Page 67 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord
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“You can’t come with me,” Diana said as she climbed out of the carriage after Marcus. “I really do need to do this on my own.” For once tobepowerful. To be a force to be reckoned with. Strong in her own right; the sort of woman than not even a marquess would wish to cross. Even success would lead to a long road ahead to pull the estate from the brink of ruin. She would need every ounce of that strength for it.
Rafe hopped down from the seat beside the coachman, landing awkwardly on the uneven ground before the steps of the house. “We have come all this way,” he said incredulously, “and we aren’t allowed tojoinyou?”
“This is my battle,” she said. “If I have need of you, I will be grateful for your assistance—but I would like to fight it myself first.” Diana brushed at her skirts, well aware that she looked somewhat less than presentable, given that she had spent the last several hours in a cramped carriage.
Even the act of exiting the carriage had kicked up a plume of dust, which now coated the hem of her skirts. Probably her hair looked like a rat’s nest, given that she’d done her part to keep little Edward entertained on the journey, and he’d recently discovered the delights of hair-pulling. And she’d yet to make time to fix her spectacles, which still sat somewhat askew on her face.
Lydia released Edward, who was delighted to be free of the carriage at last, and he toddled about in his adorable little baby-gait, plopping down on his bottom to grasp a nice, flat stone in his hand and wave it about. “We will be here,” Lydia said, crouching down beside her son, heedless of the mess the action would make of her skirts. “If you have need of us, you have only to shout.”
Marcus looked as if he had had to gnaw back a full essay’s worth of words. At last he said, “I, at the very least, should go with you. Father—”
“Father didn’t give a damn about any of us,” Diana said. “And that washisfailing, and none of our own. I don’t need you to be my father, Marcus. I need you to be my brother, and to let me make my own choices.” She held out her hand to him, and he took her fingers and squeezed, his throat working as he swallowed heavily.
“All right,” he said finally. “All right. But you shout if you need me. I willbe here.”
“I know.” He always had been. Really, it had been just the three of them for years. And then, with Lydia, four—with Edward, five. Soon to be more, still. So long as she could prove formidable enough to bend the marquess to her will.
Diana cleared her throat, chasing down the lump of emotion that had risen there. “Has anyone got a paper and pencil?”
Rafe patted at his pockets. “I have,” he said. “Somewhere.” He found within the interior pocket of his coat a pencil and a small notebook, and Diana snatched them from his fingers, thrusting them into Marcus’ hands.
“Take notes,” she said. “On—just everything. Whatever you can see that needs repairing, what you even suspect might require it. Lotsof notes.” The sooner that estimations for repairs could be made, the better. “And…do come, if I shout.”
“Of course,” Marcus said, and a hint of a smile, reluctantly given, played about his mouth. “Though, somehow, I think I have less to fearforyou thanhehasfromyou. You look fit to do murder.”
“Notmurder,” she protested over her shoulder, though she felt fierce enough for the task as she proceeded up the steps. “Perhaps a light maiming.”
And she set her shoulders, and rapped her knuckles upon the dust-covered surface of the front door.
Chapter Twenty Six
Nothing happened. Nothing at all. There was only the sound of that brisk knock echoing within, bouncing off walls and floors. But not, notably, summoning forth anyone to answer the door.
She supposed she ought to have expected as much. The grounds, the lawn, the drive—they were all evidence enough of work left undone. Probably it had been years since there had last been a gardener, a groundskeeper. The staff that worked within the house would have likely been the last to go…but theyhadgone.
How had the marquess managed all this time, with no one to cook his meals, no one to manage his wardrobe, no one to draw his baths? Was it too terribly cruel of her to hope that it had been less pleasant even than the life he’d forced his son to live all these years?
Rafe cleared his throat some distance behind her. “Diana, I don’t think anyone is coming.”
Right—Diana set her shoulders, grabbed the handle, and pushed the door.
Crack. Well, the doorhadbeen locked, once. She supposed wood rot must have set in along the frame and eaten away its stability. The bolt that had once secured it had snapped clean through it, and the door swung open, producing a shrill squeal from hinges that hadn’t seen a good oiling in more years than she cared to guess at.
Marcus gave a great, gusty sigh. “I’ll write it down,” he muttered.
Diana wandered within, suppressing a shudder at the cobwebs that draped themselves along cornices and in corners, the thick coating of dust that turned the wainscoting a murky grey. Light struggled through windows that hadn’t seen a good wash in far too long, straining to penetrate the aura of pathos that had settled over the house in its entirety.
Her footsteps echoed back to her; evidence of an empty home. Not only devoid of people, but devoid of any features that might have blunted thesound—rugs, tapestries, furnishings. There was little evidence of anything of value even within the foyer, where she might have expected a few decorations for the sake of appearances.
Probably even those appearances were no longer necessary. With a house in such disrepair, she thought it profoundly unlikely that the marquess received many visitors. The sorry state of it continued on and on—everywhere she walked, she saw neglect, emptiness. Every bit as cold and empty as the marquess himself, she imagined.
She wandered through a library boasting only bare shelves, an airy music room whose purpose could only be divined through the rusting music stands carelessly tumbled in a far corner, sitting rooms with faded curtains and perhaps a lonesome chair or two too aged and derelict to have been worth much and with a few small tables that still bore the dusty imprints of the valuables that must have once stood upon them. She supposed thatthismust have been how the man had survived—eking out a meager existence by sacrificing bits of his family history a piece at a time, selling off one precious item after another as needed.
By some miracle, the stairs were sound, and she crept up them, wiping her hand free of the grime that had collected beneath her palm when she had set it on the bannister. Corridors branched out into the separate wings of the house, one row of closed doors after another. A scurrying sound behind one suggested signs of life—though not, she thought with a grimace,human.
Where was the damned marquess? Lurking like a beast in his lair, somewhere within the bowels of the house, no doubt. “Hello?” she called, and heard only the odd, hollow echo of her own voice shuddering back to her ears as it reverberated through empty space, upon blank walls and bare floors.
