Page 27

T he dining room had gone quiet as Serenity held her breath and waited to hear who Clara was.

Lord Thorpe was glaring at his brother. Serenity also noticed the butler, Quinn, frown.

Was Clara some lost love that was never to be mentioned?

Perhaps Lord Thorpe had been deeply in love and this Clara individual had broken off an engagement?

No, nobody would break an engagement with Lord Thorpe, how could they?

That could only mean she’d died! Was it of consumption or being thrown from a curricle or a winter fever?

“Oh, I see,” Lord Charles said, “you did not mention her yet.”

“Did she die?” Serenity nearly cried out, dabbing at her eyes.

“Die?” Lord Thorpe asked, sounding very surprised. “Certainly not, she wed the local innkeeper and goes on quite happy.”

Now Serenity was thoroughly confused. The duke said, “Thorpe, you’d better spell out the story your brother has so gleefully hinted at lest we all imagine strange ideas.”

Lord Charles reddened at the idea that he’d gleefully hinted. Then he said, “She was a housemaid.”

What did Lord Charles say? Why should there be some story of a housemaid having to do with Lord Thorpe? She would not believe he had meddled with a servant. No, that was not at all his nature.

Lord Thorpe sighed. “I do not have the first idea why this would be a topic of conversation at dinner, but as it has been raised, I will relay the circumstances. Clara was a housemaid who was dismissed on account of being with child. It was very early days and she would not have been found out, had not she told the housemaid she shared a room with. I was sixteen and had just arrived home on a school break at the time. I became certain Clara was to end up begging on the roads with an infant in her arms. I took fifty pounds out of my father’s library and gave it to her. ”

“You see?” Lord Charles asked. “He stole fifty pounds from our father.”

All eyes turned to Lord Charles. “What else was he to do?” Winsome asked. “Allow poor Clara to starve on the road?”

Lord Charles appeared to be embarrassed to be asked that question. Serenity did not give a toss about Lord Charles’ embarrassment. Lord Thorpe had acted nobly. Of course he had, she would expect nothing less.

“It’s not on, you know,” her father said, “allowing one of your household to starve on the road.”

“She was never going to starve,” Lord Charles blurted out. “She married the local innkeeper.”

“Well, thank heavens for that,” Serenity said.

She did not think she understood Lord Charles.

He had seemed to hint at that story being something that would put Lord Thorpe in a bad light when it had been quite the opposite.

Certainly, his father the duke would have seen that he ought to have given Clara the fifty pounds himself, and been sorry at being so remiss.

“Well now,” the duke said, “that’s settled. It seems everything worked out satisfactorily for all involved.”

“Lord Charles,” Verity said, “are you aware that the spaniel has a long history of being able to detect gold? They have very sensitive noses, I’m given to understand.”

Serenity pressed her lips together to stop from laughing as Lord Charles gripped his fork. Verity was about to lead the lord down a long garden path of nonsense.

Lord Thorpe turned to her. “I am sorry my brother thought to bring up that particular interlude.”

“Why did he, though?” Serenity asked. “He made it sound as if you had some terrible confession to make when you acted quite rightly for poor Clara.”

Lord Thorpe laughed. “I felt it right and in fact urgent at the time,” he said. “But I did steal fifty pounds from my father.”

“I do not suppose my own father would mind it,” Serenity said. “But then, I suppose he would not have thrown Clara out to begin.”

Lord Thorpe nodded. “My father thought it brought disgrace on the house.”

“But that is so unfair. It should only bring disgrace on the gentleman responsible for poor Clara’s condition.”

“He thought that too,” Lord Thorpe said.

Valor, who apparently was not entertained by Verity’s long explanation of how and why spaniels could detect gold, said loudly, “When I am grown and out, I will go to all the parties but marry nobody.” She stared pointedly at Serenity as if she hoped her sister would take on that novel idea.

“Oh, I see,” the duke said jovially, “you’re to cost me all the money with no end in sight. What about my plan to empty my household of every last one of you? What’s to come of that?”

Valor had seemed to have given that idea some thought.

She said, “Papa, by the time I should go to Almack’s for my debut, you will be very old and decrepit.

You’ll barely be able to walk and might not be able to use your legs at all.

You’ll be happy I’m there to wheel you from room to room. You’ll see.”

“I rather hope I will not see, if that’s to be my fate,” the duke said. “She paints a cheery picture, eh?”

As her three younger sisters debated the idea of whether the duke would or would not be able to walk when Valor turned eighteen, Lord Thorpe said, “You are lucky to have such a genial family.”

“As I think so, too!” Serenity said. “So many people do not understand my father.”

“I believe it takes multiple encounters to perceive it.”

“Yes, I can see how it would. Felicity says our father is like a windstorm that likes to blow off hats and bonnets.”

Lord Thorpe laughed. “Very apt.”

And so they went pleasantly on through the rest of dinner. Her dear sisters had seemed to make a game of keeping Lord Charles’ attention on one ridiculous matter after the next. When they lagged at any moment, the duke picked up the slack.

As for her and Lord Thorpe, their conversation was wide-ranging and easy. He spoke of his estate and Serenity got the idea that he particularly wished her to know of it.

As far as she understood it, Mariton Hall was a rather large estate in northern Suffolk nearby the Norfolk border.

She listened intently as Lord Thorpe described the extent of the rooms and grounds.

She was delighted to understand there was a good-sized lake on the property and a host of sailboats, as well as a yew hedge maze of some magnitude.

The gardens were filled with roses and wisteria, and there were several greenhouses.

Perhaps what affected her most, and she did have to control her feelings over it, was the description of the stables.

Every possible comfort had been thought of for the horses belonging to the estate.

She supposed Jupiter might be quite comfortable there.

She supposed she might be very comfortable there herself!

*

Charles had never endured a more tedious dinner in his life.

More than tedious, actually. It was positively enraging.

He spent most of it wishing to stab the spaniel girl with his fork over her stupid spaniel stories.

Apparently, spaniels could do everything in the wide world—warn against fire and flood, find gold, and finally, tell the time.

Maybe they carried round pocket watches!

Maybe he should inquire into that with the all-knowing Lady Veracity or Veritable or whatever her godforsaken name was!

He pleasantly imagined killing Lady Very-Tedious with his fork, removing the utensil, and using it to stab Lady Vera on his other side. If he could manage it, he’d retrieve the fork once more and aim it across the table at Lady Winny. Then, and finally, they would all stop talking.

What did the duke mean by countenancing these girls? If he were their father, he’d lock them up until they could conduct themselves with some modicum of sense. As it was, the duke seemed to find them all amusing.

They were not in the slightest amusing.

More aggravating than that, though, was the girls’ constant chatter had boxed him in while Thorpe went on in conversation with Lady Serenity. He’d heard snippets of that—Thorpe described the gardens at Mariton Hall while the lady professed a particular admiration for roses and wisteria.

He wanted to overturn the table over it. Mariton Hall, had the fates had any sense at all, should have been his. He should have been born first. Every time he went home he could barely stand looking around at its architecture and contents, knowing it had been all but stolen from him.

His story about Clara and the fifty pounds had not gone over as well as he thought it must. He had presumed that the duke, at least, would be condemning over the theft of fifty pounds.

Why had they all been so sympathetic to Clara?

She’d been only a housemaid stupid enough to get herself in trouble.

He really did not understand these people. However, understand them or not, something must be done. Thorpe seemed to be doing far too well with Lady Serenity.

He’d tried to darken Thorpe’s character with the story about the theft, but it had not worked. Something drastic must be done.

Even now, as they had retreated to the drawing room, things were looking bad. Thorpe had decided to take on the duke’s habit of bringing the port and brandy into the drawing room with the ladies.

Charles suspected his brother had thought ahead of what he would do when they got there. He’d suggested a game of piquet with Lady Serenity, which she’d happily accepted.

How convenient to suggest a card game that only admitted two people. He was left playing Commerce with the duke’s deranged daughters while the duke himself had commandeered the brandy bottle and made good use of it.

They were all very lucky that there were no sharp objects within his reach. Perhaps he could not kill those girls, but he could kill whatever was currently brewing between Thorpe and Lady Serenity. He just needed the right idea. A big and bold idea.

Thorpe never won against him and Charles was determined that they would not begin a new precedent now.