What a bit of madness that had been, but damned if he’d had any idea what else to do with her. She’d been ready to collapse. He may not care much for Miss St. Claire—she was a tiresome, interfering little chit with airs way above her station—but even he wasn’t coldhearted enough to leave a young lady on her backside in her flooded bedchamber with chunks of plaster and broken glass floating around her.
Rather too bad, that, but it was too late now.
Townsend was staring at him, his mouth wide open. “Close your mouth, for God’s sake, Townsend. You look like a half-wit, and the sight of your gaping maw is putting me off my tea.”
“Yes, Your Grace, but, er . . . begging your pardon, Your Grace, how did Miss St. Claire happen to end uphere?”
It was an excellent question, by God. What a great pity he didn’t have a correspondingly excellent explanation for her presence in his house. Her scandalously inappropriate presence. As soon as the good citizens of Fairford learned she’d spent most of the morning cozily tucked into one of his bedchambers, there’d be no quelling the storm of gossip. “It’s nothing so shocking, Townsend. I, ah . . . I happened to be in the, er, general vicinity of Hammond Court only hours after the ceiling expired.”
Townsend blinked. “But Mr. Turnbull told me it happened last night, during the storm.”
“Yes, that’s right, Townsend.” Damn it, why had he said anything at all? He could already see the wheels turning in Townsend’s head.
“You, ah, you mean to say, Your Grace, that you were in the vicinity of Hammond Courtlast night?”
“No. I was there this morning.”
Townsend wrestled with himself for a moment, but in the end he could no more hold his tongue than anyone else in Fairford. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but you must have been at Hammond Court quite early this morning, before it stopped snowing. That is to say, you were there mere hours after theworst stormFairford’s seen this decade.”
He wasn’t about to explain himself to Townsend, particularly when he couldn’t even explain to himself why he’d rushed off to Hammond Court before the sun had even crested the horizon, when his errand could easily have waited until a more civilized time of day. So, he said only, “That’s right, Townsend.”
If Townsend was wise, he’d let it go at that, just as Mrs. Watson had when he’d appeared in his entryway this morning, soaked to the skin, with a nearly unconscious young lady leaning on his arm.
But Townsend had only been employed by Max for a little over a year, and he wasn’t anywhere near as wise as Mrs. Watson, who’d been Max’s father’s housekeeper before his, and knew better than to pry into the ducal affairs.
Townsend was gaping at him, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. “Of course, that makes perfect sense, Your Grace. That you’d be lurking outside Hammond Court before sunrise, directly after a blizzard. Very right and proper, indeed.”
Lurking? What an ugly word, and unfair, too. He’d never lurked in his life. “For pity’s sake, Townsend, if you must know, I only went because I was concerned about Miss St. Claire’s doorknob.”
He hadn’tmeantto tear the doorknob off the other day. It had just happened.
When he’d tugged and kicked at it, that is.
Oh, very well, so hehadmeant to tear it off. One didn’t accidentally kick a doorknob off a door, after all, but he’d been so focused on getting inside, he hadn’t considered the thing properly.
“Her doorknob, Your Grace?”
“Yes, damn it. You were the one who told me she was in the house alone, and I . . .” He trailed off, fury and shame writhing like a serpent in his belly. This was all Townsend’s fault, with his talk of knife-wielding scoundrels.
His assault on Miss St. Claire’s door hadn’t troubled him at first. Indeed, he hadn’t given it a second thought until he’d gotten a better look at the damage he’d done. He’d gone to his bed that night only to find he couldn’t stop thinking about Miss St. Claire and her missing doorknob, and that absurd length of rope she’d used to tie the door closed.
Did the girl think that rope would be enough to keep anyone out? It had taken only a moment for him to slice through it with his knife. What was to stop any other villain from doing the same? What was to keep him from strolling into her house, as cool as he pleased?
And once this nameless, faceless villain was inside, well . . . it didn’t bear thinking about, did it?
Except hehadthought about it last night, and once the idea caught hold he hadn’t been able tostopthinking about it, and the longer he’d lain there, the worse it had gotten. Eventually, he’d been so tormented with visions of a gang of murderous villains overcoming Miss St. Claire, it had driven him from his bed and into the coldest, windiest morning he’d ever had the misfortune of experiencing, with a bloody doorknob stuffed in his pocket.
A gang of villains, in Fairford. Bloody ridiculous.
Still, if he hadn’t appeared at Hammond Court when he had, Miss St. Claire would likely still be balanced on that blasted kitchen chair, peering up at the ceiling with her wet skirts clinging to her legs, courting a nasty lung infection. And while in the abstract he might wish for her to be made uncomfortable—it would, after all, hasten her departure from Hammond Court—the reality of the thing was rather distasteful, like crushing a butterfly in his fist.
She was a thorn in his side, yes, but he didn’t want her to become ill, or worse yet, suffer an injury. He wasn’t such a blackguard as that. He merely wanted her out of his house, and preferably far, far away from him.
Farther than one of his guest bedchambers, certainly.
Townsend had gone quiet, and when Max looked up, he found the man beaming at him. “Stop that this instant, Townsend.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Townsend made a halfhearted attempt to school his expression, but he couldn’t quite hide the glimmer of approval in his eyes. “But itwasgood of you, Your Grace, to see to Miss St. Claire’s door.”
