“Quite pointed,” Albina agreed. “She is good at pointed, and she gets it from me. Though she is more subtle about it.”
Harper’s jaw tightened.
“Lady Wilmington…”
“I am simply saying, that if you want to know why Temperance left, you might consider that the gentleman in question is the more likely source of the answer than Temperance herself.” She looked across the room to where Mr. Alford had rejoined a cluster of friends near the far wall. “She has considerable tolerance for unpleasantness. If her tolerance ran out mid-dance, then whatever prompted it was not subtle.”
Harper followed her gaze to Alford. Something shifted in his expression.
“I vetted him,” he said, but there was something in his voice now that was less certain than it had been.
“I’m sure you did,” Albina said. “You are very thorough, I have noticed that about you. But men are not always the same in the vetting as they are on the floor, are they? Especially with a woman whose reputation they consider accessible.”
Harper said nothing for a moment. He was looking at Alford now.
“She should have come back to my side,” he said, but it was quieter now, and it lacked the certainty of the things he said when he was fully committed to them. “She should have…”
“Your Grace.” Albina looked at him with the direct, unhurried gaze she reserved for things she was taking seriously. “My daughter has been managing unpleasant men since she was old enough to encounter them, which was considerably younger than it should have been. She does not need rescuing. She needs people to stop assuming the problem is her.”
Harper looked at her.
“I will speak to her,” Harper said. Could she really be onto something?
“That,” Albina said, “is probably not the conversation that most needs having tonight.”
But he had already set his glass down and was moving.
He was perhaps halfway across the ballroom when he heard it.
He passed a group of men near the column, and he was already past them when the voice reached him.
“…. not what I expected, I’ll say that much.”
He did not stop but instead slowed down to hear what was being talked about.
“The spinster? No, they never are.” A second voice said in an amused one. “Too aware of their own position, that type. They think gratitude ought to look a particular way and then when it doesn’t..”
“She was proper,” the first voice said. “But too proper for a woman in her circumstances, which is no income, no prospects, a mother who’s in the papers every other week. You’d think she’d be more amenable.”
“Not worth the effort, then.”
“Not remotely. Let Sedgewick find her someone who hasn’t been told yet. She’ll learn soon enough that she can’t afford to be particular.”
Harper had stopped walking and stood with his back to the group.
Somehow, all he could feel at the moment was rage. Albina had been correct, and it was no wonder that Temperance had walked away from him.
“I would encourage you,” he said, “to be careful of your words in future. In particular those concerning Miss Hosmer.”
Alford opened his mouth, and the color seemed to drain from his face.
It was as though he had seen a ghost, but Harper was determined to remind him that there were worse fates in store for him should he continue to run his mouth.
“Y-your Grace,” Alford sputtered out.
“Oh, we were only talking,” one of the other gentlemen quipped, though his eyes darted around the room, seeming desperate for an escape.
“I would be wary of speaking about other ladies in such a manner,” Harper said in a tone that caused the man to take several steps back, “especially those for whom I am responsible. You would not wish to know what would happen to you if you do. It would certainly be much worse than appearing in the weekly scandal sheets.”
