She was in no mood to be civil to anyone.
No sooner had she mumbled some sort of salutation to the man than David came sweeping into the hallway, tossing off his greatcoat while smiling at her.
Blatherwick glared at the earl. “Did you know, Paxton, that Mrs. Milne will soon permit me to announce our forthcoming nuptials?”
David started laughing.
Now she glared at David, compelled to hurt him as he had hurt her. “It’s true, my lord. I’m going to marry Mr. Blatherwick.” She turned and ran up the stairs.
Chapter Nine
“Leave!” David thundered.
Fear swept over Blatherwick’s face.
Few men—no, no man—had ever been the object of such rage from David.
Blatherwick’s chin jutted out. “You can’t go ordering me about. It’s no longer your house.”
David closed the gap between them and shoved his face into the other man’s. “I’ll rephrase. Leave or I’ll remove you.”
Surely The Buffoon hadn’t forgotten the many times David had bested him in play yard fisticuffs. Surely he was aware of David’s advantage in height and strength. Surely he hadn’t recently acquired courage—something he’d lacked throughout his privileged life.
A deep red flush climbed up Blatherwick’s face. “This. Is. Not. Fair. She’s my betrothed. Why should I have to leave her with you?”
His face still close enough to detect Blatherwick’s trembling, David spoke gutturally. “Because if you don’t your coachman will be scraping you off this floor.”
Blatherwick’s eyes narrowed to where David was incapable of telling what colour they were. “Very well. But I’ll be back tomorrow and expect to receive a warm welcome from my affianced.”
David locked the door behind The Blowhard, then raced up the stairs to Mary’s bedchamber and began to pound upon her door. He waited a moment, but there was no response.
“Mary, my darling, are you in there?”
Still, nothing. He pounded harder, but he heard not a sound. He thought perhaps she had gone to another room, so he swept through the entire house looking for her.
“Do you know where Mrs. Milne has gone?” he asked Mrs. Ballard, whom he found in the linen closet on the top floor.
She nodded solemnly. “She’s locked herself in her chamber. She was crying.”
His heart sank. He must comfort her. He hurried back down to Mary’s bedchamber. This time instead of pounding, he knocked in a more civil manner. “Mary, please open this door. I must speak to you.”
Once again, there was no response. He listened carefully. Now that Mrs. Ballard had told him Mary was crying, he strained to hear signs of it.
And he heard a faint feminine sniffle.
It broke his heart. Or broke it all over again. He was still reeling from the pain of her declaration that she was going to marry The Buffoon.
He stood there in the dimly lit corridor where he’d frolicked as a lad. Only now he felt destroyed by a slender woman who’d enslaved him with her loveliness, and her purity, and her charitable ways. How could this same woman have treated him so cruelly?
He moved closer to the door. “I know you’re in there. I know you love me. You must know I love you. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone in my eight-and-twenty years. We’ll have the special license tomorrow and can marry.” He paused and waited for a response.
There was nothing.
“I credited you with honesty. You said you loved me. You promised to marry me. How could you deceive me so?”
Nothing.
“And I forbid you to marry Benedict Blatherwick. Absolutely. I believe I’d kill him first rather than have him sully you by such an association. Would it make you happy to see me hang for murder?”
The only sound he heard was a lady’s gentle weeping.
What in the hell had gotten into her?
Once more, he started pounding upon her door.
And he finally heard her say something! He stopped to listen.
“I fell in love,” sniff, sniff, “with a man who misrepresented himself.”
He pressed his face to the thick wooden door and spoke gently. “How was that?”
“I thought you were the kindly man your father was.”
He stood there in the ever-darkening corridor shaking his head. “No, I never purported to be half the man my father was.”
Now she started crying. Loudly.
All his further efforts to get her to communicate went unanswered.
Darkness came. As he stood there shrouded in gloom, Ballard climbed the stairs. “My Lord, you have a caller.”
“If it’s Blatherwick, toss him out.”
“No, sir. He’s come from London, and he says it’s urgent.”
David morosely descended the stairs. Standing at the base of the stairs beneath the wall sconce Ballard has just lighted was Mr. Stonehouse’s young clerk, his cheeks bright red from the cold. He wore heavy leather gloves, a thick woolen muffler twirled about his neck, and a voluminous greatcoat. Had the fellow ridden a horse all the way from London?
“My lord! I have come in the hopes of arriving before the post, for I realized I’ve made a most dreadful mistake.”
Ballard, who still stood there, cleared his throat. “Two pieces of mail were delivered around noon today, your lordship. Identical in every way, except one was addressed to you and the other to Mrs. Milne.”
The clerk groaned and slapped at his forehead. “Then I am too late.”
David could see the man’s great distress. “What’s the problem?”
“I have every reason to believe I made a grave error in addressing your correspondence to Mrs. Milne and hers to you.”
Could this have something to do with Mary’s sudden change? Her reversal of affection? David lowered his brows. “What was the nature of Mr. Stonehouse’s correspondence to me?”
“May we speak in private?” the clerk asked. He still had not divested himself of his coat.
David started for the morning room, but Stevie had its entire floor covered with tin soldiers and was in the middle of an elaborate battle. David walked some distance further to the small library at the rear of the house.
A sick feeling settled in his stomach when he closed the door and faced the clerk. “Well?”
“I beg your forgiveness, my lord, but the correspondence Mr. Stonehouse was sending to you disclosed that the barrister you asked him to procure was proceeding with steps to challenge Mrs. Milne’s ownership of Darnley Lodge, and he was hopeful your challenge would be successful.”
The anger David had previously felt toward Blatherwick was nothing compared to what he now felt toward this careless clerk. He wanted to strike him. Imagine how devastated Mary had been, how betrayed she must have felt when she read that letter!
He understood the words she’d uttered from behind her bedchamber door when she said she’d fallen in love with a man who misrepresented himself. How she must despise him!
Then David realized he had no one but himself to blame. He should have trusted in his father.
Now he’d lost everything.
Glaring at the clerk, he nodded. “It’s too late for you to return to London, but there’s a small inn in the nearest village, Lower Worthington.”