Chapter 23
“I knew this was going to happen.”
Beatrice was staring at the grandfather clock again when she heard her brother’s angry whisper. She looked over at him. He had crossed his arms over his chest and was glaring at the door of the ballroom, which remained stubbornly empty.
“What did you say?” she whispered. She looked quickly at the dowager duchess to make sure she had not heard Theodore, but fortunately, she was speaking to her brother-in-law and did not seem to have heard.
Her brother glanced her way, then took her arm and led her away from the rest of the group.
“I said,” he muttered in an undertone, “that this is exactly what I knew was going to happen. The Duke of St. James has not changed since he was a child.”
Beatrice glared up at him. “I do not believe him capable of this,” she said, pushing aside her own doubts.
Determination flared through her, and she suddenly felt a strong sense of protectiveness over the duke.
He had saved her life on more than one occasion, although her brother did not know that.
The least she could do now was have faith in him that he would not fail her.
He never had before.
“There must be some sort of explanation,” she said, looking desperately around the ballroom, like one might magically appear. “I know it!”
Theodore opened his mouth to argue, but before he could, the dowager duchess drew up to them with Lord Reginald and Mr. Grenville, the duke’s friend.
“Lord Ashford,” the dowager said, worry creasing her brow, “you must allow me to apologize on behalf of my son for his not being here. I cannot tell you how mortified I am that he is not here… I am sure that he is on his way, and that he has been hampered by some unexpected delay, otherwise I cannot think why he would not be here. I know that he holds your sister in the highest regard.”
She smiled kindly at Beatrice, but Theodore did not seem to care that she had made a very kind apology. He stared stonily at her.
“I am not at all convinced that your son cares deeply for my sister, Your Grace,” he said, “and I am sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but he has already behaved very ungentlemanly toward her in the past.”
The dowager duchess’s eyes widened, and she leaned back slightly, as if the force of Theodore’s words had forced her back.
“That is enough, Theo,” Beatrice snapped, and she stepped forward, taking the dowager’s hand. “I know that the duke cares for me,” she murmured. “And I am sure that he will be here soon.”
“If you will permit me to say,” Mr. Grenville said, stepping forward, “but I saw His Grace shortly before he left for the ball. We had met at White’s for a brief drink before he was scheduled to depart.
I had no reason to think that he would not be here.
In fact…” he hesitated, his eyes sliding over Beatrice in a way she did not fully understand.
“In fact, from the tenor of his conversation, I felt that he was most eager to get here. Most eager indeed.”
The dowager’s worry lines deepened. “Then where possibly could he be, Mr. Grenville? You do not think something ill may have befallen him, do you?”
And at these words, Beatrice was suddenly seized with the most horrible memory of being out on the road. The gunshots that had flown at them. The way the duke had thrown himself on top of her in order to save her.
Was it possible that something like that had befallen him again? It did seem that whoever was after him was tightening the noose. And now his title was on the verge of being taken from him.
He is desperate. And if someone were to come after him, he would fight back. He would pursue. He would want answers.
“We should send someone out looking for him,” she said, seizing Mr. Grenville’s hands. “You must go look for him! Oh, I have the most terrible premonition that something awful may have happened to him.”
From the look in Mr. Grenville’s eyes, she knew that he understood. He also knew about the shooting, the duke must have told him.
“Of course,” he said. “I will go at once. Just…”
But at that moment, the door of the ball banged open, and the Duke of St. James stepped inside.
But it barely even looked like the duke that she knew. He was not wearing a hat, and his hair was wild and sticking up in odd places. His clothes were torn and covered in dust and something darker, which looked like soot maybe, or mud. His face was also streaked with it.
As he staggered into the ballroom, she also noticed that he was walking with a limp. And as he came into the full light of the ballroom, she saw something that made her shiver: blood. On his shirt. Bright, red blood.
It was not this, however, or any of his physical marks, that scared her the most. The thing that frightened her to her core was the look in his eyes. It was haunted. Like a man who had seen death flash in front of his eyes.
She knew that look, because she had worn it herself once, when a river had swept her away, and she had seen her life flash before her, and then disappear.
Until he had saved her.
“Your Grace!” Before anyone could stop her, she was hurrying toward the duke, her arms outstretched. He looked at her, and for several shining moments, life seemed to come back into his eyes. He stumbled toward her.
The crowd parted, letting him through. There was dead silence all throughout the ballroom. Everyone was staring, open-mouthed, although Beatrice barely even noticed them.
The duke reached her just in time. He collapsed forward into her arms, his eyes flickering up to meet hers. He was so heavy that she toppled over, crashing into the ground. Her knees hit the ground hard, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was making sure that he did not hit his head.
She cradled it in her lap, and he looked up at her for one long, suspended moment.
“Beatrice…” he murmured.
“I am sorry to announce this, but the duke has taken ill!” A voice called out behind her, and she recognized her brother’s voice. “We must kindly and urgently ask everyone to leave so that we may attend to him.”
Someone else cried, “Call the doctor!” And she saw Mr. Grenville run past, toward the door.
At the same time, voices began to cry out and whisper all around them, until a terrible buzz was filling her ears.
She could hear her brother trying to shoo everyone out of the ballroom, but they were all trying to crane their necks to see what had happened, and none of them were moving.
“I have… I have to tell them,” the duke murmured, and she looked back down at him.
“Shhh,” she murmured. “Do not try to speak. You are in pain.”
“No,” he said, and he forced himself to sit upright. “I must tell them. Help me to my feet.”
And although she wanted to object, she helped him stand up, taking his hand and pulling back hard to counteract his weight, which was so much more than her own. Finally, the duke was on his feet. He swayed there for a moment and all the noise in the room vanished as everyone turned to stare at him.
“I have something to say,” the duke said, in a voice that was surprisingly strong and commanding considering the breadth of his injuries. He looked at Beatrice. “Miss Ashford and I are indeed engaged, and we shall be married very soon!”
Everyone seemed to look at one another, then back at him. The duke, however, grinned at Beatrice, and whispered, “Do you think that convinced them?”
“Alright,” she said, trying not to laugh. “Let us get you upstairs to a bedchamber. You are very ill.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I am in desperate need of that, if I do say so myself.”
At last, at Theodore’s urging, everyone began to make their way slowly out of the ballroom. As they went, Beatrice saw Miss Thornton out of the corner of her eye. She tensed at once, thinking that Miss Thornton would come over and speak to the duke, but she seemed distracted for once.
She was deep in conversation with Lord Reginald and seemed distressed. Beatrice frowned. It was an odd pair to see together, especially because Miss Thornton seemed almost angry at Lord Reginald.
But she didn’t have much time to contemplate it. The next second, Theodore had arrived by her side.
“Here, allow me,” he said, offering his shoulder for the duke to lean on, and, with surprising tenderness, he led the duke across the ballroom and toward the door.
“We will have a guest bedroom made up for you. Mr. Grenville has gone for a doctor already. We will sort everything out. You will be well.”
Everything moved quickly after that. The duke was put upstairs in the finest guest bedchamber that they had. His mother, who was very pale and had tear stains on her cheek, insisted on waiting with him, and a chair was brought for her so that she could sit with her son.
The doctor arrived soon after that, and while he examined the patient, Beatrice, Vivienne, Nathaniel, and Theodore all waited anxiously outside the door.
At last, the door opened, and the doctor emerged, his hat in his hand.
“The duke shall make a full recovery,” he said. “It looks as if he merely sprained an ankle. Nothing is broken, which is a miracle, considering the seriousness of the accident.”
“What happened?” Beatrice asked at once.
“The duke was in a carriage accident on the way here,” the doctor explained. It seems that his carriage was moving far too fast when the driver tried to take a turn, and it toppled over. He is very lucky that these are the worst of his injuries.”
“And the carriage driver?” Theodore asked. “Has someone found him?”
“Mr. Grenville has gone to fetch him, if I am not very much mistaken. I am supposed to meet them downstairs now.”
“I shall have another bedroom made up for him,” Theodore said at once. “Thank you, Doctor. We are eternally grateful to you for your quick help.”
He shook the doctor’s hand, his voice revealing more sincerity than Beatrice had expected from him.
She watched him with interest, taking in the frown that was creasing his forehead, the relief in his shoulders at the doctor’s words, and the way he kept glancing toward the duke’s bedroom with genuine worry.
Was it possible that Theodore was softening toward the duke? That his injury and effort in trying to quell the rumors about her had dissolved some of his anger and resentment?
Once the doctor was gone, Theodore turned to go. He was at the end of the corridor when Beatrice hurried after him. She caught him when he had already turned the corner and was out of earshot from their friends.
Tapping him on the shoulder, she led him a little further down the corridor, to be sure that Vivienne and Nathaniel would not hear.
“Thank you,” she said, once they were facing one another. “It means more to me than I can tell you.”
Theodore raised his eyebrows. “I am only doing what I would do for anyone,” he said. “I take injuries very seriously.”
“I know,” Beatrice said, “but I appreciate it all the same. I know that you do not like the duke, which makes this especially meaningful to me. He is… important to me.”
Theodore gazed at her for a long moment, saying nothing.
Then at last, he muttered, “I see now that he is not entirely the scoundrel I always believed him to be. It was noble of him to make it all the way here, even considering his injuries, to try and put the rumors about you to rest. Although…” he held his hand up when she tried to speak, “…he should never have allowed those rumors to circulate to begin with.”
Beatrice pursed her lips. “They were not entirely his fault,” she said at last. “I also have been… impulsive.”
“I know,” Theodore said. “But you are a young lady, unworldly about men. It is up to the duke to be the one to put a stop to things. Just as I would, if I were interested in a young lady. I would never do anything to dishonor someone or to bring about rumors of scandal, especially if I cared for her. I would show my care by being respectful and maintaining social decorum.”
Now it was Beatrice’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “And are you sure that you would not keep such a respectful distance of social decorum that she would not even know if you liked her?”
Theodore’s brow knit. “What are you talking about?”
Beatrice sighed. “I am talking about the fact that you can be a brick wall, Theodore. In trying to maintain your reputation and the reputation of our family, you can be so distant that even if you were interested in courting a lady, I very much doubt she would have any idea.”
“I would not…”
“You would,” she interrupted gently. “And what is even worse, you are now starting to take out your anger on…”
She cut herself off, taking a deep breath, then tried again.
“All I am trying to say is that you have been taking your anger on me of late. Me and… Vivienne.” She maintained eye contact as she said Vivienne’s name, even though it was difficult.
It was the first time she had hinted that she knew about her brother’s feelings.
To her surprise, he did not respond as strongly as she thought he might. He merely blinked, very slowly.
“Vivienne…” he murmured, then cleared his throat. “You mean Miss Carlton?”
“Of course I mean Miss Carlton,” she said, a little impatiently.
“Ever since this debacle with the duke, you have been short with her and made her feel as if you are angry with her. But it is not her fault that this has happened. I understand that you are upset, you are angry at the world, and that most of all angry at me, but you cannot take it out on Vivienne. It is ungentlemanly. And worse than that, it hurts her. And I know that you do not want to hurt her.”
After a long moment, Theodore swallowed. “No,” he said at last. “I do not want to hurt her.”
Beatrice sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Then you must try and be kinder. You do not want to push her away.”
Theodore nodded and looked at his feet. “You are right,” he murmured. “I will try harder. Thank you, Beatrice.” He looked back up. “I appreciate this more than I can say. Sometimes I can lose my temper, especially about things that remind me of being at school. That was not an easy time.”
“It sounds as if it was hard for everyone,” Beatrice said, remembering what the duke had said about not having friends. “Perhaps it is possible that the conflicts from those times are merely a misunderstanding. Or the kind of conflict that time would heal.”
Theodore looked for a moment as if he wanted to argue, but then he nodded. “You are right,” he said. “Now come, let us go and check on the patient, make sure he is off to a speedy recovery.”
And as Beatrice and her brother walked back along the corridor, she felt, for the first time in a long time, as if something was finally going right in her life.