’t my fault either!” Patrick cried out and then changed his tune as realization dawned on him. “Wait, are you saying… You actually wanted me to elope with Mary?”
“Christ, I couldn’t care less what you do, as long as you keep the law and don’t make trouble for me,” Nathaniel snapped, not wanting to show his full hand to his unreliable younger brother.
“But still, why not marry the girl? She’s of good family and comely enough.
It really would be simplest to get you both back on the road to Scotland. ”
“You want us to go to Gretna Green now? After everything?” Patrick repeated incredulously. “What about Mary’s sister? Won’t she stop her?”
“You may leave that to me,” Nathaniel told him shortly. “Miss Holt and I have an understanding. If you write and sign a letter now, swearing that you will marry Miss Mary as soon as you reach Scotland, I believe I can set everything to rights.”
“But I still don’t understand why you’re taking such an interest all of a sudden.” Patrick frowned in confusion. “You’re never interested in me, or anyone else…”
“A charming fraternal observation,” Nathaniel commented, not entirely understanding his brother’s point but uninterested in encouraging further speculation.
“I remind you that I am not the current subject of discussion, nor the cause of the domestic crisis that now entangles us. The point is that the girl is ruined by your escapade, and you must marry her.”
“Well, Mary won’t have me now, will she?” Patrick grumbled. “You heard what she said. She even threw back my ring.”
“My ring, I believe,” Nathaniel corrected him. “Which I do not begrudge for its intended purpose. What in hell’s name did you say or do to upset a woman who was so keen to marry you that she ran away from home in the night?”
“I told you it’s not my fault. Mary kept asking me all kinds of questions, and then she wasn’t happy with my answers. The more I tried to explain, the angrier she got. Damn it all, I’m glad I brought her back. Imagine being married to a woman who nags like that.”
“What kind of questions, Patrick?” Nathaniel probed, knowing his brother too well to suppose he was entirely innocent.
“Where were we going to live after we married? What would we live on? Those kinds of questions. She just kept going on and on. Nothing I said seemed to please her.”
Nathaniel yelped with laughter despite his general frustration.
“Patrick, you are eight-and-twenty. I don’t know whether it’s worse that the questions surprised you or that you could not answer them to your intended wife’s satisfaction.
I’m not surprised she has thrown you over. I think I would have done the same.”
“It’s all right for you, Nathaniel,” Patrick retorted crossly. “You’re the Duke of Greyhaven. You have the title, the fortune, the estates. No one asks you how you’re going to support yourself, never mind a wife. I’m a second son. I have nothing.”
“The Duke of Rencaster’s second son is in the army,” Nathaniel replied without real sympathy. “The Earl of Anstwych’s younger brother is a partner in a small private bank. Both of Viscount Yarmouth’s younger sons are in the diplomatic service…”
“Now you sound like Mary,” Patrick remarked sulkily. “Why doesn’t she just marry one of the paragons you mention if that’s what she wants?”
“Oh, forget it, Patrick,” Nathaniel sighed with a wave of his hand, having had the conversation about professions with his younger brother before without any obvious benefit on either side.
“Let’s stick to the present crisis, shall we?
You say that Miss Mary will not marry you.
That could be a problem if you’ve already bedded her. ”
“What?” Patrick gasped indignantly. “What do you take me for? I have many faults, but I do not deflower young ladies who need my protection.”
“Well, thank God for that,” Nathaniel replied with a pragmatic nod. “So, if you swear that Miss Mary has not been—”
“Nathaniel, I’ve already told you,” Patrick interrupted, his voice growing fiercer. “I have not touched her.”
“Very well.” Nathaniel stopped him with a raised hand, accepting that he was telling the truth.
“I shall take you at your word. As this is the case, I may well still be able to… come to terms with Miss Holt and arrange for both ladies to be removed to a safe location. They cannot be returned to their old home, under the circumstances.”
Patrick nodded, although he was still frowning.
“I still don’t understand why you care so much,” he wondered aloud.
Nathaniel rose to his feet. “You don’t have to understand,” he replied, going to the door. “I’m leaving now with Miss Holt and Miss Mary. You may make your own way home in the other carriage, in due course. I’ve already paid your bill.”
He frowned as he walked out of the inn and to the carriage where he expected to find the Holt sisters. He didn’t really understand why he cared so much either.
Regardless of rational understanding, one thing was very clear in his mind. No matter what ridiculous argument had occurred between their siblings, he was determined to make Cecily Holt his.