“You ought not worry, Lady Derring. Women who look like you need never go hungry, if they prefer not to.”
Tavistock would never have dared to use that melting, insinuating tone only a few days ago. Inside her unpaid-for gloves, her hands had gone clammy.
And now she understood that the only bulwark against vicissitudes was a husband.
She imagined Mr. Tavistock climbing aboard and rolling off his poor, unfortunate wife. Something of her thoughts must have radiated clear through the veil, because Mr. Tavistock’s little smile vanished.
He cleared his throat. “As you are aware, the properties in Devonshire and Sussex will now go to the next male heir, a nephew, since there was no male issue of the marriage...”
Issuewas a grotesque word.
“But—” He froze as some realization struck.
Suddenly Tavistock pulled out a drawer and slapped something that jingled on the desk between them. A great collection of keys on a ring.
“I’d nearly forgotten. Derring owned one building outright. Think he won it in a card game or some such. The one at 11 Lovell Street by the docks. It is now yours.”
She looked down at the keys.
“The one on Lovell Street by the docks,” she repeated slowly.
Derring had never mentioned it. She choked back a nearly hysterical laugh. But only scoundrels and rogues lingered by the docks. Countesses did not go by the docks.
“A right wreck of a building, I believe,” Tavistock continued blithely. He cast an eye on the wall clock. Busy men like him could only apportion a certain amount of time to explaining the destruction of her life.
Delilah swept the keys toward her. Clutched them in her hand. “What kind of building is it?”
“Don’t know, to be honest. All I know is you’ve a week to vacate the London townhouse, as Derring is in arrears.”
The voices on the other side of the door rose suddenly to argument volumes.
The doorknob rattled.
The door was wrenched open a few inches.
It seemed to be yanked shut again.
Then was wrenched open a few more inches. Delilah could see a woman and the young clerk who manned a small desk outside were doing battle over the doorknob.
It was wrenched open another few inches.
“For heaven’s sake, Mr. Mackintosh,” the woman cajoled, “he’ll seeme,no need to fuss so. By the by, have you gone and had a new coat made? You lookdashing. I think you’re finally growing into your looks.”
Paralyzed by the confusing compliment, the clerk turned pink and loosened his grip on the doorknob.
The woman’s perfume—sultry, celebratory—preceded her, but the rest of her arrived in a swirl of the most dashing black silk widow’s weeds Delilah had ever seen.
Mr. Tavistock shot to his feet so swiftly his chair staggered drunkenly.
“Angelique—er—Mrs. Breedlove—”
His head ricocheted between Delilah and the woman and back again like a pendulum on a clock.
“Tavvie, darling,” the woman interjected crisply. “I’ll be brief. I’ve creditors knocking at my actual door. Not the metaphorical sort of knocking.” She rapped her knuckles sharply on his desk. “This sort. You’ve not responded to the messages I’ve sent over, so I’ll do you the credit of assuming you’ve been busy, rather than neglectful.”
She tipped her head ever-so-slightly coquettishly, and the feather in her hat—no veil forthiswidow—bobbed. Delilah caught a glimpse of a pert nose and large wide-set light eyes. It was hard to know how old she was; her brisk confidence made Delilah feel, for an instant, childlike.
Also, the woman was frightened.
