But then he had come to her rescue, carried her through the storm, tended to her, warmed her, and held her in his arms as he asked her about the foundling hospital. And he had not pressed her for anything more. Nor had he attempted to seduce her. As time had worn on and they had chatted in the delicious warmth of the flames, she had reached a point where she had realized she would not have denied him if he had done so.
But he had not, and she did not want her brother to mistake the scene he had walked in on any more than he already had. Nor did she want to be forced into marrying Lord Ashley, she reminded herself.
“He did everything untoward,” Dev bit out. “Instead of bringing you here, leaving you properly clothed, and stoking the fire before running back to Abingdon House for aid, the two of you somehow ended up bereft of your garments—”
“My garments were wet,” she interrupted, “and I was freezing. Lord Ashley helped me out of them after I had taken a fall.”
“I do not want to know what happened,” her brother told her, pressing his fingers to his temples and rubbing, as if his head ached. “All I want to know is how much damage I will have to inflict upon him.”
“None,” she said, horrified at the prospect of Dev and Lord Ashley facing each other like a pair of prize fighters. “He helped me, you blockhead.”
The moment the insult left her lips, she wished she could recall it.
Her brother’s ears went red, so hot was his fury. “Would you care to insult me again, Prudence Winter?”
“No,” she said. “I am sorry, Dev, but you are being rather unreasonable about all this.”
“Unreasonable?” he repeated in a thunderous voice, his jaws clenching. “Pru, you were unclothed, alone, with Lord Ashley Rawdon, a man whose reputation is so wicked, I cannot even repeat some of the particulars in your presence. The two of you were witnessed here together by the footman who came to stoke the fire, who thankfully sought me before someone else could happen upon you.”
Relief washed over her. It was a footman who had discovered them. Not another houseguest. Not a forbidding member of the aristocracy, who held to their tenets and rules.
“Then I am not truly compromised,” she said, which was the first thought that arose in her mind.
“Yes, you are.” Dev raked his fingers through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “There is no hope for it, Pru. You will have to marry Lord Ashley.”
“I will not,” she denied, clutching the fur more firmly around her. “If you are the only one who knows—”
“Along with the footman and whomever he chooses to tell,” her brother interjected. “I do not know what I was thinking when my darling wife proposed we hold a Christmas country house party. I should have told her we would do nothing of the sort. Instead, I agreed like the lovesick puppy I am and now, all my sisters have taken leave of their senses. All save the very last sister I would have ever supposed would be the most rational and responsible.”
Pru winced. Christabella was the wildest of their sisters. The most unflinchingly romantic. A true hellion. And yet, she was somehow the only sister who had not thus far been on the edge of finding herself embroiled in scandal.
Except…
Pru thought once more of the night she had run across Christabella, breathless and mussed in the halls, just after the Duke of Coventry had made his appearance in the west wing.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” her brother demanded.
She did not suppose she ought to ruin his delusion by informing him that the only sister he supposed was being rational and responsible was also doing nothing of the sort. Let him discover that when the time came.
“I am afraid I do not see the problem,” she dared to say. “You wanted your sisters to find husbands. Bea, Eugie, and Grace have done so and are quite happy. Moreover, if Lord Ashley were indeed such a scoundrel, why would you have invited him here at all?”
“Because my wife wanted to invite the Duke of Coventry, and his scapegrace rakehell of a brother insisted upon accompanying him,” Dev bit out. “That does not mean I intended for any of my sisters—least of all you—to marry the rogue.”
Her brother’s opinion of Lord Ashley only added to her misgiving. Part of him was outraged by their lapse in propriety, that much she knew. But his continued insistence about the unacceptable quality of Lord Ashley’s reputation gave her pause.
“What has he done that is so horrid?” she demanded to know.
“I do not dare speak it aloud to my innocent sister,” Dev said, “though, if he was showing you that scandalous book—”
“Do forget about the book,” she snapped, for it was her turn to interrupt this time. “Tell me about his reputation. If this is the man you will force me to wed, I deserve to know, do I not?”
Her brother had the grace to look shamefaced then. “You have forced yourself into marrying him with your reckless actions and your foolishness, Pru. I would never force you into anything.”
“And yet you are standing before me, telling me I must marry him.” The thought left her cold, for she had never imagined having no choice in her future. No say. That was the way of it for most women, but she was a Winter. She would possess a fortune in her own right.
“You are the reason you must marry him, Pru,” Dev said pointedly.
“You do not even know if he is willing to marry me,” she said.
