Chapter 16 #2
Marco’s chest constricted and he blew out a frustrated breath.
He should have known that his role at Lady Mowbray’s Ball would come back to haunt him sooner or later.
His mind drifted to Lady Henrietta, who had been a different — and much more tolerable — person for the entirety of this house party, and regret began to gnaw at him.
But then he thought of what she’d done, and he was still so furious at Lord Greywood that he countered the verbal attack, more than matching its ferocity.
“Did your sister have any consideration for Susan Wingfield’s prospects and reputation when she started the rumour that we were engaged to be married, all in an attempt to remove Miss Wingfield from her path in her designs to marry Lord Seabury?
Did she have one iota of consideration for Lord Seabury’s happiness when she tried to trap him into marriage?
I am man enough to admit that I might have carried out my role in exposing what your sister was trying to do with unnecessary cruelty, but Lady Henrietta was far from innocent in that situation.
That is where you and I differ, Lord Greywood.
I draw the line at hurting innocent people, and it appears that you do not.
” Marco paused, slamming his hand into the wall right beside Lord Greywood’s face to accentuate his point.
“The people of Ashewood Village did not humiliate your sister, but you hired thugs to harass them and vandalise their homes and my estate, all to get at me. Lady Eugenia, too, has done nothing to deserve your wrath, but you haven’t hesitated to help Miss Errington subject her to the acutest possible misery.
Now, stand there and tell me that what you’ve done to Lady Eugenia is in any way justified, or different from what I did to your sister. I dare you.”
“I have a right to defend my sister’s honour,” Percy raged, even as he flinched away from where Marco’s hand had slammed into the wall beside his face. “My right!”
“Your right?” Marco was shouting now, too.
“Your right, to hire two desperate, starving twenty-something-year-old boys to start fires which might have killed them or others? Your right to have them create havoc which could have landed a pitchfork in them for causing trouble for the villagers? My God, man, what were you thinking when you threatened their family — their innocent mother and sister — with harm when they wanted to stop? You, sir, are not the avenging angel you imagine yourself to be. You are nothing but a villain, to be sure.”
With that, Marco backed away from Lord Greywood and began to pace back and forth, clenching his fists. He was trying to control the urge to pummel the Viscount into a bloody heap on the ground.
“I didn’t know they were that young. They said they were in their thirties.”
Greywood’s voice was quieter now, less furious, and more uncertain. Marco’s fury multiplied.
“You did not know? Are you so lost in your delusions that you actually believed those thin little obviously starved scraps were truly men of more than thirty, instead of barely more than boys!” Marco stood facing him again, though only his anger was holding Percy in the corner now.
His anger and Percy’s growing shame at the realisation of what he had done.
“Once again I say, you sir, are the villain of this story, you are the one who has harmed the innocent with a crime, all to repay a comparatively small slight.”
By this point Percy was sinking to the ground with the weight of his own shame. Marco watched him, and in that moment, lost the urge to pummel him when he saw that Percy was finally understanding that this was not a game, that his actions had delivered far reaching consequences.
Marco looked at him, waiting for a reply, only to grow frustrated. After some time, he shrugged, and turned to walk away. He had said his piece. Now he needed a cool head before he dealt any further with this man.
“Wait!” Percy called out, his voice sounding like that of a whiny child.
“I wasn’t only trying to avenge what you did to Henrietta.
I was trying to help Miss Errington, too.
It was all her idea, really. I only wanted to make you pay for how you hurt Henrietta.
And Miss Errington had her own reasons for wanting to hurt Lady Eugenia.
She convinced me that this was the only way to make you get what you deserved for hurting my sister! ”
Marco shot Lord Greywood a withering glare.
“If you truly believe that, then you are not only a villain, you are a coward, a man too scared to stand up and say no when an ambitious, scheming hoyden demands that he do another wrong on her behalf. You had no way to tell whether Miss Errington was even telling you the truth, yet you were so eager to make me pay that you didn’t pause to consider the collateral damage you would create.
Either way, I want no more to do with you.
If there is ever another instance of you meddling in my affairs, or Lady Eugenia’s, I will find you, and I will not stop with strong words. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.” Percy squeaked like the rat he was. “Yes, I understand. No further harm will come to you and yours, on my honour.”
Marco snorted.
“Your honour? You have no honour.”
Marco spun on his heel and strode away, this time ignoring the weak excuses that Lord Greywood was trying to throw at his back. He had better things to do right now than deal with a whining fool.
The moment that Lord D’Asti stormed off, Lady Henrietta burst out onto the terrace and rushed over to her brother, demanding to know what had happened. Hanging his head in shame, Percy explained what he had done.
Henrietta’s mouth fell open and hung that way for several moments as she stared at her brother.
“My god, Percy! How could you be so stupid?”
“Stupid?” Percy sputtered, his face reddening. “I was trying to avenge your honour!”
Henrietta held up a hand and shook her head, not in any mood to take excuses from him.
“By putting poor Lady Eugenia, the only person who actively sought to be kind to me for this entire house party, in the same position that Count D’Asti put me in? Why?”
Percy shrugged, not meeting his sister’s cutting gaze. He hated the heat that crept up his neck and flamed in his cheeks.
“It wasn’t about her for me. I was just trying to get at Lord D’Asti for what he did to you.”
“You’re my brother and I love you for wanting to avenge me, but you are a completely thoughtless imbecile.
Just admit that it was more about your ego than my honour.
Give me that, at least.” Percy sat down hard, dropping his face into his hands as the enormity of the situation crashed in upon him.
Henrietta stood there for a moment, then shrugged.
“When you’ve thought about it, come and talk to me again. ”
With that, she walked away, leaving him sitting on the cold tile of the terrace.
After he’d taken more than half an hour to collect his thoughts, Percy slipped back inside the house.
First, he sought out Henrietta and asked her to inform the staff and their hosts that they were leaving, because of the scene he’d been a part of making.
When that was done, he turned his attention to seeking out Miss Errington, because the two of them needed to have a very serious discussion.
When he found her sulking in the library, Percy blurted out the first thing that popped into his head.
“We’re finished, Miss Errington.”
Lydia whirled to face him, her grey eyes blazing with unbridled fury.
“No, we aren’t. You might have gained what you wanted out of this deal, but I’m far from done—”
Percy stiffened, holding up a hand and cutting her off, unwilling to hear anything she had to say at this point.
“You misunderstand me, Miss Errington, so allow me to make myself perfectly clear. I am finished helping you hurt Lady Eugenia.” The effort of resisting the urge to shake her until her teeth rattled was physically painful for Percy.
“You could be a truly incredible woman, but you are completely blinded by envy and ambition, and I will not be party to it any longer.”
With that, Percy Gale, the Viscount of Greywood, spun on his heel and left Miss Lydia Errington standing there with her mouth hanging open, staring in shock at his retreating back.
Although he’d rushed to Thistlewayte Hall as soon as he could after Lord Greywood had admitted to meddling in their affairs, Marco found himself turned away at the front door by a fiercely glowering butler.
“Lady Eugenia is not accepting company.”
The elderly man practically barked the words at Marco, and he got the distinct impression that the staff had been warned against allowing him in.
“May I at least leave a message for her?”
The butler stared at him, entirely unflinching.
“She informed me that she wants no messages from you, Lord D’Asti, not after the humiliation and mockery she was subjected to at the Bellingham Park house party.”
With a defeated sigh, Marco returned to his carriage.
He had come during the family’s at home hours, only to be turned away.
It did not matter what had occurred, or that he loved Eugenia and wanted to make things work.
He had to marry and marry quickly. If Eugenia would not speak with him, he had no other options.
Marco returned to Bellingham Park, and called for his staff to pack everything up – they were returning to Ashewood, leaving that very afternoon.
Once he reached his home, his heart still aching with every mile that further separated him from Lady Eugenia, and the shattered remnants of his hopes and dreams, he went straight to his study.
There, he wrote an invitation to Lady Catherine Stewart and her mother, the Duchess of Elkington, to join him for a short visit before the Elkington Midsummer Ball which would be held on the Elkington estate, which lay halfway between Ashewood and Thistlewayte Hall.