What A Gentleman Wants (27 page)

“It’s starting to rain,” she whispered as a few fat drops spattered down around them. One hit her cheek, right beside her mouth, and he wondered what her skin would taste like, warm and wet. He could find out, just by leaning forward and pulling her close before the rain had a chance to soak them both…

He closed his eyes for a split second. “Yes,” he said. “We’d best go back.”

“I think we’d better run!” she exclaimed with a shaky laugh as the sprinkles turned into a steady rain. Pulling her shawl over her head, she picked up her skirt and started running. Regretfully, Marcus followed.

Some things, perhaps, were never meant to be.

Then we are agreed, are we not? Exeter?“ A pause. ”Your Grace?“

Marcus turned from the window he’d been staring blindly out of and faced Nathaniel Timms and Mr. John Stafford, chief clerk of Bow Street. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “What were you saying?”

That since your brother seems to have gone missing, and your investigation has reached a blind end, we shall pursue other avenues,“ repeated Timms.

Marcus took his time replying. It was the sensible course. David had been missing for well over a month, and Marcus had learned next to nothing useful in a fortnight. He was tired of it all—the gambling, the worrying, the watching. Let Stafford do his best. “Yes,” he said at last “By all means. I only ask that if new evidence turns up indicating my brother, I be kept informed.”

Stafford knew which side his bread was buttered on. “Yes, Your Grace,” he said, bowing his head. “Of course.”

“Of course, of course,” said Timms a little too heartily. “Much obliged to you for all your efforts thus far, sir.”

Marcus just looked at him. He hated to think he had failed in what he set out to do—always had done—but this had been a quixotic pursuit from the beginning. This time, it seemed, David had outsmarted him. Either that, or David was innocent and it had all been a waste of time.

He got to his feet. Then I bid you good day, gentle-men.“ Stafford and Timms returned his brief bow, and Marcus left, collecting his hat and walking stick from the servant who hovered outside Timms’s well-appointed office. He emerged from the bank into the last sunlight of afternoon.

He paused to take a deep breath. It was a lovely day, and he no longer had to plan an evening crawling through gaming hells and crowded card rooms in search of suspects. It was quite a relief, actually. David had won; Marcus surrendered. Let David be his own man, unencumbered by Marcus’s spying and oversight.
You’ve finally got your wish
, he told his absent brother silendy.
Enjoy it in good health
.

The footman swept open the carriage door as he descended the steps. As precise as ever, his servants. “Home,” he said as he stepped into the carriage.

“Yes,
Your
Grace,” said the footman. A moment later the driver snapped his whip, and they were off. Marcus leaned back, a faint smile spreading across his face. He felt rather free. He wondered what the ladies had planned tonight. With any luck, a quiet evening at home. He was tired of going out every night. Rosalind would be pleased, although she didn’t know why he had ignored her every scolding about staying in more. He hoped Hannah would be pleased as well. Perhaps she would invite him to sneak into the kitchen for tea again. Perhaps he would invite himself.

The carriage stopped. Marcus jumped down lightly and strode up the steps, feeling a strange urge to whis-tle. The moment he stepped past the butler into the hall, a slim figure in blue stopped pacing and whirled to face him.

“Marcus,” Hannah said, as he crossed the hall to her. He drew her hand to his lips, his heart lifting at the sight of her. As it always did. Yes, the feeling was most definitely in his heart. Distracted by that realization, he almost missed the worry in her voice.

“What is it, my dear?” He turned his back to Harper, wanting to take her in his arms and banish the anxiety from her expression. He wanted to hold her and shelter her and protect her from whatever had dimmed the light in her eyes. Instead he held her hand firmly between his two, and when she put her free hand on top of them, something warm and comforting filled his soul. Now he was home. With her.

Her somber blue gaze didn’t waver. “David is here.”

For a moment he didn’t move; of all the times for his worthless brother to return and upend his life, he had to come home now, as Marcus realized he was losing his heart to the woman David had dumped on his doorstep. “Where?”

She wet her lips, glancing over her shoulder. “He’s ill, and drunk.”

He released her hand, the warmth inside him fading as the contact was broken. “Where is he?”

She reached for his arm as he started toward the stairs. “Wait, please! I want to warn you—” The drawing room door swung open, David leaning on the handle. His eyes glittered feverishly, and were bloodshot from the liquor Marcus could smell even from ten feet away. There was a crust of dried blood on his forehead, and his hair hung past his shoulders in a tangle. He was filthy from head to toe.

“The prodigal returns.” Hannah flinched in dismay at Marcus’s tone, the hated frosty hardness. He never used that on her anymore. In fact, she hadn’t heard it at all in a long time.

“Marcus,” she pleaded in a whisper. He seemed unaware of her presence, his attention wholly on his brother.

“Yes, dear brother. So sorry, but I have returned. A bit worse for wear, but still in one piece.” David punctuated this with a mocking bow, then stopped short, one hand pressed to his ribs.

“What do you want?” Hannah bowed her head and squeezed her hands together miserably.

“What do I want?” David repeated, blinking owlishly. Hannah noticed his knuckles were white where he gripped the door, and that he seemed to sway the tiniest bit on his feet. He squinted at his brother, then at her, and focused on her hand, reaching out to touch Marcus’s arm. Hannah self-consciously pulled back. All she meant to do was warn Marcus that David might collapse.

“David! Oh, Mama, David’s here!” Celia’s excited cry rang through the hall, and Hannah nearly ran around Marcus to intercept her. Whatever the brothers needed to discuss, they needed to do it without Celia or Rosalind about, and neither looked inclined to wait. David glanced up at his sister just as Hannah caught her.

“Celia, they need a bit of privacy,” she said in whispered rush, trying to stop the younger girl as Rosalind hurried down the stairs toward
them
.

“Oh, David, how could you stay away so long?” Celia shook off Hannah’s hands and flung herself at her brother, who had limped forward into the hall. David staggered, and only kept his feet thanks to Marcus’s hand on his elbow. “I’ve missed you so! Mama and I came all the way to London as soon as we got your letter, and you are so terrible not to be here to see us!”

“Sorry, Celia,” David mumbled. “Rosalind.” His step-mother was crossing the hall to greet him, Hannah’s weak protest lost in the noise of Celia’s greeting. She watched helplessly. Marcus’s face had set in the same grim lines she remembered from the last time Celia and Rosalind’s untimely arrival had upset his plans. She stared at him, but he didn’t meet her eyes.

“We’ll discuss it later,” Marcus said. He snapped his fingers. “Harper, prepare a room at once.” He turned on his heel and started toward the stairs.

“I came to ask your pardon,” David went on, his words slurring slightly. Marcus kept walking. “And Hannah’s, for what I did.” Marcus stopped. Hannah’s stomach took a horrible plunge as she realized what was about to happen, but she couldn’t seem to move or speak. Marcus wheeled to face his brother again, his face absolutely fearsome.

“Not now,” he said in a terrible voice.

“I shouldn’t have tricked either of you that way,” rasped David, now leaning on Celia. He ducked away from Rosalind’s hand as she reached out to feel his forehead. “I didn’t expect you to be such a sport about it and keep her, though, really I didn’t.”

“David!” said Celia in bewilderment. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” bit out Marcus as he strode back across the hall, waving aside Celia and hauling David none-too-gently toward the stairs. “Harper!” Everyone jumped at his roar.

“I wanted to help her so much, but I knew I wasn’t the right man,” David babbled. His glittering eyes found Hannah, still petrified at the foot of the stairs. “God help me, I’m so sorry, Hannah.”

She shook her head, actually praying for a man to lose consciousness. “No, really, let’s talk about it later.”

His face crinkled in a smile, as if he were almost proud. “That’s what I like about you,” he said. “So bloody practical! Everything in its proper place, at its proper time. Just like Marcus, eh?” He swung his fist, landing a feeble blow on his brother’s chest. Marcus grunted, nearly dragging his passive twin up the stairs. “I knew she was the one for you, the moment I saw her, old man.”

“Marcus!” demanded Rosalind from below. “What on earth is he talking about? David, what’s happened to you?”

Marcus hesitated, which was his undoing. David tried to turn around, throwing them both off balance. Marcus grabbed for his brother’s coat, barely managing to keep them upright. Celia screamed, and David sank to his knees.

“It’s simple, Rosalind,” he said, his voice suddenly clear again. “I signed Marcus’s name in the marriage register. Hannah never met him until I brought her to London.”

Complete silence filled the hall. Hannah felt her face burn with shame and awareness of every lie and deception she had committed these past weeks. When she finally managed to lift her head, Marcus’s gaze was the one she sought.

“Marcus, is this true?” gasped Rosalind.

His eyes caught Hannah’s, flat and dark and utterly expressionless. He didn’t say a word, but the damning silence seemed to ring in the hall. David coughed weakly, sliding out of Marcus’s grip. His damage done, the prodigal collapsed to the stairs, flat on his back, out cold.

“That’s nasty stuff,” said David with a grimace. Hannah put the lid back on the bottle of tonic and set it on the table.

“If I had anything nastier, I would pour a whole bottle of it straight down your throat.”

“No doubt you would,” he said with a faint grin. Hannah pressed her lips together, then reached for the bowl of broth. He had refused it earlier, but the doctor said he needed to eat it. David took one look at her face, and pushed himself up against the pillows and took the bowl.

“I’m terribly sorry, Hannah,” he said when it was gone. She said nothing, stacking the dishes back on the tray. When David had fainted on the stairs, the household had seemed to come apart at the seems. Between Celia shrieking, Rosalind calling out dozens of hysterical orders, and the servants suddenly running everywhere, Hannah hadn’t known what to do. She stood frozen at the bottom of the stairs, while Marcus just watched the pandemonium with his face still and closed. He had disappeared into his study soon after, and when Rosalind broke down after the doctor’s examination of David and had to be helped to her room by a maid, Hannah silently slipped into the room and took over the nursing duties.

David wasn’t in as bad shape as she had thought at first Once he was cleaned and dressed in a nightshirt, he looked remarkably like the man she had first met. There were pouches under his bloodshot eyes, and he had a hacking cough, which the doctor said didn’t seem to have settled into his lungs, and a fever. A broken rib was the worst of his troubles. And now that he was somewhat sober and rested, he was anxious to make amends, or at least apologize. Hannah wasn’t ready to hear any of it.

“I think sorry is a poor recompense,” she said. “What you did is unforgivable.”

He winced. “Unforgivable? By you, or by Marcus?”

“Both, I think,” she said evenly. His hands moved restlessly, plucking up the coverlet.

“It doesn’t seem to have ended so badly.” His tone was wheedling, imploring. Hannah stood up.

“You are not in any position to judge.”

He cleared his throat, frowning, as though he were trying to think how to talk his way out of this spot. “You’re still here,” he pointed out at last. She shook her head, and picked up the tray.

“I’m not listening. You see nothing wrong with what you did. Good night.” She went to the door.

“Will Marcus be up soon, do you think?” he asked almost plaintively. She paused.

“Are you sure you want to face him already?”

“Hmm, that bad, eh?”

Hannah met his eyes for a long moment, until his hesitant grin vanished. “Worse, I expect.” She closed the door and left.

Marcus sat and drank, staring blindly at the window. It was all over. All his efforts to keep David’s betrayal secret, undone by his ungrateful brother in person. Rosalind had been stunned, he saw, appalled by David’s actions but also by his. Celia was just shocked, but betrayal would come. That disillusionment had hit him hard, but not as hard as the look of utter mortification on Hannah’s face.

He smiled dourly. The three women whose happiness he cared for above all else had just been humiliated and horrified by what he’d done.

A sharp tap sounded on the door, and it opened before he said anything. Marcus didn’t turn; he knew who it was. He had been waiting for her.

“Marcus, I have never been in the habit of taking you to task for your decisions,” said his stepmother in a low voice. “You are a grown man, and if I haven’t always been pleased by your actions, I have told myself you were competent to judge for yourself, and I have held my tongue.” She paused, and Marcus heard her breath catch. “But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t ask
why
.”

“I did it for you,” he said calmly. “And for Celia.”

“Oh, Marcus,” she whispered in dismay. He continued to stare out the window, his voice still devoid of emotion, as he related every detail.

“I thought to spare you the realization that David had used her so abominably,” he concluded. “Hannah was nothing to me, and I was nothing to her; a few months of uneasy pretense, and she could return to her life, comfortably settled, and I could return to mine, with no one the wiser.”