“My mother,” Lavinia cried. “She’s not in her room, and I can’t find her anywhere in the house!”
Parth nodded, wheeled about, and strode first to the men clustered by one carriage, then to the next. At the third, a servant pointed . . .
In the direction of the road.
Lavinia’s heart sank.
“She told one of the grooms that she wanted a ride to the village in order to buy you a birthday present,” Parth explained after he came back to her. “He’s not to blame; he knew only that she had been ill. She told him she was feeling better.”
Lavinia was rather stunned to know that her mother knew it was her birthday, although she very much doubted that Lady Gray intended to buy her a present. “How long ago?”
“Ten minutes, he estimated. We can catch her. We’ll take the coach at the end of the drive, as the horses are still in harness,” Parth said. He barked at Mrs. Aline’s butler. “Give me the lady’s pelisse and my greatcoat. Now!”
A minute later they reached the small coach. Parth opened the door and boosted Lavinia inside with an “I’ll drive,” then slammed the door behind her.
“Oof!” Lavinia cried, as she landed not on the carriage seat, but on top of a man who answered her ungraceful arrival with a curse. A pair of strong hands picked her up and deposited her on the other seat. The carriage was already in motion and now swung sharply as Parth turned it onto the road.
“What in the bloody hell is going on?”
Lavinia squinted through the bluish smoke that filled the carriage, discovering Lord Jeremy Roden on the other seat. She coughed and pushed open the small window beside her. “What are you doing in here?” she gasped.
“Avoiding the circus,” he said, drawing on his cheroot and blowing out a perfect smoke circle. “More to the point, why are you interrupting my peace, and where, pray tell, are we going as if Beelzebub himself were behind us?”
“My mother has escaped, and we are going to look for her,” she said, flapping the curtain at the smoke. “Would you please throw that out the window?”
“Absolutely not! These are imported from Madras and likely worth more than that circlet of artificial pearls you’re wearing.”
Lavinia shook her head, incredulous. “You’re choosing this moment to insult my attire?”
Lord Jeremy was lounging on the seat opposite, his wig askew, dark tendrils sticking out on one side. He looked as if he’d been up all night. No: He looked as if he’d been up since last week.
He leaned forward. “Since this is the first time we’ve been alone together, Miss Gray, I want to make it very, very clear that we aren’t suited. I could never take a wife who wears paste jewelry. What’s more, while I’m aware that mannish attire is fashionable this year, I fear your coat is a step too far for me.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Lavinia cried. “This is a footman’s coat! My pelisse wasn’t readily at hand.”
“Nothing would get me into a crimson coat with those buttons,” Lord Jeremy remarked. He blew another smoke ring and Lavinia flapped the curtain at it.
“I have no interest in marrying you,” she said sharply.
“Oh, good,” he said amiably. “Life is so much easier if we get these little truths out of the way, don’t you think?”
“Why on earth did you come to Cheshire?”
“Why not?” He shrugged. “I knew I wasn’t going to marry you, but any fool could see that Parth believed he was—so I assumed you wouldn’t bother to compromise me.”
His words were careless, but Lavinia saw something raw in his eyes.
“Why?” she asked.
“What do you mean, ‘why’?”
The man had ridiculously long lashes, but his face fell into naturally sarcastic lines. “I mean,” Lavinia said, “what gave you the idea that Parth wanted to marry me?”
“Surely you are aware that he and I arrived at the castle following an absurd five-day journey in which we shadowed your bloody coach, are you not? Every night our vehicle would draw up behind yours, and Parth would jump out and throw coins in every direction, stationing his grooms on your carriages and outside your bedchamber. Then he’d berate the innkeeper to make certain that no sick people were in your vicinity, and that you had only the best food. It was marvelous.”
He blew another smoke ring, but this time Lavinia let it float across the carriage.
“He did?”
“The pleasure was matched by the long stretches in which he informed me of your fascination with looms, fabric, and the pantaloons of rope-dancing Italians. The last hinted at intriguing possibilities, except it was so clear that he intended to occupy your bed before any exceptionally nimble Roman had a chance at it.”
Lavinia sank back on the bench, staring at the man. “I don’t believe it.”
“I confess I too found it amazing. Especially now that I have a close look at you and those pearls. You have a certain je ne sais quoi, I suppose. Mostly in the bosom area. But are you worth a five-day journey of that nature? I am not persuaded.”
After that, they sat in silence while the carriage tore down the road.
“Do you suppose you could give me a hint about your mother’s plans?” Lord Jeremy said, after a while. He pushed open his window and seemed about to throw out the lit cheroot, but stubbed it out on the windowsill and tossed it to the floor.
He slid farther down the seat, stretched his legs, and crossed his boots on the seat next to her. “Where are we going, Livvy?” His lids drooped closed as if he were going to sleep, despite the carriage’s constant rattle and jostle.
“We are not friends, Lord Jeremy,” Lavinia replied.
“Mmm. Life is so full of disappointments.” His eyes flew open. “Where in the hell are we going, Miss Gray?”
“We believe she’s gone to the nearest village to buy laudanum.”
“How many drops a day was she taking before you stowed her away?”
Lavinia looked down at her lap and found her hands twisting together. An image of all those hair pins came into her mind. “I’ve been wondering about that. I don’t know, but I suspect she may have taken as many as twenty.”
“Means she was around forty,” Lord Jeremy said, an unmistakable ring of indifference in his voice.
“Perhaps there won’t be an apothecary in the village,” Lavinia said. “Or perhaps he won’t sell Dr. Robert’s Robust Formula. That’s her preference.”
“They’ll have something; she’ll not be in the least selective.” He reached up and pushed open the hatch through which riders could communicate with the coachman. A gust of snow blew into the carriage and Lavinia shrank back, pulling the footman’s coat around her.
As she watched, he hoisted himself up and through the hatch. For several moments, she could hear nothing but the howl of the wind, then a pair of boots appeared, and then legs, and Parth dropped through the opening.
He pulled the hatch closed and sat on the seat opposite. His hair was iced with snow.
“You look so cold,” Lavinia exclaimed. She removed the borrowed coat and awkwardly threw it over his head, rubbing his hair.
From under the coat, she heard deep laughter, and something eased in her heart. Parth would . . .
Parth would make it all right.
He pushed off the coat and smiled at her. “I’m dry.” He wrapped the coat around her again. “It reeks in here.”
“Lord Jeremy smokes cheroots—imported at great expense, he emphasized.” She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t believe you thought I might marry a man like that. At any rate, will we catch up with my mother soon?”
“In the next five minutes,” Parth said. “She’s in the duke’s town coach, being drawn by four horses instead of the usual six. They cannot have made very good time.”
“What will we do when we overtake her?” Lavinia asked, peering out the window.
“Jeremy will pull our coach in front and wave at the coachman, who will pull over, recognizing our rig. Then we’ll take Lady Gr
ay back to Gooseberry Manor. She may not be very happy.”
Parth watched Lavinia flinch at that understatement, feeling deep sympathy for the anxiety in her eyes. He and Jeremy had been in agreement about just how unhappy Lady Gray would be.
“She won’t be dignified,” Lavinia said, swallowing, “in my experience.”
Parth would do anything to protect her from the unpleasant scene ahead—but there was nothing he could do, except offer a distraction.
“I would have preferred to marry Elisa,” he said. “We would have had a genial marriage. She wouldn’t have provoked me or challenged me or lectured me about bonnets.”
Lavinia’s blue eyes flashed at him and she straightened in her seat. “Marvelous. The option is still available to you, although I think you might find Elisa more challenging than you seem to believe.”
“I want to be lectured about bonnets.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“Our conversations in Vauxhall and over dinner intrigued me. You know they did.” He caught her eyes and held them.
“Perhaps,” she admitted.
“Please give me the benefit of the doubt. Allow me to convince you.”
Lavinia opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment the carriage swerved and she was thrown against the side. She righted herself, drew back the curtain, and saw that they were neck and neck alongside the duke’s town coach. She caught a glimpse of her mother’s strained, wan face in the window, and then they pulled past the coach and came to a halt on the verge.
“Could I convince you to stay in the carriage?” Parth asked her.
Lavinia shook her head. She knew how unpleasant this would be. All the scenes her mother had thrown when she misplaced the valise carrying her drops, or ran out of her special tincture, racketed about in her brain. How could she not have guessed that her mother was suffering from an addiction?
Parth pushed open the door and leapt out. He turned around, held out his arms to Lavinia, and lifted her to the ground, after which he buttoned the footman’s coat and pulled the collar as high as it would go.
She heard a shout from the other side of the coach. “This will pass,” he said to her quietly, “and then we’ll talk.”
She nodded.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he muttered. His kiss was so fleeting that it landed on her lips like a snowflake and was gone.
He disappeared around the back of the carriage.
Lavinia ran after him, dreading the confrontation. She was surprised that she couldn’t already hear her mother shrieking.
When she rounded the carriage, all was silent but for the sound of the wind. She froze, trying to make sense of the tableau.
Her mother was standing beside the carriage she had appropriated, a pistol clutched in her gloved hands. She was aiming it at Lord Jeremy, who was standing a short distance away. The duke’s coachman was gaping, dumbfounded. And Parth, meanwhile, was stealthily moving toward the rear of the carriage.
“Mother!” Lavinia shouted. “What are you doing? Where did you get that weapon?”
“It was in the carriage,” Lady Gray said, not glancing at her. “I’ve informed this miscreant that if he doesn’t back away and allow me to take the carriage to the village, I’ll shoot him.”
“I refused,” Lord Jeremy stated. Characteristically, he seemed to be enjoying himself.
Lavinia recognized her mother’s expression. She was maddened and hysterical—in the sort of mood in which she threw china at the servants.
Or fired a pistol at a lord.
The report, like a sharp clap of thunder, was followed instantly by a great jangling as the horses screamed and reared. Simultaneously, Lord Jeremy clapped a hand to the side of his head and fell to the ground, and Parth threw himself at Lady Gray and pinned her against the carriage.
Lavinia could hear only the rough sob of her own breath, because the shot was still reverberating in her ears. To her horror, she saw blood pooling under Lord Jeremy’s head.
Her mother wasn’t just a thief; she was a murderer.
Lavinia dashed across the snowy road and fell on her knees beside Lord Jeremy, clapping her hands to his head, trying to stop the blood. To her immense relief, his skull felt intact and his eyes flew open.
He responded with a flood of language so exotic that she understood almost none of it.
“You’re not dead,” she cried. Blood oozed between the fingers of her right hand.
“I’ve lost my bloody ear!” he shouted. He was shaking violently, almost as if he were having a seizure.
“Your ear is untouched,” Lavinia said quickly. “You are missing hair above your ear.” Grabbing his hand, she brought it to the shallow track of the bullet. “You could have died. You could so easily have died.”
His eyes were glassy and blank and he didn’t seem to be listening to her.
“Get up, Lieutenant,” Parth said sharply, from behind her.
Lord Jeremy took a gasping breath and got to his feet. In an instant, she saw him transform from a shaking man to the insolent aristocrat who had shared her carriage.
“Bloody hell,” he spat, probing his head wound.
“M-Mother?” Lavinia asked Parth, clambering to her feet.
“She’s feeling the effects of excitement, so I tied my coat around her and put her in the carriage. Bartleby is turning the vehicle around and will return directly to Gooseberry Manor.”
“I must go with her,” Lavinia cried.
But he caught her arm. “No. You’re not going anywhere near her.”
“She might free herself and open the carriage door,” Lord Jeremy said. “I’ll travel with her.” The large town coach was turning so slowly that he was able to open the door and leap inside without bothering to wait for it to stop.
Lavinia huddled against Parth’s chest, shaking uncontrollably, as he and the coachman exchanged a few shouted directions and reassurances. Mollified, Bartleby set off in the direction of Gooseberry Manor.
Without a word, Parth lifted Lavinia onto the coachman’s seat of the small carriage and then leapt up beside her.
She clutched the seat and looked around her, unable to find words. With a snap of the reins, Parth drove the vehicle down the road, and then, just when Lavinia was gathering herself to inquire why they weren’t returning to Gooseberry Manor as well, he turned off the road.
The closest village must have been in the direction of the castle, because Parth’s house, the house Annie had pointed out, was just before them.
“One minute,” Parth said. They drove around the gracious circular drive, and he jumped down and held up his arms. The country manor’s cream stone stood out against the blue sky. Curls of snow eddied and fell.
A startled butler threw open the door, a circle of warm light behind him.
“My house,” Parth said, carrying her toward the entrance.
“Parth,” she whispered, holding up her gloved right hand, which was covered with sticky blood. “There’s blood on the seat too.”
“Buckler,” he called, striding up the steps, “pull this wretched glove off my lady’s hand, won’t you? No, she’s perfectly all right.”
After that, he carried her upstairs into a gracious bedchamber, and left her with the housekeeper, who helped Lavinia out of the bloodstained coat. It turned out her dress had blood on the hem, so Mrs. Buckler took it away and bundled her in a thick, warm, and voluminous dressing gown that must have been Parth’s.
Twenty minutes later, holding up the hem of the wrapper, her hair brushed out and tied at her neck, and her face scrubbed to a youthful pink, Lavinia followed the housekeeper down the stairs and to the door of the library.
Mrs. Buckler melted away with a promise of hot tea, and Lavinia went in.
Chapter Thirty-one
“I must return to Gooseberry Manor,” Lavinia said quietly. Her eyes were swollen, and she’d obviously cried in her bath.
Parth drew her over to the fire. “Not yet.”
&nb
sp; “My mother . . .”
“Lady Gray is safest in the hands of Mrs. Aline. I doubt you would be allowed to see her until she is calmer.”
Parth relaxed as he saw Lavinia accept that truth. “I’ll take you there within the hour. You have had a scare and a shock, and you must recover. I’ve called for tea.”
He caught up both her hands and brought them to his lips. “I pride myself on not making rash assumptions, and yet that is exactly what I did to you. I apologize, Lavinia, with all my heart. You must have been so afraid when you realized the result of your mother’s addiction. I would have given anything to spare you that.”
“I appreciate your kindness,” Lavinia said, gently pulling her hands away.
“I do respect you, Lavinia. As much as I love you.”
She flinched, but Parth continued.
“You are afraid to trust yourself to my safekeeping,” he said, putting the ugly truth into the air. “I’ve been an ass.” His heart was beating a sluggish, unhappy rhythm. “I’m a bad bargain, and I know it. I suspect most men would be on their knees, imploring you at this point.”
She sighed. “No.” Then, with a flash of humor, “Most men would have implored much earlier in the proceedings.”
“I implored once, a great many years ago.” The words poured from him. “It was the night after the letter arrived saying that my family had died of a fever. I stayed awake that night and the next, begging for another letter that would say that it had all been a mistake.”
“Oh, Parth.” Lavinia’s voice trembled. She sat down and with a gentle tug, brought him next to her on the settee.
Parth watched Lavinia discreetly, intoxicated by the curve of her cheek and the way her lashes edged her eyes with black fringes. “I found myself begging last night with just as much fervor,” he said flatly.
Her eyes flew to his.
“I couldn’t sleep, believing you were lost to me. North suggested I drink myself into oblivion, but I couldn’t manage that. I—”
He stopped and cleared his throat.
“Please give me one last chance, Lavinia. I love you. I truly love you. I vow here and now that I will never treat you with such disrespect again.”