Page 54 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)

“Damned fool law,” Penthorpe growled. “Damned fool magistrate, too. What a devilish thing to do! But how do you know all this? Surely, it was not all in the papers.”

“I was there. The magistrate was my father.”

“But, look here, he’s a marquess now,” Penthorpe said. “What’s he doing still playing at being a magistrate?”

“He cannot seem to let his old duties go. They were part of his life for so long and the title came to him so unexpectedly that I daresay it’s difficult for him to leave old obligations behind for the new ones. He’s been trying to do both.”

“It don’t sound as if he’s making a good job of either one. If he could make such a dashed silly decision in Lady Susan’s case, just think what a muck he’ll make of being a marquess!”

Gideon was spared the necessity of a reply by the arrival of the doctor, who greeted him cheerfully, demanded to know what he had done to knock himself up, and announced that he would just bind up his head and cup him, and he would be right as a trivet in no time.

Penthorpe fled, but not before promising on his oath to visit both his uncle and St. Merryn the very next day.

The following afternoon, when Penthorpe’s name was announced Daintry dropped the teapot she had been using to pour out tea for several lady callers, and it smashed to pieces, taking a number of china cups and saucers with it.

Lady St. Merryn, clasping a hand to her bosom, cried out in dismay, “The best Sèvres china, Daintry! Whatever were you thinking! And tea stains all over your lovely gown. They will never come out. My salts, Ethelinda!”

Miss Davies complied at once, and Lady Jerningham, who sat beside Daintry and had been entertaining the others with her opinion of the Prince of Saxe-Coburg, newly arrived in England and now known to be the Princess Charlotte’s intended bridegroom, snatched her skirts out of harm’s way and said austerely, “Very careless of you, my dear Daintry.”

Lady Ophelia said calmly, “Clear away the mess, Medrose, and give Miss Daintry a napkin to blot up the tea on her gown. You might have sent to warn us that you were still alive, young man, rather than bursting in upon us in such dramatic fashion. Since you are here, however, pray let me make you known to Lady St. Merryn, and to Ladies Jerningham and Cardigan. I,” she added, “am Daintry’s great-aunt, Ophelia Balterley. ”

Daintry was still staring in shock at the lanky, freckle-faced young man who had entered the room in Medrose’s wake, and had paid little heed to the introductions.

In the brief moment after Lady Ophelia fell silent, before he could reply, she said, “Did they truly say you are Penthorpe? But surely …”

He smiled and obeyed her gesture to take a chair near her. “Not put to bed with a shovel yet, my lady, promise you. Beg to apologize for any confusion the announcement of my death may have caused you. Came at once to put matters right.”

Lady Ophelia said dryly, “At once? The battle of Waterloo was fought eight months ago, young man.”

“As long as that, was it? Just goes to show. I was pretty well knocked up, ma’am, out of my senses for a good long while, and slow in mending even after that.”

“But surely someone could have written to your people here!” exclaimed Lady Cardigan, a plump, motherly woman, and Lady Jerningham’s bosom bow.

“Suppose someone should have,” Penthorpe agreed, “but there’s only my uncle, you know, and by the time I’d collected my wits it seemed easier to wait and tell him myself once I got home. Then, from one cause or another, I just never quite seemed to get started on the journey.”

Lady Ophelia said sternly, “I don’t mind saying you behaved disgracefully. Did you not think it incumbent upon you to inform your betrothed wife that the news of your death was untrue?”

“I thought she might have made other arrangements by the time I came to my senses, ma’am, and if she had, the news would have put her in a dashed awkward position.

” He gazed innocently around the room. “I wasn’t fit to do anything more than swallow a dose of rhubarb occasionally for more than six weeks—didn’t know my own name for days at a time—you can see how it was. ”

“I do see,” Lady Ophelia said with a grimace. “Daintry, don’t sit staring like a want-wit. Go and change your gown. Penthorpe will not mind waiting while you do.”

Still in a daze, Daintry stood up as Penthorpe said, “In point of fact, I’d hoped to see St. Merryn, but his man said he had gone out. When do you expect him to return?”

Lady St. Merryn put down her vinaigrette and said, “Why, he has gone to the House of Lords, sir, and might not return till all hours. I am sure I cannot think what they can find to talk about for so many hours each day.”

Lady Ophelia said tartly, “They ought to be talking less and doing more, for goodness’ sake. You might not know it yet, young man, but times are dark in this country right now. What with heavy taxation, bad harvests, and downright selfish legislation enacted by those who ought to know better …”

Daintry did not wait to hear more, but slipped out the door and ran to her bedchamber to change her gown, trying to collect her scattered wits as she did.

When she returned, freshly garbed in a gown of pale-pink sprigged muslin with ribbon knots and a wide sash of darker pink silk, she met her father coming upstairs from the hall.

“Papa, I thought you had gone to the House.”

“And so I had, but what with the back-benchers shouting at the front, all bickering over a dozen things they find of more interest than the price of corn, I could not stand it any longer. Thought I’d step round to White’s this afternoon instead, and just came along home first to see if Charles wanted to go. ”

“He went out an hour ago,” she said.

St. Merryn looked at her sharply. “He and Davina at it again, are they? Dashed if I ever saw such a pair.”

“She went out earlier,” Daintry admitted.

“We had just finished writing all the invitations for the ball we are to give when she suddenly looked at the clock, jumped up, and told me to tell Charles she was meeting some friends for a drive to Richmond Park and that he should not look for her return before dark.”

St. Merryn grunted. “Hope he went to fetch the lass straight home again, but if I know Charles, he’ll end up at some gaming hell or other instead.

Between them, they mean to ruin me, for if she isn’t purchasing some extravagant kickshaw or other, he’s losing a monkey at the tables.

Well, that’s neither here nor there. If he’s out, I’ll just take myself off. ”

“I am afraid you cannot go just yet, Papa.”

“And why not? Look here, miss, if you think you are going to start telling me what I can and cannot do, you’d better—”

“Of course, I would not do that, sir, but Viscount Penthorpe is in the drawing room with Mama and Aunt Ophelia, and several others, and I thought you would wish—”

“Who?”

“Penthorpe, Papa. Apparently, he was not killed after all.”

“The devil you say!” And, brushing past her, he hurried to the door of the drawing room and flung it open.

“Penthorpe, my dear lad, what a miracle this is, to be sure. Upon my word, but you are a sight for sore eyes, my boy. Thought I’d never marry the lass off, but here you are, so all’s right and tight again. ”

Penthorpe leapt to his feet when St. Merryn erupted into the room, and Daintry, entering on her father’s heels, saw him grab the viscount’s hand and pump it enthusiastically up and down.

“Just a minute, Papa,” she said abruptly.

St. Merryn glanced at her over his shoulder, then turned back to Penthorpe, saying, “Upon my word, but I’m glad to see you.

To think I’d be grateful for a bunch of chowderheads wanting to talk only of the great profits they make by keeping foreign wheat and corn out of England.

And here was a grand surprise just waiting for me on my doorstep. ”

Daintry kept silent. Her first impulse, to point out that the viscount could not possibly have taken their betrothal very seriously since he had not so much as sent word of his good health to her but had let her continue to think him dead, gave way to the realization that she could say no such thing, and certainly not before such gossips as Lady Jerningham and Lady Cardigan.

She felt trapped by convention, but the last thing she wanted was to create a scandal, and in any case she was given no opportunity to speak.

“Lady Susan and Sir Geoffrey Seacourt, and Lady Catherine Chauncey,” Medrose intoned from the doorway.

Despite her own predicament, Daintry stared to see Catherine, but St. Merryn turned to the newcomers with delight. “Just see who is here,” he said. “Penthorpe ain’t dead, after all, and the wedding is right on again. We can leave for Cornwall just as soon as the session ends next week.”

There was a chorus of objections to this impetuous plan, but Daintry’s carried above the rest. “Papa, how can you suggest such a thing? We cannot pack up and leave when we have just invited upwards of four hundred people to a ball to be held a fortnight from now. The invitations went out this morning!”

“Lord, what a kickup there was!” Penthorpe told Gideon an hour later, having gone straight to Jervaulx House upon making his escape from Berkeley Square, “I never saw anything like it. Females have changed since Waterloo, and that’s all there is about it.

You never saw such a row, what with the tabbies all lighting into St. Merryn when he said he was going to take them back to Cornwall in a sennight, and Daintry and her great-aunt—Lord, what a dragon that one is!

—both telling him to his head that he could do no such thing. ”

“Who won?” Gideon asked curiously, though he had little doubt what must have been the outcome of such an encounter.