Wildeforde shook her. Just hard enough that he had her focus. “Your father is a grown man that no doubt started this cursed mess. Go home on your own, or I’ll toss you over my shoulder and take you there.”
She was going to refuse. She was every bit as stubborn as Amelia—no doubt why the women were fast friends.
Benedict stepped between them, drawing Fiona away. “He’s right,” he said calmly. “Maybe not about the tossing you over his shoulder part, but this is not a safe place for you, and it won’t be safe for us to go into this riot worried about whether or not some drunk bastard is putting you in danger.”
She pursed her lips but didn’t protest. Wildeforde led her back to her horse, talking intensely to her. He held both her hands to his lips and kissed them before helping her mount.
Bloody prick. Hadn’t Wildeforde done enough bloody damage to her over the years?
Oliver approached. He stank of whiskey, but his stride was steady, his eyes were clear, his voice low and hushed.
“I’ve been chatting to some of the older men, convinced them to head home. Some of the boys too—the ones who are still shit-scared of their mothers anyhow.”
That was good. Oliver could always be counted on.
“What are your thoughts?” Benedict asked, his eyes still on the jostling crowd.
“If we don’t calm it down, they’ll march on the house. We’d lose maybe thirty that come to their senses on the walk over there, but that would still leave a large enough mob to cause trouble.”
Benedict cursed. “I’ve sent for the cavalry,” he said as Wildeforde joined them. “But they won’t be here for another couple of hours at least.”
Oliver frowned, shaking his head. “I’m telling you, we don’t have that kind of time.”
Goddamn it. What a fucking disaster. Anxious energy coursed through him, heightening his awareness, making his skin prickle and his heart thump.
Wildeforde straightened and shook out his legs and arms, just like he did when the two of them used to spar in the boxing ring. “Then we’re going to have to do it alone.”
Together they strode toward the gathered men. There was no denying that they were an imposing sight. All three taller and broader than most men and used to wielding power. Perhaps their size would give them an advantage.
Plenty of men stopped their conversation to watch them approach, faces wary. A handful left as the potential consequences of the night became more apparent with each step the trio took toward the mob.
“Tucker!” Benedict bellowed. “What is the meaning of this?” He stopped just short of the platform, trying to keep the confrontation from easy view of the crowd.
Tucker turned and sneered, gesturing toward Benedict and Wildeforde as he addressed the crowds. “Listen as the oppressors come to try to strip you of your rights.” His tone was oily and snide. He faced Benedict. “There is no law against the gathering of like-minded folks.”
“No law against a gathering, if a gathering is all it is.” Benedict crossed his arms in an effort not to tear the bastard limb from limb. How had it gotten to this point? Men he’d grown up with protesting against him?
He stretched his jaw. No good would come from thrashing Tucker in front of this crowd. He needed a calm approach. He took a centering breath. “Why don’t you tell me what the problem is? Perhaps we can solve this here.” Anything to keep this pack away from Amelia, away from Cassandra, away from their home.
Alastair McTavish joined Tucker on the stage. His voice carried clear over the crowd. “Maybe if ye’d been working and drinking with us instead of hobnobbing with them bloody toffs, you’d already ken.”
Benedict swallowed and kept his tone cool. “I’m doing business, Alastair. That’s all. Business this village needs, as you well know.”
“Doing business…with the Karstarks? They put our families—your friends—homeless into the streets and you do business with them?”
“No,” Benedict said roughly, with more heat than intended. “Not with them. Never with them.”
“But they’re at your house, are they not?” Tucker asked. “Eating your food, drinking your wine, waited on by your servants. If not business, why are they there?”
Benedict scrubbed his hand over his face. “It’s complicated.”
Tucker turned to the crowd. “It’s complicated, he says. Too complicated for simple folks like us to understand.”
The crowd muttered and threw dirty looks Benedict’s way. It was evident why Tucker had been at the forefront of so many rebellious outbreaks. He had a gift for rhetoric. A gift for swaying an audience and whipping up the tempers of men.
“Look at him,” the revolutionary said. “All dressed in his fancy clothes. Are his buttons made of moonstone? Or the hopes and dreams of the men he’s supposed to be friends with? How can you trust a man so clearly not one of you?”
It was a solid punch to the gut. He’d grown up with these men. Worked with them. Drank with them. Celebrated. Commiserated. All with them.
He was as much a part of them as they were part of him.
But then he looked down at the costume Amelia had laid out for him. The costume he’d never have worn a bare month ago. A costume he’d put on without thought this evening.
Idiot.
Impatient, Wildeforde climbed onto the platform, holding out his hands as if he could physically quiet the men with his presence. At least he’d had the sense to divest himself of jacket and waistcoat. His cravat was undone and limp around his neck; the pristine white of his shirt was marred by dirt. The duke, striving to seem accessible.
The crowd wasn’t believing it. A bottle thrown from some unseen hand nearly clipped him on the ear. It was quickly followed by another.
Wilde’s shock was palpable. He’d grown up the heir and then the duke. Few people dared to disagree with him. No one threw garbage at him.
Bloody hell. The crowd looked ready to rip him apart. Benedict climbed onto the platform to stand shoulder to shoulder, knocking a bottle aside as it flew toward his head.
“Brandon Stewart, that was a full bottle. Don’t waste good ale. Finish the bloody thing first.” He’d hoped a little humor might bring them back together. A couple of men laughed, but not enough to sway the hostile atmosphere.
Benedict pointed to one of the farmers standing toward the edge of the crowd. He had a grim look on his face but was steady on his feet and less visibly sloshed than much of the crowd. “Clayton, talk to me. What’s this about?”
The farmer shoved his hands in his pockets, pushing out his chest. “It’s those that live in big houses with fancy food not giving a bloody fig for the people that farmed their land and made them money.”
There was a murmuring of agreement from the crowd and a handful of applause.
The farmer continued. “It’s about having no job, no home in three months’ time, while the rich sit there on a pile of money, never having to worry about nothing.”
The murmuring turned into shouting as Clayton’s words spurred another wave of anger.
“You will have a home,” Wildeforde called out, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. “I’ve been in discussions with Karstark and he’s agreed to hold off his…renovations…until we’ve built suitable alternatives in the village.”
The local pig farmer called out. His eyes were glassed over, and he swayed as he spoke. “Give up our land for a poxy cottage on a tiny block? The hell we will.”
The statement was met by the rhythmic pounding of feet on the ground and a clapping that shook the foundations of the rickety stage on which they stood.
As the mood worsened, Benedict’s chest tightened, viselike. The situation was quickly getting out of hand. He needed to calm them down before they put Cassandra and Amelia in further jeopardy.
“What do you plan to do about it?” Benedict yelled over the din. “Take the land by force? How long before the army shows up?”
Too long, he knew. They were hours away at best. And if the
y did arrive to such a hostile crowd, the end result would be bloody.
“Bollocks to the army,” came the reply.
“We just need to stand our ground,” came another.
“Stand your ground?” Wildeforde yelled. “You all heard what happened in Manchester. St Peter’s Field ran red with blood not four months ago. Fifteen men dead, seven hundred injured, and for what? Standing their ground.”
The Peterloo Massacre had made headlines for weeks but done nothing to ease the tension between the workingman and the parliament. Women and children had been killed in the carnage, and all for nothing.
Abingdale would not be another Peterloo.
Tucker stepped in front of them. “We’re talking about the liberation of the working class, throwing off the yoke of the oppressors. This isn’t just about today, about the men on this field. This is about men across the country. Sometimes sacrifices need to be made to change the world. Who’s with me?”
He raised his fist into the air, a gesture met by the raising of torches, a terrifying sea of fire in a perfect storm.
And Benedict could take no more.
He grabbed Tucker by the shirt front, lifting him until the Irishman’s toes barely scraped the ground. “You talk about sacrifices, you worthless bastard. You talk about standing together. But where were you when the soldiers charged at Peterloo? Where were you at the Pentrich Rising, Spa Fields riots, or on the streets of Littlefield? You’re a man of many fine words, but somehow when the cavalry charges and the arrests begin, you’ve disappeared.”
He hated this man. Hated what he’d done to Benedict’s community. Hated himself for being the fool that had brought him here in the first place.
Despite hanging in the air, Tucker smirked, as if holding a trump card that would win him the night.
By this point, the crowd had gone eerily silent, desperate to hear the exchange. The only sound was the crackling of the fire.
Tucker spat, saliva dripping down the side of Benedict’s face. “Fine words from a man that turned his back on the cause, married himself a lady-wife, got himself a title, and betrayed those who stood by him.”
The words were a knife to the chest, but it was the muttering of assent from the crowd—the people he’d grown up with—that twisted the blade.
“Bollocks. I’ve done only what was needed. I’ve betrayed no one,” Benedict said, dropping the man to the ground. Tucker fell but stood quickly, brushing the dust from his knees.
“Then where have you been, my lord?” Jeremy had pushed his way to the front of the crowd and regarded him with a look so full of loathing that Benedict barely recognized the boy.
Devil help him, he had made a mistake.
The signs had been there for weeks. He simply hadn’t acted on them, writing off Jeremy’s behavior as youthful petulance—an annoyance that he’d not bothered to address. And now the kid had been twisted and turned into a blunt weapon for two older, malicious, and manipulative men to wield.
“Because it hasn’t been at the firm,” Jeremy continued. “Unless it’s to swan around with some bloody toffs, showing us off as if we were pigs at a show.”
Benedict’s soul ached to see the damage his negligence had wrought. There had to be some part of the boy he knew left. Some part he could reason with. “Jeremy, I’ve been working to ensure the firm has work for everyone.”
“But if a better deal comes along, you’ll take it, right?” Jeremy sneered. “Because jobs for us don’t matter as much as cash in the pocket, am I right?”
The roiling unease that was churning in his stomach started to rise. Started to make its way up his chest, his throat. “They’re big accusations for a boy barely out of the schoolroom.”
“It’s true though, isn’t it? You made the big deal. You got the money. But the jobs will go to some lucky bugger in America, not us.”
There was a collective gasp from the mob. Oliver had been winding his way through the crowd—a word here, a slight push there—slowly winnowing out anyone who might be convinced to go home before it all went bad. He’d worked his way to the front of the crowd, and now put a big hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “That’s not true, lad. You know it.”
Benedict could try for a hundred years and still never deserve the unwavering faith of his foreman.
Tucker began to laugh. “If you’re so sure of this, why does Asterly look as if he wants to vomit?”
Oliver looked to Benedict. “Just tell them it’s not true.”
He did want to vomit. He shifted from foot to foot, unable to look Oliver in the eye. “It’s been a busy day.” It was all he could offer his friend, and as the words came out of his mouth, he heard how thin and mealy they were.
Oliver’s face slackened. The crowd shifted behind him as he stepped back in shock. “You…I can’t…”
“I have a plan.” But the plea didn’t lessen the look of horror on Oliver’s face. Or the clear betrayal.
This time it wasn’t bottles the men threw, it was mud. A handful of it hit Benedict in the side of the head, splattering his face.
He stared out into the faces of men that he’d grown up with. Men that he’d tried so damned hard to protect. Men that he’d failed.
The crowd pressed forward, hungry for blood, and the makeshift stage swayed under the pressure.
“You’ve got to go.” Wildeforde clapped him on the shoulders and pushed him toward the side of the stage. “You can’t help matters now.”
Benedict stumbled away, flinching as a boot hit square on his back.
Behind him, the war cries started.
Chapter 31
Benedict raced up the drive, hoping to make it from the front door to his study without being seen by any of the thirty-odd guests that had taken over his home.
He needed to fortify the house in case Wildeforde and Oliver couldn’t talk down the crowd.
He needed a drink. He needed to be alone. He definitely did not need to make nice to a room full of the toffs who had caused the damn problem in the first place.
And he did not need to see his wife.
Life had been running fine until she showed up. Now he barely recognized himself. How could he blame the men of the village for their anger when he himself found his actions reprehensible?
His foot had just touched the top step when Greenhill opened the door.
“Damn it, man. I can open my own bloody door.”
Greenhill just bowed. “Of course, sir. Might I enquire as to the state of the village?” His words, though calmly said, had an urgency to them. Of course there bloody was. He had family in the village. Friends.
Benedict raked his fingers through his hair. “The women and children are indoors. The riot is contained to the village square. Wildeforde and Oliver are working to ensure it stays there.”
The tension around Greenhill’s jaw and eyes remained. It mirrored what Benedict assumed was his own.
He clapped a hopefully reassuring hand on the old man’s arm. “I’m sure it will be fine. Let’s just take some precautions. Send Daisy up to Cassandra’s room. Don’t tell Cass what’s happening, just find some way to get her dressed. If we evacuate, she needs to be the first one out of here.”
He didn’t give a toss about their guests, but the thought of his sister in the house, while drunken men with torches surrounded it, was like glass shards spearing through his chest. She trusted him, and his choices had put her in danger. It was unforgivable.
“Will it get to that, sir? Evacuation?”
Benedict tried to give the old man an encouraging smile. “I hope not. Gather all the footmen, the men from the stables, any able body that isn’t wearing a dress. Tell them to meet me in the servants’ hall with whatever weapons we have.”
“Does that include the guests? Should we warn them?”
Benedict paused. This damned party had been Amelia’s dream for months. He hated that it was even a consideration, but it was. “No. There’s no point causing a stir if it isn’t needed.” He’
d let her have this last thing before he left for America and she returned home to London. Before he never saw her again. The thought flayed him, but he shoved it away.
“Shall I fetch Lady Asterly? She was very concerned when you left.”
“No.” The word came out desperate and barely human.
Greenhill frowned.
“Let’s not worry her. The less she knows, the better.”
A tight cough sounded from behind him. He didn’t need to see Greenhill’s face to tell him it was Amelia. Of course it was.
He faced her.
To an outsider, she might have seemed relaxed, her hand casually resting on the banister. But there was nothing gentle in her expression. Her lips were thinned, and her head cocked. “I can assure you that a state of not knowing does not make any woman feel ‘better.’ Particularly under these circumstances.”
She looked him up and down. Her anger turned into fear, hurt, and empathy as she took in his appearance—the mud on his collar, the graze on his forehead, his wild hair.
“It’s bad,” she said. It wasn’t a question but a flat statement.
He sighed. There was no point keeping it from her. She’d uncover the truth soon enough. “It’s not good.” His voice sounded bleak. Hopeless, even to him.
Her face softened, and she crossed the room, gathering him into her arms. He couldn’t bring himself to return the embrace. He didn’t want her comfort, and he sure as hell wasn’t in a place to provide any. If she noticed, she didn’t show it.
“I really thought they’d listen to you,” she said into his chest, her words muffled by his coat. “You’re their leader.”
Benedict laughed darkly. If only she had seen the way they’d run him off that stage—and the disgust and loathing with which they did it. “I was never their leader, but I used to be one of them. Not anymore.”
He pried her arms from around his waist and held her back. There was enough to do, right now in this minute, without having to console her. And he couldn’t watch her cry.
He’d done this. All of this. She hadn’t wanted to marry him, but he’d insisted. Because he wanted to be good, to be a gentleman. He could have stopped the spectacle that was their house party, but he hadn’t. Because he’d prioritized her wants over the needs of those he should have looked out for.
How to Survive a Scandal Page 25
