Deb Marlowe - An Improper Aristocrat

‘I don’t want it.’ The words emerged in almost a sob. She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as if in horror at her own lack of control. Trey watched as she drew a deep breath and stood. ‘Do you hear me, Lord Treyford? I do not want it!’

Trey was dumbfounded. Here was yet another twist to this horrifyingly convoluted day. He stared at the girl, wondering where the calm and remote young lady he had walked out with had gone. ‘That is unacceptable,’ he said flatly. ‘I made a pledge to your brother that I would deliver it to you.’

She looked unimpressed.

‘I gave my word of honour.’ As far as he was concerned, that was the end of the matter.

Apparently it was for the girl, as well. It quickly became obvious that he had pushed her past the point of restraint. She stood poised, indignation in every taut line of her body, those incredible dark eyes glittering with emotion. ‘I don’t give a tinker’s damn for your honour,’ she ground out. ‘Family honour, a man’s pride, I’ve had my fill of it. It is all just fancy trappings and convenient excuses for doing whatever fool thing engages you, regardless of who you hurt or neglect in the process.’ She cast a scornful glance over him. ‘You keep it, Lord Treyford, and if by some miracle you do find the Jewel, then you may keep that as well.’

‘Jewel?’ Trey asked. He was getting damned tired of feeling like the village idiot, not understanding who was who or what was happening around him.

She let out a distinctly unladylike snort and turned away from him.

‘Now, you wait just a moment. Keep it?’ Hastily Trey got to his feet, trying to tamp down on the flickering rise of his own anger. ‘Keep it, you say? If I had wanted to keep the cursed thing I would have stayed in Egypt,’ he said, growing more furious with each word. ‘I would not have abandoned my plans, given up my work, and tramped halfway around the world to this…’ he swept his arm in an encompassing gesture ‘…this insane asylum.’

He rubbed a hand across his brow, dampened the flames of his temper, searching for patience. ‘Months, this has cost me months.’ With a sudden fluid movement, he thrust his arm out, dangling the scarab from its chain, forcing her to look at it. ‘This thing meant something to your brother. It was so important that he spent his dying breath securing my promise to see it returned to you. And you ask me to keep it?’

For the briefest of moments he saw a stricken expression cross her lovely face, but then her eyes narrowed and her expression hardened. ‘I know what it meant to my brother, and, worse, what it means to me.’ She looked as if she meant to go on, but could not. Her spine straightened as she grappled with her emotions.

Trey was fighting the same battle, and losing fast. He glared at the girl, feeling helpless in the face of her irrational reaction, and resenting her for it. ‘I promised Richard,’ he repeated harshly. ‘He lay in the sand with the life spilling out of him, and he took my hand and made me promise. To deliver this, and to protect you.’

‘Protect me?’ The sound that came from her was bitter, ugly. ‘From what? The folly of trusting in selfish, egocentric men?’ She raked him with a scathing glance. ‘That lesson I have—finally!—taken to heart.’

She turned away, shaking with the force of the emotion racking her, and Trey could see the moment when she gained a measure of control. She turned, dashing the tears from her face, her voice once more composed. ‘I apologise, sir, for taking my grief and anger out on you. I cannot…I need to spend some time alone just now. I trust you can find your way back on your own?’

She did not wait for an answer to her question. Trey stared in disbelief as she walked off, following the path farther into the wood. He stood watching her for several moments, debating whether to chase her down, before he glanced at the scarab in his hand. Turning, he walked back up the path towards the house.

He passed it by, going straight to the stables to fetch his horse. The wiry groom silently readied his mount, and Trey set out at a brisk pace, more than eager to put a stop to the most unsettling day he had experienced in years. He wished, suddenly and intensely, that he could send the scarab and a note and be done with the matter, that he could be free to make plans to return to his work.

The thought brought on a sudden longing for the simplicity of his time in Egypt. Long days, hard work, hot sun. It had been vigorous and stimulating. Hell, even the complexities of dealing with the wily Egyptian kashifs were as nothing compared to the chaos he’d unwittingly stumbled into.

There were too many things here he just did not understand. He had a promise to keep, it was as simple as that, but he could not quiet the worrisome thought that things were much more complicated here than they appeared on the surface.

Aswan had secured him a room in the village’s best inn. The former headman—who had consented to leave Egypt and travel as Trey’s manservant—expressed a substantial amount of surprise at his employer returning in a different suit of clothes from the one he had sent him out in. And though he was not usually the sort to chat with a servant, or anybody else for that matter, Trey found himself spilling the whole muddled tale as he stripped for a proper bath.

Now, as he gratefully sunk into the steaming tub, Aswan occupied himself brushing out Richard’s coat. ‘This vicar’s wife, who made the trade with the boy,’ he mused, his clever fingers making quick work of the task, ‘she sounds most worthy. Should I wish to meet her, would it be frowned upon?’

Trey stared at the man. ‘No, but why the hell should you wish to?’ He regretted the harshness of his words when the Egyptian man raised a brow at him. ‘If you do not mind my asking,’ he said.

Aswan bowed. ‘You may ask, effendi.’ He returned to his work while he spoke. ‘It is not often that one hears of a woman so generous and so wise as well. She accomplished her task, pleased the boy, and saved the young lady’s face all at once.’

‘Saved the young lady’s face?’ Trey wondered if there was some miscommunication at work here. ‘From what?’

‘From the discomfort of accepting charity. This is something of which you English do not approve, no?’

Trey sat up in the tub. ‘Do you mean to say that that girl has been reduced to taking charity?’ He experienced a sudden vision of the dusty, empty halls of Oakwood Court.

‘Reduced? That is a good word,’ Aswan said. ‘Reedooosed.’

‘Aswan.’ His warning was clear.

‘Yes, sir,’ the man relented. ‘It is common knowledge in the village that they are in trouble. The elder of the family, he is gone—no one knows where—yes?’

‘Yes,’ Trey said impatiently.

‘His business—it goes on. There are the men who look after it.’ ‘Directors.’

‘Directors. But the old man’s own money, it is…iced? Froze?’

‘Frozen? His assets are frozen?’

‘Yes! And the family is left to support themselves until the old one is found. With Latimer effendi crossed over, it is difficult for them.’

Trey sank back into the warm depths of the tub. Well. That explained quite a bit. Perhaps it also explained Richard’s pleas for him to help Chione? Could her trouble be as simple as a lack of funds?

In any case, it gave him a clear reason to ride back out there first thing tomorrow. If Miss Latimer did not wish to keep the scarab, perhaps she would allow him to sell it on her behalf. After that, other arrangements could be set up to see the family through, at least until there was some word of Mervyn Latimer.

With hope, however slight, that his time in Devonshire might actually be near an end, Trey could at last fully relax. He heaved a sigh and laid his head on the back of the tub.