Page 14 of Weave me a Rope
“I have been courting Miss Milton, my lord,” Spen insisted. “I cannot imagine my aunt didn’t notice my interest.”
Cordelia could. Lady Corven had dismissed Cordelia as beneath her notice and therefore assumed Spen felt the same way.
Spen told his father, “I certainly did not spend any time with Lady Daphne beyond common courtesy. I intend to marry Miss Milton.”
The marquess’s dark eyes scanned Cordelia from head to toe. He then turned back to Spen and ignored her, as if she was of no account.
“Get rid of the chit,” he ordered. “I have signed the marriage settlements. You are betrothed to Lady Daphne.”
Cordelia couldn’t help a squeak of protest. The marquess glared at her. Spen’s swift look held contrition, despair, and defiance. He set his shoulders and said in a voice that tried to be firm but shook. “I have not agreed. I willnotagree. I will marry Miss Milton. When I turn twenty-one, if not before.”
“What is her breeding?” the marquess demanded. “What is her family?” He turned another scathing glare on Cordelia. Something shifted in his eyes, and she suddenly felt unclean, as if slugs crept over her skin. “She’s comely enough. Is she hot in bed? Her sort knows how to lead a man around by his prick.”
Spen protested. “Sir! Miss Milton is a lady! Be careful of your language.”
The marquess’s bark of harsh laughter was contemptuous. “Miss Milton is a common slut from a common family, with enough schooling in proper behavior to keep you panting at her feet rather than letting you have your way with her.”
Spen said, hotly, “It is not true.” The marquess ignored him. Instead, he focused his ice-blue eyes on Cordelia.
“Tell your uncle your tricks have failed, girl,” he said to Cordelia. “Our sort have your sort as mistresses, but never as wives. Not unless they are so badly pockets-to-let they’re willing to dig in the mire for a bride, which will never be the case for the future Marquess of Deerhaven. Tell him to set his honey trap for some other fool. A baronet or a squire drowning in debt and not too particular, like that idiot Walters who married his sister. Someone without a father to protect his family name.”
He gestured to the footmen with a jerk of his head. “Two of you escortMissMilton,” the emphasis he put on the honorific was an insult in itself, “and anyone she brought with her off the estate. If she won’t move, throw the baggage out with her bags. I want them gone when I come down from dealing with my son.”
“I am leaving with Miss Milton,” Spen insisted, defiantly.
The marquess didn’t spare him a glance as he turned on his heel and marched away, saying to the two other footmen, “Bring him.”
Chapter Six
While Cordelia watched,helpless to prevent it, the two footmen grabbed Spen by the arms and dragged him backward, easily ignoring his struggles.
Oh, Spen.She would cry later. The remaining footmen were moving on her, and she would not put it past them to drag her, too. Perhaps her uncle could do something to help the man she loved. “Gracie,” she said to her maid, “let Aunt Eliza know we are leaving. I want you and her downstairs at the front door with our belongings as quickly as you can make it.”
She fixed one of the footmen with a stare she had seen the Duchess of Haverford use on a gentleman who was in his cups and making a nuisance of himself. “You will go with my maid to carry our bags. You may need someone else to help.” She applied the look to his companion. “You will conduct me to my coachman and other servants so I can order them to have my father’s carriage brought around.”
For a moment, she thought they would be difficult, but they must have concluded her instructions fitted within the commands of their marquess, for they nodded and obeyed.
She had to get Aunt Eliza out of here before that horrid man did something nastier still.
Oh, Spen.
No. She could not let herself break down. That evil monster could not hurt Spen too much. Her beloved was his heir. Andin a few short months, Spen would be twenty-one. No wonder he had warned her they might have to marry in defiance of the marquess! She wished they had known the man had misunderstood who Spen planned to marry.
Again, fear and grief threatened to overwhelm her. Again, she thrust them away.
She could break down after she had safely removed her people from this house.
*
Spen lay onhis stomach while the housekeeper, who oversaw the estate’s still room, slathered salve on the stripes where his father’s whip had broken the surface. She said nothing, her lips pressed tightly together. Her eyes spoke for her, screaming her anger and disdain. For Spen? Or for the marquess?
Spen hoped it was the marquess, for he was desperate to know whether Cordelia and her aunt were safely away. When he had tried to ask, the brutal footman—one of the two who had held him for his father’s beating—had threatened him. “Shut your lip, or I’ll shut it for you. My lord.”
The last two words were a sneer.The marquess won’t let them kill me.They could make him even more uncomfortable, though. Many of his bruises had been his punishment for fighting them when they first seized him at his father’s command. One had held him by his elbows pulled behind his back while the other applied a fist to his face, shoulders, and thighs.
Not the torso, the marquess had instructed. “I want him alive to sire an heir who isn’t the brat.”
Lord Deerhaven was too proud to repudiate John as someone else’s get, but he was also determined the only other son born to a wife of his would not inherit. No, Spen’s lifewas not in danger. The beating had been designed to cause the maximum amount of pain possible without more than minor, and easily mended, damage.
