by KJ Charles
Robin scanned the room. Marianne stood opposite on Tachbrook’s arm. Her face was still, but Tachbrook wore an unpleasant, almost gloating smile. A little way away Giles Verney stood, face tense. Robin felt a single second of pure anticipatory terror before he realised he had it wrong. They weren’t at the eye. The storm wasn’t coming for them.
Because there was Hart, stiff-backed, face set in a rigid expression that exaggerated his features and made his scowl look almost grotesque. Mrs. Blaine stood slightly behind him, eyes wide, clutching Alice’s shoulder with white knuckles. Alice looked confused, and a little alarmed.
Opposite them were two people: a distinguished, portly gentleman with a red face, and a woman who had clearly been a belle in her day. She seemed perhaps fifty or a little more by her face; her elegant dress flattered a very well-preserved figure, and feather sprays and jewels demonstrated that she was both able and keen to maintain her appearance. Her whole presentation stated that she was to be regarded as beautiful, and indeed she was, except for the look of disdain she was casting at the man Robin loved.
“Do you not intend to greet me?” she enquired in a musical alto voice. “Graceless still, I see.”
“Lady Asperton,” Hart said flatly. “Sir Roger.”
The name rang a bell, and so did the raw hurt in Hart’s eyes, not at all the expression of a strong, grown man. That was what let Robin place her.
This was his mother. Hart’s mother, who had married a rich baronet and never looked back, and who now stood and regarded her grown children with something extraordinarily like contempt.
“Hartlebury.” The portly man—the second husband, Robin supposed—gave a dismissive nod.
“I see you have not improved,” Lady Asperton remarked. “Neither of you. I did hope for Edwina’s complexion—but it was not to be. And this must be, what, that person’s daughter?”
“This is Alice, and his name was Fenwick,” Mrs. Blaine said.
Lady Asperton gave Alice a look up and down. “Oh dear. Blood will out. I dare say you will struggle to marry her off, but at least she doesn’t have the Hartlebury nose. I do feel one of my children might have spared me that.”
Alice flushed bright red. Mrs. Blaine said, voice shaking a little, “Alice is the very best of daughters. I am sorry for you that you do not know her.”
“Good heavens.” Lady Asperton gave a little startled laugh, as though she were turning down some encroaching request. “I really am rather busy for that.”
“It’s your loss,” Hart said, voice flat. “I hope you have been well, Lady Asperton. We have not seen you in some time.”
Lady Asperton’s upper lip curled. “Nor written either. Perhaps you might ask yourself why I have cleaved to my dear Asperton. But I suppose I am not to be permitted happiness, even now.” She pitched that more at the circle of people pretending they weren’t listening than at her son. “You take after your father in more than looks. I am sorry for it.”
Eyes gleamed around them. Alice looked as though she was about to cry. Hart was dark red with humiliation, and Robin thought desperately at him, Stop this. Walk away. She doesn’t care, you do, so you can’t win.
“Quite right.” Tachbrook apparently addressed that to Marianne, but his voice was loud enough to be generally heard. “It is a pretty pass when a man does not honour his mother. Shocking.”
“Perhaps the fault lies in my upbringing,” Hart tried, but he sounded leaden, almost choked.
“Once again I am made at fault,” Lady Asperton jabbed back. “A grown man who must blame his mother. What a sorry state of affairs.”
Robin strode forward to insert himself between the Aspertons and Hart, turning his back to Lady Asperton in a manner that would have earned him a blow from Lordship for the rudeness. “Hello there, I was looking for you all.” He managed to hit a tone of bright cheer despite the rage that fuzzed his brain, at Hart’s mother, and Tachbrook, and Verney, and every damned one of these damned people. “I was hoping both your ladies would dance with me. Would you like an ice first, Miss Fenwick? Shall we go?”
“Excuse me,” Lady Asperton said, in arctic tones. “You have interrupted a conversation.”
Robin swung round. “No, I don’t think I have. That wasn’t a conversation. It was a malicious, ill-mannered, nasty-tempered scold, and you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.”
There were audible gasps at that. Robin could almost hear the crackle as his carefully cultivated facade of Humble and Pleasant went up in flames. Oh well. What good was a bridge you couldn’t burn?
“Sir!” Tachbrook was bright puce. “You will apologise at once. How dare you speak to my cousin that way?”
Robin’s stomach plunged. Cousin—fuck, fuck, he had known that. Hart had told him, and now he’d just insulted Tachbrook’s cousin in full view of everyone. Fuck. He’d have to grovel, and Hart would see him take the words back, and he could not. He’d swallowed a lot in his life; he couldn’t swallow this. Except, Marianne’s marriage—
“Who is this ill-mannered individual?” Lady Asperton demanded.
Robin took a deep breath. Marianne cut across him. “He is my brother.”
Lady Asperton looked from her to Robin with a curling sneer. “Yours? I see. Well, I am astonished at your brother’s conduct.”
“Marianne is not responsible for me,” Robin said wretchedly.
“Perhaps she should be.” Lady Asperton gave her little laugh. “But then, so many of us have unfortunate relatives.”
Marianne’s head went up, setting the emeralds at her neck and ears to a glittering dance. “Very true,” she said, voice hard and bright as any jewel. “On which subject, Lady Asperton, you must know that Alice Fenwick will be chief bridesmaid at my wedding. So I must oblige you to mind your manners and treat her with the courtesy she deserves.”
Lady Asperton flushed red. Alice, to whom this appeared news, made a strangled noise. And Lord Tachbrook said, “What? She will be no such thing.”
Marianne stiffened. She stood tall and absolutely still for a second, an outraged Greek goddess just before someone got turned into a small prey animal, and when she spoke, her voice was very soft. “I cannot have heard you correctly, my lord.”
“The arrangements are not made.” Tachbrook appeared confused as to why he was not receiving instant obedience. “My mother will make a list—”
“Your mother will choose my bridesmaids? I think there must be some confusion. Alice is very dear to me, as is her family, so she will stand with me. I see no reason for your mother, or anyone else not involved”—she gave Lady Asperton a frozen look—“to interfere.”
“A vulgar tradesman’s daughter, at Tachbrook’s wedding?” Lady Asperton demanded. “I hardly think so.”
“You—think,” Marianne repeated, enunciating the words with lethal precision. “You think. Do remind me. Who, precisely, are you to think?”
Lady Asperton’s mouth dropped open. Tachbrook looked both baffled and—Robin almost had to admire him—annoyed. Apparently his sense of his own consequence was such that it even obscured the jaws of the mantrap that yawned in front of him.
“I beg your pardon,” Tachbrook said. “As my cousin, Lady Asperton may make what observations she pleases.”
Marianne turned on him like a tiger, and, for all his pomposity, the marquess recoiled an involuntary step. “She may insult a girl from the schoolroom who has done her no wrong, and dictate your wedding arrangements? What a very remarkable thing it is to be Lord Tachbrook’s cousin. Or his mother, indeed. But, clearly, not his wife, since my opinions are to be ignored and my friends insulted with impunity. I quite see what courtesy I must expect.” She strode over to Robin in a ferocious swish of skirts. “I should like fresh air. Robin, perhaps you will take Alice and Mrs. Blaine for an ice, and Hartlebury will escort me.”
“Excuse me, madam,” Tachbrook said. “If you wish for an ice—”
“Oh, will you fetch one, sir?” Marianne demanded, voice thrummi
ng magnificently. “Will you stoop to do me the most trivial courtesy, or must we wait for your cousin to grant you leave? Is there any other family member you should care to consult first? A great-uncle, perhaps?”
That got a general laugh. Tachbrook was a very unhealthy colour by now. “Miss Loxleigh! I must insist on respect to my family.”
Robin met Marianne’s eyes, questioning. She put an appealing hand on his arm and breathed, very softly, “Kill.”
He stepped forward, head up, back straight. “And so, sir, must I. I should like a private word with you, Lord Tachbrook, at once.”
“You?” Tachbrook looked as startled if he’d been attacked by a kitten.
“I am of no great account, I am aware,” Robin said, pitching his voice to be heard. “But enough is enough, and I will not stand for this flagrant discourtesy to a woman to whom you owe the greatest consideration. You may be a marquess, but you will treat my sister with the respect she or any lady is due, or you will answer for it to me. How dare you behave with such ill manners to your future wife, sir? How dare you?”
The murmurs of approbation were loud now. “Quite right,” someone remarked from the crowd. “Well said.”
Tachbrook’s eyes flicked around. It seemed he’d finally realised the situation had slid out of control. “I cannot see any discussion is necessary. This is a great quarrel about nothing.”
Marianne inhaled like an opera singer. Robin sidestepped out of the firing line, repressing a well-honed instinct to duck. “Nothing? About nothing? It is about me. About the respect I may expect to receive, and the protection too, as your wife, and you call that nothing, sir? Do you say, in front of this crowd, that I am nothing?”
Her voice had risen to impressive force and volume. Tachbrook swayed back a little. Lady Asperton said, “Really, what nonsense.”
“You keep talking,” Marianne said lethally. “I cannot imagine why.”
“Am I to be spoken to in this way by this woman?” Lady Asperton demanded.
“Yes, Tachbrook,” Marianne flashed back. “Is she?”
All eyes turned to Lord Tachbrook. He hesitated, torn between pride and alarm, and failed to speak for just long enough that Robin got in first with, “It seems you have your answer, Marianne.”
“So it appears.” Marianne dropped the marquess a very low curtsey. “Thank you for your protection, Robin, but I should prefer to have this conversation myself. Perhaps we might speak, my lord, in private, at once. Without unwarranted intrusion from ill-mannered, pushing individuals.”
Lady Asperton gasped shrilly. Marianne swung past her as though she didn’t exist.
“We may certainly speak.” Tachbrook sounded congested. Hopefully he was going to have an apoplexy.
“Then let us go,” Marianne said, and steered him off to an anteroom.
Robin turned to the Hartleburys. Hart looked stunned; Mrs. Blaine’s eyes brimmed with tears. Alice had her arm round her mother’s waist, but when she caught Robin’s eye, she gave him a sudden, utterly gleeful flash of a smile.
Get them out, Robin mouthed at her, with a quick jerk of his head, then took the opportunity to position himself between Lady Asperton and Hart, adopting a tight-lipped expression as she turned back.
“Well,” she said. “What a shocking display of ill temper.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Robin told her. “You seem to have broken an engagement with it. I hope Lord Tachbrook will not resent your interference too much.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It is my sister’s pardon you should be begging, not to mention your children’s. Your conduct is extraordinary.”
“Sir!” Sir Roger Asperton began.
“Yes?” Robin enquired, close to a snarl. “Do you have anything to say to me? Please do. Really. I’d be fascinated.”
Sir Roger appeared to read Robin’s absolute lack of damns to give on his face, because he said, “Come, Lady A,” and urged his wife away with soothing noises. Robin watched them go, breathing deeply, and turned to see that Hart and the others had gone.
“That was magnificent,” said a quiet voice by his side. Giles Verney.
“I’m in the mood for telling people what I think of them,” Robin said. “So you should probably go away.”
“Let me thank you first, as Hart’s friend. You might not quite realise how much you did for him just now, but I do.”
“I couldn’t stand by and watch that display.”
“So I saw, and may I say—”
“No, you may not, because you stood by and watched,” Robin said. “You call yourself Hart’s friend but you did damn all when he needed you, so your thanks aren’t meaningful, wanted, or welcome. And while I’m on the subject, it’s odd that I’ve never heard him mention any ways you or your family helped when he was in trouble. Lots about what you think, never anything about what you did. What is it you’re so proud of yourself for, exactly?”
Verney’s mouth opened and shut. “I—”
“I’m still talking. You’re the one who cares what other people think, so you can hear what I think of you, and that’s that you don’t have the heart or spine to match Marianne by half, and you have never deserved Hart. So sod off, you smug prick,” he finished, with perhaps a slight failure of eloquence.
Verney sodded off, which was wise of him. Robin stood, trying to calm his thundering pulse, and wondering at what point he’d become someone who openly said what he thought. Maybe Hart had rubbed off on him. As it were.
Various people sidled up as he waited for Marianne, making enquiries about the future of the engagement. He told them all, “My sister won’t accept insult as the price of a coronet,” and added that in his view a marquess had more rather than less obligation to behave as a gentleman. It was a popular line to take, since Tachbrook had offended almost everyone over the years, and there was no shortage of volunteers to regale the audience with stories of his boorish manners while they waited for the next act. By the time Marianne emerged from the anteroom with her left hand bare of rings and a near-purple Tachbrook trailing behind her, Robin had the waiting crowd very much on her side.
Marianne’s features were composed but her eyes blazed and a high colour burned on her cheekbones. Naturally, she looked magnificent. She glanced around, apparently oblivious to her audience, and said, “Robin, I should like to depart. Oh. Just one moment, Lord Tachbrook.”
He was already ten feet away but he turned at her words, drawing himself up. She put her hands to her nape, removed the heavy emerald necklace, and held out the glittering gold and green at arm’s length, and in her fingertips. “This is yours, sir.”
He looked blank. Marianne’s face was perfect in its haughty chill as the jewels dangled from her hand. “The parure was a gift for your future wife, my lord. It is no longer mine to wear.”
The crowd watched, fascinated. Tachbrook hesitated, but she had him in a vice. He would have to walk back to her and take the discarded thing—be permitted to take it, in fact, stow it in a pocket like some vulgar merchant, and stand waiting while she removed the bracelet and earrings too. Robin could only imagine the joy with which caricaturists would fall upon a marquess cravenly snatching jewels from a dignified woman.
He could have got away with a lofty instruction to return the jewels to his lawyer if he’d thought of it in time, but before he could speak, someone in the crowd let out a sibilant hiss of disapproval. A few more arose, and then it was too late. Admittedly, the first someone was Robin, but it was still public opinion.
“It was a gift to you, Miss Loxleigh,” Tachbrook said stiffly. “I regret that we could not suit.”
“So do I, my lord.” Marianne swept a very deep curtsey, inclining her head to display her lovely bare neck, and stayed down. Tachbrook managed a bow, glared around, and stalked off.
“Come, Marianne,” Robin said, offering her his arm, and sliding several thousand pounds worth of emeralds into his pocket as casually as possible. “Let us go.”
> THEY MAINTAINED A STRICT silence as they returned to their rooms. It was only with the door firmly shut that Robin said, “You fucking beauty.”
“Jesus Christ. What have I done?”
“Got rid of a flaccid pego you didn’t need.”
“Eighteen thousand pounds a year!”
“I wouldn’t have him at twice that. And nor would you. Come on, Marnie, don’t pretend you don’t feel better.”
She met his eyes. “Maybe a bit. A little bit.”
“Honeymoon,” Robin said meaningfully. “Kisses.”
“Good point. Oh God. I’m rid of him. I am rid of him, Rob!” She flung her arms round him. “Oh my God, I could fly. Why did you let me think I could marry him?”
“It’s all my fault.” He hugged her. “What a prick.”
“Him and his cousin too. That was really Hartlebury’s mother?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“The poor swine. He won’t mind that, will he?”
“I hope not. And you were superb. A masterpiece of womanly dignity.”
“No tosspot talks like that about my brother.” Marianne picked up the gin bottle, dragged out the cork with her teeth, and spat it on the table. “To womanly dignity.” She swigged a mouthful and passed the bottle.
“To emeralds.” Robin tipped a fiery slug of gin down his throat, and coughed. “That was beautifully done. What do we think we can get for them?”
“With the bracelet and earrings? A fortune.”
“Plus the three hundred savings and we can sell a lot of the clothes. We’re rich. Not marchioness rich, but rich enough to manage without any bloody awful men.”
She took the bottle back. “Talking of which, you were adorable, Rob. One day I’m going to find a man who stands up for me the way you did for yours.”
“You’ve got one right here,” Robin said. “You always have had, and you always will.”
“You’re going to Little Wimple and a cottage with roses round the door.”
