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“Are you aware, my lord, that my daughter is not of age?” asked Lady Efford.

“I am now,” said Deo, incurably truthful. “I was not at the time of contracting our alliance.”

“Which means that, according to law, the marriage is not valid!” said Bidenden.

“Oh!” Lady Efford staggered backward and fell dramatically onto the sofa behind her. “And you contracted this ‘alliance,’ as you call it, without our consent, when she was already affianced to another! You stole our girl away from us. Right out of our home. How you did so, I do not know but—”

“He didn’t!” interrupted Em. “I ran away!”

“Oh, you wicked girl!”

Em flinched at that tone from her mother and Deo put a protective arm around her, and his temper flicked up in her defense. No one, least of all her mother, is going to be mean to my Em!

“No more wicked than trying to starve her into accepting a proposal that was distasteful to her!” he said, looming over the prostrate Lady Efford.

Lady Efford gobbled like a turkey at this for a moment and then, getting a hold of herself, she sat up and said, “Edward, you are not going to let him talk to me like that, are you?”

But before her spouse, who was looking anywhere but at his wife, could respond, Bidenden stepped forward and said smoothly, “Never fear, Lady Efford, I shall not let him speak to you that way. Retract that statement, Pendrell,” he said, turning to face Deo.

Deo, who was almost a foot taller than him and considerably broader in the shoulders, stared down at him in disbelief. “This is none of your affair, Bidenden. Stay out of it.”

“I believe it is my affair, as I am the gentleman to whom she was affianced, before you stole her.”

“He didn’t steal me,” said Emily indignantly. “I told you; I ran away!”

Bidenden turned an accusatory gaze on Deo. “And how does she come to be in your company, Pendrell, masquerading as your wife?”

“There is no masquerade! She is my wife!” said Deo, itching to punch Bidenden in the face. “At least she will be, once I obtain her father’s permission and we take our vows again.”

“At the risk of being indelicate,” said Bidenden, leaning forward. “Has the ‘marriage’ been consummated?”

“Yes!” said Em, flushing scarlet. “I am Deo’s wife in every sense that matters!”

“Oh!” Lady Efford’s moan cut across Em’s words. “Edward, she is ruined!”

“Em!” Deo said in an agonized voice. He took a breath and turned to Lady Efford. “Madam, I can assure you that your daughter is not ruined!”

“Ah, I knew it!” said Bidenden. “I heard him confess the marriage had not been consummated the day I arrived. There can only be one reason for that!”

Deo flushed and clenched his fists.

“Deo, please.” Em’s voice penetrated the fog in his head.

Jerked back from a murderous desire to shut Bidenden up permanently, he turned to her and said gruffly, “Em, you know it’s not true.”

She smiled and he kissed her hand.

“Lord Bidenden, do I understand,” said Lady Efford faintly, “that despite all, you are still prepared to take Emily to wife?”

“I am,” said Bidenden with a triumphant smile.

“No!” said Emily.

“Over my dead body!” growled Deo.

“Edward!” Lady Efford said shrilly. “We must get her married to Bidenden straightaway.”

All eyes turned on Lord Efford, who raised his eyes from his cuff and said quietly, “No, Beatrice. It is clear that the man Emily wants is the Earl of Pendrell.”