“My word, mum, I didn’t expect to run into you so soon,” came a small, shaky voice, arresting both her and Mr. Lioncroft’s attention. The maid who’d been in Evangeline’s room earlier was now at her elbow, staring up at her with wide blue eyes. “It’s me, Ginny. I got no idea how you did it, but thank you ever so much for helping. I hope I got it before she chanced upon it, because if not, he’ll—” The maid broke off mid-sentence as voices spilled from the hallway behind them. She seemed to catch sight of Mr. Lioncroft for the first time and flinched. “I’ll find you later, if I’m not sacked between now and then. I must know—”
But whatever Ginny had to ask was swallowed by the buzz of conversation as Benedict and Francine Rutherford strode down the hall, laughing and chatting with the cane-wielding man from earlier. Evangeline frowned. Where was Lady Heatherbrook? She’d been talking to the elderly man only a few minutes ago. Speaking of which, if the white-haired man wasn’t Lady Heatherbrook’s husband, who was, and where was he?
Evangeline turned back to Ginny, only to discover the maid was no longer there. She’d disappeared into the blackness of the passageway like one of the many shadows.
Chapter 5
Conversation sputtered and died by the end of the first course.
Across the table, Gavin’s sister placed her spoon next to her empty bowl and refused to meet his eyes. When she’d first been seated—later than all the rest—she’d been oddly flushed, her cheeks rouged with a heavy hand. By the time the bowls of steaming soup appeared, so had the reason for the face paint. Her delicate skin had always bruised easily.
His houseguests slunk nervous glances from her face to his, as the pinkness of Rose’s left cheek purpled and spread to the size and proportion of a man’s hand. There was no doubt she’d bear the horrible mark for the rest of the party, just like there was no doubt in anyone’s mind who had struck her.
Except…Gavin hadn’t.
Considering the crimes in his past, one might think he wouldn’t mind being saddled with the occasional misplaced lesser crime. Nonetheless, such easy presumption of guilt was precisely why he chose to avoid the company of so-called Polite Society in the first place.
Gavin couldn’t deny the presence of his temper, a rash, ever-simmering rage. When at Cambridge, how often had he been chastised for neck-or-nothing phaeton races ending with blood and bruises, or for the myriad fights that would break out afterward over who had won and who had lost? But he’d been a boy then, not more than seventeen. And while his anger might still be quick to surface, he now had at least a tenuous hold on something he’d never possessed before: self-control.
He didn’t discipline his servants with his fist, although doing so was perfectly legal. He’d never wished to hit a woman in his life, no matter how provoked. And he certainly hadn’t struck his sister for no reason at all, despite the accusing glances surreptitiously sent his way from all corners of the table.
But who had?
Her husband, a slimy pompous rat of an earl, would’ve been Gavin’s first guess, had Rose not taken her place beside him with a buss and a smile. As she stared at her brimming soup bowl, a scarlet stain spreading up her neck suggested Rose was beginning to realize powder and rouge hadn’t masked her injury as well as she’d hoped.
“So tell us,” came Edmund’s loud voice, the words slurring together until they were barely decipherable. His amber eyes blinked several times as if he found focusing on Gavin’s face a difficult task. “Why’d you plant your sister the facer?”
“He didn’t hit me,” Rose mumbled, her eyes meeting neither his nor Edmund’s. Had there been any other sound in the dining room, she might’ve gone unheard. In the silence, however, her words were cannon blasts.
Skepticism graced the faces now peering in her direction. All save one. Heatherbrook lifted his dun-colored brows and cast his wife a look of such unmitigated scorn that her bruised cheek nearly disappeared beneath the force of her blush.
“You,” Gavin seethed between clenched teeth.
A few of the guests startled to hear his first word of the evening.
Lord Heatherbrook’s brows merely returned to a relaxed position, dismissing Gavin’s snarled accusation without a word. Rose trembled when her husband raised his hand near her face, but he simply reached for a basket of fresh-baked bread—and smirked.
It was the smirk that did it.
Gavin leaned forward and leapt to his feet. He landed with his legs at shoulder width and knees slightly crouched, ready to spring across the table and tackle Heatherbrook in his seat. The chair toppled over behind him, clattering to the hardwood floor. Gavin ignored it. His sister had reentered his life after over a decade of absence. Violence against his family had taken her from him before. He would not allow it to do so again.
“Outside,” he ordered her husband, fists ready, voice hard. “Now.”
Rose blanched. Edmund motioned for a footman to refill his wineglass. The rest of the guests watched, breathless and twitching, as if they were debating the wisdom of diving for cover beneath the table.
Lord Heatherbrook’s lip curled as he sneered his rejection of Gavin’s command. Were it not for the tremor in Heatherbrook’s hand as he replaced the basket of bread upon the table, Gavin might have thought him unmoved. Everyone else apparently witnessed the same tremor, and their gazes swung in uniform terror from Heatherbrook’s shaking fingers back to Gavin’s furious scowl, as if quite certain now,now,he would leap across the table to snap Heatherbrook’s pale neck.
Gavin was certainly considering it.
“Stop.” The word was soft, a mere breath, but came from Rose.
A footman righted the fallen chair. After a moment, Gavin sat. The wary guests did not look convinced of his harmlessness.
“My—my daughter,” Rose stammered, making a small gesture toward Gavin’s wide-eyed niece. “Nancy was just getting to know Mr. Teasdale when the supper bell rang.”
Gavin stared at his sister. She could not expect her daughter toenjoybeing matchmaked to a frail old man thrice her age.
Nancy gasped, as if a sharp elbow had just connected with her ribs. “Er, yes,” she said loudly, casting an over-bright smile around the table. “Splendid weather we’re having. Didn’t you say so earlier, Mr. Teasdale?”
