No, he did not. Sycamore was a fiend in the boxing ring, very likely a result of having six older brothers and a smart mouth. If he were more scientific about his strategy and a bit faster, he would have a prayer of besting Ash in a fair fight. What Sycamore could do with knives was uncanny.
“I abhor gossip,” Ash said. “What the hell could Della have been thinking?”
“You are attempting to divine the mental processes of a female,” Sycamore replied, snagging a flute of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. “Doomed undertaking for a mere mortal male, much less one with your limited gifts. Whatever Lady Della was thinking, she’s supposed to attend the Merryfield ball tomorrow night, and that means one of us must be there as well.”
Ash had spent two Seasons studiously avoiding any social gathering where Della was likely to appear. If their paths did cross, they greeted each other cordially and just as cordially ignored each other for the rest of the evening.
Ash timed visits to the family seat in Dorset for when Della was in Town. Della’s removes to Kent often coincided with Ash’s stays in London.
“You go,” Ash said. “I’ll handle things here.”
“No.” Sycamore took a casual sip of his champagne. “I’ll stay here. You go. She likes you, and she will need friendly faces around her.”
“Your face might be ugly, but it’s friendly to most any pretty female.” And Della was exquisite.
“Ash, dimwitted and homely though you are, she needs you. You’ve seen what happens when Mayfair decides to turn its back on a woman. In the receiving line, Lady Della will be served cold civility and that only because her titled brother will glue himself to her elbow. Nobody will stand up with her, nobody will even sit near her at supper save her family, which will only make matters worse. Before the dancing resumes, punch will be spilled on her dress, and that will be a mercy because it will permit her an early exit. She needs you.”
I am the last man she needs. “I’m returning to Dorning Hall next week, Cam.”
“Fine,” Sycamore said flatly. “Though winter comes to Dorset and London alike. Scamper away next week, but attend the Merryfields’ ball before you pull your annual disappearing act.”
As if Ash’s disappearing act were limited to once a year. “All she needs are a few eligibles to stand up with her. The talk will die down, somebody else’s scandal will come along, and all will be well.”
Sycamore aimed a glittering smile at a widowed marchioness who hadn’t graced the Coventry since the previous June. Lady Tavistock was a skilled gambler and used her charm and beauty to distract her opponents.
And the dealers. Ash suspected she’d distracted Sycamore a time or two, though not at the card tables.
“Perhaps in addition to your other mental aberrations, you are prone to fantastical thinking,” Sycamore said. “Lady Della is all but ruined, unless Chastain reveals the name of some other woman who happened to be bouncing on the sheets with him at the Alconbury Arms when Papa Chastain stormed onto the scene.”
Sycamore occasionally landed a solid gut punch in the boxing ring—and sometimes when not in the boxing ring.
“Bouncing on the sheets?”
“’Fraid so. Have a sip of my wine. You have gone all peaky and pale.”
Ash took the glass and drained half of it, which was an insult to the vintage. He’d tucked his anger away in its usual mental cupboard. Like a feline determined to get into the pantry, it would scratch and mew and paw at the door, but the lock would hold.
With the rest of his mind, he focused on a solution to Della’s situation. “She needs eligibles, a dance card full of them.”
“Not full,” Sycamore replied. “Full would look contrived. Full would require all the brothers and in-laws and so forth.”
The marchioness took up a place beside Mr. Travis Dunwald. She beamed at him, and young Dunwald bowed over her hand. He was quite eligible, a fine dresser, and not much of a gambler. Could not have calculated a probability if every card in the deck save one was face up on the table.
“How much does Dunwald owe us?” Ash asked.
Sycamore named a sum that was probably equal to Dunwald’s entire quarterly allowance. He was nephew to a viscount and the old boy’s heir. Eligible and solvent were not always near neighbors.
“What about Gower?”
Sycamore named an even larger sum. “What are you up to, Ash?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll cover the difference from my share of the monthly proceeds. What I am up to is filling Lady Della’s dance card.”
Sycamore retrieved the half-empty wineglass from Ash’s grasp. “Not a bad idea, especially coming from one of your modest intelligence, but she still needs you, Ash.”
“No, she does not.” Ash reaffixed a friendly smile to his face and began a circuitous approach to the table where Dunwald was trying to pretend he knew his way around a hand of cards.
He didn’t, but he could manage a quadrille without falling on his handsome arse, and that was all Della required of him.
Della assured herself that the receiving line hadn’t been too ghastly. Lady Merryfield had been pitying rather than cold, Lord Merryfield had stared at Della’s bosom only until Nicholas had cleared his throat. For a hostess to have a nearly fallen woman among her guests would lend cachet to the evening, apparently.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Nicholas murmured as they waited for the herald to announce them. “You’ll see I was right. A few dances, a glass of punch, and some supper, and we can put the whole business behind us.”
That had been George’s argument as he’d headed off to the ball in his own conveyance, an advance guard scouting hostile terrain. Nicholas was studying the crowd in the ballroom below as a ship’s captain watched an approaching gale.
“You needn’t worry that Chastain is here,” Della said as they advanced toward the steps down to the ballroom. “His father has hauled him off to Sussex, where he’s to bide until the nuptials take place.”
Nick glanced down at her, his smile faltering. “How do you know that?”
“I just do.” Della’s lady’s maid was friends, cousins, or formerly employed with half the lady’s maids in Mayfair. They formed an intelligence network that would have shamed Napoleon’s best spies.
The herald announced the Earl of Bellefonte and Lady Delilah Haddonfield, and the tide of conversation in the ballroom below ebbed to a trickle, then fell silent.
“A new experience,” Della said, taking a firmer hold of Nick’s arm. “I have rendered all of Society speechless.”
She tipped her chin up when she wanted to crawl away on her hands and knees. What stopped her was the certain knowledge that she deserved exactly the reception she was getting, and that only after she’d endured this penance would her family allow her to slink off to Kent.
“Tresham is here,” Nick murmured, offering her a smile that did not conceal the worry in his eyes. “George is beneath the minstrel’s gallery. Worth Kettering and his lady are right outside the cardroom, and I do believe that’s my own dear Valentine Windham beaming at us from near the punchbowl.”
Windham was a duke’s son and a composer and pianist of some renown. His show of tolerance would be remarked—also seen for what it was, a kindly display toward an old friend’s disgraced sister.