The Marquess’ Daring Wager Page 23

  There had been a silence descended on the lawn, the only sounds the rhythmic pump of the water engine, the hiss of the fire as water hit the flames, and the soft pounding feet of the men bringing buckets. Sybil knew well enough that they would do everything they could to save Lord Hugh’s house, but they could not save her father.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. All for a bet! He’d been so determined, that dear, darling man, to leave the house with some dignity intact. Instead, he would not leave at all.

  Sybil’s eyes opened as men began to shout.

  “Lockwood!” Sir John shouted.

  “Do not do it, Lockwood!” Lord Hugh yelled over them all. “It’s too dangerous!”

  Lord Lockwood, coat wrapped around his nose and mouth, raced into the house.

  Sybil’s heart pounded. It was certain death. Nobody could run into that firestorm and come back out again.

  “Come on, Lockwood,” Lady Blanding said softly.

  Sybil glanced up at her mother. Lady Blanding was intently staring at the door, seeming to hope that somehow both gentlemen would come out of it.

  Could it be so? Was there some chance?

  Had it been any other gentleman, nobody would think it.

  But it was not any other gentleman. It was Lord Lockwood. It was the man who dared everything in the war and lived to tell the tale. It was the man who had so easily thrown both her and her mother over his shoulders as if they were children.

  He was strong. He was fearless. He was the boldest man she had ever known.

  Might he not win this latest battle?

  “Oh, please, Papa,” Sybil whispered.

  The men on the water engine pumped ever harder. The flames had seemed to tamp down, but there were billows of grey smoke pouring out the windows, and now even out the front door. It was impossible to see what went on in that room.

  Suddenly, Lord Lockwood emerged, carrying a body over his shoulder.

  “He’s got him! Please, please do not be dead, Papa,” Sybil said, picking up her skirts and running toward her father.

  Lord Lockwood laid the body on the lawn. “Send for a doctor,” he shouted.

  A doctor. A doctor was only wanted when a person still lived.

  Sybil reached her father, with Lady Blanding close behind.

  Lord Lockwood was loosening Lord Blanding’s neckcloth. Lord Blanding began to cough. He wheezed and gasped in the fresh air.

  He was alive. For now, at least, he was alive.

  She dropped to her knees and chafed his hand. “Papa,” she said. “You are safe. Only keep breathing, that is all you need to do.”

  “Lord Hugh,” Lord Lockwood said, “if you have some elderberry wine from last season in the house, I bid you bring it. It will soothe the lungs. Lady Blanding, we must sit him up, it will make it easier to breathe.”

  Sybil heard the various shoutings around her, and her mother’s admonishments to her father that he must not give up, but she was transfixed by Lord Blanding’s face. It was red as a fall apple and it seemed each breath he took was an exercise.

  Lady Blanding got behind her husband and he was gently propped up against her folded knees. Sybil held his hand and did the only thing that occurred to her. As men ran past her and shouted, she talked of Cornwall. Aside from her mother, if there was one thing that would hold Lord Blanding to this earth it was Cornwall.

  While the chaos swirled around her, Sybil whispered of the waves crashing on the shore, of the rocky cliffs, of their own little piece of it with its house built upon for generations, his favorite fishing stream, and his beloved dogs. She talked of one particular dog, Pharaoh, who was wily as a fox and regularly broke out of the kennels and slipped into the house, only to be found helping himself to something in the kitchens. She talked of buttering her father’s toast in the morning and making sure his coffee was strong. She spoke of their Christmas tradition of going round to the tenants and delivering baskets of edibles with always a guinea hidden in a cake. She told of gathering in the drawing room on a stormy day and taking turns reading aloud as the rain beat against the panes. She even mentioned that if he were to die, Mr. Hurst might be a tad gleeful to consider himself the winner of the argument over the fence. She pressed her father to think of everything he would miss if he gave up.

  Lord Blanding stared into her eyes, listening intently between coughs.

  She would keep going. She would take his mind and his strength back to Cornwall. If he was listening, he was breathing.

  Chapter Twenty

  It seemed an eternity to wait for the doctor. The fire was finally put out and men carried buckets into the drawing room to drench every surface. All the windows and doors of the first floor had been thrown open to rid the house of smoke and footmen walked through the rooms waving large fans and opened umbrellas to disperse it.

  Lord Blanding had been laid on a pallet and carried into the library, that room being on the other side of the house and undamaged. Now, the gentleman had so far recovered from his misadventure as to sit himself up on a sofa and take small sips of the elderberry wine that was given him. His voice was hoarse, but he was coherent.

  “Dashed stupid thing,” he croaked. “I was watching to see which candle would go out first. I must have dozed off and knocked one over. Next thing, I was on the lawn.”

  Sybil squeezed her father’s hand. “Lord Lockwood carried you out, Papa. It really did look as if all were lost, nobody else could have made the attempt.”

  “Lockwood, eh?” Lord Blanding muttered. “Show off.”

  “My dear,” Lady Blanding said in a rather stern voice, “whatever feelings you have had about the gentleman, he did run in while others did not dare. Nobody else could have got you out of it, and for that I must cast aside any previous feud with the man.”

  Lord Blanding did not particularly look as if he were ready to cast aside any feuds. “I suppose the card game is off.”

  This idea produced another round of coughing. Lady Blanding helped her lord to some more of the wine to settle it.

  “I should think the card game is off,” the lady said with some aspersion. “We will need all your spare funds to repair the damage to Lady Hugh’s drawing room.”

  Lord Blanding sighed and said, “As I am not to have my revenge, might I at least have another glass of that?” He pointed to the near empty glass that sat on a table.

  Her father coughed and whispered, “It soothes my throat, which feels as if it is still afire.”

  Sybil rose and said, “I will fetch it, Papa. Rest now.”

  Sybil hurried from the library, feeling a lightness about her she could not have imagined an hour ago. Her father was once more fixated on feuds and challenges, and that certainly signified that he would recover.

  While the rest of the houseguests had been gathered in the dining room for tea and sherry, and a few had already retired, Sybil found Lord Lockwood pacing the front hall.

  “How does he do?” Lord Lockwood said, rushing to her side.

  “He is much recovered and asking for more wine. A good sign I think.”

  Sybil paused. There must be something said of the lord’s actions this night. It could not go ignored.

  “Lord Lockwood, I and my family are forever grateful for your bold actions in saving my father. I am certain nobody else could have done it.”

  A footman ran into the house. “Doctor Craig is here,” he said, breathless.

  Lord Lockwood looked with some irritation at the footman, and then at the doctor hurrying in with his medical bag. “Smoke inhalation,” he said, “in the library.”

  The doctor hurried by. Lord Lockwood stared at the footman who lingered in the hall. “Go,” he said.

  Sybil felt a shiver. She had always imagined Lord Lockwood in the war, taking charge and leading his men. But now, she had seen it for herself. It clutched at her heart as nothing ever had.

  “Surely, you know,” Lord Lockwood said, his voice catching, “it was all for you. I would rush through the
fires of hell for Lady Sybil Hayworth.”

  Sybil burst into tears.

  Lord Lockwood swept her up into his arms. They were as powerful as she had always thought them. It felt as if she were encased in a solid wall of man. The bold man. The unbeatable man.

  He brushed her hair from her forehead. “Why do you cry? Surely, I am not that despised?”

  “No, I, well, I do not know,” Sybil said. He was not despised, he was loved, and yet she was meant to despise him. It was the Hayworths’ code of honor.

  “I won’t marry anybody else, you know.” Lord Lockwood said it as if it were a fact known widely.

  “Well? Will you have me?” he asked.

  Sybil wanted nothing more than to say yes. But what was she to do with her father? He’d never agree to it.

  “My father,” she said softly.

  “Is he the only thing standing in my way?”

  “Yes.”

  Lord Lockwood laughed, rich and deep. She felt it roll against her like an incoming wave.

  “I have worked on your father for weeks and will continue on with it until he finally folds his cards.”

  Sybil peeked up at him. “So, it was not a bet? It was not some amusing wager with your friends to win over my father?”

  “No,” Lord Lockwood said. “It was my own personal campaign to breach the Hayworths’ defenses.”

  “Oh.”

  “I always win you know, your father really does not have a chance.”

  “He does not?” Sybil said, in wonder of his confidence.

  “Certainly not,” Lord Lockwood said, kissing the top of her head. “He may put a thousand holes in a thousand boats, but nobody shall stand between me and my perverse Lady Sybil.”

  Though Sybil’s thoughts felt very much muddled, she had the clear idea that she would ignore any mention of holes in boats. Instead, she said, “I am not perverse!”

  “Indeed you are, and are all the better for it, my little china doll.”

  They stayed in the hall in that very compromising position for over a quarter hour, neither of them willing to be parted. Sybil found her hair being kissed, then her cheek, and then her lips. She was certain she ought to put a stop to it, and equally certain she would not.

  Between kisses, Sybil was to understand that she would rule him and his house like a queen. A mighty, small-fisted monarch.

  A clearing throat finally separated them. The doctor had come out from the library.

  “My father?” Sybil asked.

  The doctor, appearing embarrassed to have come upon them, said, “I am confident Lord Blanding will make a full recovery. I advise he sleep with his head elevated tonight, and rest on the morrow, with only small walks. Should he not experience a setback, he should be well on the road to his old self by the day after next. I have left Lady Blanding with Nettle tea to calm his lungs, though he is just now complaining that he asked for elderberry wine and has not got it.”

  “Oh, goodness,” Sybil said, having entirely forgotten her errand.

  Lord Lockwood squeezed her hand, despite the doctor standing there in full view. “Go and get it for your father, and then you must rest too. I will speak with him sometime tomorrow.”

  The idea of Lord Lockwood approaching her father filled Sybil with terror. Lord Blanding would go mad over it.

  “I will speak to him first, he must be prepared for the shock of it,” Sybil said. “But not tonight, he must rest.”

  *

  Sybil spent the rest of the night in fits of pacing, flinging herself on the bed and dozing off, only to wake again with a grave sense of both alarm and happiness.

  He loved her. He really did. Nothing that had been done had ever refuted that fact, she had only been convinced otherwise. Poppy had called herself a goose, but Sybil was certain nobody could have been more of a goose than she.

  He’d said she was perverse. Well, she was. Why did she not trust her own eyes, and her own heart? Why did she ever believe anything coming out of Lord Dalton’s mouth? Why did she convince herself that he must be mad for Poppy, though he had not shown the least sign of it?

  She threw open the curtains as the sun began its rise. What matter what she’d thought, or how she had been mistaken. She was not mistaken now, and her dear lord did not give a fig how perverse she’d ever been.

  She must convince her father to accept Lord Lockwood. The last thing on her poor papa’s mind would be finding himself with that particular lord as a son-in-law.

  Still, she must do it. She was a Hayworth, after all. She could match her father’s stubbornness toe to toe and would not shy away from using some more womanly arts either. She would start with logic and argument, but if necessary, she would end with tears and fainting and threats of starving herself. She would be as wily and determined as Lady Margaret Beaufort. She would have her way in this. Her dear father must be overcome.

  *

  Richard lounged in front of the open window that let in the cool dawn air, well satisfied with his efforts that evening. Had he known a fire would win over Lady Sybil, he might have set one days ago.

  To think, Lord Blanding had been so gracious as to accidentally set the drawing room alight, and then need rescuing out of the flames. The fellow could not have been more helpful if he’d tried.

  Richard had known Lady Sybil’s true feelings the moment she’d started to cry. That wonderful perverse little lady had taunted him and tortured him, though all along she’d loved him.

  He suppressed a smile as he pretended not to notice how slow Kingston and Charlie were going about their duties. When he’d entered the room, he’d casually said, “That’s that, then.” He suspected they were slowly going mad to understand what he meant by it.

  Charlie threw one of his boots on the floor. “I can’t take another minute. What is that’s that? What’s settled? Where are we?”

  Kingston narrowed his eyes, but did not do more than that, as he was equally impatient to hear.

  Richard casually stretched out his legs and said, “Lady Sybil has agreed to accept me, it is now only her father that must be won over. Certainly, he cannot hold out against me after I have dragged him out of the fire. At least, I think not.”

  Kingston’s face changed various tints, glorying in his master’s victory. Charlie said softly, “I wonder if Betty knows yet?”

  “I could not say if Betty knows yet,” Richard said, laughing. “The campaign is nearly won, we must just push on to the breach. Lady Sybil will break the news to her father sometime this morning. Then, after he’s had time to adjust to the idea, I will see him.”

  Charlie rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Edging toward the door, he said, “I’ll just go and see if Betty knows.” He was out the door and down the hall before Kingston could catch him.

  Richard was amused by Charlie’s race to find Betty. It was clear enough the boy wanted a mother and it seemed that Betty would take on the role, whether she cared to or not.

  He thought he ought to do something for Charlie. The boy was exceedingly clever and had helped his efforts in no end of ways. Uncouth, rude, and at times aggravating, but exceedingly clever.

  He supposed he might send him to school, if any school could be convinced to take him, and more importantly, keep him once they’d met him. If he could get the boy educated, there were various opportunities he might pursue with the right backing.

  Kingston was happily sorting out his clothes for the morrow. “What do you say, Kingston,” Richard asked. “I suppose you will not mind a mistress about the place? We might open up Kendall Hall again.”

  Kingston looked exceedingly flattered to be asked his opinion. “I expect Lady Sybil will be pleased with the estate.”

  Richard laughed. “I doubt it,” he said. “I understand that when a lady becomes mistress of a house, the rest of its inhabitants very quickly discover what, meaning everything, is not up to snuff. Lady Sybil will take one look at the place and order new wallpaper and carpets before you have time to unpack.”<
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  This appeared to be news to Kingston and he began to look concerned.

  “We must resign ourselves to it,” Richard said. “Lady Sybil may be of a diminutive stature, but her temperament is as bold as any queen. We shall all be ruled by her.”

  Richard knew that was entirely true, and that he ought to rail against it and assert his rights as a man. However, he did not have the least intention of doing so. Once Lord Blanding was mollified, his tiny queen might ascend to her throne and direct him forevermore. He found he was a very willing knight.

  *

  Charlie crept down to the servant’s quarters. All were still abed, even Jiminy, who liked to prowl the house like a cat at various hours to satisfy himself that all was well.

  By rights, Charlie should have no knowledge of the female side of the quarters. However, being considered only a young boy, and needing mending by Betty’s hand twice now already, his previous forays into that hallway had generally been ignored.

  He knew where Betty’s room was located well enough and the windows let in the early light to show him the way. Finding her was not the problem—speaking to her without waking Smith, Lady Blanding’s maid, was the hurdle to hop over. The two women shared a room, and from the glares and scoldings he’d already received from the older woman, he did not think she looked upon him favorably. It was an inconvenience, because he would need Smith’s help, but he hoped Betty could bring her into the fold.

  Lord Lockwood might think dragging the old fellow out of a fire would be enough to overcome Lord Blanding’s qualms, but Charlie was doubtful. He had never encountered a gentleman so contrary. Lord Blanding was of the sort who would shoot off his foot if a person told him not to do it, just to show he wouldn’t take orders from anybody. Then, he’d happily limp for the rest of his days, satisfied that he’d won the argument.

  So, how to convince a man like that to do an about face?

  Charlie thought he knew, but he couldn’t do it alone. In truth, he couldn’t do it at all. It had to be Smith, she was the only one who could get into that bedchamber and drop some vital information at just the right time.