Griffin Stone:Duke Of Decadence

She released his hands before stepping away. ‘I shall need to go up to my bedchamber and pack what few belongings I now have. I shall have to give the excuse to my aunt and uncle that, having accepted the Duke of Sutherland’s protection for the journey, the rest of my luggage will be arriving later by carriage,’ she added with a frown.

Griffin still believed this whole concept, of Bea going to Latham Manor, was fraught with the possibility of mistakes being made, of someone getting hurt. Possibly Bea herself. Mistakes she, or Griffin, or even Christian, would not have any control over.

Which was not to say Griffin did not intend to find some way in which he might watch over her himself.

* * *

‘Do not scowl so, Griffin!’ Bea advised teasingly the following morning as she sat in the coach opposite Christian Seaton, prior to their departure for Latham Manor. She wore a pretty yellow bonnet over her curls to match her gown, with her hands and arms covered to the elbows by cream lace gloves.

She looked, in fact, to Griffin’s eyes at least, a picture of glowing health and happiness. All of the visible bruising had now faded from her creamy skin, and her eyes shone brightly with the excitement of what she was about to do.

As she stepped willingly—even eagerly—into a possible lion’s den.

Albeit with Christian at her side.

Griffin’s jaw tightened as he looked at his friend, seated across the carriage from Bea. ‘It is understood that at the first sign of danger you are to bring Bea away from there?’

The other man gave a mocking inclination of his head. ‘Do not fear, Griffin,’ he drawled as he stretched his legs out across the carriage. ‘You may rest assured I shall take good care of our little Bea.’

Griffin’s eyes narrowed at his friend’s obvious mockery. ‘You will send word immediately with Miss Baines if I am needed.’ He nodded in the direction of the young woman sitting beside Bea. She was a niece to his housekeeper, Mrs Harcourt, who had agreed to accompany Bea to Latham Manor as her maid. ‘I shall be visiting Sir Walter this morning, in any case.’ He was also well aware that he might possibly arrive too late, if there was an immediate reaction to Bea’s arrival. But this proposed visit to take another look at Sir Walter’s hunter was the best that Griffin could come up with in the circumstances.

At least this way he might have opportunity to be formally introduced to Bea as Sir Walter’s niece.

The irony of his eagerness now to be introduced to Sir Walter’s niece, when he had not cared to meet the daughters and nieces of any of his other neighbours, was not lost on Griffin.

Nor was the possibility of Lady Francesca Latham being involved in the plot to secure Bonaparte’s freedom.

Again Griffin questioned as to whether or not he was being influenced in this suspicion by his personal dislike of the woman. Lady Francesca had been far too much of a negative influence on his late wife, he suspected, in regard to their marriage, and him. And she’d enjoyed being so, if the mocking smiles Lady Francesca had so often given Griffin were an indication.

‘Is that altogether wise, Griffin?’ Christian frowned at Griffin’s proposed visit to Latham Manor.

Wise, or otherwise, it was Griffin’s intention to visit shortly after Christian and Bea had arrived. ‘I shall be calling upon Sir Walter this morning.’ He nodded.

‘As you wish.’

‘It is exactly as I wish.’ Griffin gave another terse nod before stepping back and closing the carriage door.

His last sight of Bea as she left Stonehurst Park—and him—was as she turned her head away from the window in order to answer something said to her by Christian.

‘Stay calm, Griffin,’ Aubrey Maystone advised softly half an hour later as he and Griffin travelled down the driveway of Latham Manor in the ducal coach.

Griffin stilled immediately as he became aware of the fact that he was sitting on the edge of his seat, as well as tapping his hat impatiently against his thigh. An impatience exacerbated by the fact that he had been forced to travel by coach at all, out of concern for Maystone’s health, when he would have much preferred the faster travel of horseback.

Truth was, he would have preferred to call upon the Lathams by himself, and he had told Maystone as much when the older gentleman had announced his intention of rising from his bed and accompanying him.

Maystone was not to be gainsaid, however, and in the end Griffin had no choice but to capitulate when he could see how pale and agitated the older man was in his need for news of his young grandson.

As agitated, in fact, as Griffin was in regard to news of Bea’s reception on her arrival at Latham Manor.