His gaze swept the room, and came to rest on Miss Challoner, standing motionless beside her chair. “Ah, Miss Challoner!” he said. “So I find you, do I?” He strode forward, casting aside the riding-whip he carried, and gripped her by the shoulders. “If you thought to escape me so easily, you were wrong, my dear.”
Mr. Comyn said in a voice of polite coldness: “Will your lordship have the goodness to unhand my wife?”
The grip on Miss Challoner’s shoulders tightened so suddenly that she winced. The Marquis glared at Mr. Comyn, his breath coming short and fast. “What?” he thundered. “Your wife?”
Mr. Comyn bowed. “The lady has done me the honour to wed me this day, my lord.”
The Marquis’s fierce eyes reached Miss Challoner. “Is that true? Mary, answer me! Is it true?”
She stared up at him; she was as white as her tucker. “Perfectly, sir. I am married to Mr. Comyn.”
“Married?” he repeated. “Married?” he almost flung her from him. “By God, then, you shall be widowed soon enough!” he swore.
There was murder in his face; one stride brought him to Mr. Comyn, who felt instinctively for his sword-hilt. He had no time to draw steel; my lord’s lean fingers had him by the throat, choking the life out of him. “You dog! You little damned cur!” my lord said through his shut teeth.
Miss Challoner, seeing the two men swaying together in the throes of a desperate struggle, started forward, but before she could reach the combatants a piercing scream came from the doorway, and Miss Marling, just arrived on the scene, flew across the room, and cast herself into the fray.
“You shall not! you shall not!” shrieked Miss Marling. “Let him go, you wicked, wicked brute!”