“The Duke of Argyll is not some fortune hunter who requires my dowry. In fact, he is industrious. Certainly, more than you. Where you manage properties and monies bequeathed you for generations based on nothing but your name, Gregory took it upon himself to create a business.”
Were he not seated, Daria’s ardent, articulate, bold, full-throated defense would’ve knocked him on his arse.
“A gaming hell, Daria! A gaming hell.”
“A club frequented by gentlemen whom you rub shoulders with at ton events and functions. And a key element you are forgetting is that those who attend have the choice to, unlike your tenants who’ve been born to—”
“I am a fair, just, and generous landowner.”
“Yes,” Daria said with that stoic calm that’d first repelled but now fascinated him. “Fortunately for them, you are. That does not negate the fact that you did not establish, with your own two hands, a business of your own.”
Argyll’s jaw slipped.
“She’s good,” Eris whispered. “Is she not?” Hands clasped to her chest, her eyes filled with adoration. She had the look of a proud mama.
Unnerved out of his bloody mind, he couldn’t even nod for the girl’s benefit. Even though a nod and far more were merited in terms of praise for Argyll’s passionate defender.
“Think of all the rakes and rogues who ruin ladies for their doweries. He did not do that. In fact, he allowed me the right to retain mine.”
“How generous of him,” St. John spat.
“Can you nothearhow pompous you’re being, Clayton?”
“Daria,” the dowager viscountess attempted her first intervention.
Brother and sister ignored the matron.
St. John’s voice crept up. “I’mpompous?”
“Yes. Your closest friends, men who are like brothers to you: Lord Scarsdale, Lord Landon, Lord—” Daria stopped abruptly.
An odd tension filled the quiet.
“It is all right,” Lady St. John said softly. “My late husband was a rogue. You are correct to include mention of him.”
“Thank you for your help, dear wife,” the lady’scurrenthusband muttered.
As for Argyll’s stirring wife, Daria pressed her point. “They were all rogues and yet you thought them fine to not only keep company with, but allow your sisters to interact with quite freely, and in Anwen’s case, you supported her marriage to one of them.”
Wait a moment. What was this? Landon? Scarsdale? Argyll frowned. The late Norton? He’d assumed St. John mingled with the dull sort.
And Argyll’s wife, how had she put it? Interacted quite freely with those raffish bastards?
“…I stumbled upon him and his friends in various stages of undress…”
Annoyance stirred.
“That is different!” the viscount sputtered.
It most certainly was. Last night, he’d been so horrified at being likened to her brother, Argyll dismissed the mostpertinent part—who’d been those other fellows his wife saw in the buff.
“They are…they are…”
“Your friends?”
“Reformed. They are reformed, Daria.”
“Eventually. They didn’t begin that way.”
