Lady Paddington turned her body to follow Grayson’s apparently unsuccessful evasive maneuvers. “To think, a duke’s son and a duke’s daughter. I’m sure even the Regent will attend!”
“Grayson,” Tobias barked.
Grayson felt a hairsbreadth from complete rudeness. “My lady, I—”
“Grayson.” Tobias’s voice cut through the air with an edge of panic. “She’s come out of the copse with the groom. Something is wrong.” He abandoned Grayson to Lady Paddington and urged his horse into a hard gallop.
“Don’t worry,” said Lady Paddington, unaware of the frustrated tension wafting toward her. “I’ll act surprised when I hear the official announcement.”
Grayson’s patience snapped. “I fear you will be authentically surprised.” He didn’t even tip his hat when he whipped Trott around the barouche and took off toward the copse. Henrietta sat atop Lemon, her spine stiff, her hair disarranged, a pistol tucked into her groom’s waistband. Tobias arrived before Grayson, but at the breakneck speed Grayson set, not by much. He vaulted out of the saddle as Tobias grabbed the pistol and charged for the copse of trees.
The groom raced after him and pulled him back. “Ain’t nothin’ you can do, sir.”
Tobias’s grip on the pistol tightened. “There sure as hell is.”
“Grayson?” Henrietta’s voice pulled him from the conflict erupting between Tobias and the groom.
She’d dismounted Lemon and stood like a shadow beside him.
He didn’t dare touch her—she seemed too fragile—and her pallid face offered no answers. “Henrietta, what’s happened?”
“Only what was promised.” Her voice trembled. She took in a racking breath. “Why didn’t you do as they asked, Grayson?”
He risked it, then. He grasped her shoulders, rubbing his palms up and down her chilled arms. She didn’t break, but her face looked shattered. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“Don’t you? The duchess’s gossip has done its work.”
“There’s to be no gossip. That’s why I came to find you, to tell you your grandfather and my father—they stopped her.”
She laughed, a harsh thing in the afternoon sun. “Then why did Stubly attack me? And right after I saw him speaking with the duchess. They stopped nothing.”
Now he understood why Tobias had grabbed the groom’s pistol. He kept his voice calm, the hands on her upper arms soft. “Are they still in the copse?”
Her lips pressed together. “I don’t know. Grayson—”
“Stay here.”
She cursed, called him back, but rage made him deaf to her pleas.
Once under the cover of trees, he saw the group in the distance, walking away from the copse.
Grayson stopped beside the groom, who stood watching Tobias.
Tobias ran toward the disappearing group, screaming. “You cowards! Get back here!”
In the distance, a figure stopped, turned slowly, and made its way toward them. The other figures continued walking away.
Grayson turned to the groom. “Miss Blake is alone. Go to her. I’ll take care of Mr. Blake. Get Miss Blake home.”
The groom was gone before he could finish his sentence, and Grayson strode closer to Tobias.
Tobias held the pistol at his side as if it were a book and not a deadly weapon. But his body tensed in a way Grayson knew meant murder. “Scum like you,” Tobias said to the approaching figure, “has no place in polite society.”
The figure spoke, taking shape, personality. Grayson recognized him from their first duel. Stubly. “You’re right, Mr. Blake. You should head back to Manchester and stay there.”
Tobias lifted the pistol and gave it a loving look. “Tell me, Stubs, old buddy, what the hell made you imagine you could touch my sister?”
“What poisoned gossip did you hear from the Duchess of Valingford?” Grayson demanded.
