Chapter 37 - MARK—A VISITOR COMES KNOCKING

Chapter 37

MARK—A VISITOR COMES KNOCKING

Standing in my Jermyn Street lodgings, I tied my cravat, a formal crisp white knot, in preparation for tonight’s ball. The Duke of Torrance had the ton ablaze with talk of his first formal ball of the season.

Lent was done and hearty decadent celebrations were desired by all. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the duke would offer a spectacle that would be the talk of London. I hoped the fanfare and grandeur were so overwhelming that the ton would no longer talk of my supposed secret faux alliance with Miss Wilcox.

The papers should have lost interest, but they reprinted Gilroy’s cartoon of Georgina and me on the pianoforte. Someone from the Globe or the Post would be at the ball tonight looking for trouble.

Yet, I was spoiling for a fight. My family might not ever accept Georgie, but if we loved each other, it shouldn’t matter. I could be my own man and stand up to the Sebastians. I had a finished sonata, a winning sonata. I had a future. Now I merely needed the woman.

A rare knock on my door made me pause my useless introspection. Livingston, I presumed. Didn’t he know I intended to drive so that I could leave when Georgie rejected me a final time?

I charged to the door, flung it open and saw Chancey.

Grimacing, haggard-looking Chancey, my mother’s butler.

“Sir, why have you come? Is all well?”

“Your mother. She’s downstairs. She wishes to speak to you.”

The longtime butler, who’d seen all manner of circumstances, even scandal in the Prahmn household, looked ashen, shaken.

“Chancey, what’s the matter?”

“The marquess has returned. He’s very unhappy with the circumstances of your rushed courtship.”

Locking my arms behind my back to prevent myself from grabbing the butler’s lapels and shaking out answers, I stayed still. “He should take his anger out on me.”

“The marquess is a beast. Marchioness is leaving London for the country.”

This indeed was a punishment for her. At the beginning of the season, unable to go to parties and dinners and gossip with the ton’s mothers about their sons’ and daughters’ prospects was a horrendous torture.

“Tell her I’ll be down, and I’ll take her back to Grosvenor and reason with my father.”

“No, my lord. She’s been banished tonight. The Marchioness of Prahmn had to leave Grosvenor immediately. She barely packed two trunks.”

“Two.” Well, that was a way to flee. “I’ll come now.”

Dousing a candle, I grabbed my satchel, locked up the flat, and followed Chancey out to the street.

The sun had set. The sky was purple and indigo, hanging over a lone stately carriage.

“She’s distraught. Be gentle,” Chancey said, then opened the ebony door with our gold family crest.

I climbed inside.

A beautiful shadow clothed in a burgundy silk carriage gown sat opposite me. Silent in the low carriage light, I heard Mama sobbing.

Turning up the lantern, I witnessed the sad evidence of tears strewn across her face. My throat tightened. I couldn’t get my tongue to ask what I always feared.

Did the man finally yell so much, say things with such venom, that he lost control and struck my mother? Did he hurt her?

I filled my frozen lungs. I worked my jaw. “Did he hit you?”

“What, Mark?”

As calmly as a son could, I asked, “Did my father strike you?”

“He took the house. He’s sending me to the country.”

“Mama, did he put his hands on you?”

“No. But taking my house hurts as much as Prahmn hurting me.”

Feeling like a boulder had lifted off my chest, I took a long gasp. Sitting back, I let every muscle uncoil. My father was a boor, but he hadn’t become a brute to her. Yet, he cut her where it hurt the most, her public name and partaking in London society.

“So Prahmn is back from his holiday. I guess he didn’t offer an explanation as to where he’s been or any sort of apology. The hypocrite is punishing you to punish me.”

“He says the coal woman is my fault. That I’ve indulged you.”

Indulged? Indignation coursed hotly through my veins. “You’ve allowed me to strive for music. You gave me a way to be free when the words couldn’t come. I couldn’t stand in church making sermons when I’d have to convict my father for how he lives.”

“Mark, he says he saw you with that woman.”

When? The park. The familiar shadows at a distance. That was Prahmn and his mistress. The adulterer disapproved of a wonderful friendship and a love he could only dream of, and had been lying about being out of Town.

“Mama, go to the country. Be away from Prahmn. I intend to get the goddess I love to marry me. Father will be very angry. Come back when you think he’s done with current rages and needs consoling before he finds another holiday for his latest mistress.”

“Wait. Mark. He’s cutting off any money for you. He means to make you heel. I can’t stand to think of what will become of you.”

“Tell Prahmn I am no puppy. I’m the man my mother raised me to be.”

“And who’s that?”

“A gentleman in need of a good woman who cares for his well-being and sanity. And I know exactly where to find her.”

She clutched my arm. “Come back with me. Tell him you are done with the Wilcox girl. Then he will rid his mistress from my house.”

Her offer to let me be with the woman I loved disappeared when her world was threatened. My love, had she seen this?

“Miss Georgina Wilcox was done with me because she didn’t believe I could be my own man. Prahmn is making sure I start being brave tonight. Good night, Mother, I have a ball to attend.”

“No. He’ll be there. He’ll humiliate you.”

“Groveling to my father and lying about my feelings or even trying to explain to his small mind who I love would be more humiliating. Write to me when you can.”

My mother clutched my lapel. Wrenching the necklace from her throat, she handed me the sparkly diamond thing. “Take this. Sell it. When all this is over—”

I kissed her cheek. “It’s time to stand on my own, Mama. I may foolishly wish that I’d kept this, but I need to make myself useful. I have to earn her.”

As I tried to climb out, she grabbed my arm again. This time she slid off one of her rings. It was the small silver band her father had given her. “Take this. Let it see love again, Mark. Be blessed in your marriage. Godspeed.”

I stepped back inside and held my mother. “You’re the original goddess. Get away from Prahmn.”

Holding her hand to my chest, I kissed her knuckles. After securing the ring, I took my satchel and left to retrieve my gig. There was a ball I needed to hurry to. Before midnight, I needed to have my true bride-to-be in my arms.