What have I done?
“Send for Anna tomorrow,” he said, standing and going to the door. “I have somewhere I need to be.”
“Where?” Simon followed him, but Maxwell was indifferent to pain and everything else that might try to deter him.
There was only one place he could be right now—and it wasn’t here, in the study he’d inherited from his father.
It was as though something had clicked in his mind, snapping back into place.
“She can look after Lydia,” he repeated, shaking Simon off and finding the butler. “Ready the carriage,” he said. “I will leave tonight.”
“Where to, Your Grace?”
“Marrowhurst Hall.”
The journey took longer by night than it would have done by day. Maxwell spent the time sitting and thinking about Thalia, memorizing everything about her—although he already had. He knew everything there was to know about this woman.
He loved her.
Finally, as the sun was just about to rise, the chimneys of Marrowhurst Hall came into view. He stepped out without the help of his coachman and went to the door. A very sleepy footman opened it for him, and he went straight upstairs, not so much as bothering to greet his servants or explain his presence to them.
Nothing mattered but this.
He entered the room he’d come here to see. Christopher’s face swam before his eyes. His entire body was on fire. As the butler came to ask if he wanted anything, he shut the door.
And then, for good measure, locked it.
Now no one could enter—which would be for the best.
CHAPTER 24
“What do you mean, there was something wrong with his face?” Thalia looked at Lydia’s tearstained face with a degree of dread that crawled slowly through her body.
“He looked as though he had been in a fight. There was…” Lydia swallowed. “There was blood. And he couldn’t move properly, as though he’d been hurt. I don’t think he wanted me to see, but…”
Thalia glanced at Simon, who had accompanied the young lady to the house. He nodded grimly. “The worst I have ever seen.”
Thalia had seen Maxwell fight. In the ring, he became some sort of demon. Even when he went out regularly, he never hurt himself to that extent. He had always protected his face and entered Society the next day as though nothing had happened.
Her heart pounded. Her pulse thudded to the very end of her fingertips.
Something was very, very wrong.
“I must go to him,” she said, reaching for her reticule.
Simon held out a hand. “It’s not as simple as all that.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“He went to Marrowhurst Hall.”
“Why?” Thalia’s heart contracted in her chest. “In the middle of the night?”
“He gave no reason, and yes.” Simon’s face was grave, tight with worry. “Ordinarily, he has no particular love for the place. It has memories of his brother.”
Christopher.
Thalia’s stomach gave an alarming lurch, and she thought she might cast up her accounts all over the breakfast table. Lydia’s face was also pale, but evidently, she hadn’t come to the same conclusion as Thalia.
