Page 55 of Tempting the Marquess

Chapter11

Samantha sat rigidlyin the hackney, willing it to go faster.

Of course today, instead of ducking and diving and generally attempting to cause an accident at every corner, the blasted driver was a courteous man who actually stopped or slowed down for other carts and carriages. And she needed to get to Alexander as soon as possible. His most recent note lay crumpled in her hand, the parchment almost unreadable, but that didn’t matter. The brief message was imprinted on her brain.

Come to Langley House, as soon as you get this. News.

Hadthey finally returned from France? Could William have safely brought Lord Robert home and even now be standing in Alexander’s library, ready to sweep her up in his arms and promise never to leave her again?

The thought made her stomach lurch in anticipation, and she held a scented handkerchief to her nose. If only she didn’t feel quite so ill. This morning when she’d swung her legs out of bed to get up, a rush of dizziness had nearly made her topple face first onto the floor. A cool cloth pressed to the back of her neck had helped her head, but not her temper. It would be just her luck to have picked up some horrid illness now, after being perfectly fine the nearly five weeks William had been away. Nothing said “I love you and missed you and can’t wait to hold you close again” like fainting or decorating someone’s shoes.

Finally the hackney came to a jerking halt, and she swallowed hard several times before climbing down and pressing a coin into the driver’shand.

Hurrying up the steps, Samantha then practically elbowed a grim-faced Wallace out of the way as he opened the door, running as fast as her stomach would allow until she burst into the familiar first-floor library.

“Well?” she demanded, for once not even caring about windblown hair, an askew bonnet or cream pelisse flapping like duck wings. “What is the news, Alexander? Do you have a note for me, or are they finallyhome?”

“Samantha...” a hoarse, shaky voice began, and she turned in startled concern.

“Aunt Jane? You sound like you should be tucked up in bed! And Stephen and Caroline, what are you doinghere?”

“They are here because I asked them to come,” said Alexander in the most remote tone she’d ever heard, and a shudder of unease rippled through her body. His opulent library felt oppressive at the best of times, but the beloved faces around her were unusually blank, the atmosphere in the room so heavy she wanted to cough and clear her throat.

“What is going on?” she asked, far more tentatively. “Has poor Lord Robert taken a turn for the worst? Have they been delayed again?”

“No. We were not delayed again,” said a dull, slurred voice. “Even the British Army…gets its act together...once in a while.”

Samantha’s gaze jerked toward the corner of the room, and her hands flew to her mouth. The broad-shouldered man settled awkwardly in a padded Bath chair with a blanket draped over his legs might have been Alexander’s twin, except his skin was bronzed, he was horribly gaunt, and had a deep, vicious scar stretching halfway across hisface.

“Lord Robert?”

“For my sins,” he replied, and took a long swig straight from the near-empty brandy bottle cradled loosely in his hands.

“But if you are home, where is William?”

“Sam, perhaps you should sit down,” said Stephen woodenly.

Hysteria surged through her body. Swallowing hard again, she took several deep breaths and concentrated fiercely on remaining calm and composed.

“I don’t want to sit down,” she said, enunciating each word. “I want to know why everyone looks so very, very sick. I want to know why a badly injured man is nearly blind drunk in the corner of this library. But most of all I want to know where my William is. Someone better tell me. This minute.”

Lord Robert cleared his throat. “Lady Samantha, I’m sorry, so terribly sorry to tell you...” His voice cracked, and he coughed then winced. “Just as we were leaving the beach to row out to Southby’s ship...we came under fire from some stragglers on the beach. I’m not sure who they were. A French patrol perhaps...or deserters with a grudge. We left after dusk, yousee.”

“A patrol? Deserters? But Calais is supposed to be safe. Friendly to Englishmen.”

“It should have been. Our intelligence stated…that kind of enemy activity...occurred no more than sporadically…in thearea.”

“I don’t want to know about intelligence that was obviously anything but. I want to know about William! Was he injured? Did he swallow an ocean of seawater getting you out to the ship? Oh my poor darling, how awful, I must go to him at once,” she babbled wildly, the thought of him alone in his chamber, bruised, battered, and without someone to lovingly comfort him far too much to bear. Why hadn’t someone from Hastings House sent word? Surely it had been obvious how she felt about William.

But instead of a chorus of agreement and reassurance, the silence strained and stretched. Suddenly she knew with dreadful certainty Lord Robert’s story remained unfinished. Trembling, she reached out for the back of a chair to steady herself.

“There is something else, isn’t there.”

“Everything happened so fast,” the colonel whispered. “Standish had just put me in the vessel. He started to push us out into deeper water…when the first shot rang out. I yelled at him, again and again. Get into the fucking...excuse me...get into the boat, but he wouldn’t. Just kept pushing us out…’til the oarsmen could row by themselves. Then he said we must save ourselves...to go withouthim.”

A horrified cry tore from Samantha’s throat. “What?”

“I know. It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard...I yelled at him again. But he turned around…and swam back toward the beach.”