Abandoned to the Prodigal - Mary Lancaster Page 0,89
of the maids. My father appears to be indestructible.”
“He won’t like you receiving me,” Cosland warned.
Jenny laughed. “Then he has changed his tune since the last time we discussed it.”
Barden neither understood this sally, nor cared to, but it caused the earl to emit a bark of laughter, and the countess to cast a sour glance at Mrs. Stewart.
In the drawing room, which was at least clean if faded, they discovered Mrs. Stewart’s sisters and the stiffly upright Colin Cornwell, all of whom Barden knew slightly from London as well as the dinner at Hornby. They all looked anxious and embarrassed, and Cornwell, who bowed very low, said in a rush, “I hope you know, my lord, that keeping Lady Juliet’s presence here from you was at no point my idea. Nor did it have my app—”
“Content yourself,” Cosland interrupted wryly. “I know full well whose idea it was.”
An elderly maid stood in the doorway, panting slightly. “Lady Juliet’s not in her chamber, ma’am. Nor with Susan.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Stewart seemed genuinely surprised. “Perhaps she has gone for a walk with Dan and the dog. She will be back directly. Are they making tea, Betty?”
“If they’ve gone for a walk,” Cornwell said grimly from the window, “they haven’t taken the dog. It’s digging up a tree in the garden.”
How would you tell? Barden wondered with amusement as he glanced at the window and the wilderness beyond.
“Oh, no, they haven’t gone together,” Mrs. Ames pronounced in her irritatingly nervous way, clutching at the shawls, which fell continuously from her arms and shoulders. “Dan went early, if you recall, to meet with Patrick—the Myerly steward, you know—and I did see Lady Juliet in the garden after breakfast. Playing with the dog.”
Why did people keep harping on about the dog?
Cornwell frowned. “Why didn’t Dan take the dog? He always takes him when he’s tramping the estate.”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Cornwell blurted, exchanging glances with her sisters and then gazing at Lady Cosland. “He wouldn’t have.”
“Wouldn’t have what?” Mrs. Stewart asked with a hint of irritation.
“If Juliet isn’t in the garden, where is she? Why did neither of them take the dog? What if they have…?”
“Eloped?” Mrs. Ames said in horror.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Mrs. Stewart uttered. “Dan would not elope with her!”
“Well, he was clearly making up to her,” Cornwell retorted with more than a hit of bitterness.
“You are thinking of yourself there, I think!” Mrs. Stewart shot back.
“I find it offensive,” Lady Cosland interrupted, “that you assume my daughter would elope with anyone. I understand from my younger daughter that Juliet considers this young man a friend.”
“They are friends,” Mrs. Stewart agreed cordially. “And neither has the reason nor the character for elopement.”
“Ha!” uttered a cadaverous old gentleman shuffling into the room with an ancient valet at his side, bearing two cushions and a bottle of smelling salts. “What on earth makes you imagine that? Dan’s your son, isn’t he? Handsome young devil, too. Wouldn’t be surprised if the ladies didn’t take a shine to him.” He looked directly at Lord Cosland and smiled. “Your girl certainly did.”
Cosland took one step toward him, then seemed to remember himself and bowed jerkily. Barden didn’t blame him for the stiffness. All this talk of elopement was making him uneasy, too.
“I hope you forgive the intrusion,” Cosland said frostily. “I have to thank you for caring for my daughter, but we have come to take her home.”
“If they can find her,” Barden couldn’t help murmuring.
One would have assumed such an old gentleman to be deaf, but apparently, he was not, for he turned at once on Barden. “Who the devil are you?”
“Papa,” Mrs. Cornwell protested in clear embarrassment. “This is Lord Barden.”