With regret, she put Lady Grandison’s letter away in her desk drawer. Perhaps she could write and ask for a fortnight’s grace, until both she and Papa were more confident in his abstinence. But in truth, if she was all that kept him from the bottle, how could she ever leave him? She had to put it from her mind, along with everything else associated with Lord Durward.
The next night, Papa came home very late. She had just put on her bonnet and cloak, ready to go and look for him, when he stumbled over the door, grinning at her.
“It was jusht a couple of brandies,” he slurred. “I’ll shtill be up and out the door early...”
She gave him his dinner, which he fell asleep over, and helped him upstairs to bed.
And tomorrow, it would be all to do again.
She lay awake for a long time, realizing what was happening. The first night, she had let it go, given an inch, and he had taken a mile. Tomorrow night she would have to pry him out of some drinking den, or she would find him on a heap on the doorstep.
It hurt to think she was not enough to keep him sober. She never had been and she never would be. Durward was right. It had to be his decision, and she wasn’t helping. She was giving him permission.
But dear God, what would happen to him if she wasn’t there to look after him?
Much the same as happened to him now when she was.
She tossed and turned for the rest of the night, dozing intermittently. She rose early and knocked loudly on her father’sdoor. He gave some kind of answer and she went downstairs to make tea and breakfast.
He didn’t come down for two hours, and he looked considerably the worse for wear. He met her steady gaze and awarded her a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I slipped a bit last night. No more. I’ll be home before dinner tonight.”
“I should think you’ll be home before midday, since you’ve left it so late.”
“Oh, there’s always something,” he said vaguely.
“I hope so,” she said. “I’ve decided to write to Lady Grandison and accept her offer. If I am too late, I shall be looking for a similar post.”
He blinked. “Don’t be silly, Carina. It was only a couple of drinks on one evening! What do you expect of me?”
“I need to look after myself. And I keep to my word.”
“Oh, pissy-patoot!” he said in disgust.
He slammed the door as he left.
Carina went back upstairs and took Lady Grandison’s letter from her desk drawer.
Chapter Eight
Durward entered into the festivities at Lady Hawthorn’s gathering with renewed enthusiasm for life. Carina filled his mind and his heart. Her trust, her kiss, had overwhelmed him, not just with desire—which he had resisted only by bolting—but with determination to be worthy of her, to be a better man.
He could not help being the life and soul of the party. It was in his nature. But he tracked down Bethany at once and got the full truth out of her about Duncan’s trouble at school.
“Playing cards at night when the lights should be out isn’t so bad,” he said comfortably.
“For coin,” Edgar Baldeston, his brother-in-law, said wryly. “And he set up card schools in the younger boys’ dormitories, where he took a cut in coin or kind.”
“Enterprising,” Durward allowed. “Though perhaps a little...greedy. Does the school want to expel him?”
“Of course it does!” Bethany said. “Edgar wrote to the headmaster, begging the time to visit and make matters right, but the school remains adamant.”
“I’ll go,” Durward said. “It’s on my way to Gullaine Park anyway.”
“You’re going home?” Bethany said in surprise.
“I haven’t been paying enough attention, and there’s no reason I shouldn’t now, if Foster isn’t going to die on me.”
Edgar eyed him closely. “Exactly who are you again? And what have you done with my brother-in-law?”
