She was forceful, and the habit of submission was clearly strong in him, if only for a peaceful life. And Helen was promising the opposite of peace. She almost won.
And then his eyes hardened, and his lips thinned into a petulant line. “No,” he said with all the stubbornness of a weak man. “We are going to Brighton, and you can never return to Audley Park or to any other respectable, deadly dull position. Face it, Helen, you are already ruined.”
*
Less than half an hour after Helen had left with the Marshalls, a horseman rode up to the inn, leading a second, smaller horse.
“Well met!” said young Richard Maybury cheerfully, encountering Marcus and Kenneth in the yard, dressed for riding. “Are you about to go out?”
“Come with us,” Kenneth invited, reaching up to shake Richard’s hand.
“Can’t,” Richard replied with clear regret. “I’m charged with bringing Miss Milsom home, providing your mother no longer needs her.”
Marcus, striding toward the stables, paused and turned back. “Who gave you this charge?”
“My mother.” Richard flapped his hand toward the second horse. “I even brought a horse for Miss Milsom.” He frowned at Marcus’s scowl and added hastily, “But if Mrs. Robinov still has need of her, that is fine, too. How is Miss Robinov?”
“Doing much better,” Marcus said. “But we understood your mother had sent Mr. and Mrs. Marshall to bring her back. She has already gone with them in their carriage,”
“Drat them, it was decided with perfect clarity over breakfast,” Richard fumed. “They said nothing then about coming here, only going to Finsborough.”
“Well, they must have changed their minds,” Kenneth said. “Anne went with them, too. It’s a pity you rode over for nothing, but untie the mare and come with us now.”
Kenneth was right, of course. Marcus had no reason for the unease sweeping through him. Richard would have left home well before Helen could have got there, and if the Marshalls went via Finsborough, perhaps it was not so surprising they had not met on the road.
Of course, Marcus hadn’t liked the possessive look in Marshall’s eyes when he regarded Helen. The man was clearly a selfish hedonist who cared for nothing but his own comfort and pleasure. But surely no one who meant to seduce or otherwise harm a young lady would take his wife and daughter with him!
He hesitated, wanting very much to laugh at himself, but anxiety won. “You two go without me,” he said abruptly. “Take my horse if you wish, Maybury, and rest your own for the return journey. I believe I will stay here for now.”
Leaving the younger men, he went back into the inn. He wandered into the coffee room where Lily Villin was serving a couple of passing merchants who’d nabbed the chairs nearest the fire. Marcus didn’t want anything and had no reason for being there, but threw himself on to the bench nearest the door to think.
On her way out, Lily paused beside him. “What can I bring you, sir?”
“Oh, nothing, just thinking.”
“Away from your friends,” Lily pointed out.
He gave her a crooked smile. “My friends would call me stupid to worry.”
“And so, you’ve come here to work out if they’re right before you put your problem to them or not?”
“Something like that,” he admitted.
Lily hesitated, almost walking away. Then she said abruptly, “You’re not a stupid man, Sir Marcus. Trust your heart as well as your brain.”
He stared at her. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her what she knew, what she thought of Philip Marshall, but it was an unfair question to put to a girl in her position, and whatever she answered was unlikely to change his own view.
He rose abruptly. “You are quite right,” he said and strode back outside, yelling for the ostler and his own servant to ready his curricle. All he could do was drive to Finsborough and pray he was wrong.
However, he had just stepped into the vehicle and taken the reins when Mrs. Marshall and Anne walked into the yard. His stomach twisted.
“Hold the horses,” he instructed his servant abruptly and jumped down again, striding to meet the newcomers. “Where is your carriage?” he demanded.
Mrs. Marshall bridled, but Anne, who had grown used to his curtness, clearly saw no reason not to answer. “Papa has it. He took Miss Milsom on to Audley Park while Mama and I went to Finsborough market. We finished there very quickly. Perhaps they should have waited for us after all.”
This was not right. Not right at all. “Hardly proper,” he snapped.
“She’s only the governess,” Mrs. Marshall said with a hint of deliberate scorn. “But if you’re so worried, why don’t you drive to Audley Park yourself?”
It was exactly what he meant to do, but the barely veiled malice in the woman’s eyes stayed him. He stared, searching her face. “But no,” he said slowly. “That would waste my time, wouldn’t it? They have gone somewhere else entirely.”
“Of course they have not!” Anne said, laughing.
“Why don’t you run inside and see if Carla needs anything? Kenneth has gone out, so she might like the company if she’s awake,”
Anne tripped off happily enough, but as her mother made to follow, he caught her arm in a grip she could not break. “Oh, no. You tell me where your husband has gone.”
“What makes you think I know?” she spat. “Or care!”
“The look of spiteful triumph in your face.”
“Spiteful is not unnatural in the circumstances. But how on earth can there be triumph when the woman has run away with my husband?”
“Run away where?” he asked, frowning as though he believed every word.
She hesitated, and he imagined her counting the minutes, wondering if he had time to catch up and spoil her plan.
But with sudden clarity, he remembered a few words overheard at luncheon, talk of a house being hired for Christmas.
“Brighton,” he flung at her.
Her eyes widened, giving her away, and while rage and fear galloped through him, he dragged her toward the curricle.
“Unhand me this instant!” she insisted.
“But you and I are going to Brighton to join your husband before he does something extremely silly.”
“He has already done it!”
“Sillier then,” he said savagely.
“You don’t need me, and I won’t go.”
“You will. For I doubt you will like to be the butt of crude jokes during the coming Season when it comes out how you procured your husband his lover.”
She stared at him, coloring for the first time since he had known her. “You are foolish,” she snapped.
“Actually, I’m surprisingly powerful, socially speaking. I don’t go into society much, but I know all the right people. And believe me, if Helen Milsom’s reputation suffers, it is nothing to what will happen to yours. And then you will never find a wealthy husband for Anne. Not from the first level of society at any rate. Or even the second. And your debts, I imagine, will continue to pile up.”
She knew she was beaten. He saw the rage in her eyes and then the calculation before she drooped against his arm. “Oh, hurry and stop him! I only ever obeyed his orders, but you are quite right. It is not fair on my darling daughter. I will not have her chances ruined by her father’s lust for that hussy! Drive like the wind, sir! Like the wind!”