Page 60 of How to Cross a Marquess (The Way to a Lord's Heart 3)

As they rode on toward his home, Roger explained.

When he’d finished, Macklin looked angry. “Despicable. I hate a sneak.”

“So you see why I was contradicting the story, but Fen—Miss Fairclough said I just made everyone think of it again.”

“Ah.”

“How can I deny the gossip without mentioning the circumstance?” Roger complained.

“You cannot, of course,” said Macklin. “But a subtler approach might be warranted.”

“Subtle!” Roger hated that word—that indefinable, unattainable state. Truthfully, he didn’t believe anyone really knew what it meant. People lobbed the term at him like a smothering pillow. “Can you teach me to be subtle?”

Macklin gazed back at him with sympathy and great kindness. And possibly a tinge of amusement? Roger tried not to resent that. “I don’t know, Chatton. Subtlety may be alien to your temperament.”

“My temperament can go to perdition! It’s been nothing but trouble.”

Macklin bit back a smile.

“You may think it a joke,” said Roger. “But from my side, it’s not.”

“I don’t think it. And I would be pleased to help you. It seems to me that we need to find this letter writer and expose them. We can make them tell the truth. Anonymous writers are cowards.”

“But difficult to root out.” Roger wasn’t optimistic about the chances.

“I may have an idea about that.”

His confident tone gave Roger hope as they rode under the arch into the castle courtyard.

Several miles away, driving the gig though the gates of Clough House, Fenella fought an urge to cry. Last night, she’d dreamed of kissing Roger again. Very vividly. But then today the sidelong glances of her neighbors had rasped. Her inner landscape felt like a battleground, she thought, and blinked more rapidly. “Are you all right, Aunt Fenella?” asked her nephew.

If John noticed her turmoil, it must be blatant. “Yes,” she lied.

“I can take the gig around to the stable, if you like.”

More than anything, Fenella wanted the solitude of her bedchamber. She handed John the reins. “Thank you,” she said, climbing down and striding into the house.

* * *

In the predawn dark the next morning, Fenella was roused from her bed by her father’s valet. “He’s much worse, miss,” Simpson said. Fenella pulled on her dressing gown and slippers and hurried to his room.

Her father lay limp, his breath an odd gasping rattle. His once-sturdy frame hardly raised the bedclothes, and his skin had gone ashen.

“I think this may be the end, miss,” said Simpson, his lined face creased with melancholy.

Fenella had known her father was failing, but she found she still wasn’t ready for this news. She’d thought he would hang on longer. Just yesterday he’d been arguing in his old fashion. “I must send for my sisters.”

The valet shook his head as if to say they’d never make it in time. “Better have someone go for the vicar.”

Fenella nodded permission for this errand. She had kept Greta and Nora apprised of Papa’s deteriorating condition. She’d even urged them to come and see him, though she knew such visits would be full of friction. Her sisters had passed off her concerns as overblown, as if Fenella, who was here on the spot, knew far less about their father’s capacities than they did. She’d send messengers south at first light. They must come now.

Taking her father’s hand, Fenella sat down beside the bed. “Papa?” The ends of his fingers were cold. He was drifting away from life. Despite their disagreements, she felt a pang of grief. “Papa?” she said again.

His eyes opened, though they didn’t seem to focus. “Mary?” he asked, naming her dead mother.

“It’s Fenella, Papa.”

“The stubborn one,” he murmured and closed his eyes again.

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