“Victory?”
Alderley’s lips thinned into a spiteful smile. “We both know you’ve secured the poor end of the bargain.”
Dexter’s bride said nothing. How could she display such stoicism? Or, perhaps, she’d weathered enough insults at Alderley’s hands to be rendered immune. Her fingers curled round her posy, and she moved closer to Dexter until their bodies almost touched.
He caught his breath at the onset of an instinctive need to protect her. What had she suffered at Alderley’s hands, that she sought comfort from a stranger—the man she had looked at with such fear in her eyes?
But the last thing he wanted was a weak, needy woman clinging to his coattails.
He glanced toward Oliver, who frowned, his eyes conveying disapproval. His bride—what the devil was her name?—would have been better off with Oliver, for he had something Dexter did not possess.
A heart.
But it was too late, now.
“Very well, Alderley,” he said. “I would be delighted to accept your invitation.”
***
The walls of the drawing room were smothered with portraits. Everywhere Meggie looked, a grim face stared back at her with haughty disapproval. Alderley’s ancestors.
And hers. The blood of these reptiles ran through her veins.
Reptiles…
She giggled to herself, drained her glass, and set it aside. Almost immediately, a footman was upon her, sweeping aside the glass with a disapproving glare.
She pulled a face, then took a full glass from his tray and crossed the floor to inspect the ugliest of the portraits. A wrinkled face filled the frame, his skin a gray pallor, reminiscent of the lizards in Mrs. Preston’s zoological textbooks. Pale eyes with yellowing whites stared down at her. The wrinkles around the nose gave the impression as if a bad smell lingered in the room. She read the inscription, carved into a metal plate at the base of the portrait.
Phineas Ignatius, fifteenth Viscount Alderley.
Meggie’s great grandfather. Perhaps he turned in his grave at the notion of his grandson’s bastard staining the shades of Alderley Hall.
His lips had a bluish tinge, and to Meggie, it looked as if at any moment, a long reptilian tongue would leap out and snatch a fly.
And Meggie was that fly—viewed by the rest of the party as nothing more than a minor irritation. Not even her new husband wanted anything to do with her. After he’d steered her into Alderley Hall, a possessive hand on the small of her back, he’d removed his hand as if she might burn him, then abandoned her to talk to the vicar.
She took a mouthful of champagne. The bubbles burst on her tongue, warming her throat and softening her senses. Though she struggled to focus, the ache in her wrist and heart lessened with each glass until she felt the uncontrollable urge to laugh and cry at the same time.
“Enjoying the champagne?” a female voice spoke in clear-cut tones.
Up close, the honorable Elizabeth was even more elegant. Her hair shone with a rich luster and had been fashioned into a mass of elegant curls that must have taken her maid hours to perfect.
In comparison, Meggie was a grubby urchin.
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose and lowered her gaze to the half-empty glass in Meggie’s hand.
“Well? Do you have nothing to say?”
Meggie dipped into a curtsey, and Elizabeth gave her a cold smile. “At least you recognize our difference in rank,” she said. “Let me give you a little friendly advice. When a young woman has supped on gin and ditchwater all her life, it’s most unseemly to demonstrate the kind of enthusiasm for quality champagne that can only be equaled by a toper.”
Meggie shook her head. What was wrong with these people that they spoke in riddles all the time? Was unintelligible speech a trait of the upper classes?
From the cold smile twisting on Elizabeth’s lips, it was plain that she had issued an insult.
“Finest quality?” Meggie said. “I’m sure piss tastes better.”
Elizabeth’s lips thinned, and her eyes hardened, their pale blue the color of ice.
“Let me give you some more advice, my dear,” she said, lowering her voice. “As a friend, I feel it only kind to warn you. Prepare yourself for a painful introduction to the marriage bed.”
Meggie’s hand shook. “A-a what?”
Elizabeth smiled. “He’s like a bull,” she said. “A bride will bleed like a pig on her wedding night, and you’ll be no exception—assuming, of course, that he can stomach the notion of touching you.”
At that moment, Alderley’s steward approached them to issue his congratulations. Elizabeth gave him a haughty smile, waiting until he was out of earshot before resuming.
“My Dexter has a voracious appetite,” she continued. “But marriage is not as lucrative an enterprise as whoring, my dear. Dexter is a miser when it comes to parting with his cash. And a wife is expected to spread her legs for free.”
Meggie drew in a sharp breath and lifted her glass, but Elizabeth snatched it away.
“I think you’ve had enough of that.”
“Who are you to say whether I’ve had too much?” Meggie asked. “You’re…”
“I’m someone far above you in station,” Elizabeth interrupted, her words coming out in a snarl. “And I’ll be there to service Dexter when he tires of you.”
“Elizabeth!” a voice spoke sharply.
Meggie turned and came face to face with Alderley.
“Papa,” Elizabeth said, her cultured tone of voice returning. “I was just wishing my sister all the happiness she deserves.”
“Quite so,” he said. “But you mustn’t neglect the other guests.” He frowned at Meggie as if he believed her mere presence would taint Elizabeth.
Meggie drained her glass and curtseyed. “Let me take my leave instead.”
Before they could respond, she moved away, pausing only to place her empty glass on a tray brandished by the footman who’d glared at her before. She set it down with a clang and gave him a sweet smile when he flinched.
Let him flinch! Let them all cringe at her presence! She had never felt so bold. But her boldness came hand in hand with dizziness. The room had grown overly hot, and she moved toward the window where, at least, the air was cooler.
Nausea rippling through her, she focused her attention on the view from the window. But the manicured lawn surrounded by hedges clipped into ugly, angular shapes only served to emphasize her inferiority.
“Mrs. Hart,” a male voice said.
Ignoring it, she watched a pheasant stride across the lawn, trailing a long tail of brown feathers, the iridescence on its glossy blue-green head resembling an exotic jewel. A large dog bounded onto the lawn, and the bird launched itself off the ground with a series of squawks and flapping of wings.
If only Meggie could do the same and launch her ungainly, inelegant person through this very window and away from these people.
A hand touched her elbow, and she jumped and gave a low cry.
It was the angel from the chapel.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Hart,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Mrs. Hart.
No longer was she Meggie, or even Margaret Alder. She had lost her name as well as her freedom. She was now defined by the man who owned her, Dexter Hart.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I find it strange to find myself…” she gestured to herself, “…to find…”