Busick tried to shift positions in the chair, but it hurt his back too much and would turn the viscount from his moral diatribe to his mother-hen diatribe. “I won’t lose on this. I’m doing what’s right.”
Gantry again leaned against the mantel. “You’re a good man.”
“And you’ve done an excellent job. Go, hurry Markham. The sooner he’s gone, the sooner you can claim a bed, and I can begin my new campaign rearing Lionel Jordan.”
Gantry nodded. “As you wish.”
The viscount left the room, still very much the second-best field lieutenant who’d ever served Busick.
The door remained half-open, and he ignored the grumbles coming from the hall and ran his fingers along the carved leg of the mahogany desk. The initials he and Colin etched hadn’t been removed. A curly script of CAJ; the straight lettering of BGS. The December strange death notification in the LondonMorning Postfollowed by a maddening hunt by his solicitors led to this crazy chase.
For Lionel, Busick wouldn’t take any threat for granted. Every time he’d been wrong in battle someone paid a price. When he was wrong about a woman, he received an invitation to her wedding.
For Colin’s child, he would be cautious, good-tempered, even boring. If the war efforts couldn’t use his skills, he’d use them to keep Lionel safe. By Jove, he’d get things right this time, starting with extracting Markham from Hamlin.
CHAPTER 4
THEWIDOW’SGRACE
Iclung to a tree trunk watching Hamlin Hall. Perspiration fevered my brow, making a sticky paste of the patches of cosmetic remaining on my countenance. I needed this paint gone. I needed to be plain old me, fresh-faced me.
But there was too much activity at Hamlin.
Guards coming in and out, even crawling through the secret entry via the catacombs.
Yet no carriages had left, none of the duke’s, not Markham’s, either.
“Come down, Patience. We have to go. I kept signaling until the carriages entered the gates. I saw them off in the distance with the countess’s scope.”
“Jemina, they may move Lionel.” I slapped at my thigh pointing back toward the trail, like I was herding goats. “You go to Lady Shrewsbury’s. We both can’t be caught.”
“Oh, no. I’m not going by myself.” The lithe little woman tugged Patience’s boot. “If you’re caught trespassing, you’ll never see your son again. Come down. Widows need to be smarter. That’s what the countess always says.”
Parroting sentiments was what the amnesia-suffering woman did. If only Jemina could parrot emotions. Then she’d understand the depths of my rage, the girth of my fears. They were wide, wider than the sea.
“I’ve made sure you were unhurt, but I have to stay for Lionel.”
“You can’t stop them if they move him. Listen to me, Patience. I know my thoughts aren’t always clear, but I’ve come to realize it takes all of us to win. Come down, and let’s go to Lady Shrewsbury. She’ll know what to do.”
I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want logic. I wanted to be invincible for a moment, to walk into Hamlin, demand my baby, then leave.
That was fantasy.
I clenched the overhanging branch almost throttling it. “But my son . . .”
“We found him. We’ll find him again!”
The mousy woman I’d been chained to at Bedlam, the one who only talked in whispers now shouted. I hated and loved that about Jemina, that she’d say her truth and do so no matter what.
Resigned, I swung down. “Let’s go see if Shrewsbury’s done with me. You think she’ll toss me into the asylum again?”
Jemina pulled me into a tight hug. “I’ll go, too. It’s not as if my memories have returned.”
This woman was the reason I had been freed so quickly. When the countess’s barrister came for Jemina St. Maur, this lady wouldn’t leave, not unless I was freed, too.
“I owe you everything, Jemina. I’d still be there watching the spectators throw pennies at my head. You survived in Bedlam two years. I don’t know how you did that. I was in tears every moment, and my imprisonment was a mere ten days.”
“Lucky, I guess.”
