discussed the future of de Bryun’s with Fanworth,’ she said, with more confidence than she felt. ‘And we immediately turned over its management to my assistant. I will remain as a silent partner, until we leave Bath in a month.’ It was an exaggeration. But she hoped it would do.
‘You d-d-discussed it with Fanworth?’
He was laughing at Stephen. She had not liked Larchmont before. In truth, she was terrified of him. But this was the first time she could describe her feelings as hatred. ‘Do not talk about my husband in that way,’ she said, unable to stop herself.
‘He needs his wife to defend him, now?’ Larchmont’s lip curled in disgust. ‘I knew he was a fool. But I did not think him a coward, hiding behind a woman’s skirts.’
‘Stephen is perfectly capable of defending himself,’ she said. Anger was good. She sounded stronger, and thus she felt stronger. She lifted her chin and straightened her spine. ‘But if he is not here to do so, I will not stand in silence and listen to you speak ill of him.’
‘You have spirit,’ Larchmont said in a tone that was almost admiration. ‘That is a shame. It would go easier for you if you did not.’ Then he lashed out with his cane and broke another mirror as a punishment for it.
She did her best not to flinch as the glass crashed to the floor. ‘I understand that you are displeased with Fanworth’s choice of a wife. There is no need to destroy the shop to make your point.’
He glanced around him and then said, in a voice silky with menace. ‘Apparently, there is. I told you to close the place. And yet, a week later, here we are.’
‘I am removing myself from the business,’ she said. ‘I will be gone from Bath in a month. I will rusticate in Derbyshire. Surely that is what you really want.’
‘Do not tell me what I want,’ he said, tapping his cane on the floor. ‘What I told you to do was to close the doors.’
She glanced past him to Jasper, who turned the sign in the window to read ‘Closed’. It would do no good to anyone should strangers wander in and witness the duke’s temper. And they might yet save a pane or two of glass by mollifying him. ‘But, your Grace, as I told you before, it is not so easy as that.’
‘“But, your Grace,”’ he repeated in a mewling voice. ‘Do I need to turn the key in the lock for you?’
‘There is more to it,’ she said, as patiently as possible. ‘There are still orders that need to be filled. And taxes to be paid. I cannot just turn the staff out in the street.’
‘Trifles,’ he barked, waving his stick wide. ‘I gave you a simple instruction. You disobeyed.’
His tone implied that punishment was inevitable. He wished to break things. Most of all, he wished to break her. She could deprive him of that, at least. ‘I obey only one man and he is your son. And I do not think Fanworth agrees with your plans for this shop.’
That was all it took to drive Larchmont the rest of the way to madness. The cane came down hard on a glass display table by the door, striking a vase full of flowers so hard that it shattered against the opposite wall. When the cane came up again, it hooked the chiffon curtain, tangled briefly with it before bringing it to the floor.
Jasper gathered the shop girls and herded them from the room, shutting them in the office for their own safety. Then he came back to defend her.
She caught his shoulder before he could attempt to stop Larchmont from further destruction. If he raised a hand against a peer, he would be lucky not to hang.
He wordlessly accepted her caution, but positioned himself in front of her to protect her from flying glass as the cane rose and fell, over and over. They had repaired the front counter since his last visit—now it was ruined again. A backswing hooked the leg of another little side table, sending a display of perfume bottles crashing to the ground.
‘Enough,’ Jasper said, unable to remain silent. ‘You have made your point, your Grace.’
He glanced at the boy with a raised eye brow. ‘No more? I do not think she is convinced, as of yet.’
By the time he was sure, she had lost three more mirrors and a second display case. And, as always when one was dealing with a member of the peerage, there was little she could do but watch it happen.
He took a deep breath, as though the exertion had winded him, then smiled and leaned upon his cane again. ‘There. I feel much better about the place now. You must shut the doors, if only to clean up the mess. If you open them again, I will return and do just as I have done today.’
‘That will not be necessary,’ she said. Louisa had been right. It was best just to avoid the man if he was in a bad mood. Her husband avoided him as well, probably because his behaviour was dangerously unpredictable. But no one had told her what to do if the mad peer sought you out.
‘I suppose you will go running to your husband over this. If he is smart, he will do nothing, just as he normally does. He has learned to hide from me. I allow it, as long as he keeps his mouth shut in public. But if he crosses me on this, tell him I shall dog his steps about town, until he reveals himself as the stammering idiot he is. He deserves it, for bringing you into the family.’
She had assumed that if she married above herself, she would meet with some objection. It had not mattered to her until now. What harm could snubs and unkind words do her?
But she had never imagined physical violence. Nor did she want to see her beloved humiliated in public, made to suffer for loving her. This madness had to stop, even if it meant the loss of the one thing that had value to her. ‘It will not be necessary to bring Fanworth into this,’ she said, grinding her teeth to stop them from chattering. ‘From this moment on de Bryun’s is no more.’
‘Very good,’ Larchmont said, smiling over the destruction as if it was an improvement. ‘Now that we have settled this matter, we must see if you can persuade me that you are worthy of my name. If not? Further corrections will be necessary.’
She did not hear him go. In truth, she did not hear much of anything for a time. Fear blotted out all other senses. But as her knees gave out and she sank to the floor, her last coherent thoughts were of what he might do to her the next time she failed to live up to his expectations.
‘Lord Fanworth.’ Mrs Sims poked her head into the salon, where Stephen was reading. Her normally placid expression was replaced with worry. ‘A girl is here, from the shop. There has been some sort of trouble.’
He set aside his book with a smile. ‘What sort of trouble? Has someone lost an earring?’ His smile faded, when he saw the girl, a petite brunette, her starched de Bryun’s pinafore rumpled and her face stained with tears.
‘Tell me all.’
But the girl, Susan, could barely get out a sentence around her tears. ‘A madman came into the shop. Everything is broken.’
Stephen seized her arm. ‘Lady Fanworth. Was she hurt?’
‘I do not think so.’
The girl was useless, if she could
