Griffin Stone:Duke Of Decadence

‘I hear you have recently added a fine grey hunter to your stable, Sir Walter?’ Aubrey Maystone smoothly stepped into Griffin’s breech in manners after receiving his cup of tea. ‘You must allow us to see this fine horseflesh before we depart!’

Griffin took advantage of Sir Walter’s fulsome praise of the other man’s hunter in which to talk quietly with Bea. ‘You are well?’

‘Quite well, Your Grace,’ she replied quietly as she handed him his tea. ‘We only parted a short time ago,’ she added even more softly.

Griffin put the cup and saucer down on the table beside him untouched as he kept the intensity of his gaze fixed upon Bea. ‘And I have hated every moment of it!’

Bea gave him a searching glance, cautioning herself not to read too much into Griffin’s statement; he could just be once again referring to the danger she had placed herself in rather than any deeper meaning.

Such as that he loved her as she surely loved him?

Bea had known it for a fact the moment the carriage had pulled away from Stonehurst Park earlier this morning. Had felt an ache in her heart such as she had never known before. An emptiness that could only be filled by Griffin’s presence.

She loved him.

Not because she was grateful to him for having rescued her. Not because he had continued to protect her once he’d realised she had no idea who she was. Nor because they had made such beautiful love together.

She loved Griffin.

All of him. The bad as well as the good.

His manners, for instance, could be exceedingly rude. His nature could occasionally be morose, even terse. As for his suspicions concerning her friendliness towards the gardener, Arthur Sutton, and Christian Seaton—they had been altogether unacceptable.

But there was a kindness to Griffin, a caring, that he hid beneath that gruff exterior. Perhaps because of his lonely childhood. Or the sad end to his marriage. Whatever the reason, Bea saw beneath that gruffness to the man beneath, and she loved him.

Unreservedly.

When all of this was over she did so hope that the two of them could remain friends, at least. She did not think she could bear it if they were to never see each other again.

But she must not let her own feelings for Griffin colour her interpretations of his comments. When he said he had hated every moment she had been away from him, he had surely meant in the role he had undertaken as her guardian.

‘Perhaps once Lady Francesca has returned we might all be better informed as to how we might proceed,’ Bea spoke again softly.

Griffin clenched his jaw at the mere mention of the other woman. ‘It is to be hoped so.’ He really did not think that he could leave Bea behind when he departed Latham Manor. Just the thought of it was enough to make him clench his fists in frustration.

And he knew that feeling no longer had anything to do with thoughts of Bea remaining here in the company of Christian, and everything to do with—

‘My dears, what a lovely surprise it is to see you all gathered together in my drawing room!’ Francesca Latham swept into the room, blond head tilted at a haughty angle, blue eyes aglow with that mocking humour she so often favoured. ‘I could barely credit it when Shaw informed me of our exulted company, Latham.’ She moved to her husband’s side. ‘And I see dear Beatrix has also returned to us, in the company of the Duke of Sutherland.’ That hard blue gaze now settled on Bea.

Griffin had stood up upon that lady’s entrance. ‘I am sure that must be as much of a pleasant surprise to you as it was to Sir Walter?’

‘But of course.’ That hard blue gaze now met his challengingly.

Griffin placed his clenched fists behind his back as he resisted the urge he felt to reach out and shake the truth from this woman.

Now that he was here he knew he could not leave here today until he knew whether this woman was Bea’s friend or foe. And to hell with the politeness of manners! He was tired of this tedious social dance. He wished now only for the truth. ‘You had perhaps not expected her to be here at all?’

Lady Francesca shrugged her elegant shoulders. ‘I am sure Latham is not so strict as to begrudge Beatrix time spent with her new friends.’

Griffin’s nostrils flared. ‘But you, of all people, must know she was not staying with friends.’ No matter what the situation, whether Francesca Latham believed Bea to have eloped or been kidnapped, she almost certainly knew that Bea had not been visiting friends these past weeks.

‘Griffin—’

‘Rotherham—’

‘Is that not so, madam?’ Griffin ignored both Christian and Aubrey as they rose to their feet in protest at his blunt methods, his gaze now locked in a silent battle with Francesca Latham.