the muscles of his forearm shifting beneath her fingers.
Of the heat of his body.
They climbed the stairs to the second floor and the sitting room—such as it was. The only pieces of furniture in the room were a pale-blue settee with two gilt-armed chairs and a little table to the side. Messalina had bought all four pieces ready-made.
Thank goodness.
She led Lucretia to the settee, watching from the corner of her eye as her eldest brother stalked around the empty sitting room. He looked bored, but Messalina had no doubt that Julian was sizing Gideon up.
Waiting to strike.
Gideon, for his part, was standing to the side and just in front of Messalina in a none-too-subtle guarding position. His hands hovered near the pockets of his coat, and she wondered if he kept a knife there. And then she scoffed at herself and wondered how many knives he kept on his person.
The tension in the room from the men was thick. Awful. She wanted to shout at them. They were acting as if they were dogs about to fight over a bone—and really, she was so much more than a mere bone.
“I’m sorry I was so long in bringing Julian,” Lucretia murmured. “When Mr. Hawthorne took you out of our carriage and into his, I only waited until you were out of sight before I told our driver to make haste to Adders Hall.”
Messalina nodded, squeezing Lucretia’s hand.
Quintus had gone to lounge by the fireplace as if he was unconcerned. But she noticed that the hand not on the mantel was balled at his side.
“It was ages traveling to Adders,” Lucretia said. Her mouth was thin and unsmiling. Lucretia was usually sly and gleeful, not this sorrowful girl, her gray eyes filled with tears. “And then when I arrived I could find only Quintus, quite in his cups.”
Quintus pressed his lips together, turning his face away from Lucretia’s glare. His wildly curling shoulder-length hair swung forward, hiding his eyes. Had he even put a comb to it today? He wore a beautifully tailored bottle-green silk suit, the material fitted expertly over his broad shoulders, but she could see from here that there were stains at the hem.
Lucretia shook her head at Quintus and looked back at Messalina. “He was so drunk I couldn’t get any intelligible words from him for an hour. When I finally found Julian, we set off at once, but then the roads were muddy and we became bogged down…” She inhaled. “Perhaps I should’ve forgotten Julian and Quintus and made my way to London by myself from the start. If I had I could’ve somehow helped—”
Messalina interrupted, “There was nothing you could’ve done. Uncle Augustus had already brought the bishop to Windemere House when we arrived. He had a special license.” She pressed her lips together. On the day of her wedding she would’ve welcomed help with open arms. Now…She glanced at her husband’s back. It was stiff and set. “I don’t know if anyone could’ve prevented the marriage.”
“Did you try?” Julian asked in his velvet-soft voice. Sometimes Messalina wondered if he had practiced in order to attain a tone both melodious and threatening at the same time.
How dare he?
She glared at her older brother. He flanked the other side of the fireplace now, his arm, clad in silver brocade silk, propped on the mantel. Unlike Quintus he was meticulously turned out. His black hair was severely pulled back into a long, tightly braided queue. The ever-present pearl drop hung in his left ear, the gem matching the color of his Greycourt-gray eyes. Julian was handsome, she supposed, but he was cold. Ice cold, even with his family.
Perhaps especially with his family.
“Why do you ask, darling brother?” Messalina smiled. “After all, you don’t appear to care one way or the other.”
Quintus straightened from the mantel even as Julian murmured, “Could you have not stalled for a time? Even a day or two? You seem to have arrived at Windemere House and without complaint married the day after. And now you’re busy making a happy home in this near-empty house in an unfashionably dingy neighborhood.”
In front of her Gideon growled, his fingers resting on his coat pocket.
Quintus was watching Gideon, his head lowered, his hands clenching and unclenching. “He’s Uncle’s paid bully, Messy. He’s left men drenched in blood. There are rumors he’s killed.”
Messalina felt her face suffuse with heat. She rose. “Do you really think I had any choice once I was at Windemere House?”
She glanced anxiously at