Page 4 of Unmasking a Wicked Marquess
“You should know what to think!” Philip seethed and stepped towards him.
“Robert, please,” Cecily called from her position part way up the stairs. “These are our friends. We are staying in their house.”
“And my horse was sabotaged when we were racing for a royal commission,” Robert insisted, meeting his wife’s panicked gaze.
“If this is jealousy at play, I will understand it and forgive it,” Philip said, his tone so calm that it infuriated Robert even more. “But take back that accusation this moment.”
He still hasn’t said he did not do it.
Robert glared at his friend and blinked. It was as if he saw Philip in a new light, that hard frown unshakeable.
“Cecily, we’re leaving.”
“What?” she spluttered, stepping around Amelia and Edward and coming down the stairs. “Robert, pray, think about this.”
“No, no, by all means, go.” Philip waved a hand at the door. “I will not have someone in my house accusing me of doing something … so foul. Get out, Robert.”
“Philip?” Amelia was the next one to cry out. “Calm yourself.”
“I will not be calmed. Did you hear what he said?”
Robert strode to the door and practically jumped off the steps in his eagerness to get out of that house.
“Robert? What are you thinking?” Cecily cried, running after him with Juliet in her arms who was now crying in alarm at the loud noises. Robert took his daughter in his arms, soothing her with soft tones.
“I don’t know what to think,” Robert muttered. “But if I find nothing to dispute what I have just heard, then I have no choice but to believe it, do I? It’s possible, Cecily, that Philip was never my friend at all.”
Chapter 1
Nineteen Years Later, 1817
“Careful with those horses. I cannot tell you of what value they are,” Edward called to the stable hands as he jumped down from his own horse. He landed with ease on the cobbled ground of the stable yard and shrugged off his tailcoat, heated on the bright sunny day.
The stable hands looked abruptly more nervous about their charges, eying the Marwari horses with wariness. The animals were rare from his travels to India. Sleek in build, lithe, athletic, and with uniquely pointing inward ears, Edward knew what a fine gift one of these animals would make to the king. The other was for his family to keep.
“Here, they are soft-natured if you know how to treat them right.” Edward strode towards the nearest horse and stroked him down the nose, humming softly in his ear. At once, the horse that had appeared to have a wild temper before softened and nuzzled his hand. “Good boy,” he whispered for only the horse to hear.
“We’ll look after them, My Lord,” called the familiar voice of the stable manager. A larger and burly bloke, he stepped forward with his wizened face beaming in a smile and bowed to Edward. “It is good to see you have returned from your travels.”
“Thank you, Bernard. It is good to see you too. I shall have to tell you all about what I saw some time.”
“I look forward to it.” Bernard waved his hat in farewell and went to help with the horses as Edward left the stable yard with a spring in his step.
For too long, he had been gone. First, there was the university in Oxford, then his travels, focusing most particularly on India and the continent. Now he was back and had sent his luggage ahead, he was impatient to see his family again.
He strode up the front porch steps towards the wide, red-bricked building, but before he could take hold of the door handle, the door itself was flung open inward, and a shock of dark hair flew at Edward.
He yelped and jumped back in surprise, for one minute thinking his father had bought a tall greyhound in his absence. There was raucous laughter from inside the house as Edward caught the unmistakable figure of his sister.
“Jane!” he shouted, catching her safely before they could tumble down the front steps together. “Oomph, you could have killed us then.”
“You’re home, you’re home,” Jane cried repeatedly, jumping up and down as she released him. Just reaching his shoulders, he could see she was much taller than when he had last seen her. Her dark hair was unmistakable, for it was the same black sheen they all possessed, him, his father, and his mother. As he peered past his sister and into the entrance hall, he saw both of his parents looked a little grayer than last time.
“There you are.” Philip opened his arms out wide, and Edward gladly walked towards his father, embracing him tightly. “Beware of your mother,” he whispered in Edward’s ear.
“What?”
“I do not think she intends to release you again.”
