Page 47 of Vanquished By A Viscount
“Good God, man!” he snapped at himself as he neared the house, startling a maid, who was tidying up what appeared to be a few refreshments that some of the guests had taken outside at an earlier time. “Sorry,” he apologized to her, then darted into the house.
The weather was pleasant enough that most of the guests were likely outside. So Gray was surprised when he encountered Lady Patience and Miss Kennedy in the conservatory that he entered the house through. More alarmingly, Lady Patience was in tears as Miss Kennedy scolded her for some reason.
“…will not have behavior like this,” Miss Kennedy was saying, a deep frown on her face. “It is unseemly, and—oh! Mr. Hawthorne. I did not see you there.”
“Miss Kennedy, Lady Patience,” Gray said, approaching the two women with a mad mixture of dread about what might havethe two women in such a state and gratitude that he could have something besides the conundrum of Howard and Charlie to worry about. “Can I be of some assistance?”
“Lady Eudora has pursued Dr. Pettigrew with single-minded focus and no one has scolded her,” Lady Patience hissed to her chaperone without answering Gray’s question. “If I do not do the same with Lord Iverson, Lady Winifred will?—”
“Your offer of help is kind, sir,” Miss Kennedy raised her voice to cut off her charge. “But this is a matter that I can resolve independently.”
“I will not have you take me away from Hawthorne House,” Lady Patience muttered, crossing her arms and sending Gray a look that asked for his help.
While Gray could not have cared one way or another if Lady Patience stayed or was taken home, he knew that Barbara would feel the loss of one of her guests acutely, and that it would send her into an even deeper melancholy than she already had.
“Perhaps if some sort of activity was arranged that gave the ladies more of a chance to interact with the gentlemen,” Gray suggested. “That way, there would be no need for pursuits or retreats.” He appealed to both women.
Lady Patience seemed willing to consider any suggestions. “Lady Eudora says?—”
“That young woman is a menace, and she will find herself on the wrong side of society before her twenty-first birthday,” Miss Kennedy interrupted again.
Gray was inclined to agree with her, but before he could say as much, he caught sight of Charlie crossing past the conservatory doorway.
“If you will excuse me,” he said quickly to the ladies, hurrying past them in the hope of catching Charlie. “I will give this matter thought. Please do not leave Hawthorne House yet, Miss Kennedy.”
He did not wait to see how his plea was received. With a complete lack of grace, he stumbled quickly into the hallway and shouted, “Charlie!” with far too much emotion.
Charlie had not quite made it all the way to the front hall. He jerked to a stop, his shoulders hunching for a moment, then spun to face Gray.
“Wait,” Gray said, raising one hand as he marched down the hall to meet his lover. He did not like the wary look in Charlie’s eyes at all, so he rushed to say, “Yes, I knew Howard in Italy. And yes, the man is a charming rogue who had me in every which way that?—”
He stopped and was nearly sick. That was not in any way even close to what he’d intended to say when he opened his mouth.
Worse still, Charlie tensed and sucked in a breath, jealousy obvious in his expression. “What you did in the past and who you did it with is no concern of mine,” he said overly formally, meaning exactly the opposite of the words he said.
“Truly,” Gray said, restless and desperate to make the situation better. “I did not know he would arrive on my doorstep like this.”
“I did,” Charlie said, his face twitching back and forth between stony and overly emotional. Gray assumed he meant that Howard had mentioned to him in some letter or another that he would be paying a visit to Hawthorne House to discuss the railroad, but he was proved wrong when Charlie went on with, “I should have known that your sordid past would come back to revisit you.”
He turned to walk away, but Gray leapt after him, grabbing his sleeve. “No!” he gasped. “No, no, no! Do not walk away from me like that, as if I invited all of this as a means of frustrating or humiliating you.”
Charlie turned back to him with a doubtful expression.
Gray latched onto that, recalling everything that had happened surrounding Howard’s arrival. “You saw how surprised I was,” he said, lowering his voice as Mr. Gunnerson and Mr. Lindhurst walked through the front hall toward the door within sight of them. “Do not allow yourself for a moment to believe that I am in any way false with you or that I arranged for Howard to interrupt what has become a much longed for reconciliation between the two of us.”
Charlie went completely still, staring at Gray. His stance softened a bit, but his eyes were still hard with conflicted thoughts. Finally, he said, “Howard?”
Gray wanted to growl with frustration. “Mr. Bradford, then. Call him whatever you will. You must know that I did not invite this.”
“Anyone with eyes can see your feelings toward him,” Charlie said, far too quietly.
“Anyone with eyes feels that way about him,” Gray countered. He fixed Charlie with an expression that asked whether he had not felt the same magnetic pull that Howard possessed.
Charlie let out a breath like a hissing teakettle and rubbed a hand over his face. “He does have a remarkable amount of charisma about him,” he admitted.
“You see? You cannot fault me for?—”
“Ah. Grayson, Lord Broxbourne, there you are,” Robert’s voice interrupted the fraught moment.
