Page 48 of Enlightened

David listened attentively, even as his heart beat hard with panic and his stomach churned at the thought of Murdo coming to harm. Strange, he thought as he watched the major laboriously scribe his recommendation, that when he finally came face-to-face with Will Lennox, he could think of nothing but Murdo. He had spent years thinking about what he would say to Will if they ever met again. How he would tear up at Will over the other man’s long-ago betrayal—telling David’s father that the kiss the older man had witnessed between them had all been David’s doing, and leaving him to face the consequences alone.

And now he realised that he had nothing he wanted to say to Will at all.

Will was writing now—his address for David’s visit the next morning. When he was finished, he handed the paper to David, and all three men stood up.

“I’ll leave you gentlemen to your arrangements, then,” the major said, giving a stiff little bow.

David and Will murmured their gratitude and their farewells.

When the major had gone, Will turned back to David. “Will ten o’clock tomorrow morning suit?” he asked, all politeness.

“That will be fine,” David said, tucking Will’s address into his pocket. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should find Lord Murdo.” He went to move away but Will detained him with a hand on his forearm.

“Davy, listen—”

Their eyes met, and for a moment, David was taken back years. That moss-green gaze was still so very familiar. Then he shook himself and pulled his arm free.

“Don’t call me that,” he said and walked away.

Murdo had been taken to another room. He sat in an armchair beside the fireplace, staring at the flames. Several other men milled around, murmuring, but none of them spoke to Murdo.

He didn’t look up when David entered the room. It was only when David stood directly in front of him, on the hearth rug, that he finally tore his gaze away from the fire.

“You’re back,” he said, his expression oddly guarded.

“Yes,” David replied stiffly, conscious of their audience. “I’ve arranged to meet Sir William tomorrow morning. Shall we go—” He was about to addhomebut stopped himself at the last moment, making his words sound oddly cut off and awkward.

Murdo nodded and rose from his chair. They weren’t quite halfway across the room when Hartley appeared in the doorway, the marquess slightly behind him. It seemed the night’s confrontations were not yet over.

Murdo stepped slightly in front of David in a subtly protective gesture.

Hartley didn’t waste any time on bluster. “Lord Murdo, you may take it that your engagement to my daughter is at an end as of this moment,” he announced loudly. His face was cold and expressionless, and somehow his words sounded all the more powerful for the lack of emotion in them.

The audience for this encounter was smaller than for the one with Kinnell, but this was no less public. This evening’s events would be the talk of every drawing room in London come tomorrow afternoon.

“Neither I nor any of my family will acknowledge you after this moment,” Hartley continued. He paused before adding, “You have brought shame on your father’s name. If you were my son, I would disown you.” He turned to the marquess. “You have my pity, Balfour,” he added, then stalked out of the room, leaving Murdo to face his father.

Another glove thrown down, David thought. By Hartley this time, for the marquess. And David somehow knew it was a glove the marquess would not want to pick up.

“If you were my son, I would disown you.”

Hartley was a man of considerable political power, a Tory, like Balfour. The marriage of their children could have been the start of a new political dynasty.

For three decades, the marquess had determinedly set about binding Murdo to him. His ropes were made of secrets and threats and promises, and he had stubbornly held on to every one, resisting his son’s attempts to get free of him.

All of his efforts had been leading up to this marriage. And now it would not happen.

The knot of ropes that bound Murdo to his father was Gordian in its complexity and subtlety. Tonight, Murdo had swept a sword through it, disdaining its cleverness. Severing it with determination and without concern for the consequences.

David watched the marquess. Examining that cold, harsh face for clues to his anger and frustration, wary of his ire. He was ready to see evidence of every one of those emotions. What he was not prepared for was what he actually saw.

Naked grief.

The small audience of men in the room waited for the marquess to speak, and Murdo waited too, seeming resigned. Even so, the marquess’s decision did not come easily. He did not want to do what needed to be done. But when all was said and done, he was a politician and a pillar of respectability. And he had been put in a position that offered him no alternative.

At last, his voice ringing out over the silence, he said, “You are no son of mine.”

Then he turned and walked away, his shoulders rounded with defeat.