He’d not leave a mark on Alex. And his friend’s presence put her in danger.
“What are you doing here?” Keats demanded.
Griff hung his head, cuffed the back of his neck. “I had to find you. Didn’t seem right to tell you by post. Your letters came from Dorking, so that wasn’t difficult to find, but the fact that you’re not using your actual name certainly confused me. You’re not too clever, though, going byMr. Keats.”
Hell and damnation. If Griff could find him… could others?
“Does anyone know you’re here?”
“Maybe. I told your stepmother I was off to find you.”
Anger, fear—they curled Keats’s hand about Griff’s cravat and fisted tight. Keats slammed his friend against the wall. “Does anyone know?”
Griff clawed at his throat, clawed to throw off Keats’s hold, spoke with a strangled, halting rhythm. “Get. Off. No one knows. Get. Off!” He pushed Keats hard, sending him stumbling backward on legs made numb with staggering relief.
“What has gotten into you?” Griff paced toward him, tugging at his cravat. “First you run off, then you refuse to say where precisely. Then you attempt to kill me?”
“Wouldn’t have killed you.”
“That’s not what my neck is saying.”
“What did you come to tell me? Get it out, then go.”
“I should have just sent a letter. If I’d know you were going to attack me, I?—”
“What is it?”
“I was going to tell you with a bit of sympathy, but I see you refuse that. Your father is dead, Keats. Your father is dead, and your stepmother is alone and with child. And Palmerson is infuriated that Alex has disappeared.”
Your father is dead.
Your father is dead.
Your father is dead.
Surely Griff jested. But Griff rarely jested. He was the frown to Keats’s grin, the Latin textbook to Keats’s naughty erotic novel.
Keats’s father was dead.
And still Griff lectured, as if he’d not just sliced Keats’s life into two distinct parts. “And you… you’re out here playing games!” He gestured up and down Keats’s body. “Pretending to be a stable hand? What in hell for? Another lark, another jest? Another moment in which you give in to your own whims over the needs of others.”
Keats lunged, slamming Griff against the stables and crushing his neck with his forearm. “You don’t know anything. This isn’t about me.”
“You’ve never cared about anyone but yourself,” Griff pushed back.
Keats released him, his arms and legs and entire body buzzing, buzzing, buzzing with the truth. “I haven’t. But I do now.” He stared up at the house.
Griff stood tense beside him. “What is this place?”
“A refuge. Hawthorne House. And the first rule of Hawthorne House is that you do not talk about Hawthorne House. Do you understand?”
“I assume you’ll kill me if I do?”
“You assume correctly.”
“Consider me silenced. Keats… you have to come home. You are now the Marquess of Rainsly.”
“Yes, I’ll come.” What other choice did he have? At least he knew Alex was safe. Lucy would watch over her, guide her. Or… the idea swept through him gradually like a candle growingbrighter. Alex could come home. The new Marquess of Rainsly would not force her to wed a man she did not want.
