His butler bowed again and then made a hasty retreat.
Alessandro watched him go, bemused by the situation in which he now found himself. He had a betrothed to worry about now. Aplan. A plan which had been set in motion by the same man who now seemed hell-bent upon destroying it all with his reckless, insatiable desire for debauchery. Could the duke not have waited one more sodding day to drown himself in drink and race his equally foolhardy friend?
In truth, he wanted nothing more than to let Montrose wallow in pain and learn from his stupidity. But he also wanted hiswife. He wanted tomakeher his wife. And each day spent without Lady Catriona as his countess, in his bed, was another day he would have to wait.
The longer he tarried, the more time passed. His men in Spain needed him. Though his second in command was capable, a formidable guerrilla soldier in his own right, he was also violent and ruthless. Tomàs had once led their men into a French field hospital and tacked the wounded enemy to trees to bleed to death.
The memory of that day still haunted him, for while battle was in his blood, Alessandro believed in mercy. He needed to return, to retake command. Warfare was what he knew best. Attempting to find his way in the culture which had never embraced him, the culture which had never felt like his own, was not what he was meant to do.
Surely that was the source of the restlessness affecting him now.
Surely that was the source of his anger.
But it was not, and he knew it. Part of the spark igniting his inner fury was his reaction to Lady Catriona. He wanted her. Badly. And it left him riddled with guilt he could not begin to dispel.
Still, he required an heir, but to accomplish such a feat, he also needed to wed.
That much was undeniable.
Johnstone returned, and it was only then that Alessandro realized he had never moved from the spot where he had stood when the butler had taken his leave. Indeed, he still held Lady Catriona’s missive clenched in his fist.
Cristo.
“The carriage is awaiting you, my lord,” his butler announced.
“Very good,” he said, not even having the energy to bait the man any longer. “Thank you, Johnstone.”
With that, he stalked toward the front entry, Lady Catriona’s note burning into his palm.
*
Catriona’s wedding daywas not going to happen.
She suspected it the moment she woke in the midst of the night to her brother’s incoherent hollering. Sherealizedit when she found Monty on the staircase, sprawled over the steps, groaning in pain, fortunate he had not broken his foolish neck.
Asking for whisky.
She had not given him the whisky, and neither had Mama, who had also rushed from her chamber in the darkness, fluttering about aimlessly as a moth. In her dudgeon, Mama had almost fallen down the steps herself.
Catriona had caught her by the elbow in time.
And had also subsequently sought their butler, who had rounded up three of the sturdiest footmen to aid in returning Monty to his bed.
But the trouble with Monty was that he was, well,Monty.
And he had been out of his mind with laudanum and pain and desperate for what Monty loved second best—liquor. First was women, of course, and in massive quantity but questionable quality.
But Monty had not been appreciative of the efforts being undertaken to restore him to his bed. He had punched one of the footmen in the eye. He had also nearly succeeded in kicking the unsuspecting butler down the stairs. When the phalanx of servants required to restore him to his bed had finally managed to wrangle him to his chamber, he had relieved himself on the carpet.
In front of Catriona and their horrified mother.
She did not think she would ever be able to forget the sound of Monty’s stream hitting the carpet. Or the gasp of horror in Mama’s throat.
And Monty?
He had merely laughed. Laughed uproariously, as if he had heard the funniest sally in all Christendom. And then he had belched and begun to cry. And then he had fallen over, and all the servants had wrestled him back into bed as he uttered a series of nonsensical curses.Satan’s earbobs. God’s fichu. The devil’s banyan.
His splint had been quite ruined by that point.
