Page 98 of Miss Dignified
“We bring news, Marcus,” Lydia said. “Good news.”
“Mama, you should have the chair,” Marcus replied. “It is good to see you, though I must apologize for the surrounds.”
Marcus spoke stiffly, and because Dylan had been to war and because he knew Marcus somewhat, he realized that the earl was trying very hard not to cry.
The countess advanced on her son and wrapped him in a hug. “You are alive. You are alive and a bit skinny, but well enough. My relief knows no bounds, and, Marcus, your cousin Wesley has much to answer for.”
Tremont patted his mother’s back awkwardly, sent Lydia a helpless look, and when no aid came from that quarter, he gingerly hugged his mother.
“Wesley has arranged passage for me, and while I am glad to have this chance to make my farewells and apologies in person, I really must… Captain, it’s not safe for the ladies here.”
“Then it’s not safe for you,” the countess retorted. “Marcus, my dearest boy, you labor under the terrible misapprehension that you killed that Finchly fellow. You did not. He’s kicking his heels at the Finchly family seat, probably growing portly and thinning on top.”
Marcus’s next bewildered gaze landed on Dylan. “Is this true?”
Dylan nodded. “Glover set you up. Chicken blood, drama, collusion. He turned Finchly loose on your sister and included a quantity of strong punch among the seducer’s tools. Wesley wants your title and wealth, but he could not have you tried for any felonies. He apparently hoped Bonaparte’s forces would put period to your existence, but the French instead obliged the side of decency.”
Marcus turned loose of his mother and sank to the cot. “Wesley was so… so helpful. So concerned. I was an idiot.”
“I am your older sister,” Lydia said, quite crisply. “I was the bigger idiot, Marcus. You were trying to defend my honor, and all I wanted was to feel grown up, wicked, and sophisticated.”
Marcus looked up at her as if he was having trouble following his native tongue. “You are my sister. You were innocent, until Finchly misbehaved with you, and Wesley said he did not want to tell me, but because I was the head of the family, he thought I had to know.”
The Countess of Tremont took the place beside Marcus on the cot. “Wesley was your second. You were already the earl, and Finchly was and is a mere mister. You were prohibited by any rubric of gentlemanly conduct from dueling with him, and yet, your cousin doubtless planted the idea in your head and supplied the pistols you used.”
Marcus stared hard in the direction of a crack running up the plaster of the opposite wall. “You are right, Mama. I ought not to have challenged Finchly, not the done thing for a peer to challenge a mister. I didn’t grasp that until I was in Spain—duels were fashionable with a certain type of officer—but I supposed Wesley had been as vague on the rules as I had been. Finchly, though, was already in uniform.Heshould have known the rules even if Wesley…”
A silence spread, while Marcus stared, and his mama sat beside him, looking diminutive and hopeful.
“I did not kill Finchly?” Marcus put the question to Dylan. “Truly? I aimed wide, but he went down like the hero of a Drury Lane tragedy, and there was that blood.”
“He is quite alive,” Dylan said. “I peeked at his record at Horse Guards. He was artillery. Mustered out before the Hundred Days and did not come back for Waterloo.”
“I suppose that’s something,” Marcus said, rising and offering his mother his hand. “But, Captain, I must ask you to see their ladyships safely away, because your news does not change my plans. I’m off to Philadelphia, and I will promise to be in touch as best I can. Wesley booked passage for me…”
He resumed staring at the crack on the opposite wall. “Booked passage for me in steerage under my own name, the rotter. And he was doubtless going to give me tuppence of my own money with which to start a new life, assuming I didn’t expire of lung fever before reaching the New World. I suppose it cannot be helped.”
The countess was gaping, while Lydia’s gaze had narrowed in a manner that did not bode well for dunderheaded younger brothers.
“You have committed no wrong,” Lydia said. “Wesley lied to you, used you, manipulated you, intimidated me and Mama, turned Uncle Reggie into a sot… and you are still planning to simply take ship?”
Marcus nodded. “’Fraid so, Lydia. Needs must. Perhaps it’s for the best that I’m officially alive, but I am still compelled by circumstances to quit this sceptered isle.”
“I don’t understand,” Lydia said in tones that conveyed inchoate fratricide. “I do not understand why you would turn your back on the family who needs you. The tenant farmers and their families, the pensioners, the staff at Tremont… They are all suffering, and Uncle still has your power of attorney.”
“I do not understand either,” the countess said. “Marcus, you must explain your reasoning to us.”
Tremont adopted his parade-inspection posture again. “I am not at liberty to do that, Mama, and you must trust that I am making the best decision for all concerned. I appreciate what you’ve told me regarding Finchly, and I will see Uncle’s power of attorney revoked, but I must still be very much an absentee earl.”
Lydia swiveled on Dylan like a man-o’-war coming about. “Is this your doing? Have you struck some sort of bargain with my brother that goes back to army days and more masculine stupidity prancing around beneath a garland of gentlemanly honor?”
Dylan expected Marcus to disabuse his sister of any such notion, but Marcus merely looked more pained than usual.
The trick to reconnaissance was to assemble a picture, as complete a picture as possible. The process wanted diligence. Skinny livestock might mean a drought, or might mean the French had just come through and killed all the fatted cattle. Only careful listening at the local tavern and a study of the terrain, the crops, the rivers, the sheep and goats, would put the one fact of skinny cattle into a meaningful context.
And that pained expression from Marcus, that failure to come to Dylan’s defense, were the last pieces of information needed to unravel Marcus’s motivations.
Dylan went to the door. “Dorning!”
