Keats leaped out of the way, muffling a curse. “Maybe I deserved that, but Finley means no harm, I swear. Alex…” He searched out her gaze along the dark length of the hallway. “I mean you no harm. I plan to dissolve the marriage contract with Palmerson. You may marry whom you please.” He tooktwo tentative steps toward her. “I have been a horrid brother, inattentive and selfish. But I promise to do better.”
Her eyes gentled, but her hands were still fists at her belly. Then they went limp, and her shoulders slumped as she leaned farther into Lucy’s embrace. “My brother is a fool. Mischievous to the point of calamity. Clueless, selfish, barbaric?—”
Griff laughed. Then yelped when a footman kicked his arse.
Good. The man deserved it. And Keats deserved Alex’s ire. He hung his head and took every damn word.
And there were waves of them, still coming, never once disrupted for the farce between earl and footman. “Addlepated, foxed most hours of most days, idle, shiftless.” She could stop any time now. Lucy’s eyes grew colder with each new description. “Careless, easily distracted, bit of a fop.” Nowthathe did take exception to. “But he’s never been cold. Or heartless. Or cruel.” Alex stepped out of Lucy’s hold and took precise, confident steps toward him. “I believe him.”
“That’s all well and good”—Mr. Beckett barreled down the hall—“but what about that one?” He stabbed a finger toward Griff.
“That one, you can throw to the wolves.”
“Alex!” Griff cried. The footmen yanked him to his feet, dragged him toward a window. Oh hell, an involuntary defenestration. He dug in his heels. “Keats! Do something!”
“Frankly, I don’t think I will. Clearly, you’ve done something to enrage my sister.” He sighed. “I suppose I’ll want to know what, though.” And since no one seemed willing to stop the footmen from throwing Griff out the window, Keats would have to save him. “Stop.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mr. Beckett, Mrs. Beckett, what if, instead of having to clean up a mangled body from your lawn, you shove us both in a locked room until you’ve decided how to handle the situation. We willbe at your mercy, and hopefully, by submitting to your power, we will prove to you our loyalty.”
Griff nodded like the action alone could save him.
Mr. and Mrs. Beckett shared a look that likely held an entire conversation.
“Take him upstairs to the attic,” Mr. Beckett said. “Both of them. And stand guard.”
An arm with more muscle than Keats had ever seen hitched under his shoulder, almost hauling him off his feet, and dragging him toward a narrow set of stairs in the shadows that he’d missed.
“Up you go,” the footman said.
“And your name is?” Keats asked.
“Fred.”
“Well, Mr. Fred, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Shut up, Keats,” Griff groaned.
“I’m Pat,” the other footman said.
“Pleasure to meet you, too.” Keats wielded cheer and charm like weapons. They gilded his every word. A necessary self-preservation strategy. Because his heart strained to cut itself out of his chest and remain at Lucy’s side. Stone-faced Lucy. Silent Lucy. Who’d said not a single word since learning of Keats’s lies.
Nine
The world had shrunk, and time had spun backward as everything Lucy had known to be true over the past few months unraveled and restitched itself.
Lies and manipulations.
The man she’d started to fall in love with was the very sort of man she hated most. Titled. Clueless. Dangerous.Titled.The Marquess of Rainsly.
Outside, night had begun to bow before dawn, the velvet-blue sky softening as the stars winked out. Purples and pinks bled like ink on paper across the horizon. Like blood over linen.
Yet night still pressed in on Lucy, dark and heavy. Its sharp teeth ripped at her suddenly sensitive skin. She wanted to cry.
A soft touch on her shoulder. “Are you well?” Alex asked.
Lucy rubbed her cheek. “You should not be worrying over me. Areyouwell?”
Alex bit her lip, a paltry attempt to stop its trembling. “I don’t know.”
“Time for tea,” Mrs. Beckett said, sweeping past them.
