Page 72 of It's All About the Duke
“You’ll send for us if you need our help?” Griffin asked.
“That you can be sure of.” Rath turned away but turned back when Griffin called his name.
Hawk tossed the coin to Rath and he caught it in one hand.
At the front door, the attendant was holding Rath’s hat, cloak, and gloves. “Where is the young man?”
“I don’t know, Your Grace. I don’t see him now. He must have left when I went to tell you about his message. I took the liberty of calling your coach, but perhaps I shouldn’t have.”
“No, thank you. I’m glad you did. I want to go and see what this is about.”
Though it seemed to take longer, less than ten minutes later Rath strode into Marlena’s drawing room. His gaze found her first, standing in front of the fireplace. Relief washed down him at the sight of her. She didn’t seem to be harmed or frightened. He would have sworn to anyone that Marlena was tapping her foot in frustration, though he couldn’t see the toes of her shoes because her skirt swept the floor. Her arms lay folded across her chest and she appeared annoyed, though the corners of her mouth lifted slightly at the sight of him.
Mrs. Abernathy was seated on the settee with her feet up and a blanket covering her legs. His first thought was that she must have fallen and injured herself, but Marlena didn’t seem upset so whatever was wrong with her cousin wasn’t a problem for Marlena.
A young man Rath didn’t recognize, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Portington and Miss Everard were all in the room. He tried not to even look at Miss Everard for fear she’d faint. The gentlemen bowed and the ladies curtsied, but no one smiled. They all looked nervous. Something was going on.
“Please forgive me for not standing, Your Grace,” Mrs. Abernathy said and touched her forehead with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “I simply can’t put one foot on the floor.”
“And I apologize for Justine sending Mr. Bramwell to look for you,” Marlena said, walking closer to him. “It wasn’t necessary. I tried to keep her from it.”
Keeping his gaze on Marlena’s, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It appears we have a rodent problem,” she answered and then sighed.
Rodents?
He didn’t know what he expected to hear, but it wasn’t that.
“Oh, I do hate that she even has to say such a word,” Mrs. Abernathy complained. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Your Grace. I’ve had to take a tonic to settle my anxieties. You make the introductions and tell him what happened, Marlena, I can’t bear to even say it.”
Marlena hesitated only a moment before presenting Mr. Stephen Bramwell to him and adding that he was her neighbor in the house opposite to the Portingtons’.
“Are you the one who came to the club to get me?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he said stiffly, holding his head high and his hands behind his back. “I gave the message Mrs. Abernathy asked me to deliver and then came straight back here in case I could be of further assistance.”
Rath turned back to Marlena. He wanted to smile at her, let her know it made him feel good to see her, that he’d wanted to spend time with her. Instead he said, “Perhaps you should tell me more about this.”
“Justine saw a mouse.”
“Mice,” Mrs. Abernathy said from her perch on the settee. “Mice. Please tell it right, Marlena. About half a dozen of them scampering across the floor as if they owned the place.”
“I saw no more than two,” Marlena argued. “Justine was screaming and screeching so loudly.”
“Screeching!” Mrs. Abernathy interjected. “I’ll have you know I don’t screech.”
Marlena cleared her throat and said, “Perhaps I heard wrong. Tut was barking so fiercely, trying to get at the mouse that everyone came rushing over to see what was going on and to offer help. I had to put Tut in the garden and when I came back Justine had already sent Mr. Bramwell to find you. I told her it was completely unnecessary. All her scre—noise had already scared all the miceaway and half the neighbors, too. But she’s been on the settee with her feet up ever since, refusing to move.”
Rath frowned. Mrs. Abernathy had taken him away from a card game with friends he seldom spent time with anymore because of a mouse. He’d bet the gold piece that Griffin tossed back to him that every house in London had mice in it. There was only one reason he’d forgive Mrs. Abernathy for disturbing his well-planned afternoon, and it was because it gave him an opportunity to see and talk with Marlena.
Looking at her perturbed expression made him smile. It didn’t surprise him a mouse scampering past her toes wouldn’t scare her.
“You didn’t see all the mice because most of them had scurried away by the time you looked around,” Mrs. Abernathy grumbled.
“No matter the number, I am not afraid of a mouse, Justine. The way you are acting, anyone would have thought the mice had danced up your skirts.”
Mrs. Abernathy harrumphed. Rath and Mr. Portington chuckled. Mr. Bramwell, he noticed, gave no sign of seeing the humor in Marlena’s remark and remained as stiff as a wooden soldier.
