THERE WAS AN empty space at the breakfast table.
True, it had taken a good half hour for the family and all their guests to make their bleary-eyed way to the dining room. But now it was nearly noon. And Alexandra—normally the earliest riser of them all—had yet to appear.
"Do you expect she's had a relapse?" Lord Shelton asked, his pale brow wrinkled in concern. "Could the evening have been too much for her in her current, fragile state?"
Griffin shrugged, secretly pleased. "Perhaps." With any luck, this would provide an excuse to put the poor man off another month or so.
"Alexandra is the veriest picture of health," Juliana declared, to his annoyance. "I shall go fetch her." She began to rise.
"I expect Lady Alexandra is still sleeping," Lady St. Quentin said in her superior, all-knowing way. "I do believe she had a late night."
The low buzz of conversation ceased as all eyes in the room looked to her.
"We all had a late night," Griffin said into the sudden silence.
Lady St. Quentin blithely buttered a slice of toast. "Do you know," she continued conversationally, "I was rather restless during the night. All the excitement, I expect."
Juliana reseated herself. Griffin narrowed his gaze. "Go on," he said. She would in any case, the old gossip.
"Well, I took a little stroll down the corridor, and what do you suppose I saw?" Enjoying her rapt audience, she paused to take a delicate bite, chew it leisurely, and swallow. "None other than the Marquess of Hawkridge, coming out of one of the bedrooms."
"Mother," her son interjected halfheartedly.
She waved him off, turning to Griffin. "I thought the marquess had departed after learning he wasn't welcome."
"You were mistaken," Griffin said with a forced smile.
"I'll go fetch Alexandra." Juliana rose again.
Lady St. Quentin raised her cup of chocolate to her lips, watching Griffin over the rim. "You'll want to go with your sister," she said pointedly.
He barely resisted huffing out a sigh. "And why is that?"
"Because when the marquess left his room, he went upstairs." She paused to let the significance of that sink in. "And he left his door open, and it still isn't closed, and he isn't inside. So I suspect he has yet to come back down."
"Why the hell would you surmise that?" Rachael snapped.
Lady St. Quentin raised one of her overly arched brows. "My dear, you must learn to watch your language."
"Mother," her son repeated hopelessly.
She didn't even bother waving him off this time, ignoring him as she focused on Rachael. "I do believe Hawkridge is the man I saw in the minstrel's gallery with your cousin last night."
Several gasps were heard around the table.
"I'm going to fetch Alexandra," Juliana stated and headed from the room.
"I'm going with you." Corinna pushed back her chair and ran after her.
"So am I," Griffin added through clenched teeth.
Several more chairs rasped along the carpet as various guests rose to trail them. Griffin hurried after his sisters, refusing to look back. Gobble-grinders, all of them. Let the whole world follow, he thought as he took the stairs three at a time, passing Corinna and then Juliana handily. The St. Quentin woman would be red-faced before this was over. Alexandra was the most proper girl he knew.
Long-legged strides carried him rapidly through the upper gallery and down the corridor past Corinna's and Juliana's rooms. The two of them had to run—decorously, of course—to keep up. Reaching Alexandra's door before them, he twisted the knob and pushed it open.
Then slammed it closed.
He turned to his sisters. "Get rid of them," he gritted out, referring to the nosy guests making their leisurely way up the stairs and through the upper gallery. "Now."
"Why?" Corinna asked.
"Just do as I say for once, will you?"
Juliana's hazel eyes were as round as saucers. "They're both in there, aren't they?"
"Brilliant deduction. I'll give you your prize later. Now, go—"
He whirled to face the door as it opened again, from the inside this time, revealing a sleepy-eyed Tristan wearing a dressing gown. An improvement over a moment ago, when all Griffin had seen of the man was a head and bare shoulders peeking from under the blankets.
The blankets on his sister's feminine Chippendale bed.
"Get back in there!" Griffin whispered, reaching to pull the door shut again, quietly this time.
"Aha." Lady St. Quentin's triumphant voice was unmistakable. "I knew it!" Elbowing past the other approaching guests, she made her way to the door and pushed on it.
It reopened with an ominous creak. Inside, Alexandra cowered in her bed.
"You're ruined, girl," Lady St. Quentin crowed. "Ruined!"
"She is not," Corinna protested, throwing Griffin a desperate, apologetic glance.
But it was too late. The crowd rushed to see, forming a loose semicircle in front of the door.
Alexandra was ruined.
"I sleepwalked in here," Tristan said quietly, as though he and Griffin were the only ones there. A nerve jumped in his clenched jaw. "Unaware of my own actions."
"Balderdash!" Lady St. Quentin exclaimed. "I've never heard such a pathetic excuse. It won't save her reputation; that I can promise."
"Stubble it," Griffin said dangerously. All the whispering behind him wasn't helping him think straight. He glared at Tristan. It was some consolation to learn Alexandra hadn't invited the man into her bed, but of all the damned, unexpected… "You still sleepwalk?"
"Infrequently, but yes."
"You didn't have to stay once you got here," he bit out.
"You're right. My sincerest apologies. I'll leave now." Tristan started from the room.
"No, you won't." Griffin stopped him with an outstretched hand flat against his chest. "You stayed the night, you'll stay now. You'll marry my sister. By special license. Tomorrow."
Gasps rose from the onlookers. Tristan glanced down at Griffin's hand, then stepped back. "If that's what you wish."
Griffin's arm dropped to his side. "It's not what I wish, but it's what must be done."
"Nonsense," Lady St. Quentin cut in. "You cannot marry your sister to a murderer." Reaching back into the cluster of spectators, she pulled her son stumbling through to the front. "My Roger will be happy to marry her."
Her Roger looked mortified.
"For her dowry?" Griffin asked Roger's mother pointedly.
"Does it matter?" she returned.
Griffin's gaze flicked to where his white-faced sister sat motionless on the bed, her blue covers clutched under her chin. "Do you wish to marry Sir Rog—"
"You cannot let the chit decide this for herself," Lady St. Quentin scoffed.
Was there another woman in England as irritating? "As a matter of fact, I can should I choose to do so. And I can certainly solicit her opinion." Drawing a calming breath, he turned back to Alexandra. "Do you wish to marry Sir Roger St. Quentin?"
She shook her head infinitesimally.
"No," Juliana said for her. "She most certainly does not."
Griffin and Lady St. Quentin sent her matching glares.
"I'll marry her," came another voice. Lord Shelton stepped out of the clutch of gawkers.
Despite his own distress, Griffin felt sympathy for the man. If he knew Alexandra's mind, Shelton was about to be publicly refused. He looked back to her. "Do you wish to marry Lord Shelton?"
"No," Juliana started at the same time Alexandra said, "I'm sorry."
Thin and shaky, her voice barely carried from the room to the corridor. "My apologies, Lord Shelton. I'm honored by your offer, but I don't think we would be happy together." Suddenly, her eyes flashed—Griffin would swear he saw red in the medium brown. "And Lord Hawkridge is no murderer," she added loudly and perfectly clearly.
Griffin stood silent, cursing the fates that had put him in charge of his siblings. Two perfectly acceptable men had offered for his disgraced sister. If he forced one of them on her, this scandal would eventually blow over. She'd be miserable all her days, but their sisters would be able to marry well. If he allowed her to wed Tristan…
He felt everyone's eyes on him while his own vision swam. Never in his life had he found it so hard to make a decision. Thank God he wasn't on a battlefield with the enemy bearing down…although, given the antagonistic mood of some of those around him, that analogy wasn't so far off.
Rachael stepped close and laid a hand on his shoulder, drawing him away and down the corridor. The guests all turned to watch as she walked him to the end so they wouldn't be able to overhear.
"Your first instinct was good," she said quietly. "Let her marry the man she loves."
His gaze flicked to the curious onlookers. "But—"
"I, too, once thought this union inadvisable. But now that I've seen them together—"
"What they feel for each other has little bearing on the repercussions of this match."
"Have faith in her. She has faith in him."
Griffin had faith in Tristan, too—but that wasn't the point. "The ton doesn't mirror that faith."
"Will you allow that to influence your decision? That isn't the Griffin I remember. The one I imagined riding into battle with his principles held before him like a shield."
That idealistic youth, Griffin feared, was long gone. He stared at her. "You never thought of me that way. You thought I was a reckless rascal."
"Perhaps. I do recall you once telling me to ask for forgiveness, not for permission. But you were also stubborn as hell. You never let anyone else's opinions stand in the way of your goals."
His gaze swept the assembled guests, landing on the odious Lady St. Quentin. He could see her straining to hear.
Damnation. Rachael was right. He wasn't going to let that despicable, fortune-hunting woman decide his sister's fate. He couldn't consign Alexandra to a life of utter misery, even to save the rest of them from suffering society's disfavor. Not and live with himself, anyway.
With a sigh, he surrendered to the inevitable, marching back to face his old friend—damn the barefoot bastard—in his sister's doorway.
"Get dressed," he said tightly. "The Archbishop of Canterbury is half a day's ride, and you're in need of a special license."