Chapter 19

CHAPTER19

“Do stop glaring at me, Mother; it is tiresome.” Anthony would have rather made some light jest at the oddity of his mother’s behavior, but he knew it would have been an unwelcome thing.

Now the sun had fully risen, he had come down to breakfast, and his mother had joined him not long after. They sat at opposite ends of the long table. Honoria had said barely three words, choosing to glare at him instead, meanwhile Anthony kept glancing to the empty chair beside him.

Susanna should be here.

“I hope you are not planning to see your friend today,” Honoria scoffed with the words. Her tone made Anthony sit rigid in his seat with his coffee cup lifted halfway to his lips.

“If by my friend you are referring to Lady Curtis, then yes, I do intend to see her today.” Anthony had had enough of dancing around this issue. He knew what he wanted. He desired Susanna in his life.

She made him happy, more so than anyone else had ever done. What did it matter if their courtship had not been a traditional one? It mattered to him even less that his mother didn’t approve.

I care for Susanna. That is all that matters.

“Again? Anthony, this is not wise.” Honoria buttered the bread in front of her rather too vigorously, leaving it with more than one hole poking through the airy white bread.

“Why not?”

“Because people will write even more scandal sheets of you. If you two spend part of every day in each other’s company, what are people supposed to think?”

“They could think we are courting,” Anthony said succinctly, lifting the coffee cup to his lips. Honoria’s hand froze around the knife in her grasp.

“You cannot court her, Anthony.”

“Who I court is my business, Mother.”

“She cannot be a future duchess!” Honoria’s words were sudden and loud. Anthony saw out of the corner of his eye that the butler arrived with a fresh coffee pot in the doorway. When he heard the sudden shout, he turned and walked away again. Anthony didn’t blame him. He would have happily walked away at that moment.

“Why can’t she, Mother?” Anthony lowered his cup to his saucer so firmly that it chinked, and that sound rang out across the room, making his mother flinch in her chair. “She is kind, warm, loving, devoted, and a true free spirit. I see nothing wrong in any of that. It all adds up to making a good wife.”

“But would she make a good duchess?” Honoria dropped her knife and her bread in emphasis. “A duchess has to be so much more than that. She has to be looked up to, admired, revered.”

“Revered!?” Anthony was disgusted by the use of the word. “You want strangers to admire my future wife? Worship her like some sort of goddess?”

“Not to that extent, but yes. She should be adored and looked up to for her refinedness in manner, her control, and her propriety.”

“If you had your way, I’d marry a statue made out of alabaster,” Anthony scoffed.

“Do not be glib. It is not the right thing for a –”

“For a duke to do?” Anthony finished her sentence for her. Honoria seemed stunned by it. She sat very still with her bread raised in her hand once again, staring back at him. “You have preached to me my entire life what a duke should do, told me what my opinions should be, and even how I should sit in a seat. I take your advice in many ways, I haven’t had any other choice, but I refuse to take your advice on who to spend the rest of my life with.”

Honoria sat very still, breathing heavily, the bread falling limp her hand. Anthony shifted under her stare, hardly caring if she was about to say that a duke shouldn’t fidget once again.

“Let me speak plainly.” Anthony sat back, lowering his voice to something that was much calmer than before. “I intend to spend my time with Susanna.”

“Susanna!?” Honoria spluttered around the word.

“Yes, Susanna.”

“You must at least call her Lady Curtis.”

“Why? Because it is the done thing?” Anthony shook his head, dismissing the idea at once. His mother sat there agog, her jaw so low it was nearly hitting her plate as she leaned forward. “I do not seek your advice on who I will court, Mother. Let that be an end to this conversation.”

“People will talk. They will say the two of you are an improper match.” Honoria panicked, sitting back and shaking her head back and forth.

“So let them talk. Since when did other people’s whispers amount to my own happiness?” Anthony’s words seemed to leave his mother dumbstruck. Honoria said nothing in retort this time but merely stared back at him. “I mean to act in a way that will determine my own happiness. Not anyone else’s happiness, and certainly not the ton’s. Why would I marry someone to simply make sure an approving article is written in the scandal sheets?”

“M-marry?” Honoria stuttered through the word.

“Yes. That is right.” Anthony pushed back his chair. “I intend to ask Susanna to marry me, Mother, and nothing you can say in objection will prevent me from asking her.”

In emphasis, he tossed his napkin onto the table and stood to his feet. Breakfast was over as far as he was concerned, and he was going to see Susanna now.

To hell with my mother’s opinion or anyone else’s. I will tell Susanna what I feel.

Anthony had barely taken two steps away from the table when sounds reached him through the house. The butler was talking rather loudly with someone, and there were ladies’ voices, both so irate and panicked that it was difficult to discern one from another.

“Are you keeping company with more ladies, Anthony?” Honoria asked warily from the foot of the table. He glanced her way with narrowed eyes, showing exactly what he thought of such an insinuation.

Within seconds, those voices had got nearer, followed by hasty footsteps. The butler appeared in the doorway once again, looking rather ruffled.

“Your Grace. Lady Follet and one of her maids. They insist on seeing you. They say something has happened to Lady Curtis.”

Anthony felt a fear jolt in his stomach. He stepped forward, just as the butler stepped to the side to reveal Lady Follet and the maid, Peggy, behind her.

Lady Follet, who was usually so well kept, had clearly come in something of a rush that morning. Her hair was falling out of its updo, and her shawl kept slipping off one of her shoulders even as Peggy behind her tried to pick up the end and thread it around her once again.

“Your Grace, pray, forgive my intrusion.” Lady Follet barely took the time to curtsy, she was so red in the face and panicked. “I had to see you.”

“What has happened?” He looked behind her, half expecting to see Susanna there too, but she wasn’t there. “Lady Curtis? Has something happened to her?” For a minute, he dreaded the worst. Had she had an accident on her ride home that morning? He knew he should have gone with her!

“She has been taken.”

“Taken? What?” Anthony stammered over the words, moving forward again.

“Taken? How is this possible?” Honoria spoke next. She was on her feet and moving away from the table, stumbling over her own feet to reach Anthony’s side.

“It seems this morning on her early-morning ride she was accosted by a gentleman we believed to be a friend of ours,” Lady Follet explained quickly, her eyes darting between them. “She left a note in her room that was found by Peggy here this morning.”

Peggy nodded in agreement behind Lady Follet, looking equally panicked. Judging by the redness of Peggy’s eyes, her fear had drawn her to tears too.

“He declares that Susanna is a compromised woman and must wed.” Lady Follet set her eyes on Anthony. His shoulders slumped, fearing exactly what was known. Honoria’s eyes turned on him too, but he wouldn’t return that look. “He has insisted that Susanna marries and has taken her to Gretna Green to accomplish the task.”

“Gretna Green!?” Anthony spluttered, amazed it had come to this. It all seemed impossible, so ridiculous, when a few hours ago he and Susanna had been entwined together on his chaise longue. “No. No! He intends to marry her? To force her into it?”

“Yes.” Lady Follet looked to Peggy, appearing to be struggling, she urged the maid with a wave of her hand to continue on.

“He threatened her, Your Grace.” Peggy spoke slowly, nervously. “Her note was hurried and not all of the words are clearly legible, but she appears to mention a penknife of some kind. We believe that he threatened to use it on her unless she got into the carriage with him.”

Such curses escaped Anthony’s lips that his mother jumped beside him.

“Anthony! That is hardly the language of a –”

“Of a duke?” he asked, angling his head toward her. “Well, clearly it is when something like this happens.” He paced a little before turning back toward Lady Follet and Peggy. His mother was silenced and stood very still, staring down at her feet. “How long ago did they leave?”

“We are not certain.” Peggy shook her head.

“A few hours ago, we think,” Lady Follet continued on. “She asked in her note that we come to tell you. She begs for help of any kind, but she was most particular in her note, asking that you be told.”

Anthony felt winded at this news. He imagined poor Susanna writing the hurried note, terrified for her life at this man she had judged to be her friend threatening her. How he wished he had just accompanied her back to her house that morning or even insisted that she had stayed. He could have born the whispers of his staff and the disapproval of his mother; at least then she would have been safe.

“Something must be done.” Anthony stepped forward, turning straight to the butler who had been hovering in the doorway. “Make sure my horse is ready at once and the steward’s too.”

“Yes, Your Grace. Of course.” The butler bowed and hurried off.

“What are you going to do, Anthony?” Honoria asked, her hands nervously fidgeting together.

“What do you think I am going to do? I am going to go after them. I shall appeal to the constables too for help. They must be infirmed, for this is criminal. No woman can be taken from her home and forced into marriage. It is sickening!” Anthony paced the other way across the dining room, thinking hard of the task that was ahead of him.

It would not be easy to catch up with them on the road after they had such a head start, but if he went on his horse alone, then at least he stood a chance. After all, a carriage would have to travel much slower.

Anthony looked to his mother, startled to see she made no more objections. She nodded, looking quite panicked as she turned her focus on Lady Follet.

“Forgive me, we have not been introduced, but who is Lady Curtis to you?”

“She is my goddaughter,” Lady Follet explained, her voice tight as she held onto tears.

“Do you think this man would hurt your goddaughter? Truly?” Honoria looked afeared, fidgeting so much now that she was quite unlike herself.

“I do not know.” Lady Follet shook her head. “I used to think the Earl of Keats was a good friend to her, but now… perhaps we do not know who he really is at all.”

“Wait, the Earl of Keats?” Anthony turned round, facing Lady Follet in amazement. “Her friend?” He had heard Susanna talk of the man she called Donald often. He was her childhood friend. “He is the one who is doing this to her?”

“Yes. He intends to reach Gretna Green by tomorrow morning and make her marry him there.”