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“I don’t care,” she repeated, and glanced up at Thomas, listening avidly from the driver’s box.
“Thomas, take me to Grosvenor Square. As fast as you can.”
“Yes, my lady.” He tipped his hat in her direction.
She leaped into the carriage, slammed the door, and clung tight as the vehicle lurched into movement. It was absurd, but she had the strongest presentiment that if she saw Nicholas in time, he wouldn’t die.
She realized she murmured over and over in a low voice. A repetitive plea to heaven. Surely God wouldn’t deprive her of her beloved just when she’d discovered she couldn’t live without him.
She heard shouting behind her. She paid no attention.
The coach jerked to a halt.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Her heart stuttered with anguished denial. They couldn’t stop her now. Demarest might deny her the carriage. In which case she’d find a hackney. Walk if she must.
Good God, she’d crawl across London to convince Nicholas to fight for his life.
At this moment, she didn’t care whether he spent the rest of that life with her. All she cared about was that he recovered. That somewhere in the world Nicholas still walked and spoke and laughed. The prospect of him pursuing other women paled to insignificance compared to the horror of losing him altogether.
Her hands clenched in her lap as the door opened and Henry swung in. The fusillade of angry words died on her lips as he landed next to her. “Henry, what are you doing?” she asked blankly.
He wrenched the door shut and knocked on the roof. The coach resumed its progress with a rattling dash that answered her burning anxiety.
“You could be heading into a difficult spot.” Henry smiled, taking one of her hands in silent comfort. “You might like someone at your back.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Antonia braced for an inquisition but Henry remained blessedly quiet as the carriage careered through the thick traffic with a recklessness that in other circumstances would terrify her. As it was, she hardly noticed. She only knew her desperate need to see Nicholas, to offer forgiveness, to beg him to live.
Sightlessly she stared out the window at the packed streets. All she saw was an inner landscape of blood, darkness, and despair.
And unbearable, eternal loss.
She’d wondered whether Cassie’s news was accurate. The moment the carriage reached Grosvenor Square, she wondered no longer. Outside Ranelaw House, thick straw lay along the street to muffle traffic. Onlookers massed at the black railings dividing house from footpath.
Tidings of the Marquess of Ranelaw’s approaching demise spread. As their coach pulled up, more people joined the crowd. Surprisingly the gathering was subdued, almost respectful.
The arrival of the Demarest coach and the alighting of two people from society’s upper echelons, even if two people unknown to the mob, caused a stir. Antonia lowered her head so her bonnet hid her distinctive features. With silent reassurance, Henry took her elbow and effortlessly cleared a path to the two brawny footmen guarding the shallow stairs.
Antonia hadn’t prepared to fight her way through curious bystanders or servants determined to preserve their master’s privacy. She should have realized that Nicholas’s wound would be a public matter. She should have realized, in contrast to her previous visit, that Ranelaw House would be a center of activity.
She had cause to be grateful for Henry’s partisan presence. Another sign that he’d matured beyond
the callow youth she remembered. His quiet authority, his air of breeding, his refusal to allow mere domestics to bar access to the house countered all opposition. He and Antonia swept inside without revealing their identities.
Fear held her trembling and mute as the door shut, enclosing them in the marble entrance hall. The dull thud held a grimly doom-laden note and the statues loomed against the walls like funerary monuments.
As her belly cramped with the painful, joyful memory of the last time she was here, she dragged in a breath to steady her nerves. What transfiguring passion she’d shared with Nicholas. She was such a willfully blind fool. She should have realized then that she was hopelessly in love with the scapegrace.
To her surprise, Lord Thorpe emerged to greet them. She’d expected a servant, perhaps the supercilious butler who had refused her admission the day of Cassie’s abduction. Thorpe had always impressed her as a sensible man. In fact, at first she’d been puzzled that he and Nicholas were friends. For so long, she’d obstinately closed her eyes to any evidence that Nicholas was more than a selfish hedonist.
Cassie had lent her a traveling dress, so she was more fashionably turned out than usual. It was unlikely Thorpe would identify her as Miss Demarest’s harridan of a chaperone, although she’d watched him dance and flirt through a multitude of balls.
Thorpe smiled at Henry. “Lord Aveson, I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.”
Henry removed his hat and bowed. “Lord Thorpe, not since our days at Oxford.”
