Chapter 24
“I have lost the one thing that bound me to life.”
―Marcus Tullius Cicero, Letters to Atticus
Thorne paced through the lower hallways of Fitzroy Manor. The entire house was silent as the grave. It had been two hours since Fitzroy’s return. Two long hours since Thorne had banished himself from the scene of such heartbreaking tragedy and sent Hodges to contact the others.
Quinn had tried settling him in either the library or morning room, but Thorne was as tight as a bowstring. Too on edge to simply sit, waiting.
For the thousandth time, he wished Roland were here.
He wanted his brother’s assistance almost as desperately as Lord Fitzroy had needed Thorne’s that terrible evening he had tracked Lady Normanby. But it was better, he reasoned, that Roland stayed away.
He did not want his sister-in-law Grace to be a widow, or his godchildren to grow up without ever knowing their father.
Yes, better Roland stayed away from London, as far as possible.
Especially since his brother might also be outmatched by this task.
Never, in all his years with Roland on the battlefield, had either man encountered an opponent he would call evil. But this was surely it.
It was a relief when the guard at the front door indicated he heard a carriage coming up the drive. Thorne beat the footman to the hall. The footman gave him a slight look of reproof, but it was not enough to prevent Thorne from opening the door, nor the guard from peering over his shoulder.
With marked relief, he recognised Lady Normanby. She was alone and looked unusually subdued as she came inside.
“Let me help you,” Thorne offered, assisting her out of her coat.
As her right hand slid out of the sleeve, she turned towards him and settled her palm on the hand holding her coat. “Thank you for sending word, Sir Nathaniel,” she told him with a small, sympathetic smile. “It is good of you to help the household restore itself to order.”
Thorne dipped his chin towards his chest. “Order? I admit, Lady Normanby, it feels like there is so much more I should have done. I was here during both attacks on the household, and never have I been so good-for-nothing.”
“Do not be so hard on yourself. Should it help any, I felt much the same in the Pulteney’s coffee room. And also when I found myself locked in that wretched basement.” Her mouth twisted wryly.
The hard line of his mouth softened into a crooked smile. He hid it, giving her coat to the footman to put away. Since they had left that squalid little basement behind, Selina had avoided mentioning Bellrose and anything about her capture, preferring to forget it all together.
He could hardly blame her. That basement had been a place of nightmares.
“How is Perry?” she asked gently, turning the subject.
“Not well,” Thorne admitted, checking to make sure the hallway was empty. “He went to meet his mother, an angry man with a mission, and he returned like one who had lost the will to go on.”
The marchioness sighed. “It has been a terrible day. Do not lose faith, Sir Nathaniel. He has had a terrible shock, and he is grieving. But we will rally him.”
“I hope that you are right, Lady Normanby.” His voice soured on the words. He could hear it, and he regretted that he had not hidden his feelings better, because she would hear it too. Knowing there were other ears about, he led her away to the library.
“A penny for your thoughts?” she asked him as he went to shut the door.
“The nature of justice,” he said shortly, mindful of whom he was speaking to. “It is nothing to speak of.”
“Because I am a woman?” Selina guessed.
“Because you are titled.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you familiar with the story of how I ended up going to war with Duke Percy on the continent, my lady? He was saving me from his father—our father. Thaddius Percy was going to tell the magistrate I was stealing from him, to see me dead or transported. A lie, of course. But who would have cared about the life of a poor servant’s bastard son enough to defy the duke’s heir? ”
He closed his lips on the rest, appalled that he had aired that shameful part of his past so casually to a woman who was practically a stranger.
But she was as clever as Lord Fitzroy, and he had said enough.
She easily picked up the thread of his thoughts.
“I see. If Marian Fitzroy had been anywhere less highly placed in society, an accusation alone would have been enough to imprison her. But the lady is wealthy and noble, and the law overlooks so much when one is.”
Thorne looked away, uncomfortable with the way Lady Normanby was studying him.
She clasped her hands together, moving to stand beside him so that they did not have to look at one another. “I must confess something, Sir Nathaniel. Despite the fact that I owe you a great deal, I have never thanked you properly.”
“You do not owe me any thanks, my lady.”
“Nevertheless,” she said sternly, not letting him turn the conversation, “I did not, and I do not like to think about all the reasons I avoided the topic with you. But the worst is because… I feared you would at some point expose my secret. A lot of people would pay dearly to learn about what transpired in Bellrose’s basement. ”
“No,” he barked, insulted. “To betray one’s trust at a moment someone is so vulnerable, when the events are not even their fault? I would never do such a thing.”
“I believe this—now.” The marchioness tilted her head slightly, looking at him from the corner of her eye. “Now that you have offered your own vulnerable piece of yourself to me. Do not be angry with me for harbouring fears, Sir Knight.”
He shifted uneasily, but his pride was still prickly. “I am not angry with you, Lady Normanby.”
“Perhaps not.” She turned to him, standing too close, watching him with those green eyes that saw too much. “Still, if the world were less bound by rank, you might not make yourself look away from me so quickly.”
Thorne ran his hand through his forelock, his cheeks warming. “Unfortunately, the world is as it is. And there is more to worry about than how fair my lot is.”
“Well spoken,” she said softly. “Still, these days I am reminded not to leave important things unsaid. Sir Nathaniel, that was the darkest hour of my life. You were the one who found me and brought me home. I do not like to imagine what might have happened if you had not, my knight. So… I shall fix my error and thank you now. I am truly in your debt.”
Lady Normanby’s beauty was as bright as sunshine along the edge of a blade, and her wits were twice as sharp.
She was more than that, even. Bold, brave, and she had a sensibility worthy of a soldier.
A man like him had no business admiring her; he might as well pine for the moon, she was so far above his standing.
But she was right; it was better not to leave important things unsaid. He let himself meet her gaze. “My lady, there is no debt between us. Any man of conscience should have done it. But to be the one who did it for you… to be worthy of your trust in such a moment, that is my privilege.”
The marchioness’s green eyes sifted through the nooks and crannies of his soul. Respect. Knowing. A hint of regret, and a whisper of curiosity. But curiosity would be all it ever was. They stood a world apart, and on a battlefield no less.
Multiple footfalls approaching interrupted their thoughts. The footman, Jack, had Lord Ravenscroft and Hodges in tow. All three looked as grim as Thorne felt.
“Forgive me for taking the liberty, but I asked Hodges to come. If ever we needed another pair of steady hands, it is now.” The magpie adjusted his cuffs with a distracted air. “Tell me, how bad is the situation?”
Thorne shook his head. “He talked me in circles at first, but I finally got the physician to speak plain. A handful of days, perhaps as long as a week—she will weaken and pass if she does not wake.”
“What did Perry say after he met his mother?” Selina pressed Hodges.
Hodges harrumphed, looking ill at ease. “Practically naught at all. Lord Fitzroy came out o’ the Pulteney looking like a man plagued by war nerves. All I know is that his mother offered a bargain for the lady’s cure—but my lord would have none of it.”
Ravenscroft blinked. “He rejected his mother’s offer? And why ever did you not lead with this information?”
Fitzroy’s driver, who seemed to care little about the difference in their stations, stared flatly at Ravenscroft. “’Cause her price was too dear. She told him to name you and your valet for unnatural crimes if he wanted the cure, Magpie.”
“Oh.” The dandy swallowed visibly. There was a long moment of silence as they all digested that information. “Not that I wish to appear ungrateful, but… should a man not choose his wife’s life over a friendly foe’s?”
“Ain’t the matter who’s pulled in, is it?
” the old mercenary sucked on his teeth.
“There’s no clean hand in such a bargain.
The damage is in the choosin’, not the choice.
His dam set the board so my lord had to name who lives an’ who dies.
Playin’ God like that’ll blacken a man’s soul.
So he’s made his choice—not to play at all. ”
“But… it need not blacken my soul if I offer myself up instead.” Ravenscroft turned, a ghost of a smile flickering as his eyes met Lady Normanby’s. “And who knows? It might not even demand our deaths. I could pen a confession for Prinny and be on a boat for France before the ink dries.”
He gave a brittle little laugh. “After the year we have had, exile might be a holiday.”
“No.” The word spilled from Thorne’s lips before Selina could take a breath. “Lord Ravenscroft, you cannot know that Marian Fitzroy would honour that bargain. You might throw your lives away for nothing.”