“Marta is not dead! Marta is alive!”
Everyone froze.
Chapter 24
“What did you say? Marta is alive?” Kit’s voice came out ragged, the anger quickly vanishing. “How… how do you know that?”
He rose from the floor, where he had been ready to continue his fistfight with Cassian. He walked around as if in a trance, still shocked by Juliana’s announcement. The flickering candlelight cast shadows on his distraught face, making it look skeletal.
Kit’s eyes turned toward the ceiling as if he could see through stone and timber to Marta there. Did he know where she was hidden?
No, he cannot possibly know that.
“I… I am sorry, Cassian. I know I should not have said anything, but…” Juliana admitted, her eyes darting to her husband, who had managed to rise from the floor, cane in hand. The two grandmothers had also stopped swatting each other. “But yes, Marta lives with us.”
Her eyes also turned to the ceiling. The position was not exact, Marta being in the West Tower, but the glance still provideda general direction toward the young lady who had chosen to eschew public life.
“What have you done, Juliana?” Cassian asked, his voice betraying his pain. The pain in his leg was also evident. It made Juliana want to come to his aid, but she knew he would hate to look weak. However, his eyes revealed his raw, naked fear.
Not for himself.
For Marta.
“I had to do something to stop you two!” Juliana protested, her heart pounding in her chest. The rhythm was almost painful, as if it would make her chest explode. Panic at the prospect of losing the fragile connection she had with both Cassian and Marta overwhelmed her. Still, she merely wanted Kit to stop his impending assault on her husband. She did not want him hurt.
“Are you telling me the truth?” Kit was still half-crazed as he looked at his sister.
“She is here, Kit,” she admitted. “She has been living like a ghost, but she is here.”
Kit transformed before their eyes. He had come with the lethargy of a drunkard, but the bitterness quickly fell away as he turned his back to them and bolted out, without much of a sense of direction. He did not care that he stepped on the whiskey and the bits of pot roast on the floor.
“Marta!” His voice rang through the dining hall, raw and desperate and entirely without dignity. “Marta, I am here! I am coming for you!”
“Wait, Kit, wait!” Juliana yelled, but he had been quick and was out of the dining hall as fast as a slightly inebriated man couldbe. His voice echoed through the grand hall at least, giving them a clue to his current location. He was, indeed, headed for the West Wing. He kept on calling Marta’s name with a mix of elation and desperation.
But he was already gone, his voice ricocheting off the stone walls of the grand hall. She could hear him stumbling and pressing on regardless, his calls for Marta taking on a frantic, almost feverish quality.
“Marta! It is Kit! Can you hear me? Marta!”
“Seize him!” Cassian roared, red in the face.
Juliana knew he had to be frustrated, unable to run after his brother-in-law, who was running amok in his home. He stepped forward, and his face immediately contorted with pain. He braced himself on the table to keep his balance. His knuckles turned white as he yelled to the footmen.
“Find him and restrain him. Do not let him near the West Wing. Throw him out of Stonevale if you must!”
The liveried footmen began to move, some with straight backs and long strides, while others ran. Juliana watched the scene unfold with horror. She stepped closer to the door and followed the footmen tentatively. Then she saw them tackle Kit at the bottom of the grand staircase. The baron fought wildly, kicking and snarling like a cornered animal while still yelling Marta’s name. His screams became sobs as four footmen finally secured him on the ground, pulling his arms behind his back. Then they pulled him up and dragged him toward the front doors.
It was not how Juliana wanted the dinner to end, to say the least. Cassian limped into the hall, breathing heavily. She noted how he leaned on his cane. It made her chest hurt to see him like this.He had done so much to improve his physical condition, and she had tried to contribute to his comfort, but tonight’s fight seemed to have set back their progress by a few steps.
“Christopher Hawthorne,” Cassian said, his voice carrying across the hall with the cold authority of a man who has never once had to raise it to be obeyed. “I opened my home to you tonight at my wife’s request; the only reason you are leaving through the front door rather than being handed over to the magistrate. Do not come back unless you are prepared to behave like the gentleman you were born to be.” He paused. “And if you ever mention my sister’s name in public, I will hear of it, and I will make sure you never see the light of day again.”
The doors slammed shut after the footmen returned without Kit. The heavy iron bolt warded off anyone else who would attempt to enter the premises. There was a cold finality to it.
“Did you all see to his safety at least?” she asked a footman.
“Yes, Your Grace. His carriage will be soon carrying him back to his home,” one responded politely, slightly breathless.
“That was too much, Cassian!” Juliana cried, grabbing her husband’s arm as soon as they were out of earshot. “You had him handled like a common criminal!”
