The Royal Rakes: Waking Up With A Rake Part 25

The family butler heard their footfalls and appeared almost immediately. Mr. Tweadle had been with the Warringtons since before Rhys's father had come into the t.i.tle, and the stiff-backed majordomo guarded the family honor as fiercely as the Tower Beefeaters did the crown jewels. Tweadle stopped midstride for half a second in surprise over seeing Rhys, but then he recovered and made a correct bow.

"Lord Rhys," Tweadle said, eyeing Rhys's disreputable appearance with a censorious expression. "Welcome. How may I be of a.s.sistance?"

"You can show my wife, Lady Olivia, to a guest room." He helped her out of her pelisse and handed it to Tweadle. Then he removed his muck-spattered garrick and loaded it onto the butler's waiting arms. "I a.s.sume my old chamber has been turned into a lumber room by now."

"No, my lord," Tweadle said. "Everything is exactly as you left it. Your mother's orders. But I wonder if Lady Olivia wouldn't be more comfortable in the parlor while I see if Lord Warrington wishes the linens aired first."

It was Tweadle's subtle way of letting Rhys know they wouldn't be accommodated without the marquis's approval.

Fair enough. No point in putting Mr. Tweadle in the crossfire.

"Where is my father?"

"His lordship is in his study, but-"

"Good. Wait here and Mr. Tweadle will see to your needs directly, my love," Rhys said to Olivia before starting down the correct hallway. Over his shoulder, he called to the servant, "See my wife to the parlor then, and I'll show myself to the study."

"But his lordship isn't receiving this morning." Tweadle scuttled after him, extending his arms before him so as to minimize his contact with Rhys's filthy coat.

"You mean he isn't receiving guests. Like it or not, I'm his son. He'll receive me."

"Perhaps you would prefer to freshen up first, Lord Rhys," Tweadle said, still scuffling behind him.

Rhys stopped and rounded on him. "Tweadle, clean boots won't make me any more acceptable in my father's eyes and, in any case, I cannot afford the delay."

If the marquis refused to shelter them, Rhys would have to make other plans quickly. He'd already decided to make for the dock at Wapping should the doors to Warrington House slam shut to them. If there were any pa.s.senger ships bound for New South Wales or Nova Scotia or, as a last resort, even America, Rhys and Olivia would take pa.s.sage on the next available vessel leaving with the tide. Any place would be safer for Olivia than the British Isles.

But Rhys preferred not to flee. If Olivia were safe in his father's house, he could run the threat to ground and deal with it permanently. If they fled, he'd always be looking over his shoulder wondering if the a.s.sa.s.sin behind the thorns was still in pursuit.

He put a hand on Tweadle's thin shoulder. "See to my wife's comfort, if you please, Mr. Tweadle. We've had a long weary trip from Scotland. If you can coax her to eat something, I'll be grateful." Rhys jerked his head in the direction of his father's study door. "I'll make sure the marquis knows you tried to stop me."

"Thank you, my lord." A look of utter relief washed over the old servant's face.

His father must be in rare tyrannical form if even Mr. Tweadle was treading so lightly around him. Rhys silently vowed not to allow anyone else to be harmed when he bearded the old lion in his den.

"Very good, sir. I'll attend Lady Olivia immediately," Tweadle turned and hurried back down the hall to where Olivia waited, muttering under his breath as he went. "Cook has some fresh-baked scones that should be just the ticket. Oh, yes, quite."

Rhys put his hand to the crystal doork.n.o.b. On the other side of the door was the man he both loved and feared as he ought to love and fear G.o.d. It had devastated him to be cut off from his family. But this time, if the marquis cast him out, it wouldn't be only Rhys who suffered. Olivia would still be on the run and in danger.

He couldn't allow that to happen. Family had to count for something. Rhys straightened his spine, turned the k.n.o.b, and went in.

At first, Rhys thought he'd made a mistake and stumbled into the wrong room. A wizened man was seated at the marquis's outsized oak desk, scratching away with a quill on the parchment before him. The top of his pate shined through thinning white hair. His stooped shoulders were draped with a shawl.

That dotard couldn't possibly be Rhys's father.

Then the man looked up. Illness had sc.r.a.ped all excess flesh from his face, leaving jutting cheekbones and sharp angles. He'd aged a pair of decades in a few short years. His complexion was ashen, but the marquis's cobalt eyes blazed under a pair of scrub brush brows.

Rhys's father replaced his quill in the inkwell and steepled his skeletal fingers before him on the desk.

"You have respected my wishes and not darkened my door for these past three years," the marquis said. "To what do I owe the dubious honor of your unrequested return?"

Rhys was normally never at a loss for what to say. In some circles, he was even counted a wit. But facing his father set his stomach churning and his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth. He blurted the first thing he could think of. "I've taken a wife."

"d.a.m.ned irresponsible of you," his father said with a scowl. "And d.a.m.ned irresponsible of Tweadle to allow you in against my express orders."

"He didn't allow it. I bullied my way in," Rhys said as he approached his father's desk. "An unattractive trait, to be sure, but one I inherited from you."

"Insolent as ever." The marquis's scowl deepened, turning his lean face into a road map of wrinkles. "Taken a wife, you say. Unconscionable that you should do so without so much as a 'by your leave' from me. Especially since you're dependent on the largess of the marquisate for your living. I suppose now you'll want a raise in your allowance to support this doxie of yours."

Even though Rhys had been cast out of the family for all social intents and purposes, he had not been cut off financially. It wasn't due to any tender feeling on the marquis's part, he knew. Rhys was simply his responsibility, and Lord Warrington never shirked responsibility. Of course, to the marquis, the support of his youngest son was of no more import than any of several hundred retainers on the marquisates' far-flung estates who depended upon him.

Rhys's hands clenched into fists, then subconsciously clasped them behind his back in the same pose he'd always adopted for dressing-downs when he was a lad.

"I'm not here for your money," he said. "If you consult your man of business, you'll discover I haven't touched a farthing of it since I returned from France."

Lord Warrington's brow arched in surprised puzzlement.

"And Olivia is no doxie," Rhys went on. "She's the finest young woman I've ever known."

"From what I've heard, you haven't exactly gone out of your way to a.s.sociate with fine women, young or otherwise, in the past few years."

So his father had taken note of his doings, just as Rhys had gleaned rumors of the major events in his family's life.

"That's correct, sir," he admitted. "I wasn't in search of a good woman, but one found me nonetheless. We were married in Scotland about a month ago."

"In Scotland. I should have expected as much." Lord Warrington snorted. "An elopement. Is the girl big-bellied with child then?"

"No, sir." But Rhys hoped she would be soon.

"Her name?"

"Olivia Symon."

"Horatio Symon's daughter?" Even though Mr. Symon wasn't part of the aristocracy, a man of his wealth hadn't escaped the marquis's notice. "Sit down, Rhys. It wearies me to look up at you."

His father hadn't said he was tired of looking at him, but the sentiment was close. Rhys sank into the Sheraton chair opposite Lord Warrington, but he kept his weight forward, ready to rise if he needed.

"Seems to me I heard the Symon girl was going to marry Clarence. That monumental dowry of hers was supposed to clear out some of His Highness's confounded debt without further burdening the state with it."

Now it was Rhys's turn to frown in puzzlement. "Parliament forbade the match because she was a commoner. Weren't you there for the deliberations and vote?"

The old man's jaw went rigid. "Other considerations have kept me from the House of Lords of late. As my heir, your brother has taken the seat in my stead. I regret to say he apparently keeps me d.a.m.ned ill-informed." Lord Warrington arched a wiry brow. "No wonder you've no use for your allowance since you've come into a well-heeled wife."

"I didn't marry Olivia for her money, if that's what you're thinking. Her father set up a trust to which only she has access. I agreed with the arrangement," Rhys said. "It is how I would have wished matters in any case. I've managed to support myself. I'll support my wife as well."

"Yes, I've heard of how you've kept yourself. A man who gambles for a living is a fool."

"Only if he risks more than he can afford to lose," Rhys said. "I've been banished from your sight, yet you've made a point of knowing my business. Why?"

The question seemed to flummox his father. His jaw worked furiously, and there was a slight tremor to the hand that pulled his shawl closer. "Do not attach any significance to my interest in your activities. A man in my position must make it his business to be informed on a number of things."

Despite his words, Rhys thought he sensed a slight c.h.i.n.k in the old bear's armor.

"Then let me inform you further," Rhys said. "I didn't marry Olivia for money. I married her for love."

The marquis made a derisive snort.

"And for her protection." Rhys told his father about the attempts on Olivia's life. The marquis listened without comment until he was finished.

"And to what do you attribute these attacks?" his father asked.

"I'm not sure. At first, I a.s.sumed someone wished to end her prospective match with the duke in the most egregious way. Since the last threat arrived after our marriage, it's more likely that her father has made a deadly enemy."

"The lady herself hasn't offended someone?"

"No. She's possessed of strong opinions, but only in private," Rhys said. "Until we wed, she was something of a wallflower."

"So what do you propose to do?" his father asked.

"Sir, I'm compelled to ask for your help. I propose to move her into Warrington House until such time as I can set up my own household and staff it with people who will help me protect her."

"And you think you're a good enough judge of character that you can hire fellows off the street to guard your wife from an a.s.sa.s.sin?"

"No, I wouldn't trust strangers," Rhys said. "I'll seek out members of my old regiment, the fighting men who served under me in France."

"The few who survived your command, you mean."

Yes, how good of you to remind me, you crusty old b.a.s.t.a.r.d. "They are few, but they're trustworthy and they'll be glad for the work."

His father leaned back in his chair and looked down his long nose. "And you think these men would take orders from you again?"

"They, of all people, know the truth of what happened at Maubeuge. They won't blink twice at my orders." After the battle, he'd made the rounds at hospital to find members of his command. To a man, the survivors thanked him.

All but Lieutenant Duffy.

"What did happen at Maubeuge?" the marquis asked.

Finally.

His father wouldn't let him tell his side of the story when he was first sent home. The rumors, the whiff of scandal, were heinous enough that the marquis was obliged to act decisively.

"A field surgeon must sometimes hack off a limb to save the man," his father had said in this very room three years ago before he banished Rhys from his sight. "A family too must sometimes set aside one of its members for the good of the whole."

And just like that, Rhys was an outcast. Without recourse. Without being given a chance to explain.

His father was giving it to him now.

"The tale of Maubeuge doesn't make for pretty hearing," Rhys said. "Someone gave us faulty intelligence that led my regiment into a French trap."

In halting sentences, he recounted the days of forced march leading up to the illfated engagement. At one point, his father rose and poured a jigger of whisky for each of them, waving a thin hand for Rhys to continue as they drank.

The British cavalry was lured into committing their forces, thinking surprise was on their side. The intelligence dispatches Rhys and his friends Colton and Sharp had received made no mention of the much larger French force hidden in the surrounding forest and behind the hills.

Rhys told his father the particulars, answering the marquis's questions without flinching.

But Rhys didn't confide the way the faces of the dying had risen in his mind to taunt him over the last three years-those who deserved death and, worse, those who didn't. He didn't share the blaze of light that would sometimes descend on his vision, the phantom screams of the wounded, or the way the ground sometimes seemed to shake under the memory of two hundred hooves pounding in unison.

The myriad details that used to torment him no longer dragged him back to that killing field. He hadn't been tortured by a full-blown episode when the world spun backward to Maubeuge since he met Olivia.

He didn't know why she grounded him in the present, but he thanked G.o.d it was so.

"I don't suppose you have copies of those fraudulent dispatches or any way to definitively clear your name?" his father asked.

"No," Rhys admitted. Since the Duke of Clarence withdrew his suit before Rhys succeeded in publicly ruining Olivia, he didn't think Mr. Alc.o.c.k would deliver on his part of their failed bargain. "You have only my word for what happened."

"Perhaps," the marquis said slowly, "that's good enough."

Rhys sucked in his breath. With those few words, he was pardoned. He was suddenly restored and reconciled to his family.

And it didn't mean as much as he'd thought it would.

Olivia was his family now, but he'd certainly accept help from his old one to keep her safe.

"Thank you, sir. Once I have a guard set up for Olivia, I'll devote myself to uncovering the person behind these thorns and deal with him."

"Or her," the marquis said thoughtfully. "After all, poison is a woman's weapon."

"I hadn't considered that before. You're right." Rhys would have to revisit the guest list of the Symon's house party with particular emphasis on Baroness Ramstead, Lady Harrington, and Amanda Pinkerton. He mentally added another female name to the roster-Olivia's maid, Babette.

Rhys mistrusted all things French on principle, and the fact that this particular French woman had been a.s.sociated with the suspected spy, La Belle Perdu, only added to his misgivings. Still, he hadn't seriously considered female involvement in the attempts on Olivia's life until now.

"Do you and your wife intend to be...fashionable?" His father's tone suggested keeping up with the bon ton was tantamount to considering becoming infected with the French pox.

"No, sir." How could his father imagine that Rhys would be squiring Olivia to b.a.l.l.s and the theatre when someone was trying to kill her? "The fewer people who know our whereabouts, the better."

"A wise decision." Lord Warrington stood. "I have sources of information not readily available to most. I'll make a few discreet inquiries and do what I can to determine who's behind these attempts on your wife's life. Do not consider establishing your own home at present. Warrington House is at your disposal for as long as you need it."

Rhys rose as well.

Then his father extended a tremoring hand. Rhys took it and gave it a shake.

"Welcome home, son."

Chapter 31.