Thomas opened the door.
He crossed to her immediately, his handsome features worried. “What is it, my dear? Has something happened?”
Now that he was before her, tall and imposing, Hero found she had trouble putting together the words. “I…” She cleared her throat and looked about the room. A group of chairs sat together in one corner. “I need to talk to you. Will you be seated?”
He blinked and she fought down nervous laughter. No doubt he was rarely if ever told to take a seat in his own home—or anywhere else for that matter. He was a marquess. What she was about to do suddenly made her quail. Before she could change her mind, she hurried to the chairs and sat down. Mandeville followed more slowly, frowning now.
Hero waited until he sat across from her and then just said it. “I cannot marry you.”
He shook his head, his expression clearing. “My dear, such bridal nerves are common, even for a woman as level-headed as you. Don’t worry that—”
“No,” she said, causing him to abruptly close his mouth. “I’m not suffering from nerves or… or any kind of womanly hysteria. I simply cannot marry you.”
She bit her lip as he stared at her.
“I am sorry,” she offered belatedly, conscious that she was making a hash of this.
He stiffened at her apology, possibly realizing for the first time that she was serious. “Perhaps if you explain to me the problem, I can help.”
Oh, Lord, if only he weren’t so reasonable!
She looked down at her hands. “I’ve simply come to the understanding that… that we won’t do together.”
“Is it something I’ve done?”
“No!” She looked up quickly, leaning forward earnestly. “You’re everything a lady could hope for in a husband. This has nothing to do with you. It’s me, I’m afraid. I just can’t marry you.”
He shook his head. “The marriage contracts have been drawn up and our engagement announced. It’s too late to change your mind, my dear. You protest otherwise, but I believe this is simply a case of bridal anxiety. Perhaps if you go home and rest, spend the day abed with some tea. I do feel—”
“I’m not a virgin any longer, Thomas.”
His head reared back as if she’d struck him. “My dear…”
“I can’t with good conscience marry you,” she said softly. “It would not be fair to you.”
For a moment he simply stared at her, and she thought he’d realized that this was final.
Then he spoke.
“I cannot pretend joy at this news,” he began ponderously. “But it isn’t as earth-shattering as all that. I will, of course, want to wait long enough to make sure any offspring is mine, but—”
Dear God, but she wanted to scream! “I lay with your brother, Thomas.”
He stared at her, his face slowly going red.
She stood. “I’ve compromised myself and sacrificed both my virtue and perhaps more importantly my self-worth. I’m sorry, Thomas. You do not deserve this. If I’d—”
One moment she was babbling and he was staring at her stony-faced. In the next he was towering over her, his expression red and awful and completely terrifying. She had only a second of fear.
And then he struck her full in the face.
GRIFFIN MOUNTED THE steps of Mandeville House, his mind in a weary fog. Was this what grief was—a mind-numbing fatigue? It seemed so to him. He’d spent the night burying Nick. He’d paid for a coffin and burial clothes, a plot and headstone, and he watched all alone as Nick had been lowered into that cold grave. Then Griffin had returned to his still and begun making arrangements to destroy the Vicar. Just a few days more and everything would be in place to bring down the Vicar and avenge Nick. Just a few more days and then he could rest.
But in the meantime, he had other duties to attend to. This morning he was to escort Mater to the shops to pick out a settee or sideboard or some other frippery. Why she had to do her shopping so blasted early in the morning he wasn’t sure, but she’d been quite adamant about the time.
He nodded to the butler as he entered. “Where’s my brother?”
“The marquess is in the crimson sitting room,” the butler intoned.
Griffin began striding in that direction. “I’ll just show myself in.”
“He has a guest, my lord.”
Griffin turned, still backing toward the sitting room. “Who?”
“My Lady Hero.”
Griffin paused. Hero had been very quiet yesterday as she’d left him. He’d hoped that her silence meant she was rethinking marriage to him, but surely she wouldn’t say anything to Thomas without—
A shout came from the sitting room.
Griffin pivoted and ran toward the sound. A crash came and then another shout.
He flung open the door as the shout coalesced into a single screamed word. “Whore!”
Thomas was standing, shoulders hunched, face bloodred, over something on the floor. The place where he glared was concealed by the settee. Griffin felt his blood turn to sharp, stabbing ice in the second it took him to cross the room and look over the settee.
She was alive. That much he saw and comprehended. She lay in a pool of emerald green skirts but she was alive.
Then his attention was drawn to the red mark on the side of her beautiful face.
It was in the shape of a man’s hand.
Roaring filled his head, white and complete, drowning out sound, sight, and reason. He took Thomas low, his shoulder slamming into his brother’s belly. Thomas staggered back, hitting a chair, and they both went over, chair and all. Thomas swung a fist, and Griffin took it on the shoulder, not even feeling the blow.
Not feeling anything but murderous rage.
He lowered his head and beat, fists balled, teeth clenched, the roaring in his ears loud and total. He saw only Thomas’s bloody face, his brother’s mouth moving, saying something, perhaps pleading, and Griffin’s heart swelled with gleeful rage.
He’d touched her. He’d hurt her. And for that he deserved to walk upon crippled legs.
Someone pounded on his back, but he didn’t pay attention. Not until Hero shouted in his ear. “Griffin, stop!”
He became aware, slowly it seemed, of people in the room. Of an ache in his shoulder and, strangely, his jaw. He glanced up and saw Mater’s face.
She was crying.
His arms fell to his side, and he stared at her, his chest heaving.
“Oh, Griffin,” she said, and he wanted to weep as well. To howl his shame and sorrow.
He looked down and saw Thomas lying between his knees, trying to staunch the blood flowing from his nose with one hand. Over his hand, his brother’s blue eyes glittered with rage and an answering shame.
“Griffin,” Hero said, her hand on his shoulder as light as a bird’s, and finally he turned to look at her.
Tears sparkled in her eyes, and one side of her face was reddened and beginning to swell. The sight enraged him all over again, but this time he didn’t glance at his brother. Instead he reached for her face, his hands bloody and trembling.
He cradled her with his bruised hands. “Are you all right?”
“No,” she said. “No.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry.”
He rose and tried to take her into his arms, to somehow try and make right this bloody, awful mess.
But she shook her head, backing away. “Don’t.”
“Hero,” he pleaded, and his vision blurred. “Please.”
“No.” Her hand rose, delicate and pale, to halt him. “No, I can’t… just don’t.”
And she turned and fled the room.
Griffin looked around. The butler, a footman, and several maids were standing about gawking while his mother’s frail shoulders shook.
“Get out, the lot of you,” he barked to the servants.
They fled silently.
He took Mater into his arms, feeling the fragile bones of her shoulder blades. “I’m so sorry. I’m a beast.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What has happened?”
“Griffin seduced my fiancée,” Thomas said indistinctly through swelling lips. He still lay on the floor. “He couldn’t keep his hands off her any more than he could keep his hands off poor Anne.”
“Griffin?” Mater looked at him, her eyes bewildered, and it nearly broke his heart.
“Shut up, Thomas,” he growled.
“How dare you—”
Griffin turned his head slowly and glared at his brother silently, his upper lip lifting in a threat so primal, even Thomas understood. “You’ll not talk of this. You’ll not insinuate. You’ll not even speak her name—do you understand?”
“I—” Thomas shut his mouth.
“Not a word, or I’ll finish what I began.”
Mater laid a protesting hand on his shoulder, but this was too important, even if it distressed her further. Griffin held Thomas’s gaze until his elder brother nodded and looked away.
“Good,” Griffin said. “Come, Mater. Let’s have some tea and I’ll try to explain.”
And he led her from the room, leaving Thomas on his arse on the floor.
“I CANNOT PRETEND joy over your actions,” Cousin Bathilda said to Hero an hour later. “But I think you have been quite punished enough for whatever transgressions you may have committed.”
She gently replaced the wet cloth on Hero’s swollen cheek. Hero closed her eyes, not wanting to see the anxious worry in Cousin Bathilda’s eyes. She lay in her own bed now, hiding from the turmoil outside her room. The entire side of her face throbbed where Thomas had struck her. Mignon was beside her, the little dog’s nose against her good cheek as if to give comfort.
Sudden tears flooded Hero’s eyes. “I don’t deserve your care.”
“Nonsense,” Cousin Bathilda said with some of her former vigor. “The marquess had no right to strike you. The very idea of hitting a lady! It’s very lucky he didn’t break your cheekbone. Really, it’s for the best that you shan’t marry the man after all if he has such violent impulses.”
“He was provoked,” Hero said drily.
The memory of Thomas’s enraged face as he stood over her made her shiver. And then when Griffin had entered with such force. The sight of the brothers locked in mortal combat seemed like a terrible dream. She’d actually worried that Griffin would not be stopped until he killed his brother. How had things come to this?
“We’ll have to make it a small wedding, of course,” Cousin Bathilda said now.
Hero blinked. “But I’m not marrying Mandeville.”
Cousin Bathilda patted her shoulder. “No, dear, Reading. And as soon as possible, before any gossip gets out.”
Hero closed her eyes in weariness. Did she want to marry Griffin? Would Maximus even let her? But thoughts of her brother brought a realization.
“Oh, dear Lord, I forgot Maximus!” Hero sat upright, the wet cloth sliding from her face. She looked at Cousin Bathilda in panic. “Does he know yet?”
Cousin Bathilda blinked, looking taken aback. “I certainly haven’t told him, but you know how he is.”
“Yes, I do,” Hero said, climbing from the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“He’ll have found out by now—you know he will,” Hero muttered as she searched for her slippers. “I don’t know if it’s by informants or gossip or plain alchemy, but he finds out everything sooner or later, and considering the scandalous nature of this news…” She trailed off as she bent to look under the bed. There her slippers were!
“My dear, far be it for me to stop you seeking solace from your brother, but wouldn’t it be better to wait a while until he has had time to properly, er, digest the news?”