Page 9 of The Defiant One
He should have just stayed home.
He located the ducal coach near the front of the line of vehicles, its paint as black as the sky above. An alert footman ran to let down the steps for him. Andrew vaulted inside and threw himself down on the seat, his breath frosting the cold air. Pulling a blanket around himself, he sat staring into the close darkness.
His anger did not last long. It couldn't, not with the ever-present fear that lurked just below the surface, keeping him aware of the fact that he was flawed, reminding him all too often, as it had done tonight, that there was something very, very wrong with him. Something that was not getting any better with time. Without the anger to sustain him, and surrounded by the darkness of a quiet night while the faraway strains of music and laughter — making him feel excluded, reminding him of the normalcy and safety of other people's lives, making him feel all the more alone — reached him, he felt the fear clawing for a hold on his heart. His nerves. His composure. He thought about the incident in the ballroom, and wiping a hand over his face, found it damp with nervous sweat.
God help me . . . I feel so alone.
He thought about going back inside to try and lose himself in the gaiety of the crowd, but immediately discounted the notion. Someone must surely have noticed his strange behavior.
He thought about getting out of the coach and walking and walking and walking until he was too tired to be afraid, but the idea was not appealing.
Finally he pulled out his notebook and tried to lose himself in his work, trying not to think of what the inside of Bedlam must look like.
He shuddered. Lucien would not commit him, would he?
Would he?
Putting the notebook down, Andrew leaned his cheek against the cold glass of the window and, shivering beneath the blanket, stared miserably out into the night.
~~~~
As he crossed the foyer, Gerald saw his stepsister storm upstairs, her old dog Freckles, hampered by equally old joints, trailing in her wake. A moment later he heard a door slam. The noise was so loud that it was clearly audible over the music that had a hundred people out on the dance floor.
He suspected the worst.
And sure enough, there was Sir Harold Bonkley, his face equally flushed, but with what looked like humiliation, stalking towards him from out of the ballroom.
"Well?" said Gerald, impatiently.
Bonkley snared a drink. "She refused me."
"Damn it, man, I thought you were going to publicly compromise her so that I could come upon you and demand that you marry her!"
"Well, things didn't work out as we planned."
Gerald was furious. "We had an agreement, Bonkley. You marry her, get your hands on her wealth, and bail me out of debt. What the blazes is so difficult about that?"
"Getting her to say yes, for one thing. And perhaps I might have succeeded in my quest if that deuced de Montforte fellow hadn't interfered just as things were heating up."
"What do you mean, interfered? The duke has been discussing politics with Pitt for the last fifteen minutes!"
"I'm not talking about the duke, I'm talking about that damned brother of his, Andrew. He came upon us outside on the stairs just as I was about to ravish her. So much for ruining her reputation! I swear, Somerfield, if I'd been armed, he wouldn't have lived to regret it!"
"If you'd been armed, I daresay you wouldn't have lived to regret it," muttered Gerald. "He is a master swordsman, Bonkley, and you'd do well to remember it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go find my sister and try to talk some sense into her."
Sir Harold fumed at the insult as he watched the younger man go. He had been so sure of success where everyone else had failed that he'd told half the people in the room that he was as good as betrothed to the eccentric heiress. Now she'd made both him and her brother a laughingstock.
His fists clenched with rage.
Draining his glass, he stalked off through the crowd.
~~~~
Upstairs in her apartments, Celsie waved off her maid, threw herself down on her bed, and still fully clothed, lay on the silken coverlet, trying not to scream with frustration, trying not to hurl something across the room, trying not to think about Bonkley molesting her and how she'd felt when she'd looked up, only to discover that Lord Andrew de Montforte had been her gallant rescuer.
God help her, why did it have to be him?
She loathed him! He was surly, arrogant, and ill-mannered! He experimented on animals! Why, he'd said himself that he sent them up in flying machines and poured evil solutions down their throats!
