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Vanessa couldn’t help but shoot the woman a flabbergasted glance. Mrs. Dorrian-Lane must, indeed, want to keep on the authorities’ favorable side.
Owen made a strangling noise as he clawed ineffectually at Egeus’s hand, which gripped his arm as easily as if it were a fragile flower stem.
Titan gave a short, deferential nod. “At once, Mrs. Dorrian-Lane.”
Then, moving surprisingly swiftly and with agility Vanessa wouldn’t have expected from someone possessing such a large frame, Titan took his leave.
Egeus brusquely hauled Owen down the corridor. Her stepbrother protested and issued dire threats toward Vanessa and Kingston with each dragging step. He wasn’t rash enough to do so against The Wicked Widow of Whitechapel.
Perhaps he possessed a modicum of common sense, after all.
Muttering filthy slurs the whole while, Lord Pimbleton followed of his own accord.
What horrid, vulgar, offensive creatures.
How could Owen have ever thought she’d agree to marry such a foul man?
“Mr. Barclay, you’re already twenty minutes late for your appointment. Do not keep me waiting any longer, lest I change my mind about assisting you with your…”
Vanessa swore the woman slid a considering gaze toward her once more.
“Your…situation.” Mrs. Dorrian-Lane fell into step once more.
“What situation?” Vanessa whispered as Kingston, the chiseled angles of his face strained, towed her along after the proprietress. He was thinner than she’d remembered, hollows accenting his pronounced cheekbones and purplish half-moon arcs shadowing his eyes. But then, he had been at war, and God only knew what horrors he’d witnessed and suffered.
Or mayhap he’d been ill.
Precisely, why was he here tonight anyway?
He glanced down at her, his features grim and white lines bracketing his mouth. Something undefinable shone in his eyes, the color of a clear spring sky first thing in the morning. “She’s meant to find me a wife. An heiress who will marry me, provide a substantial fortune, and, in turn, will become a duchess when I inherit the dukedom.”
He hadn’t said, “My duchess,” and Vanessa somehow thought that detail was significant.
Nonetheless, she couldn't keep her jaw from sagging, and she pulled on his arm to slow his progress.
“Kingston!” Vanessa tugged harder. “You simply cannot do something so awful. Marry someone you don’t care for purely for money? It’s untenable. If you are short of funds, I come into my full fortune in eight days. I’d be happy to loan you, interest-free, of course, whatever you need for as long as you like.”
She instinctively knew he’d never accept a gift of money. His manly pride wouldn’t permit it. But he’d been such a loyal friend to Gabriel; how could she not offer to help him? His circumstances must indeed be dire to resort to such extreme tactics.
Kingston touched her cheek with a bent knuckle, and her breathing stuttered once more.
What was wrong with her?
It must be the cumulative shock of the evening’s events taking a toll on her. And having skipped dinner, of course. Yes. That was it. She was merely hungry.
A melancholy smile played around the edges of his mouth. A mouth Vanessa had noticed far too many times in the past few minutes. That she could not blame on hunger or nerves, and she positively refused to place a defintion upon whatever the cause was.
“You are so much like Gabriel. He had the same generous, unselfish heart.”
“Mr. Barclay. I am waiting,” Mrs. Dorrian-Lane’s sing-song voice had a steely inflection that made Vanessa’s skin pucker. The Wicked Widow had disappeared like a wraith into a room at the end of the corridor.
“She scares the spit out of me,” Vanessa confessed in an urgent whisper, flapping her free hand around her face. “Especially that veil. Do you think she’s scarred or deformed?”
Kingston chuckled, quite the most delicious masculine rumble Vanessa had ever heard, and her body hummed in a newfound awareness.
“Me too. I think she wears it to be mysterious,” he said, also keeping his voice low. “She’s a veritable dragon.” He glanced around. “Should’ve named this place The Dragon’s Lair, if you ask me,” he quipped with a saucy wink.
A giggle slipped past Vanessa’s lips before she abruptly cut it off.
