Page 10 of Barbarous

Daphne laughed. “You have been terribly misinformed. Just because Lord Ramsay has only one eye does not—”

“They are speaking of nothing else in the servants’ hall.”

“I’m not sure you should—”

Rowena grabbed Daphne’s arm, her hand like a small iron claw. “One-eyed Standish and Hugh Redvers are the same man. He is the King’s Privateer, my lady.”

Daphne only stared.

Her silence seemed to enflame the older woman, whose dark eyes burned like a zealot’s. “The man is a monster—that’s why Lord Davenport sent him away all those years ago. And now he will be seventeen years to the worse. There is no telling what mischief he will make. No good can come of his return, my lady. He will learn the truth about the boys and he will ruin everything we have worked so hard for.” The older woman’s chest was rising and falling in shallow, rapid gasps and spittle flew from her mouth. “You cannot let him stay at Lessing Hall—you cannot. He must leave—anywhere but here. He is—”

“Stop it, Rowena!”

The hatred on the older woman’s face made Daphne’s flesh crawl and she yanked her arm away from her grasp. “What is wrong with you? Do you think I could steal everything that is his and then deny him shelter under his own roof? Of course he must stay here and of course I will tell him the truth. I simply need some time to find the best way to approach it all.” These last words were more for herself than her servant.

Rowena grabbed Daphne again when she tried to turn away. “You do not understand. You were only a girl when Hugh Redvers left. He was a hellion—the very Devil himself—good for nothing but gambling, fighting, and whoring. He did wicked, wicked things—unspeakable things that got him sent away from that fancy school. Things that went far beyond boyish misadventures—he was bad . . . evil. As soon as he came back to Lessing Hall in disgrace, he killed one of the earl’s horses and got Meg Standish with child and abandoned her.”

Daphne gaped.

“Aye, you can look at me that way, but it is true—Meg and more than a few others. The countryside is littered with his blond, green-eyed bastards. And now he is the Devil with decades of experience—” She squinted at Daphne’s riding coat. “My God! There are two buttons missing and—Is this blood?” Her voice leaped at least two octaves and her dark brown eyes flickered up and down Daphne’s person, finally seeing her.

“It is not my blood; it is Malcolm’s,” Daphne said absently, stunned by Rowena’s tirade.

The flush that had colored Rowena’s cheeks drained from her thin face. “Malcolm? What happened? Did he—”

Daphne grabbed her shoulders. “Rowena, stop. You cannot behave this way every time Malcolm’s name is mentioned or you will most certainly expose me.”

“What happened, my lady?” she persisted.

“Malcolm approached me when the boys and Caswell went down to the stream. He tried to . . . engage me.”

Rowena sucked in a breath. “He must have been watching for you. Watching the house and waiting. He’s probably been waiting for his chance ever since the earl died.”

“We can’t know that,” Daphne protested, although she suspected Rowena spoke the truth.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No, I hurt him. I . . . hit him.” Daphne’s face warmed with a combination of embarrassment and pride at the memory of his bleeding face.

“You hit him?”

Daphne turned to the mirror so the overwrought woman might finish the task of undressing her. “Yes, I hit him in the face with my forehead. I might have broken his nose—that is where the blood is from. And then Lord Ramsay showed up and Malcolm departed.” Daphne left it at that. After all, what good would it do to tell her hysterical servant about the blackmail demands Malcolm had made before she broke his nose?

She shuddered to imagine Rowena’s response if the older woman learned Malcolm threatened to disclose he was the real father of her children if she did not agree to marry him. Or that he would give Daphne time to think about it but the delay would cost her £1,000.

Most especially, she could not tell Rowena how Malcolm had grabbed her, telling her he was going to give Lucien and Richard a little brother or sister to ensure Daphne made the right decision. Daphne’s reflection smiled grimly back at her; that’s when she’d head-butted him. Breaking his nose hadn’t made up for the last time Malcolm had touched her, but then, what could ever do that?

She met Rowena’s gaze in the glass.

The older woman’s face was rigid with terror. “I can guess why Malcolm was there, but why was Hugh Redvers looking for you? What on earth does he want, my lady—what? Why has he returned after all these years?”

Daphne couldn’t blame her servant for putting the question into words. Why had he returned after an absence of almost two decades? More importantly, what had he seen and heard today?

* * *

By the time Hugh was able to seek refuge in his chambers, Kemal was already there, fussing with Hugh’s clothing and muttering to himself about imperfections visible only to himself. Kemal might have come to valeting late in life, but he’d taken to his position with a vengeance.

Mr. Boswell was moving around inside his wooden house, which was a perfect miniature of Hugh’s house in Shanghai. Horace and Horatia, the two shar-pei pups, were nestled together on a large velvet cushion.