He cared for the friends he already had, and that was all; he would not add any other name to that list, in case fate should decide to strike a line through it, hurling him back into a grief he had fought long and hard to overcome.
Just then, an almighty crash erupted across the peaceful garden party. A scream went up, piercing through Edmund’s skull like a javelin, igniting a wave of visceral visions that should have held him rigid in his seat. Instead, he was up and out of his chair in an instant, eyes scouring the scene, heart lurching with panic as he saw the glint of smashed glass and the gleam of something red.
Ahead of him, the group of young ladies who had been keeping Isolde company were crowded around something in the center of their tight circle. And where Isolde had been standing, the other women had closed ranks, all turning at once to glare at a figure who swayed a short distance away. A very familiar figure, for Edmund had wanted to punch that ‘gentleman’ in the face the moment he had seen Lord Spofforth touch Isolde’s waist.
Putting two and two together, the tense scene left Edmund with only one possible reason why he could not see Isolde there anymore, and who the group of ladies were protecting.
He ran without thought, closing the distance in seconds, terrified of what he might see.
CHAPTER TEN
“Ido not know who you think you are, Lady Isolde,” Lord Spofforth shouted, slurring his words. “You have broken my heart! You made me believe that you were the lady I had been searching for, all these years. My Aphrodite, my Artemis, my angel. A good and honest woman, at last! But you have been… bewitched by another, and I shall die alone and destitute because you will not love me!”
Edmund skidded to a halt beside the group of ladies, nudging them aside without a care for propriety in his desperation to see if his awful assumption was correct.
Isolde sat in the center of that defensive circle, her crystalline blue eyes peering up at Edmund with such sorrow, such anguish, such…reliefthat it knocked the air out of his lungs for a moment. The front of her pretty day dress was stained with the most horrifying spray of scarlet, the color spreading as swiftly as Edmund’s panic rose.
Blood… It is blood… Lord Spofforth has injured her. Lord Spofforth has decided that if he cannot have her, no one can.Edmund could not think clearly as he dropped to his knees, grabbing for Isolde’s trembling hand.
“What happened?” he demanded to know, unable to soften his voice despite the situation. Indeed, all he wanted to do was march directly at Lord Spofforth and hit him with a punch so hard that he would be unconscious for at least a few hours.
To his surprise, Isolde gripped his hand tightly, as if she needed it to anchor herself. “It is nothing.”
“It is not nothing,” Edmund growled. “You are bleeding. I must get you to a physician at once.”
He tried to pull her up so he could carry her out of there, but she made her body a dead weight, resisting. “I am not bleeding, Edmund,” she told him, the sound of his name from her lips, spoken so gently, squeezing the last bit of breath out of his lungs. “Not much anyway—only where the little bits of glass caught me. The rest is port.”
“What?” Edmund blinked, staring at the spreading stain on her dress, still fearing the worst.
“He threw a carafe of port at me,” Isolde explained, wiping her eyes. “I believe he only meant to hurl the liquid, but the carafe slipped out of his hand and smashed. Is anyone else hurt?”
She raised her gaze to the ladies who surrounded her, their formerly furious expressions transformed into admiration as they fluttered their eyelashes and cast coy smiles down at Edmund.
A lady with flaming red hair wafted her fan in front of her face. “I think a few little pieces struck my ankle, but I dare not check for myself.”
The blonde woman beside her nudged her hard in the ribs. “Do not embarrass yourself. He is not going to tend to you; he is evidently here for Isolde and Isolde alone.”
“I can tend to any cuts!” a lady with strawberry-blonde hair declared, raising her hand. “If we all retreat to the drawing room, I can be an impromptu physician!”
Against all sense and reason, Edmund reached out and touched the spreading red stain that soaked the front of Isolde’s dress, pressing his fingertips gingerly to her stomach. It was improper, it could have caused a scandal, but in that instant, he did not care; he needed to be sure that she was telling the truth, that she was not terribly injured.
He brought his fingertips to his nose first, scenting the rich, spicy notes of port. Then he tasted the thin coating of red liquid, his tongue confirming what Isolde had already told him.
She gazed at him, mouth open in astonishment, as if she meant to say something but could not muster a single word.
“Ladies, please take yourselves into the drawing room, as suggested. Any cuts or injuries must be tended to with haste,” Edmund said, snapping out of his panic, the visions whirling through the back of his mind sinking back into the dark.
She is not hurt badly. She is safe… which is more than can be said for Lord Spofforth.Edmund got to his feet and glowered at the drunkard who wobbled and staggered a short distance away, muttering unkind laments under his breath.
“Ladies—inside the manor,now,” Edmund repeated. He did not want there to be any witnesses of the female persuasion for what he was about to do next.
Bizarrely giddy, the ladies swept Isolde up in their merry gaggle and ushered her across the sandstone piazza, up to the terrace, and into Lord and Lady Montrose’s pleasant country manor. Some of the older ladies followed, and Edmund was relieved to see that they took care of Julianna, waking her and leading her inside.
“Come now, Your Grace,” one man said as Edmund stalked toward Lord Spofforth, fury brimming within him. “Robert has imbibed too much and behaved like a fool. It has happened to the best of us.”
Edmund rounded on the man who had spoken. “And if he had deliberately thrown that carafe instead of merely dropping it, my ward could have been severely injured.” His stomach roiled, his mind ablaze with the past. “I will not tolerate poor excuses. Isolde—LadyIsolde—did not give that wretch any false hopes.Indeed, she thought him a fine gentleman untilheproved otherwise.”
He did not offer any further details, for Isolde’s sake. But he hoped that Lord Spofforth’s behavior would ensure that nothing incendiary found its way into the scandal sheets. After all, the cretin was accustomed to silencing gossipmongers.
