His brother’s shoulders rolled forward and all the air left his lungs in a long, hissing sigh. “Morgan,” he said softly.
“I…I received a note a few days ago,” Morgan said, and his gaze darted to Elizabeth once more. “A threat.”
She stepped forward, her lips parting and her hands clenching before her. “The—the note you received just before we were walking through the garden that day? When you showed me my corner?”
The rest of the room shifted their attention and all the heads seemed to swivel between Elizabeth to Morgan and back again. Except for the Duke of Brighthollow. His gaze stayed firmly locked on Morgan, his eyes narrowed.
“Yes,” Morgan said softly.
Her breath caught. “But you—you said nothing to me, Morgan. Not that afternoon or later, even though we—” She cut herself off as if she had only just realized the room was full of people analyzing her every word and tone. “I wish you had told me.”
Brighthollow was still staring evenly at Morgan, and he sat up straighter on the bed just in case he was about to be punched by the second person that night.
“Yes,Morgan. I wish you’d told me, too,” Brighthollow said, low and dangerous. “Why are you being threatened?”
Morgan sighed. How he loved airing his dirty linens in this very public manner. But perhaps it was best. He and Elizabeth had gone too far tonight. His mere existence threatened hers. And yet again, he had to try to find a way to distance himself.
This was as good as any.
“In London, I was out of control,” he said. “Drinking too much, gambling too much, not caring about boundaries of honor or decency. I took the money of many a man in cards. I fought with them, I—” He cut himself off and watched Elizabeth carefully from the corner of his eye. “I slept with a few of their wives.”
Brighthollow flinched. “Lizzie, perhaps you should step out if we’re going to discuss—”
She pushed off the door and stared at her brother. “You must be in jest, Hugh.” She held his gaze. “You must be forgetting both yourself and what I am.”
Brighthollow glanced once more at Morgan and then shook his head. “I apologize. I should not have treated you like a child. If you wish to stay and hear this, I won’t object.”
Robert stepped up. “So you think it’s one of those men, come all the way to Brighthollow to punish you for your misdeeds?”
“I don’t know,” Morgan admitted. “But the attack and the note cannot be unrelated. It would be too much of a coincidence. Still, I can’t say who for certain. The person who struck me did it from behind. I couldn’t see his face and I lost consciousness too quickly to make any mental notes on him.”
“Blast it all,” Robert said, pivoting away and pacing the small room, now extra cramped because of the overload of inhabitants. “Then we cannot know the true nature of the threat or how to thwart it.”
Elizabeth cleared her throat and stepped up. “I found this in the garden, ground into the soil where Morgan and his attacker struggled.” She opened her hand and there was a cufflink. She’d been holding it so tightly, it had dug a groove into her delicate skin. “Do you recognize it or the initials?”
Morgan reached out and took the golden item from her palm, resisting the urge to brush his fingertips along her skin just to comfort himself and her. He turned the item over. “G.C.” He squeezed his eyes shut and pictured the man that item very likely belonged to. And he didn’t want to say it out loud. He didn’t want to explain how depraved he’d been. Not to her. Not to them. It was just as he’d feared. His behavior had truly brought this hell down upon Brighthollow’s house.
There was a knock on the door and Brighthollow’s butler stepped in from the hall. “Dr. West, Your Grace.”
As the doctor edged his way into the crowd, Hugh shook his head. “I think we should all step out. Let the man do his job.” He motioned for the others to go. “Amelia, you and I need to return to the ball and try to move everyone along with as much tact as is possible. You know I cannot do that alone.”
They all began to move, nodding to the doctor, talking softly as they exited into the hall. Elizabeth stood aside as they left, watching him. It was only when just Brighthollow and the doctor remained that she slipped out.
Brighthollow glanced toward him. “This conversation is not over. Dr. West, do take good care of him.”
The doctor nodded as the door closed, and Morgan let out his breath. He didn’t need a doctor. Now that his mind was clearing, he knew nothing was broken except the trust of his employer. The trust of his brother. And perhaps, the trust of a woman who had allowed him such liberties tonight that he could still taste her on his tongue.
But surely that was all over now. It had to be.
The house was quiet but for the light tick of the clock as Lizzie slipped from her bedchamber and into the hallway. The time was after two, and at last all in the house had gone to their beds. It had been a raucous night. The ball, what she and Morgan had done during it, the attack, having to clear the ballroom. Having Amelia, Katherine and Charlotte all watch her so closely after they left Morgan. Like they knew, like they could see.
Perhaps they could. Perhaps when she had allowed him to touch her so intimately, it had permanently marked her in some way that good women could identify. Mark. She certainly felt marked.
But she wasn’t shamed by it.
She knew Morgan was fine, or would be. He was bruised—she’d heard the doctor say so when she eavesdropped on his evaluation to Hugh and Robert. Morgan needed a few days rest and then he would be right as rain. And that had been that.
But she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since she’d slipped from his bedchamber hours before. Images of him unmoving on the grass had jumped into her mind over and over, lifting her heart into her throat and making clear the truth.
