Page 53 of Much Ado about a Widow

The staircase opened onto the corridor near the library, and it took them some minutes to reach the foyer where a stern-faced Jemmy waited, slapping his gloves into his palm and drawing them through his fingers. A sign he was not pleased with her at all. Lord Travers stood a little to the side, his face dark and brooding, quite ominous, although of course he couldn’t be happy to discover his betrothed cavorting on a parapet with another man.

Her gaze was drawn, thankfully, to Elizabeth, her friend’s sweet face wearing a puckered frown. “Georgina. Oh, thank heavens.”

Then Georgie was in her arms, a weight she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying lifted from her by the woman’s firm embrace.

“Georgie, we’ve been ever so worried. Are you well?” Elizabeth peered into her face, and Georgie nodded.

“I am, wonderfully well.” She glanced first at her brother, still glowering, and then at Travers, who looked as though he’d bitten into an unripe persimmon. “Let us retire so I can tell you what happened.”

Without another look at any of the men, she grasped Elizabeth’s hand and led her down the corridor and into a small receiving room and shut the door.

“Oh, Georgie.” Elizabeth hugged her again. “Tell me what happened. Lord St. Just’s letter said you were kidnapped.”

“That is true, my dear.” She led her friend to a comfortable chaise where they sat, and Georgie took Elizabeth’s hands. “The first kidnapping. But that is just the beginning of the tale.”

* * *

The moment Georgie and Lady Brack left the room, Travers strode up to Rob, snarling, “You are a dead man, you cur.” He drew his arm back, ready to draw Rob’s cork, when Brack pushed Travers aside.

“You didn’t need to stop him, Brack. I’d have—”

Brack’s fist connected with Rob’s jaw, snapping his head back as pain exploded along the left side of his face. He staggered back a step, as much out of surprise as pain. “What the devil are you playing about?” Moving his jaw, gingerly to be sure, but it would move, Rob kept a wary eye on both Travers and the man he’d called friend until about a minute ago.

“You’d best be glad I don’t thrash you to a pulp or call you out, St. Just. Don’t you realize you’ve probably ruined Georgie’s reputation?” Brack shook his hand, wincing. His familiar face had transformed into a gargoyle’s with enormous protruding eyes and snarling mouth. “Are you prepared to marry her?”

“What?”

“No!” Travers leaped forward, an ugly snarl on his lips. “She’s my betrothed. No one’s marrying her but me, understood?”

“You want to have a go, too?” Rob swung around to face the other menace.

As soon as Rob’s attention was diverted, Brack grabbed him in a body hold. Fortunately, Rob had spent a summer in London being instructed at Jackson’s Saloon. He easily fended the man off, then stripped off his jacket and put up his own bare knuckles. “Which one’s it going to be? I don’t rightly care, myself.” Eyes shifting from one angry face to the other, Rob danced on his feet as he’d been taught. Keep your wits about you. Outthink your opponent, and you’ll win every time. And by God, he’d had enough of this foolishness. “I can best you, Brack, as you so well know. Lord Travers I can likely dispatch in three blows, if I don’t let fly and pull his cork but good on the first try.”

Rob danced closer to Travers, who skittered backward until he bumped against the wall, just underneath the medieval knight’s sword. Wouldn’t it be wonderful for that blade to crash down on the old reprobate’s head and end everyone’s misery?

Swinging back around toward Brack, Rob raised his chin. “What’s it going to be? Words or war?”

“Words for the moment, I suppose.” The bleak look still hadn’t left Brack’s face. “But don’t for a moment suppose that your affront to decency has been remedied. It has not. You compromised my sister.”

“I did no such—” Rob lowered his voice, although the servants had certainly already gotten an ear and an eyeful. “I did no such thing. Come. Let us at least be uncivil in private.” He led them to a small, scarcely used reception room near the foyer and shut the door. Close enough, however, to be able to call a footman and have the both of them escorted out of the house and off the property if necessary.

The small room, while sparsely furnished with a writing desk, chaise, and chair, had the added advantage of also containing a decanter of cognac and numerous glasses. Rob headed straight for it, poured himself a half a tumbler full with a remarkably steady hand, then nodded to Brack to take a glass. Having poured a hefty tot for his erstwhile friend, Rob sighed deeply and indicated for Travers to pick up a glass. Even if he despised the man, he’d summon the common decency to offer him a drink—before throwing him out.

Travers stared first at the glass, then at Rob, but his thirst apparently won out, and he grasped the heavy tumbler and held it out to Rob. Once they all had libations in hand, Rob put his back against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, “Now, do you want to hear the truth of the matter or not?”

Neither man he faced seemed ready to want to listen to anything. Brack paced, grumbling under his breath, and Travers clenched his jaw so tightly Rob frankly wondered how he managed to drink the brandy. Still, he did so with alarming regularity.

“The truth, as you wrote it to me in your own hand, is that you absconded with my sister against her will.” Brack stepped forward, then thought better of it and took a gulp of the brandy instead. “How did you ever think to get away with this escapade, Rob?”

Well, thank God for small allowances. Jemmy was calling him Rob again. Perhaps all was not lost. “There was no escapade on my part, Brack, I swear. Lady Georgina literally ran into me on the streets of Portsmouth, claiming to have been kidnapped.”

“So you wrote.”

“So your sister will say, and her maid along with her, if you’ll only ask her.” Travers remained oddly silent, brooding about Georgie, perhaps. Well, let him fret all he wanted. The loathsome man would marry her when pigs flew with their tails forward. “I have tended to believe her because I had the devil’s own time retrieving her trunks out from under the noses of the kidnappers.”

“You found the ruffians who kidnapped Georgina? And you didn’t tell anyone?” Jemmy stared at Rob as if he were a lunatic. “Why didn’t you contact the authorities?”

“Look, Jemmy. I had to sail on the evening tide. There wasn’t a lot of time to ask questions. I did what I thought best, which was bringing the lady with me rather than risk her falling back into those ruffians’ hands on the way back to Blackham. I’d only a small crew with me on that trip.” He looked at his friend, though he waited for an explosion from Travers any moment. That one had been almost suspiciously quiet throughout the interrogation.