“Miss!” The maid rapped on her door. “Ye are needed downstairs immediately.”
Fifteen minutes later, Viola presented herself—neatly dressed, her hair wrapped into a tidy, if hasty, chignon—in the front parlor.
Her father paced the floor in front of the hearth, hands behind his back, expression bleak.
She had never seen her father look so . . . . so . . . defeated. Nearly haggard. A prize fighter who had received one hit too many.
She crossed to him immediately. “Whatever is the matter, Papa?”
Dr. Brodure lifted his head and fixed his gaze on a point to the left of Viola’s shoulder.
Spinning, Viola startled to see the Duke of Kendall. His Grace appeared to have raced through his toilette. His cravat was simply tied, and his gray hair lacked its usual gleaming pomade.
“Your Grace,” she murmured, dipping a brisk curtsy, heart a pulse in her throat.
Kendall’s presence did not bode well. The grim set of his jaw said his news was not pleasant. The gleeful gleam in his eye said he rather relished that fact.
Viola clasped her shaking hands before her.
“There is no easy way to say this, Miss Brodure, so I shall simply come to the point.” The duke spoke each word crisply, his diction no doubt the product of hundreds of years of powerful men delivering bad news, often from a sword’s edge.
Viola rather felt like he held a sword to her own throat currently. She dared a glance back at her father, but he avoided her eyes.
What had happened?!
Kendall did not keep her waiting.
“Twice in the past week, Miss Brodure,” he began, “you were seen entering Thistle Muir in the company of Mr. Ethan Penn-Leith, right before and right after his trip to Aberdeen. Both times occurred on the servants’ day off, when no one else was about the house.”
To Kendall’s credit, he didn’t deliver the news with quite as much cheerful spite as Viola might have expected. But that didn’t stop her stomach from plummeting like a stone.
“EthanPenn-Leith?” she said.
Yes,thatwas the information her brain chose to focus on first.
The tiniest of ironic smiles touched Kendall’s lips. It wasn’t particularly encouraging.
“Indeed,” he said, almost conversationally. “I find myself with a whole host of questions about your proclivities, Miss Brodure.”
Viola blushed scarlet, the wash of color as scourging as a lash.
“Your Grace!” Dr. Brodure broke his silence on a gasp.
As if remembering he had an audience, Kendall sketched a polite bow toward her father. “My apologies, Dr. Brodure. I’m sure your daughter will enlighten us both as to the particulars—”
Another knock sounded on the front door.
Dr. Ruxton bustled in, handing hat and walking stick to the waiting Mary.
“Ah, I see my news precedes me.” The vicar bowed to Kendall.
Dr. Brodure motioned for all his guests to be seated and then orderedteato be brought in, of all things.
Honestly, Viola could hardly think straight, much less calmly pour tea. She wasn’t quitethatEnglish, it seemed.
Particularly as Kendall regarded her with his dark, sardonic eyes, and her father continued to give her sideways glances, likely trying to determine if she was on the verge an asthmatic fit.
Her nerves were rather too stunned at the moment to react.
