“The Marquess?” Georgie prompted. “What injury? I read nothing about it in the dispatches.”
Her mother huffed. “You and your brothers. Poor man was injured on the very last day of fighting. He might have lost his leg, I believe.”
Georgie felt as if she’d been punched. No. Not such a magnificent man.
“Well, that should put him in a better mood,” Charlie muttered.
Georgie and her mother both glared. Eddie just shook her head.
“The estate is bankrupt,” the Countess said, “with only the entail keeping it together. It simply isn’t fair that he must come home to that. I hope he can find a way out of it.”
All Georgie could offer was a faint, “Indeed.”
“Why do you ask?”
Georgie was no fool. She was an expert at diversion. “One of the girls from school mentioned him. Geoffrey followed himquite closely on the Peninsula, so I wondered.” She saw her mother’s brightening expression and held up a hand. “Casually.”
There was nothing for her mother to do but return to her correspondence.
There was more Georgie could do. She did it the next morning.
Peter Prentice Philpott Marsden Greyville,Marquess of Coleford, Earl Whitmore, Baron Llanthony, known to his friends as Grey, had the head from hell. He hadn’t meant to overdo it the night before, but his old tentmate Rob Glenn had stopped in London on his way through to the family pile somewhere in the Midlands. Not that Grey knew where that was. His branch of the family had never been invited to their own family pile, much less anyone else’s.
He was invited now, by damn. Amazing what a title could do for a chap. Even if it came with no money. He imagined he would be quite the popular guest anywhere in the empire now. But first he had to survive his first foray into epic debauchery since the night he’d bought his colors. Hell, he’d felt better after Badajoz. And he’d been recovering from a bullet to the back. This time it was merely his thigh. And it didn’t hurt unless Grey was forced to stand on it more than a few minutes.
“Here, sir,” a melodious voice interrupted his misery. “We thought we might need this.”
Grey opened one eye where he sat slumped over on the side of his bed to find a white-haired scarecrow clad in a black suit and red eyepatch bent before him, bearing a glass of something noxious on a silver tray. He could have sworn he saw the stuff smoking.
“Braxton,” he growled, “Only the King is allowed to use the royalwe. On an ex-batman from Stepney, it sounds ridiculous.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Grey winced but grabbed the glass. “I don’t suppose we could go back to Colonel.”
“We could not, my lord.”
Grey squinted up at him. “I believe you have been working toward this position since I met you. You were never in the same place as my cousins, were you?”
“We were with you, my lord,” Braxton intoned piously, straightening to valet poise. “All the way across the Peninsula.”
Grey might have despaired of the man if he hadn’t caught the glint in the old poseur’s eye.
“Yes, Braxton,” Grey admitted, “you were.”
And if Braxton hadn’t slogged through every mile of mud alongside Grey the last six years and kept him alive after Badajoz, Grey might have been less genial. And trusting. Taking a deep breath, he downed whatever Braxton had put in that glass. When it didn’t take the top of his head off, he did his best to ignore the stench and handed the glass back.
“Major Glenn is a bad influence, Braxton. It is undoubtedly a good thing he is on his way north.”
“Perhaps tomorrow, my lord. Today he is collapsed in the Brown Guestroom.”
Grey prayed for his stomach to settle. “Serves him right. That wallpaper should give him nightmares. What time is it?”
“Ten. You have a visitor who wishes to speak to you.”
“Don’t be absurd. It’s too early.”
“She said she would wait.”
