Page 72 of The Trouble with Tweed

“Fine. Fine. I’ll go to my country estate,” Nelson all but spit.

It was difficult for Michael to loosen his grip on Nelson, but finally he slackened his fingers from the man’s lapel and throat. Nelson dusted himself off and savagely jerked his waistcoat back into place.

“Don’t forget.” Ettrick shoved a large finger so close to Nelson’s nose that the man winced. “One year. Not a day less.”

Nelson scowled and hurried from the garden, casting one last disgruntled look over his shoulder.

“Thank you for your assistance, Ettrick,” Michael said.

“My pleasure.”

CHAPTER 23- CLAIRE

After Claire had seen Sylvia safely deposited in the Rutheridge carriage with her mother, she went back to the ballroom. She lingered long enough to be claimed for a dance by a man so boring she couldn’t remember a word they spoke all throughout the quadrille. Afterward, she slipped back out to the gardens, looking for Michael.

Claire crept toward the garden room where she’d last seen Lord Nelson, pausing to listen for any sign that she wasn’t alone. All she saw was the same cobblestone enclosure ringed with shrubs. There was no sign of Michael or of Lord Nelson.

Claire had to know for certain, however. She began ruffling through the scratchy tendrils of the shrubbery. She just needed to see, to assure herself that Nelson wasn’t dead, that she wasn’t in danger of a hangman’s noose, or possibly worse—a one-way ticket to a prisoner colony.

“Were you just checking that bush for Lord Nelson’s corpse?” Michael laughed from behind her.

Claire whipped around, her cheeks heating. “No. I mean, yes. Maybe.”

He crossed his arms and grinned. “It would make more sense for you to be checking for fresh burial plots.”

She lifted her chin. “Certainly not. You don’t have a smudge of dirt on your person.”

“I assure you, Nelson left under his own power.”

“Oh.”

Claire wrinkled her nose when she realized she’d sounded disappointed.

Michael laughed, then examined her for several moments. “Thank you for the service you did my sister.”

Claire shrugged. “Of course. She would have done the same for me.”

“Not hardly.” He chuckled. “While you didn’t kill him, you did thoroughly break his nose. He’ll never be quite as pretty, ever again.”

“Perhaps it will remind him not to prey on young ladies. And perhaps it might help some less-discerning young ladies keep their distance.” Claire winced, realizing how her words might be construed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean⁠—”

“No apologies needed. Truly. Sylvia is intelligent, but she’s always been a bit impulsive. Nevertheless, she learns from her mistakes. I doubt anything of the sort will ever happen again.”

“I find it remarkable you’re so level-headed about the entire ordeal.”

Michael chuffed a laugh. “I was far less so when discussing the matter with Nelson.”

“It’s probably embarrassing for Sylvia that you and I know the truth of one of her greatest mistakes.” Claire frowned down at the shrub which had concealed an entire person only a half an hour before. “Then again, perhaps it’s better for it to be out in the open so it can be dealt with.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Michael smiled. “That being said, are you finally ready to tell me what it is that I did? To make you not speak to me for nearly four years, I mean.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Haven’t we been through enough this evening?”

“So there is something.” He cocked his head and frowned. “You know, sometimes you make it very difficult not to be angry with you, Claire.”

She blinked. “Pardon me?”

“You’ve been holding something against me for four years, and this is the first time you’ve admitted that there actually even is a something. I thought our relationship meant more to you than that.”