The letter was a masterpiece of delicacy, kindness, pomposity, brutal pragmatism, and entitlement. He saw her as a fixed set of predictable qualities which would suit his purposes. He did her the honor of assuming she possessed the intelligence to see her predicament in the same light he saw it. It solved every problem she had, and negated her completely.
And who was to say he was wrong about any of it?
Her father must have alerted the earl to the bargain she presented, given that she no longer had a dowry. It had been gambled away.
“Uncertain future.” “Advancing years.” He’d written these things with such authority thather breathing had gone shallow with terror when she’d read it. Dideveryonebelieve her circumstances dire? Was this how all men saw her? He was fifty-six; he’d had two wives. He ought to be reluctant to get attached to another one, given his experiences. Doubtless any sentiment he’d ever laid claim to had been burned away.
And perhaps that was why he’d chosen her. For what about her would arouse undue sentiment?
He was wealthy. He would pay her father’s obscene five-hundred-pound debt. The marriage settlements would likely restore her father to some form of solvency, too. Wasn’t it her duty, then, as a daughter, to seize the opportunity?
She would have no worries at all.
But then, neither, of course, did the chair she sat upon. And after a fashion, furniture is what she would be.
I will expect you to dutifully participate in the more intimate features of marriage that occur in private between a husband and wife, as well as attend to my comfort in other wifely ways.
Her cheeks went hot and her stomach roiled.
She imagined the scorn with which Lorcan St. Leger would greet such a sterile sentence.
Lorcan was a disturbingly vital creature. Utterly foreign to her experience. He still frightened—maybe even repelled—her a little. And yet—she could not explain it—talking to him this morning had been like taking that firstbite of an orange. That first sip of black, black coffee. He listened as though she mattered precisely as much as he did.
How disorienting this quality was to encounter in a man. She’d felt as if she were in a fast ship moving over water, sea spray in her face.
And she was ironically surprised to realize that of all the men she’d ever known, he alone had helped her when she’d needed it and had so far asked for nothing in return.
She ought to fall on her knees in gratitude to the Earl of Athelboro. She ought to be soaring with relief. She’d once experienced the “frivolity of courtship” and had somehow botched it, and perhaps once was all one got in a lifetime.
She could be a countess, and all she had to do was give up her pride and all hope.
But the earl was right: it was an honor.
So it was this, or perhaps a lifetime of serving as a companion to the Mrs. Leggetts of the world. She was a dutiful person, but she felt not one twinge of guilt when she imagined Mrs. Leggett discovering a bedsheet dangling from the window and her not-yet-paid paid companion missing. The weather was on her side, in that carriage travel would be nearly impossible over the next few days. She only hoped she could return to Hampshire before word somehow reached her father of her escape.
And therein lay Daphne’s answer. So she set out to write a reply.
But no matter how hard she stared out thewindow at the rain, she could not quite get past “Dear Lord Athelboro.”
She read a book instead.
“I think we’re lucky to get out of that alive,” Lorcan said to Daphne about dinner.
Which had been simple, hearty, and tasty—fish stew and root vegetables and bread and butter—but had featured a frenzy of reaching and devouring and several midair near collisions of sloshing tureens. Three strapping boys, curly of hair, long of leg, rosy of cheek, German of accent, ate like sharks thrown chum, which was fomenting the general eating panic. Daphne and Lorcan had been introduced to all of them, as well as to Mr. Angus McDonald, who sported close-cropped hair so flaming red he resembled a lit match. Delilah and Captain Hardy and Angelique and Lucien were present, too. Chewing and swallowing took precedence over conversation.
They were told that a few other guests had apparently opted to take dinner in their rooms that evening, as the rules allowed, and that Mr. Delacorte’s stomach was a bit unsettled, but they would all be joining them in the sitting room.
All the diners eventually staggered, a few at a time, from the table, full and a trifle frazzled, and into the sitting room.
Lorcan and Daphne both hesitated. And then Lorcan extended an only slightly mockingly chivalrous arm. “Time for charades, missus,” he murmured.
She stared at his arm. Then drew in a sustaining breath and delicately, gingerly, rested her hand on it. It was easily twice the width of Henry’s arm. It felt a bit as though she’d just been given a cannon to fire.
He escorted her in.
The first person they saw in the sitting room was an extraordinarily picturesque young man leaning indolently against the mantel, as though he’d been propped there. One of the guests who had dined in his room, no doubt.
Daphne knew at once he was wealthy and titled. The details were all there: the ebony gloss of his Hoby boots; the coat so exquisitely tailored he might well have been sewn into it; the plum-colored striped waistcoat with silver buttons. His dark hair was just the perfect amount of floppy. His features were sculpted; his chin was dimpled. He was clearly accustomed to gawks and one got the sense he languished if he wasn’t the recipient of them. This was someone who very much enjoyed being exactly who he was.
