“Got to arrange my own accommodation, ma’am. I’ll return for Miss Greenaway in the morning.”
Her chaperon’s brow cleared. “Ah, I see. Very well, I’ll go and speak with Mrs Pearcey. A most obliging woman. I feel sure she will set an excellent repast before us. Pray do not go until I return, my lord. I should not wish Miss Greenaway to be sitting here unchaperoned.”
With which, she twittered off towards the noisy room across the hall, leaving Apple to confront the intimidating look on Alex’s face. She did not wait for the storm to break. “Why are you looking like a thundercloud, Alex? What have I said?”
“Do you think I care for what this damned duke wants? Do you imagine I’d let you go at his bidding?”
Apple drew in a tight breath. “I know you wouldn’t and you didn’t, or you would not have followed me to Reddy’s. But, Alex, does it matter at whose bidding? If it is true, you know as well I do there is no remedy. You can have nothing to do with a woman in my situation.”
Alex sat down beside her again and seized her hands, holding them so strongly that she winced. The intensity in both eyes and voice struck deep into her soul.
“Don’t talk like that! Do you think I care who or what you are in the eyes of Society? You’re my Apple, and that’s all I care for.”
“Then I must care for you.”
“No, you don’t understand! I know I can’t keep you, Apple. Can’t throw duty to the four winds. And I can’t drag you through the mud, because it would stick and I can’t have that. But I won’t have you believing I think any the less of you for all that.”
Apple’s heart squeezed painfully in her chest. “Do you suppose I think so little of you as to believe such a thing? After all we’ve been through? My Alex is just Alex, not Lord Dymond.”
His grip tightened and the dark of his eyes deepened, but he did not speak.
And then Mrs Tinkler was back and the moment was gone. Alex released her hands and stood up, but the impression of his grip remained in Apple’s tingling fingers.
Chapter Twenty-four
The magistrate was polite, but it was plain to Alex the man’s patience was wearing thin. For this the inevitable presence of Walter and Marjorie Greenaway was undoubtedly to blame.
“Took you long enough,” was the accusation with which Walter Greenaway greeted Alex within seconds of his entering the busy premises of Bow Street Magistrates Court with Apple on his arm.
She’d been subdued and jumpy when he went to fetch her after yet another restless night. He’d dined alone at Stephen’s hotel where he’d taken a room, beset by a plethora of demons urging him to throw his cap over the windmill like a moonstruck girl.
He recalled the luck of his cousin Justin who, after years of putting duty before the promptings of his heart had unexpectedly found the happiness he’d yearned for. Yet even he had not faced the sheer impossibility confronting Alex. If Lady Luthrie’s theory proved sound — and even if it didn’t as was the brutal truth — there could be no reprieve. He even found himself wishing Apple had chosen some other coach than his in which to hide, except that the thought of never having known her was unbearable.
The singularly pointless question of whether it was worse not to have known her or to have known her only to be obliged to give her up kept him tossing on his pillows. Until it occurred to him Apple would berate him or laugh at him for being so ridiculous, and the memory of her giggles made him smile into the darkness.
He slept but fitfully and woke little refreshed, and felt worse on discovering Apple’s nervous state. As a result, he was anything but in a mood to tolerate the impertinence of the Greenaways.
Walter pounced on them before Alex had a chance to ask for the runner Benjamin or a magistrate. “Ha! So you’ve come at last. Took you long enough.”
Before Alex could respond, Marjorie accosted Apple.
“Where has he been hiding you? You’ll be sorry you started this, Apple Greenaway, I promise you!”
Alex pulled Apple away. “Stand off from her! Leave her alone!”
“Let her go, you monster! You kidnapper, you!”
“I’m still her guardian,” announced Walter, making a spirited attempt to grab Apple.
Alex put her behind him. “Don’t dare touch her, you fiends! Haven’t you harmed her enough?”
“That’s a loud one, coming from you, my lord girl-stealing Dymond!”
To Alex’s chagrin, Apple popped out from behind him, fury on her lips.
“How dare you call him that? He’s been kinder to me than you ever were, Marjorie! And he didn’t steal me, and so I shall tell the magistrates here.”
Marjorie went red in the face and Walter clenched his fists. But before either could say anything more, a stout individual inserted himself between the warring parties, and Alex was obliged to give way.
