Page 29 of Lyon’s Obsession (The Lyon’s Den Connected World #91)
“H is lordship is bleeding, Beaufort,” she said with more calm than Alexander thought possible, especially after their fight.
“I will tend to him, Miss Audrey. Why do you not go below and draw some water? Also, find something we might use for bandages.” Beaufort glanced at Alexander. “I imagine Lord Marksman has a thousand questions.”
“No fighting,” she warned.
Alexander waited until they could no longer hear her footsteps on the stairs, before he exploded. He rushed his brother and caught him by the lapels of his jacket. “If you have touched her, there is not enough land between you and me to keep me from killing you.”
Beaufort worked Alexander’s hands free of his coat. “I have not touched her, not as you have insinuated.”
“Then why are you here?” Alexander hissed.
“I have been watching Miss Moreau since we began this madness,” Beaufort admitted.
“A little too closely,” Alexander grumbled.
“Do you wish to know what happened or not?” Beaufort asked testily.
“Not,” Alexander retorted, but quickly changed his mind. “Finish your tale.”
“The day after Honfleur departed, the cook, who should be preparing meals for Miss Moreau, decided she was being paid to cook the meals, but she was not required to be in this house to execute her duties. She has been bringing Miss Moreau meals that are barely passable, at best, and the woman will know my displeasure when this business is complete.”
“You still have not spoken to how Miss Moreau became ‘Audrey’ to you,” Alexander hissed.
Beaufort had the gall to smile. “Miss Moreau is quite handy with a sword as you have discovered this very night, but she has no concept of starting a fire to heat her food. One night more than a week back, I was watching the house, and I noticed black smoke pouring from a window in the back. I rushed over to save both Miss Moreau and Lord Amgen’s house.
Miss Moreau had a beat-up broom trying to pound out the fire, but the broom straw was also on fire, and she was failing hopelessly. ”
“And she simply permitted your assistance?” Alexander grumbled, while being grateful for Beaufort’s interference.
“She recognized me,” Beaufort claimed. “I have, with this assignment, previously called upon her cousin, nearly daily. Miss Moreau and I have exchanged more than one ‘good day’ and a few other short conversations.”
“Yet, you were to woo Lady Caroline,” Alexander objected.
“I have not ‘wooed’ Miss Moreau,” Beaufort said with a challenging lift of his brows.
“I have brought her food. We have had several conversations. The woman is excessively frightened that Honfleur will not return for her, and she is lonely in this house without even a maid with whom to converse. Personally, I think this whole premise is a means for Honfleur to punish her for not retrieving the note from Margaret Childers.”
“Is everything well?” her voice called from somewhere below.
“We are simply putting things away,” Beaufort responded.
“Leave them!” she returned. “It will give me a task for tomorrow.”
They put away several of the items and then walked downstairs together. Alexander was not confident how he was to proceed with his plan to confess his shared parentage with Miss Moreau with an audience.
“Come sit, my lord, and permit me to tend your cut. I have had…” she began and stopped. “I fear… Lord Beaufort, might you assist? I do not do well with… blood.”
“Do not fret, my dear. Marksman and I are accustomed to tending each other’s nicks and cuts,” Beaufort declared as he sat across from Alexander and began to examine the injury to Alexander’s wrist.
Meanwhile, Alexander wondered why she did not ask the reason he and Beaufort would spend time tending to each other’s wounds. His brother asked, “I explained how I came to call upon Miss Moreau, but I am curious, Marksman, what brought you to this house at this time of night?”
“You promised to tell me why you came if I could…” she began.
“If you could out fence him?” Beaufort asked with a small laugh. “Such is easy, my dear, for Marksman is well named. He is truly spectacular with a gun, but only passable with a blade.” Beaufort tied off the bandage around Alexander’s wrist.
“I should leave,” Alexander said as he rose to his feet, despondent that his plan would have no place tonight, and he might never have another chance.
“Please stay,” Miss Moreau pleaded. “I have previously enjoyed our talks, and Beaufort will not mind, will you? Did you bring enough cakes for Lord Marksman to share with us, my lord?”
“Cakes, my lord?” Alexander asked, but he did not wait for a response.
He realized he was being foolish, for if he could not trust Beaufort, who could he trust?
He shrugged his agreement, but he said, “Swear on your parents’ graves, Beaufort, that you will repeat none of what I have to say to the others. ”
“Assuredly so, if such is what you require,” his friend said in that tone all of Duncan’s sons used when they were called upon for secrecy. They were, after all, family.
Alexander paused to gather his thoughts and to sit again.
“Now that the moment has arrived, I find myself searching for the words to ease the impact my story will have on your person.” Neither of his table mates responded, so he began.
“Very well. When I was nearing seven years of age, my father executed the unthinkable: He sold my mother to another man. In a public marketplace.”
Miss Moreau frowned. “An earl would never sell his wife.” She looked at Beaufort. “Am I speaking the truth, sir?”
“You are, but Marksman’s father was not always an earl,” Beaufort explained. Alexander’s friend had leaned across the table in anticipation. “You are confident in what you are doing, Marksman?”
“I am,” he told his friend. “Duncan has declared it so,” Alexander assured.
Beaufort reached a hand to Miss Moreau, and Alexander’s sister permitted him to palm her hand.
“I should leave, my dear. What Marksman has to say is very important, and you should have time to listen and to understand. You know how to signal for me if you wish for my return.” He looked to Alexander with eyes full of understanding.
“I can warrant that Lord Marksman will protect every hair on your head. You will know no harm at his hands.”
Miss Moreau nodded her head in agreement, and Beaufort rose to leave. “All your brothers will be quite envious, Alexander. Cherish this moment.”
“I will,” Alexander said softly. “I will come to you when this matter is finished here.” With that, Beaufort left them to speak honestly to each other.
Alexander cleared his throat before saying, “What Beaufort shared regarding my father is true. Generally, if an English peer desired a divorce, he could bring a very public charge against his wife before Parliament or he could reside in Scotland for six months and earn a divorce there. Yet, my father was the fourth son of an earl—the fourth son of a man who had turned my father out without a pence in his pocket to thrust him into a world Robert Dutton was ill equipped to traverse. He was abandoned to a life for which he possessed no skills to survive nor how to provide for his family. What coins he earned often went to drink rather than to feed and house his wife and children.”
“Then how did you inherit?” she asked with a frown of confusion.
“In our previous conversations, I have hinted to the matter. It is not as if I will not share the whole tale, but for tonight, however, just know my becoming Marksman was a very complicated twist of fate of which I will happily make an explanation, but I do not wish, at this time, to waver from the tale of my mother’s fate. ”
“Continue, my lord,” she said dutifully, though he knew she was still very curious regarding the Marksman earldom.
“Accompanying my mother on that fateful day was my younger sister. Her tears tore my heart to shreds, and I made a promise to someday discover the whereabouts of both my mother and my sister and bring them home.”
“I am grieved for your loss, my lord, but what has all this to do with me?” Miss Moreau demanded.
“My father was ‘Robert Dutton,’ and my mother’s name was ‘Madelyn.’” Alexander emphasized each name.
He watched as Miss Moreau’s frown deepened.
Before she could respond, he supplied, “My sister was called ‘Annalise.’” He hesitated before saying, “I have come to learn her name has been changed to ‘Audrey.’”
She was on her feet immediately. “It cannot be. You are speaking lies!”
“What do I have to earn by telling you a lie?” he demanded.
“You wish me to tell you something regarding my uncle,” she accused. “If so, you have failed, my lord. My uncle does not confide in me, for he thinks he cannot trust me.”
Alexander found her admittance astounding.
In his opinion, she was still too innocent and unaffected to be deceptive.
“When the British government and Lord Duncan dragged my father and me from the rookeries, Robert Dutton was near death, but he executed all he could to stay alive long enough to inherit the earldom and pass it on to me. I promised both myself and him on his deathbed that I would bring my mother and sister home to Marksman Abbey. Several days ago, I sent men and a ship to the West Indies to retrieve my mother’s remains so she might rightly be buried in the Marksman cemetery as Lady Madelyn Dutton, the Countess of Marksman. ”
Though she still shook her head in the negative, she instructed, “Tell me what you recall of your mother.”
He had yet to rise from the table, while she remained standing near the kitchen door, as if she thought it a means to escape.
He did not look at her when he spoke. “My mother was tall and majestic. Her eyes were the color of burnt embers, sometimes dark, nearly black, and sometimes a shade of cinnamon, and her hair was a shade of red one might find on a Scottish lass.”
“It is as if you describe me,” she accused.