“Chastain’s a buffoon, Della dearest. What were you really about?”
She’d been trying to prevent a scandal, oddly enough. “Eloping. Trying to free William from a betrothal he never sought.” Taking a small risk for a larger reward. Or so she’d told herself. Chastain was a nasty dunderhead, an even greater dunderhead than she’d known. He’d bungled every possible detail in every possible direction, and she had been an idiot to trust him.
“I can’t credit that you truly intended to marry him.” George dropped his arm and retrieved his drink. “Men are generally troublesome. I will be the first to admit that, and my perspective is more informed than most. I thought you were merely taking your time, waiting for the right fellow to do the tender-kisses-and-moonlight-strolls bit.”
The right fellow had offered Della tender kisses and moonlight strolls. Then Ash Dorning had decided he wasn’t the right fellow, for reasons Della still could not fathom. Ash would not give a flying fig for Della’s irregular antecedents—he and Jonathan Tresham were fast friends and business associates—but something had deterred Ash from paying her his addresses.
“I grew tired of waiting,” Della said, and that much was true. “George, would you mind very much if I went up to my room for a lie-down? I’ve been somewhat short of sleep lately and could use a nap.” A hundred years wrapped in Mama’s shawl and buried beneath twenty quilts ought to suffice.
“Have your nap, but, Della, you should know that Leah and Nicholas are very concerned. Chastain has already been indiscreet. He hasn’t named you specifically, but he’s dropped broad hints. The Merryfield ball is Wednesday night, and Leah was making references to a show of strength and putting a brave face on matters. Do you want to know the real reason I came up to Town?”
“The other real reason?”
“To make sure our dear brother Nicholas doesn’t call anybody out. Fortunately, Nick is titled while Chastain is a mere baronet’s heir. Strictly applied, the rules don’t allow for Nick to call out a commoner.”
Della sank onto a hassock. “But Tresham is a commoner, Beckman is… And when have any of my brothers played by the rules? George, promise me there won’t be any duels. Please. I am happy to live out my days in obscurity at the family seat, and nobody need ever mention my name again.”
Happy would be a stretch, but contentment might still be possible.
“You deserve better than banishment, Della. Chastain abused your good name terribly, and then his idiot father had to make the situation worse. I could reconcile myself to having Chastain for a brother-in-law, but his parents are not to be borne.”
“William’s parents might be much of the reason why he is the way he is.” And conversely.
“You call him William. Do I understand that you would yet marry him, given the chance?”
While George swirled his brandy, Della reflected on plans gone awry, Haddonfields run amok, and William Chastain’s innocent fiancée.
“If I say yes, then Nicholas will try to bribe William into crying off his betrothal outright, and I don’t want that.” Not now, not when the poor woman’s family had stood by the agreement to marry despite William’s attempt to flee.
George finished his drink and headed for the door. “If you say no, that you won’t marry Chastain, then one has to wonder why the hell you ran off with him in the first place. Prepare yourself to face the tabbies at the Merryfield ball, Della. Not for your own sake, but for the sake of the family so bewildered by your actions.”
The ball would be a disaster, another way to fan the bonfire of gossip. “I am bewildered too, George,” Della said. “Bewildered and so very, very sorry.” She’d apologized to Nicholas before setting foot back in his house and to Leah ten minutes thereafter. “George?”
But George had already left and silently closed the door. Della had every intention of slipping up to her room before another sibling could pounce on her, except that raised voices resounded as she passed by the closed library door.
George, who never shouted, was shouting, and Nicholas, the soul of patient consideration, was shouting back. The words duel and family honor reached Della’s ears, along with profanities aimed at William Chastain’s cognitive abilities.
Della reversed course, opened the library door, and strode in. Nicholas and George were glowering at each other from within fisticuff-range on the far side of the reading table.
“No duels, Nicholas,” Della said. “This is all my fault, and I will pay the price for my folly. Please plan to escort me to the Merryfield ball on Wednesday. When the talk dies down, I will repair to Kent, and you may wall me up in the chapel. First, I will show my face before all of Mayfair and weather the scorn I am due. Then, I will gladly accept banishment. Are we agreed?”
Nick took a step toward her. “But, Della, dearest, you cannot—”
“Agreed,” George said.
“Good.” She managed to maintain her composure until she was in her room behind a locked door. Only then did she allow the tears to fall.
Chapter Two
“If Chastain walks into this club,” Sycamore said, “you will politely walk him right back out again.”
Ash smiled for the benefit of the Coventry’s patrons, as if Sycamore had made one of his typical witty remarks. “Should Chastain walk through the door, we will both walk him right back out again, politely or not.”
The early evening gossip at the Coventry was running in many directions.
Lady Della had been a fool to get into a carriage with Chastain.
Lady Della had been desperate to get into a carriage with Chastain.
Chastain had been quite daring to attempt to make off with an earl’s sister.
Chastain could be forgiven for trying to trade an émigré’s daughter for an English aristocrat.
In any case, Lady Della, at her age, really should have known better.
“The betting book at White’s already has several wagers,” Sycamore said, keeping his voice down in a rare display of tact. “Her ladyship will have a baby by April. Chastain’s fiancée will have a baby by April. They will both have babies by April.”
Ash was so accustomed to living at a distance from his emotions that he needed a moment to identify the upwelling of violent impulses that Sycamore’s recitation produced.
I am angry. In a proper, seething rage. A condition as novel as it was inconvenient. Ash was angry at Chastain, at the malicious talk aimed at an otherwise exemplary young lady, at Della’s family for allowing this entire farce to occur, and of course—always—at himself.
“Who?” Ash asked. “Who wrote those wagers in a location that assured all of polite society hears of them?”
“Easier to ask who hasn’t put down a few pounds one way or the other. And no, I did not. Babies arrive according to probabilities known only to the Almighty. Besides, you would kill me.”
“As scrawny as you are, when the Haddonfield brothers finished with you, there would be nothing left worth killing.”
Sycamore—who had left scrawny behind a good five years, eight inches, and four stone ago—offered a bland smile. “I abhor violence, Ash.”