Lining up for the next target, Felton smirked, “I’ll always kill your pride when it is warranted, old boy. Now. After this lastshot, can wepleaseget out of this deuced rain? If I get ill, you’ll be footing my physician’s bill.” He chuckled. “At least you grew a conscience before something morefinalhappened.”
“Like what?” Edward eyed him.
“She’s attacked and dying on the side of the street?” Felton shrugged.
“Be serious.”
“Oh, I don’t know. She is to marry another man. There.”
That one cut Edward to the quick and his tight swallow had his friend laughing and shuffling him away from the field. “Some warm brandy will go well with that uneasy stomach.”
CHAPTER 30
Arm in arm, Alice and Penelope stepped into the townhouse after a long afternoon spent wandering Pall Mall and lingering at the bookstore—a convenient reprieve from the tension that always seemed to simmer over the house during one of Eliza’s visits with Baron Portman.
“Do you think he has left?” Penelope asked, her voice low as if the question itself might conjure him back.
“I do hope so,” Alice replied while unlacing her bonnet. “But I am not looking forward to hearing her wax poetic about him over dinner while miserably attempting to conceal the true ulterior motives behind his recurring visits.,” she shuddered.
“Me neither,” Penelope tutted. “Perhaps we are being too cynical? Perhaps she truly has started to take a liking toward the man. I hope she gets married off soon so she can stop being so grouchy around me when it comes to suitors. We used to be close until our debuts.”
“I hope so too, but to a baron,” Alice tilted her head. “Unlikely.”
“Miraclesdohappen,” Penelope replied, touching the bracelet she had hardly let go of from the moment Benedict had won it for her at the fair.
“They do,” Alice nodded as they headed to her room. “To the best people.”
Just as they went to take the stairs, Aunt Agatha stepped out of the sitting room, her face tight, her lips flat, and instantly, Alice went tense. “Girls, come in for a moment. We need to speak about something important.”
“If this is about Lord Brampton—”
“It is not,” Aunt Agatha cut in swiftly. “Now come in and sit.”
As they entered, a hushed silence fell over the room. They found Eliza there too and the satisfied smirk she sported made Alice’s hackles rise. Taking the couch, Alice asked sweetly, “What is this about?”
“I… I hoped to say this as delicately as I could, but I am afraid there is no way around it,” Aunt Agatha said quietly. “Which of you is with child?”
Penelope went bloodless. Alice shot a look to Eliza—of course she had heard their conversation; of course she had run to hermother. If she was not afraid of Edward, Alice was sure she would have gone to the Times too.
“Pardon?” Alice asked. “Where is this coming from?”
“Which one of you is increasing?” Aunt Agatha brushed Alice’s question away to bulldoze on with her demand.
“W-why do you think that?” Alice asked innocently. “Is it because Eliza overheard Penelope and I talking yesterday? What right does she have to parrot our private conversation back to anyone?”
“Mother has graciously opened her home to you two urchins, and you think she has no right to know what is happening under her own roof?” Eliza muttered spitefully. “Is that how much respect you have for—”
“Silence, Elizabeth!” Aunt Agatha snapped suddenly. Her piercing gaze fixed on Penelope, who had gone pale under the weight of it. “Is it you, girl? Was it with that man, Rutledge?”
“I—I-”
“It’s me,” Alice blurted abruptly. “It is me, Aunt.”
“You?” Her aunt’s eyes widened. “You? Of all people, I thought you had more sense! I thought you were smarter, more responsible! And now—now you’ve gone and ruined us. You’veruined us—you’ve tossed us to the rags! Right as we were beginning to make waves in the peerage!”
You. I’ve ruined you. What about myself if I was truly encumbered?
“Oh dear, this is a disaster! Any chance of obtaining a suitable, secure husband for you will be lost, never mind finding one who will take on the child,” her aunt fretted. “Who is the father?”
