Because this at least I can do for you. Because I owe you. Because… He tossed aside the answers she would never believe and instead settled for one she would.
“I don’t know what you were about with Chastain, my lady, but I know you well enough to grasp that matters did not go as you intended. You would not steal another woman’s fiancé. You would not be caught by the groom’s enraged father unless you wanted to be caught.”
Russet brows drew down, suggesting Della’s own family hadn’t put together that much.
“Plans sometimes go awry,” she said. “Even well-laid plans.”
Ash danced her around the entire ballroom and let himself simply enjoy the moment. That the circumstances were miserable and the people watching were completely misreading the situation was of no moment. Ash was waltzing with the only woman to truly catch his eye—and his heart—and that was more consolation than he was entitled to.
“You planned to elope with Chastain,” he said as the music came to an end, “and you planned to get caught before the first overnight stop. You did not plan for his idiot father to take so long to catch up with you, or to make such a public display when he did.”
And what price had Della paid for her miscalculation? Had she been bouncing on the sheets consensually, struggling against Chastain’s advances, something worse?
“My plans went awry,” she said quietly. “My plans went badly awry.”
The rage locked behind Ash’s mental cupboards took on the low growl of a lion.
He led her from the dance floor and remained at her side. The doors to the gallery had been opened, and the line had formed for the buffet. He kept her hand tucked around his arm, the better to prevent her from dashing off to the ladies’ retiring room, never to be seen again.
“We all make mistakes, Della,” he said. “I’ve made more than my share.” And on some fine and distant day, he might explain to her all the mistakes he’d made with her.
“This damage cannot be repaired, Mr. Dorning. I have made my bed, and I will lie in it alone.” She spoke pleasantly, but the bleakness in her eyes belied her tone. “You may return to Dorset with a clear conscience. You’ve stood up with me for the pity waltz, and everybody will accord you capital-fellow status for your generosity of spirit.”
The line shuffled forward. “How do you know I’m returning to Dorset?” Ash kept his voice down, both because everything was too easily overheard in such close quarters and because he wanted to create that fiction that he and Della were having a lovely little chat.
“You have scampered off to Dorset every autumn for the past four years. I’ve written to you there, but you do not write back.”
“And I have appreciated your letters.” He had memorized her letters. He and Della had a family connection. Writing to him was not quite scandalous, but it had surely been brave. Not answering her letters had been cowardly, though Ash told himself that encouraging her friendship would be unkind.
“I was planning to leave for Dorset next week,” he said, “but in light of tonight’s developments, I will put off my departure.” He tempted fate with that decision, but better to tempt fate than further neglect his honor where Della was concerned.
She moved with him another few steps forward. Ash did not particularly want any glazed ham, stale profiteroles, or mashed potatoes sculpted to look like rows of pigeons. But Della needed to eat, and more than that, she needed to appear in great good health with an entirely normal appetite.
“You need not put off your departure for my sake,” Della said, passing Ash two plates. “After tonight’s fiasco, I will be allowed to leave Town in disgrace.”
“Tonight has been far from a fiasco,” he said. “Not quite a triumph, but not a failure. As I recall, you prefer beef to ham.”
She sent him a curious look and filled both plates as she moved with him down the line. Della was enduring moment by moment, a skill Ash knew intimately. To a casual observer, her movements would appear relaxed and her expression pleasant.
What a damned painful irony to be sharing a waltz and supper with her and have her participation in those pleasures be out of dire expedience.
“Tonight has not yet descended into abject failure,” Della said as they wandered down the gallery in search of a place to eat. “But the dance floor has certainly been purgatory. Where inept sinners go to marinate, which is less than I deserve. What about the terrace?”
Her self-castigation sat ill with Ash, though Society would agree with her. Ash did not know what her true motivation had been, but he entertained the theory that the whole business with Chastain was somehow the fault of one Ash Dorning.
“The terrace will suit,” he said, and they found a small table with two chairs along the outside wall of the gallery. “Let’s take stock, shall we?”
“Of what?”
“The progress of the battle.” He set the plates on the table and held her chair. “You were acknowledged in the receiving line, and nobody has offered you the cut direct.” He lingered near her shoulder when pushing in her chair, because in the terrace shadows, nobody would see him stealing a whiff of her honeysuckle perfume.
And because he was an idiot.
Della unfolded her table napkin. “The gentlemen have offered me leers, groping, coldness, and contempt.”
“They what?”
She glanced around the relatively deserted terrace, pulled off her evening gloves, and draped them across the linen in her lap.
“Fletcher didn’t merely stumble. He groped my bum. The quadrille was an exercise in how close a man’s hands can come to a woman’s breasts without actually touching them. I’m not hungry.”
Neither was Ash. He silently promised the lion roaring behind iron mental bars a few rounds at Jackson’s. A dozen rounds, in fact.
Which would not help Della one bit. He took off his gloves and put a quarter slice of toast topped with oregano and melted cheddar on her plate.
“Eat something. Please. Fletcher will find his debts at The Coventry are not, alas, forgiven.”
Della took a bite of toast. “That was how you inveigled them into dancing with me?”
“Dunwald, Fletcher, Neely-Goodman… They are inept at cards and too proud to admit it. I have tried to explain some basics about probabilities to them, but they disdain my guidance. You have made progress tonight, Della, despite the unforgivable disrespect to your person.”
She dusted her hands when she’d finished her toast. “Mr. Dorning, why have you taken it upon yourself to repair my reputation? I am the realm’s most spectacular fool for running off with Chastain, and I am prepared to pay for my folly.”
Ash was certain Della hadn’t expected to pay nearly this high a price, though. Not in her worst nightmares. So what, exactly, had she been about with Chastain?
“All you need,” he said, “is to continue as you’ve gone on tonight. I’ll take you driving in the park tomorrow if the day is fair and escort you to the Dickson’s Venetian breakfast on Monday. If you keep your chin up, and Chastain remains in Sussex, you can confront the gossips none the worse for your ordeal.”
“Why?” Della asked, reaching for another triangle of toast.
He knew what she was asking: Why come to her aid now, when Ash had all but ignored her for months?