For a second, she wondered if he would mind if she hugged him. Then he shifted in his seat, looking down at his hands, and she was fairly certain he wouldn’t.
She slid across the seat and put her arms around him. “Thank you,” she said again. “For being my brother when I needed one.”
He brought his hand up to pat her back. When she pulled away, he coughed into his hand. “Of course,” he said. But his voice was just a little too rough. “Of course.”
“Come in,” she said. “My parents will be happy to see you.”
He sat up straight. “I don’t know… That is… It’s a little more complicated than that. I don’t want to impose, and given the rather odd history between our two families…”
“Come on,” Free said, with a roll of her eyes. “If you’re not by my side, I’ll burst into tears when I see my mother, and that will be very embarrassing. After all that I’ve been through in the last few days, you can’t subject me to that.”
He looked at her for one second. Oh, the man definitely did not have younger siblings if he actually believed a word of that. He was far too susceptible to a touch of guilt.
“Oh, very well,” he said in a put-upon voice. “If you insist.”
But he didn’t look put upon. He looked pleased. He handed her down from the carriage, unhitched the horses, and tied them up. When that was all taken care of, he offered her his arm and conducted her up the path to the house.
It occurred to her, as she knocked on the door, that something was amiss. In all the time they’d been dawdling on the road, somebody ought to have seen them. But neither her father nor her mother had appeared.
Too late to wonder. She heard a noise inside, and then her mother opened the door.
Free’s heart stopped. Her mother—oh, God, her mother. Her eyes were dark. Her face was lined. Free hadn’t seen her look like that since Aunt Freddy passed away years before. It had taken her mother a few months to lose that look about her, that grief-stricken look that said the world had betrayed her. Now it was back, and the only thing that Free could think was that something awful had happened. She gasped.
“Oh, thank God,” her mother said.
“Oh, no.” Free spoke atop her. “What on earth is wrong? Is it Laura and her baby?”
Her mother gasped and put one hand over her heart. “What’s the matter with Laura?”
“It isn’t Laura? Then…”
There was a moment while they stared at each other in confusion. Another moment, when her mother let out a breath. “Free. I was worried about you.”/
“Me.” Free looked around. “Why me? I’m…” Perfectly fine, she had been about to say. But she wasn’t. She didn’t know what she felt any longer.
And then her mother put her arms around Free, pulling her close. It was utterly ridiculous. Free had made her own way for years. She was far too old to bury her head in her mother’s apron and bawl. But somehow, when her mother held her, the sound of her breath, the feel of her shoulders, the distinctive smell of her soap… They all combined to mean something like comfort. Comfort had been in short supply in recent times.
And then her mother whispered in her ear. “I don’t care what your father says. Say the word, and I will walk back into the kitchen and stick a knife in his back.”
Free pulled back. That sense of comfort withdrew, leaving her uncertain. “Who are you planning to kill?”
“He’s in there.” Her mother gestured to the house with her head. “Claridge.”
Free’s hands turned cold.
“And I swear to God,” her mother continued in that low voice, “I did not raise my daughters to become some filthy lords’ playthings. I have no idea what happened, what hold he has over you, but if he’s done a damned thing to hurt you, he’ll pay. They can hang me. I—” She stopped, took a deep breath, and looked to her right.
Just as well that she’d stopped talking. The thought of someone stabbing Edward in the kidneys didn’t make Free feel any better.
But her mother was looking at the man standing next to Free. “Oh,” she continued, in an entirely different voice. “Your Grace. How…ah… How unexpected to see you.” She brushed at her skirts and grimaced.
What flitted through Free’s mind was nothing rational. She had nothing to say to comfort her mother. What occurred to her instead was this: What’s the difference between a lord and a bit of algae?
She’d never heard that particular joke. Still, she didn’t have any difficulty coming up with her own answer.
One of them’s a slippery, slimy, disgusting thing. The other is necessary to the proper functioning of freshwater ponds. It was deeply, impossibly inappropriate. She was fairly certain that this was proof that her tenuous hold on calm rationality was slipping from her grasp. Another five minutes, and she’d start staring off into space, laughing at nothing at all.
What’s the difference between a lord and a pile of horse manure? It was too easy. One of them smells terribly; the other, applied judiciously, increases the productivity of fields.
But then, she could have said the same thing about ladies. And now she was one.
Next to her, her mother and Robert were still talking. “You mustn’t talk that way,” the duke was saying. “I’ll do it, if it must be done. They’d have to go through the Lords to hang me, and there are extenuating circumstances. Such as the fact that Claridge is a lout. They’d never convict me. But…” He frowned. “No, sorry. Before I agree to commit a crime with witnesses present, I really ought to talk to Minnie. She’ll have a better idea.”
A smile touched her mother’s face. “You are a handy person to know. Would you…two…care to…”
Come in? Abscond? Free wasn’t certain what she wanted. She didn’t want them to kill Edward—even though they were probably joking. Robert was, at least; she wasn’t entirely sure about her mother. But she didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want him near almost as much as she wanted him close. She was afraid that if she caught sight of him, he’d charm her into compliance.
She drew a deep breath. “We can postpone Claridge’s inevitable demise,” she said. “At least until we’ve spoken with Minnie. And until I’ve…”
Behind her mother, Edward came into the hall. He caught sight of her and came to a halt.