Page 79 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

She loved the infernal, infuriating man, and now she might die without ever seeing him again.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dante was on edge before he found the two unfamiliar coaches blocking the rear of Suffolk House when he returned on the horse that Andover had loaned him for the day. He was not accustomed to the riding of horses, and it chafed him to share control with an animal.

Worse, he had been able to accomplish nothing of note at the house that day, not before Cerys came and not after she left. His mind kept sliding away from measurements of brick and stone to skim the dimensions of Cerys’s presence in his life, the proportions of her slender perfect body, the play of light and shadow across her expressive face.

He had opened his heart to her and made his pledge, and she had stepped away without giving him an answer. That meant her answer would be no.

He couldn’t bear it. He’d go drown himself in the River Chelt before he’d stand there and let her squeeze his heart in her fist.

No, he decided as he swung down from the horse. He wouldn’t flinch. He wouldn’t beg or try to coerce. He’d take the blows like a man, and he’d bury the loneliness of the rest of his life in drink and work, just as his father had done.

Servants scrambled out of the coaches and heaved at the luggage strapped to the roofs and rear. They spoke English, but in an accent he’d never heard. How like Andover to invite more guests and not inform the ones he was already hosting.

No matter; Dante would avoid them. He had to avoid Cerys anyway, at least until he gathered the courage to look her in the eye as she dismantled his heart and his hopes for the future. He would leave the final touches the Countess of Suffolk wanted in the hands of the butler to oversee. Buckle was capable. Dante wasn’t needed.

With the path to the back entrance clogged, he walked around the house to discover two more coaches standing in the dirt-packed lane, lined up along the shrubbery. Andover and Dutton stood on the front walk, conversing with two gentlemen. He knew their status by the quality of their coats, the fashion of their hats, the way they held themselves as if they deserved, had earned, all the honor and reverence the world gave them for the mere accident of their birth.

Dante wondered how he was going to get inside while evading their notice, what with having to wade through the tangle of children running about and women and nurses standing and scolding the children.

“Manelli!” Andover hailed him. “He’ll know,” he said to the gentlemen. “He and Miss Evans have an understanding, if you take my meaning.”

“I don’t.” One of the strange gentlemen turned to Dante with a frown. He looked a few years older than Dante, arrogant and large, as tall if not as broad. He wore a buff-colored greatcoat and Hessian boots with tassels, as if he’d been driving.

The second man, more rough-hewn of feature, wore a dark wool riding coat and striped trousers tucked into his tall boots. His frown resembled the first’s. “But perhaps we should.”

“You brought Miss Evans with you, then?” Dutton asked. “This is her friends and family asking.”

Dante stopped as if gripped in a vise. “Cerys returned with the others. The women. In your coach, Andover.”

Andover furrowed his brow. “The coach arrived hours ago. Miss Evans wasn’t with them. They stopped at Barrett’s Spa and Lady Baeccon took Miss Evans away with her.”

“Bathsheba?” The vise tightened. “Why would she go with Bathsheba?”

“They must have gone off to some entertainment,” Dutton said.

“But Cerys would send word if she’d made other plans for the evening.” Mame joined them, drawn out of the house no doubt by curiosity at the new arrivals, and why they were all standing about outside, enjoying the sunset. “She wouldn’t leave us to worry.”

“Did you say Lady Baeccon?” One of the women came to stand beside the lord in the greatcoat. Dante pegged him as a lord, or a lord’s heir, by his air of casual command, much like Andover’s but more developed. She was a lovely woman, fashionably attired, with cinnamon-brown hair tucked beneath her hat. The lilt in her voice matched that of the servants behind the house. “Her ladyship wrote that they were in Cheltenham for the season.”

Dante watched her apprehensively. If this lady were a friend to Bathsheba, then she might be a foe to them all.

“I know Bacon,” said Greatcoat with a grim set to his mouth. “He’s an arse.”

“Pen,” chided the woman with reddish hair. She studied Dante. “Perhaps his lady is a better sort.”

“She isn’t.” Dante felt the contraction of his brow, the glower Cerys had accused him of wearing all too often. “If Bathsheba wanted Cerys, it’s for mischief, I can guarantee.”

The woman’s brows rose. “Cerys to you, is she?”

“An understanding.” Andover nodded.

“Perhaps you might make the introductions, Andover,” Greatcoat said with a thread of steel in his voice. Dante watched him warily. He knew a brawler when he met one, whether he wore a lord’s coat or no.

“Oh, right you are. Penrydd, this is Mr. Dante Manelli of London, architect. He built this house for m’father.” Andover jerked his chin to indicate the building behind them.

“Architect.” Greatcoat narrowed his eyes. “Italian?”