Your Darkest Dream (Blackwood & Friends #2)

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Nate watched her until only the sound of her soft footsteps dwindling further away were the only sign of her that remained. If he was honest with himself, he would agree with Blanche. Kissing her was chaos.

He sighed, conflicted, half wanting to bolt upstairs to join her, half wanting to put as much distance as possible between then two of them, and another part of him simply wanting to curl into her body and allow her to absorb all his turmoil, shoulder his burdens until he could face them another day.

"Mr Southill."

He knew that voice and swore profusely, feeling his soul leave his body in the fright the odious woman instilled. He pivoted, finding Wilhelmina skewering him with a glare so vile his skin began to itch while she stood on the threshold to the parlour room close to where he and Blanche had been conversing.

"I require a word," she said with a quiet fierceness and austerity that made him flinch. The last thing he wanted was a word with Wilhelmina, Blanche's unpleasant and bigoted grandmother who had staunchly opposed Jason's intentions with Nicola Eversley due to the other woman's lower status in society... probably the same way she was viewing him presently if she had been privy to Blanche's final parting words. Oh, God, this would be very bad...

"Are you certain?" he asked the crotchety old bag hesitantly. She hadn't uttered a coherent sentence to his person since the thankfully brief duration of their acquaintanceship and Nate rather thought it was better that way. The dowager was renowned for a rapier sharp tongue that was lined thick with insults and insinuations. Lord knew he wasn't one to endure bad temperament.

"Are you daft? Or deaf?" She shifted her shoulders, pinning them back imperiously in an attempt to look down her nose at him. "I'd say both, but enough of that. Join me and try not to break any of the furniture when you sit."

Not waiting for him to acquiesce, she pivoted and shuffled inside the parlour. She was a proud old woman, sprouting lace from the bodice of her grey gown and the cuffs of her sleeves, and moved with the regal grace of someone of import.

He felt more inclined to ignore her summons and flee, but the thought of Wilhelmina chasing him to London lay at the forefront of his mind. He wouldn't put it past her. Besides, there were not a lot of people who denied the Dowager Marchioness of Northwick anything.

He followed and settled in a settee as far away as possible from her, while she observed every move he made as if he were a curious insect she had found and was examining it with disgust from under a magnifying glass. Once a foreboding silence continued to extend indefinitely in the room, Wilhelmina chose to sniff and squint at him.

"It has come to my attention," she began slowly with an undertone of distaste, "that my granddaughter has taken a liking to... you."

"I am sure that it may seem that way, but you can be assured-"

"Silence."

Nate bristled. He briefly wondered what the sentence would be were a marchioness to be found drowned in a lake, but he compelled the thought away by the sheer amount of damnation at present on his soul alone.

"I once fell in love with a man like you," she said suddenly, her expression softening only the smallest amount as her gaze turned inward. "He was a country gentleman, so very large but desperately untitled and almost penniless. He wanted me to elope, you see, because my father naturally opposed the match. So did I, in the end. He was beneath me... I had a duty to my family to marry right, to breed right." She stared at him coldly for a long moment. "Duty is a heavy burden, Mr Southill, but any person of worth carries it well. And I wonder, what is your duty?"