The Scarred Earl

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She sighed in what should have been relief, but felt the heavy burden of what could be both her brothers’ safety on her shoulders. ‘Please speak to Joe and the stable lad, Givage. I’m sure you told them to be silent until you had spoken to Mama, but they must stay so until we know for certain what’s to do.’

‘I’ll do it, Miss Perry, but we can’t sit and do nothing about this for very long,’ he cautioned, slipping back into that childhood nickname.

‘We won’t have to, but someone clearly wants us to panic and I intend to plan our response rationally, if only to spite him.’

‘Please don’t delay until there’s no hope of us finding a trace of Master Marcus though, will you, Miss Perry?’

‘I hope I have more Seaborne blood in my veins than that, Givage,’ she said and let her steady gaze hold his so he would see how serious she was.

Her instincts had been proved right, Persephone reflected without satisfaction as she resorted to Jack’s bookroom to prowl, as he was on his way to the Lakes with his new Duchess. If only she’d raised the alarm yesterday, this calamity might have been prevented. Impatient with herself for dwelling on yesterday, which couldn’t be altered, she felt panic threaten after all. Perhaps the magistrates should be informed and their constables, maybe even the Bow Street Runners, set on the trail of Marcus and his abductor? She shuddered at the idea of whoever had left her father’s ring and Marcus’s hat for them find. It spoke of a cold and calculating mind to leave objects the family would know were removed against their owners’ will and imply a threat she couldn’t let herself explore completely just now.

‘What else can you tell me?’ she asked those objects.

She set them on Jack’s desk to puzzle over and stopped pacing at last, still with the long skirts of her riding dress draped over her arm to free her feet for action.

Chapter Five

‘What’s to do?’ an irritated male voice demanded before she could say anything else to a pair of inanimate objects and seem even more of a fool.

‘What the devil are you doing in here?’ she asked, glaring at Alexander Forthin for interrupting her thoughts at such a crucial time.

‘I was invited, remember?’ he replied brusquely and she recalled that Jack had given his groomsman the run of his own apartments for the duration of his stay a little too late.

Jack wouldn’t need them himself after the wedding, so he had invited Lord Calvercombe to use them and pretend he was alone in his Welsh eyrie, if that made him more resigned to leaving it. She knew her cousin was sensitive to his friend’s desire to avoid the eyes of the curious whenever possible. Jack didn’t usually pander to the foibles of his acquaintance, but she grudgingly accepted that his lordship’s aversion to being stared at or pitied went deeper than a mere whim.

‘So you were,’ she agreed absently and wished he would go away so she could think without him looming over her like some battle-scarred Roman general.

‘Are you going to tell me what’s happened?’ he demanded as if he’d taken on Jack’s authority along with his private rooms.

‘Why do you think anything has?’ she challenged irritably.

‘How could I not? First Jack’s head groom’s son rode hell for leather to the steward’s house, then his steward ran into the house on some urgent business that couldn’t wait,’ he replied, refusing to pretend it wasn’t his business as a more accommodating guest might.

‘Well, I’m busy,’ she excused her ill manners brusquely.

She didn’t have time or inclination to tread on eggshells round her cousin’s most prickly and disturbing guest this morning, she decided impatiently, squashing an impulse to confide the whole terrifying story. He raised his eyebrows at her bunched skirts and the riding boots revealed in what she supposed was an unladylike fashion. But she refused to let her long skirts drop and risk tangling her feet in them just to reassure him she was a proper young lady.

‘If you’re going to pace Jack’s bookroom and wring your hands, I suggest you change out of your habit before you trip,’ he said as if she were a slow-top.

‘And I suggest you play the gentleman for once and leave,’ she snapped.

‘Not until you’ve told me what’s to do,’ he said, leaning on Jack’s desk as if he had all day set aside.

‘It’s none of your business. And why should you care? You thought Jack was involved in abducting your precious cousin when you came here so furtively in June, didn’t you? I really don’t care what you think of the rest of us, my lord, but Jack is far too honourable to kidnap or imprison any lady against her will.’

‘A little brutal and lacking finesse, but it’s a fair question, I suppose,’ he allowed as if talking to himself.

‘Thank you. So what is the answer?’

‘My family is caught up with yours, somehow, and I know I was mistaken,’ he conceded gruffly.

‘I’m sure Jack would be deeply gratified to hear it.’

‘He already has heard it, and a lot more gracious about forgiving me he was, too. So are you finally going to tell me what’s to do, Miss Seaborne? Time is clearly a-wasting and you must be keeping some sort of crisis from your mother, since nobody is rushing about in response to Brandt’s news and Givage’s urgent mission to consult whoever is in charge in Jack’s absence.’

‘Good of you to remind me,’ she said impatiently, so wanting to pace again she wondered about punching him in his stonewall of a chest, since he wouldn’t get out of the way and leave her be, but decided she would end up hurting only herself.

‘So what’s occurred, then? If you knew what to do about whatever it is, you would be out and busy doing it by now.’

‘How do you know I’m not? One wrong step could ruin everything,’ she added, feeling the weight of her dilemma lie heavy on her shoulders once again.

‘Tell me?’ he urged softly, offering her his strength and experience of dealing with impossible situations and allowing her to glimpse the real man behind the façade of cynical indifference for once.

He was sure to snatch the whole business out of her hands if she did as he asked and confided the whole sorry tale though, wasn’t he? Wondering if that wouldn’t be a very good thing, she reminded herself he had his own very strong motives in all this. He might chase after Rich and his cousin rather than helping to find Marcus if she revealed the whole story, but Givage or Joe Brandt would soon tell him about Rich’s ring if she left that bit out. He was a warrior, even if he sometimes looked as if he hated himself for it; it was his job to take on impossible odds and win.

‘Why on earth would I do that?’ she said to gain more time to think.

‘Because I have been a reconnaissance officer and will find out anyway. It will be much simpler if you save us both time and tell me the truth to start with.’

‘It’s not only my story.’

‘Ah, so your family are tangled up in some new escapade, are they?’ he asked cynically. And that was exactly why she hadn’t tumbled this affair into his lap and gone off to lie to her mother while he dealt with it.