Page 76 of The Danger of Desire

Good Lord.

“Would you gentlemen please be quiet?” cried an imperative voice from another window nearby. Aunt Agatha’s, of course. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

Warren glanced up, caught sight of Delia inherwindow, and broke into a grin. “Behold, what light through yon window breaks,” he said, slurring every other word. “It is the west...”

“No,east!” Lord Blakeborough interrupted, in what he apparently thought was a whisper but was actually quite thunderous. “It is theeast,damn you.”

“Right,” Warren said. “The east. And Delia is the sun.” Pleased with himself for that comparison, which he obviously considered terribly original of him, he flicked his hand vaguely in her direction. “Arise, fair sun, and... and... something about the moon...”

“Kill the moon?” Mr. Keane offered. “Can’t remember exactly.”

“And you aren’t to look at thebride,” Lord Margrave hissed loudly. “It’s bad lush.”

“Badluck,” Lord Blakeborough corrected him. “And it’s ‘kill the enemy moon.’Enemy, you sots.”

“It’s ‘envious moon,’ ” Aunt Agatha called from her window, “and if you gentlemen don’t stop murdering Shakespeare, I shall empty my chamber pot on your heads!”

That finally got them to shut up. For about half a minute.

“Very well,” Warren said. “Then we’ll sing.”

“Lord help us all,” Aunt Agatha muttered before she banged her window shut.

Delia knew she ought to be horrified by their inebriated state—or at the very least, annoyed—but having watched men in their cups many a time at Dickson’s, she merely found it amusing. “I thought you said you weren’t going to be foxed for the wedding!” she called down to her hapless fiancé.

“I’m not foxed!” he protested, then made a liar out of himself by stumbling into a stone bench and nearly bringing his companions down.

After a few harrowing moments, they recovered their balance.

He held up his arms. “You see? Not foxed a’tall!”

Before Delia could do more than laugh at him, Clarissa was rushing out onto the lawn in her nightdress and wrapper, accompanied by an army of servants who each grabbed a gentleman and tugged him into the house. The last Delia saw of her groom-to-be was his gray top hat disappearing through the French doors downstairs.

With a sigh, she glanced at the clock. Five a.m. And the wedding was to take place at ten. She ought to return to bed, but how could she? In only a few hours, she’d bemarryinga man who, at least in his drunken state, compared her to Shakespeare’s Juliet.

A smile tugged at her lips. There were worse things, to be sure. At least she wasn’t marrying a gambler.

But other fears crowded in, making it impossible for her to sleep. Instead, she found a pack of cards and sat down to play Patience. She was still doing so an hour later when the maid came to wake her.

“Is my sister-in-law up yet?” Delia asked the girl.

“I believe so, miss. Shall I ask her to join you?”

“No. I’ll go, thank you.”

Delia slid out past the maid and hurried stealthily down the hall, then scratched at Brilliana’s door the way servants generally did.

“Enter!” Brilliana called.

With a triumphant smile, Delia did. She’d cornered her sister-in-law at last.

Brilliana looked up and started. “Delia! You’re up?”

“How could I not be, after that caterwauling earlier?” She strolled to the bed and sat down. “Didn’t you hear them?”

“I tried not to, but it was no use. It sounded as if some of them were drunk.”

“Every last one of them was drunk. Including your old friend, Lord Margrave.”