“Argyll will break your heart, Daria.”
He would. The viscount wasn’t wrong on that score. Lord St. John’s warning came entirely too late. The deed was done.
“We do not necessarily know that, Clayton.”
Argyll’s ears pricked up with interest. He’d picked up a defense from Daria’s mother.
Lord St. John snorted. “Do you truly believe that, Mother?”
There was a beat of silence so that Argyll couldn’t determine whether he’d simply missed the response.
“No,” came the dowager viscountess’s reply.
He leaned back.
Little fingers tugged at his coat sleeve.
Argyll looked down. “Yes?”
“If youaremarried to Daria…” she began slowly, like one unwrapping a riddle.
“I am.”
“Then would it not make sense for you to be in there with her?”
A frown touched his brow, and he reconsidered the door.
Argyll narrowed his eyes. “Do you believe I should?”
“I asked whatyouthink.”
Argyll picked his way around his words the same way a man facing the hangman’s noose would. One wrong word and Daria’s little sister would skewer him alive.
“Well, Argyll?” Eris regarded him steadily.
“Daria asked I remain here while she spoke with the viscount,” he said very carefully. “She also prepared me for St. John’s response.” She’d have the last laugh on this one—if she were the laughing sort. “Neither she, nor St. John…” Of yet. “Has given me leave to think she might be at risk.” He paused. “Unlessyou believe she might be?” He honed his eyes on the talkative child.
“Oh, yes.”
His vision went dark. Argyll surged to his feet.
“But he won’t be able to withhold her warmed chocolate and two marshmallows as long as she’s with you.”
Eris caught him in his tracks with his fingers on the door handle.
His shoulders loosened. “Only two marshmallows seems like a punishment in and of itself.”
“Marshmallows areexpensive, Argyll.” She looked at him like he’d lost his head. “Can you imagine having six sisters, a mother, and small babes, all in need of marshmallows?”
Argyll mulled a moment. “It’d bankrupt a fellow.”
“Exactly,” she said, drawing the word out.
She patted the spot beside her. Argyll retook his seat.
They sat with their first silence.
While the conversation on the other side of the door continued, Argyll glanced down at Eris. She’d taken to chewing a nail. A brief, rare, and horrific moment of wistfulness hit him as he recalled Raina and Millie when they’d been small and defiant…and easy. They’d been so bloody much easier as girls who craved marshmallows and peppermints and not…young women who’d discovered the worst about their brother, and were bent on punishing him for it.
