Alex read this last with rage burning in his chest. “Oh, will you? I think not, my buck! I’ll be after you before you know it!”
Georgy exploded. “For goodness’ sake, Alex! Don’t keep us all in suspense!”
“It’s from Vergette. He was staying at the Luthrie Arms yesterday. Sent for me to arrange to meet today. Like a fool, I mentioned it to Apple before I went. And now you say she went into the inn.”
“Then she saw him?” demanded Georgy.
“You may wager your diamonds she saw him! What do you suppose when the fellow sends to cancel our arrangement and Apple has left me — us?”
He glanced from one parent to the other as he realised his own slip, and found his father watching him with an attentive frown. Lady Luthrie, on the other hand, was looking decidedly displeased. She seized the moment. “Alexander, what is this? Explain yourself at once!”
Georgy threw him a look of panic and buried her face in her coffee cup.
Lord Luthrie glanced at the butler. “Be so good as to enquire if anyone has seen Miss Greenaway this morning. Discreetly, Meech.”
“Certainly, my lord.” The butler bowed and withdrew, and Lord Luthrie turned to Alex. “Now, my dear boy.” The tone was gentle, but with that hint of steel he knew so well. “Cut line. The truth, if you please.”
Alex drew a heavy breath. “Apple ain’t a friend of Georgy’s. I came upon her by accident. Or rather, the other way about.”
His mother’s measured voice cut in. “By accident? She sustained an accident or you did?”
To Alex’s relief, his father put out a hand. “My dear, let us allow Alex to tell it in his own way, or we shall all become hopelessly muddled.”
There was no point in prevarication. As succinctly as he could, Alex gave an account of Apple’s eruption into his life and the subsequent events leading up to his deciding to bring her to Dymond Garth. He was permitted to tell his story without interruption, but the growing thundercloud in his mother’s features and the frown on his sire’s brow were more unpleasant than a deal of exclamatory comment. Georgy kept her head down, not much to his surprise, no doubt afraid of incurring a scold. He did his best to avert that.
“You must not blame Georgy. She only did what I asked of her.”
Lady Luthrie took a fortifying sip of her coffee and laid the cup down. “So, Alexander. You say Appoline would have gone to Mrs Reddicliffe, yet you chose instead to bring her here.”
He winced. “I insisted. It’s not Apple’s fault. She didn’t want to come.”
“My dear Alexander, I am far from laying any blame upon the child. It is evident to me that your conduct has been throughout reprehensible, if well-meaning. You should have taken her at once to her home.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” snapped Alex, firing up. “Not when I’d heard what those vultures intended.”
“From all I have been able to make out, you did not then know they were vultures, as you put it. How if it had been Georgiana or Charlotte in such a case? For all you knew, Appoline had parents or guardians who were perfectly frantic at her loss.”
“Cases aren’t the same, ma’am. Besides, Apple would have run away again if I’d tried to take her home. Couldn’t, in all honour, leave her to her own devices. Chit’s hot at hand, can’t you see? Look what’s she’s done now, and without a word to me. Cozened Vergette into taking her with him, I’ll be bound.”
He realised, with a sense of shock, that his fury was concentrated more on Apple than Vergette. Fury, and hurt. He’d believed she trusted him, and now look. First hint of trouble and she was off.
His father spoke for the first time. “What do you intend to do, Alex?”
Alex looked across, frowning. “Go after her, of course. What else?”
“To what purpose?”
The question brought him up short. He gazed at his sire, anger dropping out. There was nothing in his head but the urgent need to fetch Apple back. Because he couldn’t bear to live without her. But he couldn’t say so, not to his father. He fell back on the excuse he’d been using all along. “Made myself responsible for her, sir. Can’t renege on that.”
Lord Luthrie eyed him in silence. His helpmeet, having waited for him to finish whatever he was going to say — as was her practice — now took a hand.
“It is evident, Alexander, that Appoline does not wish for your intervention.”
It struck him like a blow, and Alex could not speak for a moment.
“And an excellent thing that is,” pursued his mother, “since you have taken her out of her natural sphere and subjected her to embarrassment.”
Alex hit back. “Nothing of the kind, ma’am. She’d settled nicely. And I meant only to keep her here until her birthday, when we’d have gone to Vergette in any event.”
