The questionable gentlemen finding Middlebie’s antics so entertaining disappeared, fading into the tree line like morning fog burned away by sunshine.
“Cowards!” Middlebie shouted after the men before twisting back and forth in the water. He sputtered unintelligible obscenities while staggering in the pond’s sticky mire until he fully lost his balance and went down with a monstrous splash. “Bloody hell!” Sitting in the waist-deep muck, he smacked the back of his neck. “Ow! These damnable English midges bite hard.”
“Come out of there this instant, Lord Middlebie,” Grace said. “Your behavior is most unacceptable. Dress yourself and leave.”
“I’m not coming out till she agrees to be off to Gretna Green with me.” The stubborn Scot jutted his stubbly chin higher with such a jerk that he almost fell backward in the muddy water. Then he lurched forward a bit, squinting at Grace with a disturbing intensity as he swayed back and forth like a cobra about to strike. He snorted and threw a hand at her in dismissal. “Off wi’ ye! Chance said ye already promised yerself to that duke what will never take ye down the aisle. If ye dinna believe me, just ask the woman he’s been tied to since he was a bairn. Is that her standing there beside ye? Feckin’ hell. Where is she? Tell her to stop her foolishness and come along. I need her dowry, and her too. She’s no’ so bad once ye give her a chance to prove her own worth.”
“Who the devil is he wanting to take to Gretna Green? I’m going to help Seri hang Chance by his braces,” Grace said toJoy. “I can’t believe our addlepated brother confided in someone like Middlebie, and how dare he give that drunkard the slightest hope that one of us would be silly enough to marry him. I wonder if Sissy could incapacitate him from there?”
“I doubt she has any stones large enough over there in those bushes.” Joy huffed, snapped her parasol shut, and smacked her palm with it as if ready to brawl. “I’ve always questioned our brother’s ability to reason. Papa would be after them both with the buggy whip if he were still here. Shall we do Papa proud?”
“And do what? Knock the man over and have him drown?” Grace turned once again and looked back. “Oh dear heavens, Seri is surely going to swoon. Look at that group headed this way.” She squinted and looked closer at the tallest man in the lead. “Heaven help us. That’s Wolfe at the front of them. We asked Connor to fetch Chance, not Wolfe.”
“Perhaps he couldn’t find him, and I daresay that doesn’t matter now. If we don’t quiet that fool Middlebie, who knows how much damage he’ll wreak on Wolfebourne’s plans to break the engagement?” Joy picked up a rock and threw it at the wailing Scot. “Be quiet! What would your mother say were she to see you now and witness your behavior? Why would any woman wish to be with you when you are so determined to play the part of the fool?”
Surprisingly enough, Middlebie went still and stared at Joy as if she had cast a spell and turned him to stone. Without a word, he drew himself up from the muck, slogged his way out of the pond, and started fumbling with his shirt, trying to pull it on.
“Middlebie!” Wolfe bellowed, his deep voice rolling across the grounds like thunder. “What the devil is wrong with you?”
Middlebie didn’t answer, just kept his head bowed as he struggled into his shirt, then retrieved his neckcloth from the ground and draped it around his neck.
Wolfe reached the man and caught him with a hard right to the jaw. The Scot reeled back, landed hard on the ground, and stayed there—motionless.
A tug on her skirt made Grace turn and discover Connor.
“You better get to Wolfe, and in a hurry,” the boy told her. “He found me afore I could find His Grace to tell him ’bout his friend.” The child’s eyes brimmed with fear. “I never seen Wolfe so angry. He might hurt that man something fierce. Hurt him so bad he might even die.”
Grace rounded on her heels, tossed her parasol aside, and reached Wolfe just as he yanked the limp man up from the ground to hit him again. “Your Grace! That is quite sufficient.” She pushed in close and put a hand on Wolfe’s heaving chest. His unbridled rage almost made her retreat. But no, she couldn’t. This situation needed calming. “Wolfe,” she said so softly that she knew only he would hear, “it is done, and all is well. Let him go. Let…him…go.”
“He could have harmed you,” he said through bared teeth, growling like a cornered beast. “May have already harmed your reputation.”
“But he didn’t, and now you saved me. Leave him to the stable lads. They’ll watch over him until he can sort himself and leave the estate.” She risked touching his cheek, smiling as the raspiness of the day’s stubble brushed against her fingers. “All is well. Let him go.”
Wolfe released his hold on the unconscious Scot and let the man drop. He took a step back but kept his gaze locked on Grace. The intensity of his stare burned through her until she struggled to breathe.
The slightest movement to her right caught her attention. Serendipity gave the barest nod at the trio of guests standing slightly apart from the rest of the crowd, on a higher point up the hillside. The Longmortens and their knight observed themost unsavory situation with the interest of buzzards about to descend upon the battlefield dead.
Chance chose that moment to appear, looking slightly worse for the wear and making Grace wonder which guest he had treated to what appeared to be a very intimate tour of the more secluded areas of the grounds. “Fred, Jasper,” Chance said with a snap of his fingers, “get Arnold and Louis to assist you in seeing that Lord Middlebie finds a clean stall in the stable in which to ponder his poor choices once he opens his eyes and returns to the living.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” The men nodded and hurried to complete their assigned task.
Even though it was the last thing she wished to do, Grace avoided further eye contact with Wolfe and did her best to help Serendipity and Joy encourage the guests to return to the indulgences of the picnic rather than revel in the excitement of a drunken, misbehaving lord. The best way to tamp down any rumors was to behave as if all was now well.
Connor and Sissy clustered around her, staying as close as frightened chicks around a mother hen. Somehow, she got the sense that they feared they were in trouble. Pulling them aside to a nearby fallen log, she had them seat themselves on either side of her. “What is wrong with you two? Why haven’t you returned to playing?”
Both children stared downward and remained silent while swinging their feet and bouncing their heels against the log.
“I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s troubling you. I’m not like Joy. She can look into people’s minds, you know.” She nudged Connor, teasing him with an eerie whisper. “Shall I call her over and have her look in your ear so she can tell me what you’re thinking?”
Connor squinted up at her, studying her with an expression so serious that she immediately dropped all pretense of levity.“Sissy and I did some sneaking around before Lord Middlebie stirred up all that trouble. We felt it our duty to do some discovering.”
Grace braced herself, uncertain what the two would confess to next. “Sneaking around and discovering, you say?”
Sissy nodded while nervously chewing on her bottom lip, and Connor bobbed his head.
Grace folded her hands in her lap, not at all sure how to continue. She’d always been on the other side of these conversations, where she was the one confessing sins in the hopes of receiving a lighter punishment. She wondered if Mama and Papa had ever been unsure of what to do when their children were a little too adventurous or naughty.
After pulling in and releasing a deep breath, she settled herself more comfortably on the log. “And what did you hope to accomplish with your sneaking around and discovering? I take it this is something I should know about, since you brought it up?”
