“The poor man.” And the drawer was nearly full of such letters. What wrong had he done his lady to merit this treatment? No chance to explain, no chance to make reparation, no hope of forgiveness? She closed that drawer so quickly she nearly pinched her fingers, then opened another.
Still no penknife, but a single, very official-looking document. Her planned correspondence forgotten, Hester started reading.
Thirty minutes later, she was still staring at the Last Will and Testament of Gordon Bierly Adolphus Flynn when the marquess came striding into the room, tapping his riding crop against his boot.
“Miss Daniels. Good day. Spathfoy tells me you might soon be returning to northern climes.” He advanced on the desk, his expression curious. “I’d rather hoped you’d bring the boy up to scratch and do something about that moping child while you were about it. I know not who is the more cast down of late, the man or the girl.”
“I wonder you’d notice such a thing, my lord, while pining for your own lady.”
“I beg your pardon?” He gave his boots a sharp thwack with his infernal crop. That was nothing compared to what Hester would do to him.
She pushed out of the chair and came around the desk to stand directly before Quinworth. “I’ve read Gordie’s will, your lordship. I am certain Tiberius has not been given that privilege.”
“You pried into the private papers of a family who opened their home to you as a guest?” He did not yell; he kept his voice menacingly soft.
“I went looking for a penknife and found some answers, you dratted bully. How could you do this to Tiberius, to Fiona, and to her family? You lied, you manipulated, you misrepresented, you abused the trust of those around you, and the trust placed in you by a son dead and gone and unable to speak for his own wishes.”
“I’m seeing those wishes carried out, Miss Daniels, and I will not be made to answer to the likes of some poor Scottish relation who thinks the hand of the Quinworth heir beneath her. Leave any time you like. I’ll manage my granddaughter and my son without your further interference. Good day.”
He strode out of the room, boots thumping, crop thwacking, making Hester want to call him back so she could tear another strip off of him.
Many, many strips. What he’d done was an unimaginable transgression of the good faith family members owed one another, and Hester dreaded to think of the hurt Tiberius would suffer when he learned of it.
If he learned of it. Hester forced herself to spend long, long minutes pacing the library and thinking through the ramifications of what she’d read. She should not be the one to tell Tiberius what his father had done. She’d take Fiona home, and that would be the end of it. Based on what she’d learned of the marquess—and of the pertinent legalities—this sojourn in the south was over: for her, and for Fiona.
There was no need to write to Aunt Ree or Ian. Hester would have Fiona home before the letters arrived, leaving Tiberius Flynn the rest of his days to be a good son to a miserable father, a protective brother to three adult sisters, and a dutiful son to a mother who would be otherwise homeless.
The library door banged open, and Joan appeared, hectic color in her pale cheeks. “Hester, you must come! Fiona’s down at the stables, and Papa is yelling at her, and there’s a fox—”
“I’m coming.” Fiona would not deal well with an upset, ill-humored marquess, and the marquess would not deal with an exhibition of Fiona’s stubbornness and homesickness now.
But when she got to the stables, what Hester found was worse—far worse—than simple upset or stubbornness.
Ten
Hester was leaving, and there wasn’t a damned thing Tye could do to prevent it. He brought Rowan down to the walk and considered kicking the marchioness out of the Edinburgh properties so Tye might take up residence in Scotland.
Or he might not kick her out. He might give his mother an opportunity to compete with his father as the primary justification—in a long list of justifications—for why an otherwise well-blessed man might take up drinking with intent to obliterate his reason.
“And you’d come with me.” He ran a gloved hand down the horse’s crest, feeling that today, for the first time in weeks, Rowan had been truly settled and relaxed. As if even the horse knew things weren’t going to change.
Tye was composing a letter to his mother in his head when a groom came tearing down the lane hotfoot from the stable yard.
“Beg pardon, your lordship, but best come quick! I’ll take the beast, for you mustn’t let him add to the riot.”
“Herriot, what are you going on about?” Tye kept his voice calm as he swung down and handed off Rowan’s reins.
“The marquess is taking the young miss to task, and God help us but the girl’s got a fox and she’s not having any of his lordship’s nonsense, not none a’tall.”
“A fox?”
“Please make haste, your lordship. The fox looks sickly to me.”
Not good. Not good at all. Tye loped off in the direction of raised voices, and found a tableau portending multiple tragedies.
“You put the damned, rotten little blighter down this instant, young lady, because I tell you to.”
The Marquess of Quinworth was standing some four yards away from Fiona, holding an enormous old horse pistol, muzzle pointed downward. Fiona held her ground, a half-grown fox kit in her arms, her chin jutting, her posture radiating defiance.
“If I put him down, you’ll kill him, you awful man. You go away!”
“Good morning, Fiona.” Tye forced himself to speak calmly. “Have you made a new friend?”
Her shoulders relaxed a fraction. “I found him, and I’m going to keep him. His name is Frederick.”
“Like Frederick the Great?” Tye sidled closer, while dread coiled tightly in his belly. The animal was ill—its eyes were clouded, its coat matted, and in Fiona’s embrace, it stirred weakly, head lolling as if the beast were drunk.
“Stand aside, Spathfoy!” The marquess bellowed this command, and even his roaring did not appear to affect the fox. “If that thing should bite you, you’re doomed.”
Fiona peered around Tye at the marquess. “Make Grandpapa be quiet, please. Frederick doesn’t feel well, and yelling doesn’t help anything.”
“I quite agree with you. Quinworth”—Tye did not raise his voice—“desist.” He got close enough to see that Fiona wasn’t being defiant so much as protective. “I don’t think Frederick is feeling quite the thing, Fiona.”
“He’s sick. We can help him get better so he can find his way home.”
Tye went down on his haunches and reached out to stroke a gloved finger down the animal’s ratty fur. “You think he’s homesick?”
She nodded and took a shuddery breath. “He was in the petunias, falling over and crying. I think he’s crying for his m-mama.”
Tye fished out a handkerchief. “Compose yourself, Fiona, and let me hold him for a bit.”
“Spathfoy, for God’s sake!” the marquess hissed from several yards off. “The thing’s rabid. I’ll not bury another son of mine for some stupid—”
He fell silent while Tye gently disentangled the fox from Fiona’s embrace.
“You promise you won’t set him down?”
“I will not set him down without your permission. Wipe your tears.”
She honked loudly into his handkerchief and sat right in the dirt of the stable yard beside Tye. “I hate it here. I miss home, and I feel sick all the time, inside.”
Tye regarded the creature in his arms—there was no intelligence in the clouded eyes. Beneath the matted fur, the animal was nothing but skin and bones. It hadn’t been crying for its mother; it had been crying for death to end its pain and misery.