Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(79)

Someone pounded on his back, but he didn’t pay attention. Not until Hero shouted in his ear. “Griffin, stop!”

He became aware, slowly it seemed, of people in the room. Of an ache in his shoulder and, strangely, his jaw. He glanced up and saw Mater’s face.

She was crying.

His arms fell to his side, and he stared at her, his chest heaving.

“Oh, Griffin,” she said, and he wanted to weep as well. To howl his shame and sorrow.

He looked down and saw Thomas lying between his knees, trying to staunch the blood flowing from his nose with one hand. Over his hand, his brother’s blue eyes glittered with rage and an answering shame.

“Griffin,” Hero said, her hand on his shoulder as light as a bird’s, and finally he turned to look at her.

Tears sparkled in her eyes, and one side of her face was reddened and beginning to swell. The sight enraged him all over again, but this time he didn’t glance at his brother. Instead he reached for her face, his hands bloody and trembling.

He cradled her with his bruised hands. “Are you all right?”

“No,” she said. “No.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry.”

He rose and tried to take her into his arms, to somehow try and make right this bloody, awful mess.

But she shook her head, backing away. “Don’t.”

“Hero,” he pleaded, and his vision blurred. “Please.”

“No.” Her hand rose, delicate and pale, to halt him. “No, I can’t… just don’t.”

And she turned and fled the room.

Griffin looked around. The butler, a footman, and several maids were standing about gawking while his mother’s frail shoulders shook.

“Get out, the lot of you,” he barked to the servants.

They fled silently.

He took Mater into his arms, feeling the fragile bones of her shoulder blades. “I’m so sorry. I’m a beast.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What has happened?”

“Griffin seduced my fiancée,” Thomas said indistinctly through swelling lips. He still lay on the floor. “He couldn’t keep his hands off her any more than he could keep his hands off poor Anne.”

“Griffin?” Mater looked at him, her eyes bewildered, and it nearly broke his heart.

“Shut up, Thomas,” he growled.

“How dare you—”

Griffin turned his head slowly and glared at his brother silently, his upper lip lifting in a threat so primal, even Thomas understood. “You’ll not talk of this. You’ll not insinuate. You’ll not even speak her name—do you understand?”

“I—” Thomas shut his mouth.

“Not a word, or I’ll finish what I began.”

Mater laid a protesting hand on his shoulder, but this was too important, even if it distressed her further. Griffin held Thomas’s gaze until his elder brother nodded and looked away.

“Good,” Griffin said. “Come, Mater. Let’s have some tea and I’ll try to explain.”

And he led her from the room, leaving Thomas on his arse on the floor.

“I CANNOT PRETEND joy over your actions,” Cousin Bathilda said to Hero an hour later. “But I think you have been quite punished enough for whatever transgressions you may have committed.”

She gently replaced the wet cloth on Hero’s swollen cheek. Hero closed her eyes, not wanting to see the anxious worry in Cousin Bathilda’s eyes. She lay in her own bed now, hiding from the turmoil outside her room. The entire side of her face throbbed where Thomas had struck her. Mignon was beside her, the little dog’s nose against her good cheek as if to give comfort.

Sudden tears flooded Hero’s eyes. “I don’t deserve your care.”

“Nonsense,” Cousin Bathilda said with some of her former vigor. “The marquess had no right to strike you. The very idea of hitting a lady! It’s very lucky he didn’t break your cheekbone. Really, it’s for the best that you shan’t marry the man after all if he has such violent impulses.”

“He was provoked,” Hero said drily.

The memory of Thomas’s enraged face as he stood over her made her shiver. And then when Griffin had entered with such force. The sight of the brothers locked in mortal combat seemed like a terrible dream. She’d actually worried that Griffin would not be stopped until he killed his brother. How had things come to this?

“We’ll have to make it a small wedding, of course,” Cousin Bathilda said now.

Hero blinked. “But I’m not marrying Mandeville.”

Cousin Bathilda patted her shoulder. “No, dear, Reading. And as soon as possible, before any gossip gets out.”

Hero closed her eyes in weariness. Did she want to marry Griffin? Would Maximus even let her? But thoughts of her brother brought a realization.

“Oh, dear Lord, I forgot Maximus!” Hero sat upright, the wet cloth sliding from her face. She looked at Cousin Bathilda in panic. “Does he know yet?”

Cousin Bathilda blinked, looking taken aback. “I certainly haven’t told him, but you know how he is.”

“Yes, I do,” Hero said, climbing from the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“He’ll have found out by now—you know he will,” Hero muttered as she searched for her slippers. “I don’t know if it’s by informants or gossip or plain alchemy, but he finds out everything sooner or later, and considering the scandalous nature of this news…” She trailed off as she bent to look under the bed. There her slippers were!