Page 37 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
For a moment there was only silence, and when he glanced up to see the faint shame that burned in Talbot’s cheeks, he found himself only slightly mollified.
“Five thousand,” Talbot said at last, in a reedy whisper.
Luke rifled through the desk for ink and paper, and scratched out a bank draft. “Leave,” he said as he passed it across the desk. “Immediately. Should I ever lay eyes upon you again, you can be certain that you will regret it.”
To his credit, Talbot hesitated a few seconds. But inevitably, as Luke had expected he would, he snatched up the note, folded it up, and tucked it into his pocket. His chair scraped across the floor as he pushed it back, heading for the door.
“My children?” he asked, one foot already over the threshold.
“As they have been for years,” Luke said. “Which is to say,none of your goddamned concern.”
“I do love them,” Talbot said, and his voice scratched so at his throat that Luke was tempted to believe him somewhat. “Idolove them, but…”
But not enough. Notnearlyenough. After a moment, Talbot made a rough sound at the very back of his throat and proceeded through the door, closing it behind him.
Which left only Lizzie to contend with. And somehow, Luke did not expect that she would be any more pleasant to manage than her worthless father.
Chapter Sixteen
The tea was growing cold. Lizzie wasn’t certain precisely how long she’d been left waiting, but the wait had been interminable. There had been little sound from the upper floor to lend any insight into what was occurring, and she didn’t know whether she ought to be grateful that Luke had kept the noise to a minimum and avoided waking the children, or annoyed that it would have been impossible to eavesdrop without creeping back upstairs and pressing her ear to the door.
Should she have dressed? No—it was still the dead of night, and she would have to venture back upstairs to do so anyway. There was always the chance that she might cross paths with Papa, that she would fail, this time, to contain the frothing rage that threatened to suffuse her still.
That jittery feeling slid back into her limbs, and she leapt up from her chair near the window, pacing the floor of the library in frantic strides. What if Luke failed to convince Papa to surrender Georgie’s school funds? What if Papa threw him out altogether? What if—
“You’ll wear a hole straight through the floor at this rate.”
A startled shriek stuck in her throat, and she swallowed it back down with no small amount of effort. Luke lounged in the chair she had recently vacated—somehow she had been so lost within the tangle of her thoughts that she had not even noticed him. The lamplight flickered over his face, and his eyes seemed imbued with a strange brilliance. Exhaustion wore heavily upon him, no doubt the results of having been roused from a sound slumber. His crimson dressing gown, belted loosely, had slipped slightly off of one shoulder, and the bare skin revealed there suggested that he wore little, if anything, beneath it.
Lizzie’s mouth went abruptly dry as a bone. A prickling awareness tripped down her spine, that jittery feeling renewed for an entirely different reason. This was how reputations were ruined—exactly likethis. A woman of character did not meet alone with a man in the depths of the night while in her nightclothes. Whilehewas inhis.
And she was staring. Like an absoluteidiot.
The swift breath she drew seemed to rattle in her lungs. “The tea,” she said in a strange croak, and she nearly stumbled over her own feet as she turned for the tea service that had been left, unattended, upon the small table. “It’s likely grown cold,” she said, jostling a cup on its mismatched saucer as she plunked a lump of sugar within. “Probably it’s oversteeped as well—”
An odd smile curled the corners of his lips. “Lizzie. I didn’t trulywant the tea.”
Her fingers stilled. “Oh,” she said, and gingerly replaced the tea cup, her brows drawing together.
“I thought it would keep you occupied while I spoke with your father,” he said. “At least long enough to save you from a second brush with a charge of murder in recent days.” He settled his chin in the cup of his hand, elbow braced upon the arm of his chair, and let out a long sigh. “You Talbotsdoseem to have a peculiar talent for embroiling yourselves in mischief. I have no doubt the lot of you will cause me no end of trouble.”
“Of course there will be an end,” she said, quite reasonably. “It’s—it’s not as though you’restayinghere. Surely you’ll return to London soon.”
Another long, fraught silence. Those blue eyes seemed to stare into her very soul. “Yes. Soon,” he said at last, though something inscrutable lurked within the blaze of his eyes.
Unsettled, Lizzie curled her toes into the threadbare carpet beneath her feet. “Papa?” she risked asking, her fingers knitting before her.
“Gone.”
Her stomach performed a strange little flip. “And—Georgie’s school funds—”
“I didn’t let him take your money.” His fingers slid along his jaw, as if rubbing away the tension that lingered there.
“Thank you.” Her shoulders slumped with relief, her fingers unknotting themselves. Despite the fierce jangling of her nerves, little bubbles of words kept pressing against her teeth. “It’s only—he’s taken the household funds before—it’s not so very much at the moment, but still it isours—and now Georgie’s school funds—we’ve never had somuchto hide away from him—”
“Lizzie. It’s all right. He’s gone.” A brief hesitation. “For the moment.”
Her stomach clenched anew. “For the moment?” she squeaked.
