Zeke could only remember seeing him like this once—after discovering his father died in a gaming hell.
He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. “Grandfather, who is she? Perhaps we should start there, and work our way to tonight’s events.”
“She’s Lady Christine Hastings, affectionately Lady Kitty, daughter of the deceased Lord Charles Hastings, granddaughter of the more recently deceased eighth Baron of Maidstone, Lord Christian Hastings. He and I served together in the Crimean War. I considered him one of my closest friends, a man to whom I owe my life.”
“I knew I recognized that name.”
“What with one thing and another, I hadn’t seen much of him these last years.” He shrugged, his familiar blue eyes distant, as if he looked into the past. “Time passes, you lose touch, but you never forget. Not with a history like ours.”
He took a long drink, and Zeke followed suit.
“At any rate, some six months ago, Kitty showed up on my doorstep, a royal mess. Penniless, wearing a dirt-crusted mourning gown. Lord only knows how she made it here. What she’d had to endure.” The earl chuckled softly. “God bless her, she’s got spunk. She made it to London from Maidstone County with nothing but the clothes on her back.”
“How did you know she wasn’t some con artist, intent on fleecing you?”
“I’d been half expecting her. Several months earlier, Christian had written to tell me he was dying. He expressed concern over his granddaughter’s safety upon his demise. He asked me to assist her should the need arise. That and her eyes.”
“Her eyes?”
“The last time I saw him he showed me a picture of his late wife. She had beautiful, exotic eyes. Christian called them tiger eyes. Kitty inherited them.”
Zeke’s turn to grunt. “Did your friend give any indication as to why—” He broke off. He didn’t know what to call the chit. “Lady Hastings might need your assistance?”
The earl nodded. “Christian no longer trusted James. Said he recognized James’s growing antipathy toward him and Kittyonly after he’d filed the documents making him his heir and Kitty’s legal guardian. What with Christian’s declining health, and the slow wheels of bureaucracy, he had no hope of undoing what had been done. Now I’ve met the man, I can’t help but agree. The ninth Baron of Maidstone’s not to be trusted with our Kitty. The bloke actually hopes to marry her.”
“You’re not making sense. If the baron dislikes her so much, why shackle himself to her for all eternity?”
“Good question. One to which I have no answer. I do know a man can do a lot of damage to a woman once she’s legally bound to him.”
“And vice versa,” Zeke said under his breath.
The earl’s eyes went glacial. “This is no time for flippancy. Now listen up, because we haven’t much time.”
Before Zeke could ask after the time crunch, the earl went on.
“As her guardian, James has the upper hand. He could feasibly force marriage on her, and I do mean force. Legally, we’d have no recourse. The bloodlines are far enough removed, James being a descendent of Christian’s half-brother. Which leaves only Kitty’s unwillingness to marry him blocking his plans, and for the right amount of blunt, some clergyman can be persuaded to turn a blind eye to a maid’s reluctance.”
“I don’t see the dire aspect here, my lord. Her guardian’s not intending to toss her out on her ear. He wishes to marry her. Marriages of convenience happen every day. What makes this one so heinous?”
“If the baron believed James to be a danger to Kitty, then I believe it. Then there’s the obvious.”
Zeke cocked his head in a silent query.
“She fears the man.”
“She told you this?”
The earl scowled. “She didn’t need to spell it out for me. She fled in the middle of the night, for God’s sake. She’s a lady,born and bred, yet she dressed as a servant boy, giving up her freedom, her femininity, her life, for what was to be a year if I hadn’t mucked things up. A year, Ezekiel!”
He smashed his fist into his thigh. “I ask you, would a lady go to such extremes if doing so wasn’t an absolute necessity?”
“I take your meaning.”
“Now the bastard has found her, thanks to me.” He set his empty snifter aside and dropped his head in his hands.
Zeke had bristled at his grandfather’s accusatory tone. But seeing the old man assume responsibility didn’t sit right, either.
“Mark my words. Without our swift intervention, James will force Kitty to marry him, by hook or by crook.”
