The Youngest Dowager: A Regency romance(51)
‘Jackson, see this… person off the premises. He is not to be re-admitted except with her ladyship’s express permission.’ Marcus turned his back contemptuously on the older man.
It was Jackson who saw Sir George lunge forward, Jackson who grabbed him before the blow could fall. But it took both men to wrestle the enraged baronet down the stairs and out of the front door.
Marissa stood in the middle of the room, frozen with shock, her fingers rubbing her bruised wrist. The front door slammed and then the knocker was pounded furiously for several seconds. Finally, with a great roar of anger, her father gave up and there was silence.
She heard Marcus and Jackson clattering back up the stairs, their voices animated. They entered together, both men flushed and triumphant, somehow larger than life, Jackson massaging his knuckles. They stopped abruptly at the sight of her.
‘Shall I call your maid, my lady?’ Jackson was immediately the perfect butler once again.
‘No thank you, Jackson.’
Marcus poured a glass of brandy and pressed it into her hand before he led her to the sofa. ‘Drink this, it will help to calm your nerves. Jackson, send for Dr Lavery, her ladyship’s wrist is badly bruised.’
‘No, please do not. How could we explain how it happened?’ Marissa protested. ‘Witch hazel will soothe it, please do not concern yourselves.’ She took a sip of the brandy and coughed as it burned its way down her throat. She tried to hand the glass back to Marcus, but he urged her to take more.
Jackson went out as she turned to Marcus. ‘I am so sorry. I apologise for my father’s disgraceful behaviour. I would not have admitted him, but Matthews was unaware of my lord’s orders forbidding Sir George the house and, by the time I had realised who it was, it was too late. Goodness knows what the neighbours will make of the hubbub in the street.’
‘Then this behaviour is not new?’
‘I wish I could say yes, but sadly I have never known him be anything but domineering and given to frequent rages when crossed. I believe that strong drink aggravates it. My lord tolerated him until we were wed, but my father’s constant demands for money and his drunkenness so disgusted Charles that he forbade him the house. He made him a small allowance, which of course I have continued.’
It was so humiliating to have to recount her father’s weaknesses in front of a man she loved and respected. What must he think of her now that he had seen her parent at his very worst?
Marcus got to his feet and stood at the window looking out across the Square. ‘You should not have to deal with him. I will speak to Mr Hope and have him offer your father a single – final – payment in return for the ending of his pension and on condition that he never troubles you again.’
‘No, please.’
‘But why not? Better to get rid of him now than to have him constantly dogging your footsteps.’
Marissa stared at him, her mind able to comprehend nothing but the fact that Charles had paid five thousand guineas for her hand – no, for her body. The thought of Marcus following in her husband’s footsteps to buy off her father for a second time was too abhorrent to contemplate.
It was on the tip of Marcus’s tongue to ask if her father was attempting to blackmail Marissa. He had heard the tail-end of Sir George’s threat to create a scandal that would blight the Southwood name. He knew that Marissa’s loyalty and pride would force her to do whatever lay in her power to prevent such a disclosure, whatever it was. Yet if she would not confide in him, how could he ask? He felt the same frustration he had felt so often before with Marissa, the instinct that at the core of her was another, secret woman he could not reach.
‘You do not know him like I do,’ she was explaining. Marcus jerked his attention back to the present. ‘My father would spend whatever you gave him in a matter of months – gamble it away, drink it away, spend it on – ’ she hesitated, biting her lip, ‘Loose women. And he would still come back for more. The only hope is to continue to pay his pension because he would be reluctant to lose that.’
‘Then I will pay it so he will have no excuse to approach you in the future.’
‘But he is my father, it is my responsibility.’
‘You are my responsibility now, Marissa,’ he said quietly. He went to her, took her chin gently in his palm and tipped up her troubled face. For a long moment they gazed into the others’ eyes, then he got his breathing under control, said. ‘You are my cousin, after all and I am head of the family.’ He dropped a chaste and cousinly kiss on her flushed cheek.
Marissa did not know what to say, or do. She was overwhelmed by his closeness, by the warmth of his body, by the scent of his cologne. Whatever else she wanted to be, it was not his cousin, or sister or whatever he was trying to tell her with that kiss. With an effort she banished her thoughts from her face. ‘Thank you, Marcus. I would be glad to be rid of the responsibility, I must admit. I am happy to abide by whatever you and Mr Hope decide is for the best. Now, if you will forgive me, I think I will go and lie down.’
In her room Marissa found Mary tidying drawers and sent her off for witch hazel and lint to bind her bruised wrist. The girl wanted to make a soothing tisane and help her mistress into bed but, despite her excuse to Marcus, Marissa was determined not to give in to her nerves. Fresh air and sunshine were what she needed, not moping inside letting her mind run endlessly over her father’s words, the realisation that her husband had effectively bought her.