Which reminded him - he was going to find that Essex dog booby of a farmer and teach him a lesson. Mina would be the last innocent young woman he’d grope under the guise of a waltz.
* * *
Mina tuckedinto the slices of cold chicken and poached pears Hugh had brought back from the buffet table for her. She still shook from her encounter with Barclay’s wandering hands.
“Did you bring glasses of punch?”
“No. I think we need something a bit stronger than ladies’ punch tonight.”
Mina’s eyes widened when he produced a silver flask from an inside pocket of his jacket. He uncorked the container and handed it to her. When she gave him a hesitant look, he moved his chair around to a position where she was shielded from prying eyes.
“Eww.” The hot liquid burned all the way down her throat.
“Here,” he said. “Now drink this.” He handed her a thin china cup balanced on a dainty saucer. The tea inside looked dark and forbidding.
She downed the steaming liquid to erase the sting of the alcoholic drink he’d given her earlier. She smiled when the sweetness soothed her throat. He’d added honey.
Her eyes still burned from whatever she’d drunk, but her hands had stopped shaking. “What was in the flask?
“Brandy,” he said simply. “Fortifies the blood.”
* * *
Julian prowledthrough the halls of the Abbey, enquiring after Barclay of every footmen he encountered. James from the front hall finally relayed a sighting. The bastard was still lurking in the kitchen garden.
“Is he still there?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Morley, the gardener, and Cook from the kitchen spotted him on his way there, and now Bridget has been keeping an eye on him from an upstairs window.”
“How did you organize a guard party so soon?”
“We all watch out for Miss Tindall, Your Grace. She’s close to all of us, she’s like…”
Julian didn’t need to have the man complete the sentence. He knew the footman meant to say she was one of them. They took care of their own. Which was more than he could say for the aristocratic side of her family.
Julian looked all around and behind him before turning back to James. “You won’t tell anyone you saw me, will you?”
“No, Your Grace, I won’t.”
And with that, Julian slipped into the family sitting room where the windowed doors stretched from floor to ceiling. He opened one cautiously, looked for signs of the bastard who’d dared to maul Mina, and then slipped out quietly toward the kitchen garden. The door knicked shut behind him.
* * *
Lord Rumsford steepledhis hands in front of his face and waited for Julian to say something to defend his actions. The duke stared back at him, a mulish frown on his lean face. A beginning bruise beneath his left eye, a bleeding cut on his face, and the way he cradled his arm were the only signs of whatever had transpired the previous hour in the kitchen garden. That is, if you discounted Rumsford’ bleeding, puffy-faced tenant farmer who’d limped out to his carriage and been driven home by his father.
Since the Barclays were his largest, most prosperous tenants, he’d had to promise a lot of concessions to cool off young Barclay and his father. He personally would have liked to have smashed in the younger Barclay’s smug face, but this was supposed to be a celebration of both George’s marriage and Mina’s coming out. But, nonetheless, here he was, soothing ruffled feathers at three in the morning after an all-night ball ending with an uproar more suited to the Whistling Pig in Rumsford that had left him frazzled.
The viscountess had chosen to insert herself as well into the commotion, and dealing with her seemed a battle too far at that moment. She, of course, wanted to blame Mina, but he was trying to calm his wife’s mercurial temper. He had to clench his teeth to keep from suggesting that perhaps if she hadn’t neglected her daughter all these years, things might have turned out differently.
He refused to blame Mina, but he had to admit confusion, excitement, misunderstandings, and now fisticuffs seemed to dog the girl no matter how hard she tried to become the lady her family expected her to be.
Finally, Rumsford exploded from the pressure. “Montfort—. What the hell were you thinking when you charged out in the garden and thrashed young Barclay within an inch of his life?”
“He inappropriately touched Mina. Everyone saw what he did. Now she’ll have to live with that. The woman is always blamed. Didn’t have any other choice.”
