Page 79 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
Jo stilled, ducking her head and lifting her shoulders in a small shrug as her fingers tightened around the sack of toffees until the paper crinkled. “Sad,” she said in a small voice, as if she were betraying a secret. “She wouldn’t come down. She said—she said—” Her lower lip trembled just a bit. “She said you didn’t want us anymore.”
Luke’s heart wrenched in his chest. “It’s…likely that I have given her such an impression,” he admitted, his throat tight. “But it isn’t true.”
“But you shouted at her,” Jo said, and she swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “And now we have toleave, and I won’t have my tutors, or Georgie, or Imogen. I don’t want to go back to Hatfield!”
Hatfield.Christ. “Jo, I have made such a mess of things,” he said, and he dropped to his knees there on the cold ground so she did not have to crane her neck to peer up at him. “You’re not going to back to Hatfield if I have anything to say of it.” And he had quite a lot to say of it, in fact.
Luke had not much experience with children, nor any idea of what he was meant to tell this little girl who had lost bits of her family one at a time and stood to lose more still—but he was damn well going totry. And so he set his hand upon her shoulder, and looked up at Mrs. Knight, and said with as much contrition as he could muster, “Please. Please give us a just few moments to speak. I owe her that.”
And more, that speaking glance she slanted him said without words. But after a long moment in which those piercing eyes seemed to peer straight into his soul, picking apart whatever stray bits of character might lurk somewhere deep within him—and he had the impression that she was a rather good judge of it—at last she took a step backward.
Just enough to provide him space to pass.
∞∞∞
“I don’t suppose I need to remind you,” Mrs. Knight said, in a venomously sweet tone as she led the way down the long hallway, “that my husband is just across the mews.”
“No,” Luke said, as he followed at a sedate pace, Joanna at his side. An open door revealed a library, and he paused before it. “Perhaps in here?”
“I’m not allowed in there,” Joanna said, in a truculent voice. “Mrs. Knight says it’s full of naughty books, and I must be married before I can read them.” By the purse of her lips, Luke assumed that she had judged this an enormously unfair restriction to have been placed upon her.
Naughty books? What sort of business was this woman running?
Mrs. Knight gave a throaty laugh. “That’s right, my dear. But I’ll gift you a subscription as a wedding present if you like, and you may take full advantage of our library then.” To Luke, she said, “The gaming room would be more appropriate, I think. It’s just through here.” She made a smooth gesture of her right hand, indicating a room off to the side.
Joanna hurried on ahead, her feet pounding out a rapid tattoo across the carpeted floor, but when Luke peeked his head in after her, all he saw was a number of tables covered in green baize and wreathed by chairs. Without any patrons present, it held only the suggestion of gambling rather than the reality of it, and any implements used for that purpose had been stashed away, no doubt to make their reappearance come next evening.
Beneath the glow of a lamp that had been set upon a table—no doubt by some enterprising member of the staff who had gone on ahead—Joanna was flipping through her Latin primer and delicately unwrapping a toffee candy.
“I would suggest that you refrain from wandering, my lord,” Mrs. Knight said a touch too sweetly. “The staff on hand are never far, and they will not hesitate to act if required.”
“Understood,” he said, and a flicker of movement from the shrouded staircase caught his eye. A tiny flick of skirts there in the darkness, pale rose silk far beyond what any servant could afford, or what any member of the staff would reasonably have worn. Lingering just out of sight; within hearing distance, but proceeding no further.
So Lizzie had come down after all—but she didn’t wish to make her presence known. Probably she did not trust him with Joanna.
Could he blame her? Unconsciously, he moved a step toward her—
Mrs. Knight cleared her throat, eyes narrowed to slits, and she gave a firm shake of her head—a silent command. “Lady Ashworth does not wish to see you,” she reiterated, and he supposed it was a veiled suggestion that he was not meant to have noticed Lizzie on the stair—and now that hehad, he was meant to behave as if he hadnot. “Youwillrespect her wishes.”
“I understand, Mrs. Knight,” he said. “Thank you. For everything.”
“I don’t require your thanks, my lord. I require yourcompliance.” With a brief nod, hardly more than the vaguest concession to civility, she turned and swept down the hallway, no doubt expecting her instructions to be obeyed to the letter.
And Luke was cognizant of the fact that the tiny sliver of rose-hued skirts remained precisely where he had first seen them there upon the stairs as he turned back into the gaming room.
“Do you promise?” Jo asked, peeking up at him from beneath her lashes as he slid into the seat beside her. “I won’t have to go back to Hatfield?”
Luke hesitated. In fact, hecouldpromise exactly that. A man was the natural master in a marriage—he could forbid Lizzie from leaving. But that would be only a host of new complications along with the old. “I can promise that I will do everything I can to keep you here,” he said. “And if youmustgo, you’ll still have your tutors. And I’ll go with you—and Willie, of course. And Georgie will visit at his school holidays, and Imogen—” Probably it wasn’t the wisest of decisions to make promises on Imogen’s behalf, but he was reasonably certain he could wrangle Wycombe into acquiescence, given the man’s apparent gratefulness toward him. “Oh, Jo,” he sighed. “You’re just a little girl. You shouldn’t have to worry about any of this.”
Her jaw tightened, and she directed her gaze back to her Latin primer—but not before he’d seen the glassy sheen of tears in her eyes. “Why does Lizzie want to go back to Hatfield, then?” she asked. “Couldn’t you just say you’re sorry for shouting at her?”
In the distance, there was a soft creak. It might have just been the building settling, but he hoped—he hoped it was Lizzie creeping down the stairs. Hoped she was listening.
“That would be a fine start,” he said. “But sometimes, Jo, an apology just isn’t enough. It is so simple a thing to say something in the heat of anger—but once said, you cannotunsaythose words. It doesn’t even matter if you didn’tmeanthem to begin with. And sometimes,” he said, and heard his voice grow rough, “sometimes, those words are powerful enough to break all sorts of things: friendship; trust; hearts. You can damage those things so badly that even if youdidapologize, you might not be believed.”
Jo’s lashes flickered. Her small hand curled into a fist over the open pages of her book. “Like Papa. He made all sorts of promises we never believed,” she said softly, the tiniest hint of a catch in her voice. “Lizzie said—Lizzie said—”
His arm came up around her, and she nestled her face against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Jo,” he said, and heard her swallow down a small, strained sound of grief.
