Page 73

Chapter Seventeen

“He hasn’t come,” Valerie said.

She had positioned herself beside a clipped topiary near the garden entrance in a way that managed to look entirely natural while giving her an unobstructed view of the gate.

Lady Worthington’s parties were known for their curation. She had been excluding people from events since before most of the guests in attendance were born, and had long since mastered the art of inviting the ton while ensuring that only those she actually liked appeared.

Today, the lawn held perhaps forty guests and a very satisfying absence of unwelcome surprises.

“I noticed,” Juliet said. She turned her parasol against the June sun and surveyed the white-clothed tables, the rose arbors, the careful arrangement of people pretending not to calculate one another. “I have been noticing since half past two.”

“Your grandmother is not even attempting to look unsatisfied about it.” Valerie’s mouth curved. “She has smiled at the gate four times. I counted.”

Lady Worthington, in dove-gray silk with her fan open on her knee and her eyes doing everything her expression refused to, presided over the center table with the ease of a woman who had outlasted several disasters and saw no reason to feign modesty. Juliet watched her lean toward Mrs. Ashdown and speak with the gravity one reserved for information intended to travel quickly.

“She has reason to smile,” said a voice at her left.

Daniel had appeared at her elbow with a glass of claret he seemed to have acquired from nowhere, his expression carrying the mild cheer of a man who'd had a very good Thursday and was content to let the news travel at its own pace.

“Has anyone told you yet?” he said. “About Penhurst?”

“Only that he isn’t here,” Valerie said. Her eyes went to Daniel for a moment and held there with a stillness that had nothing to do with indifference.

“He isn’t here because he cannot afford to be.” Daniel examined his claret. “Three canal ventures came apart in the spring. His credit at two establishments on St. James’s was declined last month. And his former businessman, a Mr. Blackwood, who spent the better part of three years with Penhurst’s Dorset concern, went before a solicitor a fortnight ago and documented, in considerable detail, how those accounts were actually kept.”

He took a sip. “Contracts backdated. Returns quoted to investors that bore no connection to the books. Losses distributed across correspondence so that no single letter told the whole of it.” He looked up. “It holds together only until someone places it all in one room.”

Juliet’s pulse skipped at his tone, at the way he was so casually talking about a man’s destruction. It was with a manner that told her…that that destruction was because of him.

Still, all Juliet could feel in that moment was gratitude. Gratitude that she’d been lucky enough to marry such a good and powerful man.

“Once it was in one place,” Daniel continued, “it reached White’s by Thursday morning. Three men hold significant paper on him. When those men began looking more carefully at their arrangements, the rest followed by noon.” He angled his glass toward the garden gate. “A man whose creditors are actively reassessing their position finds that garden parties require a certain insulation he currently lacks.”

Valerie had gone very still beside her. “My father,” she said, “received a note three weeks ago, but he would not tell me the subject of it. Only that a certain suitor would not be entertained any further.” Her gaze returned to Daniel, and stayed there. “He seemed rather relieved.”

“Proudlake is a practical man,” Daniel said pleasantly. “Practical men appreciate being shown a ledger before a thing goes any further.”

Valerie looked at him. Her parasol was at entirely the wrong angle for the June sun, and she had not adjusted it. “Then,” she said, “I am grateful to practical men…Though I notice that practical men arrived at my father’s house at ten past midnight.”

Daniel cleared his throat at that, obviously determined to play the fool until the very end. “Business of a certain urgency does not respect the clock.”

“I wonder whether it was actually business at all,” she said. “Wool quotas, as Lord Honeysett described it.”

“It was an adequate fiction for the hour,” Daniel said pleasantly. “Though I notice it did not fool you.”

“I was not in the room in order to be fooled.” She glanced at the gate. “Though I notice that Penhurst is not here today, and my father has been in rather exceptional spirits all week.” Her head tilted one degree. “One draws conclusions.”

“Does one?”

“One does,” Valerie said. “Quietly, and without being invited to.”

Juliet noticed that Daniel was looking at Valerie with the easy manner he had when he was paying genuine attention to something rather than performing for it. “You are remarkable, Miss Slater,” he said. “I mean that without any embellishment.”

Valerie’s chin came up. “I did not ask to be remarked upon.”

“No,” he said. “You didn’t.” He glanced across the garden. “The head gardener here has extraordinary opinions about clematis. I’ve been wanting to ask someone who would actually know whether he’s right.”

“That is a transparently thin pretext.”