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Ella and Fulvia managed to catch her and lowered her gently to the floor.

Ella fell to her knees, rubbing her aunt’s hands. Until Fiennes crouched beside her and offered her a handkerchief, she didn’t realize that tears were pouring down her face.

She looked up to find Jarvis a silently appalled presence at her shoulder.

“Summon footmen, as we need someone to lug the guts—in other words, my father—out of the room,” Fulvia said, rising and nodding to Jarvis. “That’s from Hamlet, in case anyone dislikes my phrasing.”

Jarvis ignored her, coming to his knees beside the viscountess, opposite Ella. “My lady,” he said, his voice deeper than normal

The viscountess opened her eyes and burst into sobs.

The butler said to Ella, “With your permission, I will carry her ladyship to her chamber and summon her maid.”

Ella nodded. With one smooth gesture, Jarvis plucked her aunt from the floor and walked away cradling her against his chest, not even glancing at his master, who was beginning to stir.

“I suppose the guts can stay where they are,” Fulvia muttered.

“I believe it would be salutary to have a conversation with your father,” Fiennes said grimly. He walked over and prodded the viscount with his foot.

Ella rose and went to stand next to Fiennes and Fulvia. Her uncle rolled over and managed to get himself on his feet, muttering curses.

He turned around, caught sight of the three of them, and made a sound like a wet, furious cat. “You put hands on me, Peregrine, which is not the act of a gentleman! I shall tell the world, make no mistake about that.” He wiped a few drops of blood from the corner of his lips and gingerly felt his jaw.

“No gentleman strikes his wife, nor speaks of his family as you have,” Fiennes said, his voice low and deadly.

“A fact’s a fact, isn’t it?” the viscount said sulkily. “I haven’t visited her bed in years, not being one who likes to tup a fleshy matron, so some other man serviced her.” He glanced at his daughter. “I expect your delicate sensibilities are horrified to learn that your mother played me fast and loose.”

“I am horrified to have seen my father strike my mother,” Fulvia remarked, arms folded over her chest. “I have long known you were a rotten reed, to be plain. But I did not consider you violent.”

“Shameful to be so rude to me,” the viscount said. “This younger generation is naught, my own daughter, depraved and deprived of womanly virtues.” His inflamed eyes traveled from Fulvia to Ella. “Revolting, all of you! You’re the worst of the lot,” he told Ella.

Fulvia looked as disinterested as if she were watching strangers play out a farce. But Ella felt sick to the bone.

She crumpled Fiennes’s handkerchief in her fist, telling herself not to cry. It would be a sign of weakness, and she tried to never show weakness before her uncle.

From the moment she had been informed that her parents were gone, she had prided herself on being independent and strong.

Yet somehow the image of her aunt’s head snapping backwards under the force of her husband’s blow, and then the pure ugliness of the words he had called his wife, had shaken Ella to the core.

Frightened her, even.

She felt as if her knees were weak, and she’d have liked nothing more than to lean into Fiennes and silently ask him to fight her battles.

That was absurd. He was her cousin’s future husband.

Any battles she fought she would fight alone.

“Indeed?” she said to her uncle, straightening her shoulders.

“I have been unselfish in my usage of you,” the viscount stated. “My own brother’s child, I told myself. The kindness in my own nature blinded me to the truth.”

Fiennes moved infinitesimally closer to Ella until his arm brushed hers.

“What is that truth?” she inquired.

“The truth is ugly,” her uncle said, with a melancholy grimace. “I scarcely can bring myself to say it aloud.”

“I assure you that none of us will believe or care what you say,” Fulvia stated.