Page 80 of The Marquess Method
His throat bobbed. “I don’t even wish to tell you.” He reddened further. “He tried to hit me with the walking stick before he ran.” Coates bit his lip. “Said to tell you, my lady, that you’ll make a lovely widow. He was well in his cups. Could be just the ravings of a man whose had too much to drink. But my brother and I both thought you should know.”
“This was last night?” What if Erasmus had already gone back to Greenbriar? What if—
She looked up at Coates.
“Yes, my lady. After midnight.”
Her brother wasn’t here. He’d escorted Maggie, Olivia, and her mother to an outdoor gathering at Lady Fulton’s. Phaedra was somewhere. Practicing with her wooden sword, most likely. By the time Tony returned or she sent word, it could be hours, and Theo wasn’t sure there was time to spare.
I was right. Very satisfying. Unless Erasmus had already made her a widow. There wouldn’t be anything satisfying about that.
“Coates.” Theo stood and addressed him. “Fetch Stitch and the coach. I’ll need you to accompany me to Greenbriar. We must inform Lord Haven of what has occurred.”
“My lady?”
Erasmusmightjust be a drunk spouting nonsense. Or he could be a calculating lunatic who meant to harm her annoying husband. And Theo couldn’t allow that to happen. Because if anyone was going to suffocate her husband with a pillow or pinch his nose when he snored, it was going to be her. Erasmus better not lay a hand on Ambrose. Not so much as a quivering finger.
“Immediately, Coates. There isn’t any time to waste.”
29
Theo paced outside the small coaching inn they’d stopped at to change horses, frowning at the way the sun was dipping lower in the sky. The sense that she must get to Haven immediately had her walking in circles, growing more anxious by the moment. What if she was too late?
No one at Greenbriar suspected Erasmus of anything worse than petty theft so he could buy himself a bottle. Not even Haven thought his uncle capable of plotting his demise.
Theo tapped her chin with her forefinger. He had fooled everyone. Even her. He’d had the audacity to ask her for an allowance, sing his ridiculous songs, and pick her violets, all the while planning to kill her husband.
I’m coming, Ambrose.
Bloody idiot didn’t even know he was in danger. Theo’s only consolation was that Erasmus on his own was unlikely to do much damage. Hewasstill a sot, though a very devious, malicious one. But he could have hired someone. As he’d done in Italy. Because she was fairly certain that Erasmus was behind the attack on his nephew. Which is why he’d gone back to Greenbriar because he’d assumed the attack would be successful. And told everyone who asked that the fairies told him his nephew had died.
Fairies my—
“My lady, we are ready.” Coates appeared next to her, probably wondering why she’d been circling the courtyard like some crazed chicken for the better part of an hour.
“How much longer, Coates?” Erasmuscouldwield a pistol. Probably, depending on how much he’d had to drink.
“Not too much longer.” The footman looked up at the sky.
Or slit Haven’s throat while he slept.
“Tell Stitch to drive faster.”
* * *
Ambrose sat outsideon his newly renovated terrace, admiring the recently trimmed row of hedges in his garden, and took another sip of his mildly expensive wine. The sun was setting low, hanging over the edge of the trees as it sank into darkness. Soon, the stars would come out, filling the sky above his head with their brilliance, very much like what was depicted in the drawing room.
Not one bit of it interested him.
He took another sip of the wine. There weren’t enough bottles in all of England for Ambrose to drown himself in.Finally, Ambrose understood some of his father’s grief. Why he’d started drinking. Theodosia wasn’t dead, not in the way his mother was, but she was gone all the same.
Each morning, when his fingers crawled across the mattress, searching in vain for her slender form, Ambrose considered riding to London to fetch her. The smell of paint no longer suffused the bedsheets. Nor lemon. Yesterday, he’d gone up to her studio and taken out one of her sketchbooks to look at. In her haste to be away from him, Theo hadn’t packed any of her things here, nor had she sent for them. She’d only taken her maid.
Ambrose took that as a sign of hope.
The pad was full of sketches of her father, the progression of his illness apparent in the drawings. He could make out Theodosia’s grief in every brush of the charcoal. Saw the water stains of her tears blurring the edges of the paper. Another sketchpad held drawings of her sisters. Her mother. Several of the duke. One page revealed Leo Murphy, flawlessly handsome with a smug grin on his lips, staring up at Ambrose.
He’d stared at that face for a long time, allowing the anger to ebb and flow over him. Theodosia loved her brother.
