Z, Y, X, W… “As do I. Shall we leave?”
“We can’t leave. Chastain will say we quarreled, or that I caught you flirting with him, or he found me making advances to his wife. He’ll say you were unwell and imply your indisposition was the result of carrying his child.”
V, U, T, S… The shiver came again. “I can envision France rebuilding her fleet in secret and invading English shores. I can imagine plague laying half of London low and the air becoming unbreathable, a coal mine collapsing on my head… But for a man to lie in such a fashion, to invent malicious falsehoods… What sort of heart indulges in such meanness?”
Mrs. Tremont’s brother, a charming fellow with a sly wit, ambled onto the terrace with the young Marquess of Tavistock. Their heads were bent close as his lordship gestured in the direction of the stables.
The older fellow snapped off a yellow chrysanthemum and tucked it into Tavistock’s lapel. Tavistock grinned, which made him look about eleven years old, and they disappeared onto the path that led to the paddocks.
For some, this house party was merely a house party. For Della, it was becoming a circle of hell.
“Chastain is losing at the cards tournament,” Ash said, “and he’s pulling Tavistock into debt with him.”
R, Q, P, O… “Perhaps Chastain will leave early.” Though Della knew better than to hope for that miracle.
“We have little more than a week yet to endure. We’ll manage.” Ash spoke as if fortifying himself rather than reassuring Della.
“Are the blue devils becoming troublesome, Ash?”
He spared her a glance, haunted, fleeting, irritated. “They inevitably will reclaim me, Della, but that is hardly a problem. You simply leave me in peace, and I will eventually come right.”
“Should we try a walking tour?” She’d surprised him, and herself, with that suggestion. “You haven’t tried a walking tour previously, have you? What have we to lose?”
Ash tucked his spurs into a pocket and somehow withdrew into himself at the same time. His gaze became glacial, and between the letters N and M, Della felt herself shrinking, becoming less visible, less substantial.
“I have tried everything,” Ash muttered. “Nothing works but tenacity.”
Though Della’s heart was now thumping to the rhythm of bottomless dread, she nonetheless answered calmly. “If your efforts to date have been unsuccessful, Ash Dorning, you’d be lying beside your parents in the family plot. What you have done so far has worked. You are walking proof of success. I am merely suggesting we investigate other measures that might work even better.”
She wanted to take his hand and never let him go, wanted to bury herself in his embrace and wrap him in her own. He sat two feet and an entire continent of injured male dignity away, so Della instead wrapped her shawl more closely around herself.
“I am sorry,” Ash said, his posture easing. “I did not sleep well, and I, too, wish we could leave. I sense another bout of the blue devils approaching, and when that happens, you must not be offended. Ignore me, pretend I am laid low with a head cold or something. Ten days from now, we can climb into our coach and put this damned house party behind us, but, Della, I fear it will be a long ten days.”
K, J, I, H… “We will weather these days together, Ash.” She reached for his hand just as he stuffed his gloves into his pocket.
William Chastain emerged from the maze at Miss Catherine’s side. The lady was smilingly shyly, and Chastain gazed straight at Della, his expression smug. He’d seen Della reach for her husband and seen Ash either avoid her gesture or fail to notice it.
“Perhaps we need a late morning nap,” Della suggested.
“No more naps,” Ash retorted. “I nap, then I can’t sleep at night, then I’m out of sorts.” He rose, and Della felt as if she was being abandoned once again on the village green. People all around her, oblivious to her little world coming to an end, while everybody she knew and loved simply went bustling off into the crowd.
G, F, E, D… “I wasn’t suggesting we sleep, Ash.” Just hold me, please hold me.
He bent down to kiss the top of her head. “You would wear me out, and then I would sleep through luncheon. Enjoy your reading.” He patted her shoulder and strolled away, gaining more than a few admiring glances from the ladies on the terrace.
Della smiled at his retreating form for the benefit of those ladies, then took up her book and stared at it as she blinked back tears.
C, B, A.
Backward, all backward, and wrong. This was not how the day, the house party, or the marriage was supposed to go. Something had to change, but Della’s reserves of determination were exhausted as she sat wrapped in her mother’s shawl and pretending to read the words of an unhappy female who’d been ridiculed sorely for arguing that women were every bit as dear to the Creator as men.
Ash had forgotten his riding crop, and because it had been a gift from an uncle, he considered it worth retrieving from the stable. Then too, he would need it to beat himself with if he couldn’t figure out a path forward with Della.
He’d been afraid of disappointing her in bed.
Afraid she’d not confide in him about Chastain’s attempt at bullying her in the library.
Afraid she’d pack him off to Dorning Hall without her if he admitted his mood was deteriorating.
He was disgusted with his own cowardice, and Della was likely disgusted with him too—exactly the response he never wanted to provoke from her.
Francis Portly sauntered out of the stable, though he wasn’t attired for riding. “Mr. Dorning, good day. Out for a hack?”
“My brother and I have already enjoyed the morning air on horseback.” Ash stepped to the left, and Portly moved in the same direction.
“Sorry,” Portly said, smiling sheepishly. “Have you closed up the Coventry while you and your brother enjoy the countryside?”
“We have not. Tresham minds the club in our absence, and Sycamore will soon return to Town, while my wife and I continue to the family seat in Dorset.”
“I notice you aren’t participating in the tournament.”
Portly was one of those perpetually invite-able bachelors who had a competence from some auntie, but not enough blunt to raise a family. He was not bad-looking, and his air was usually friendly and good-humored. Ash had seen him at the Coventry only in Chastain’s company, though, which was no sort of recommendation.
“I spend most of my nights in Town among gamblers,” Ash said. “I have more interesting activities available to me now.” Forgive me, Della.
“Your lovely wife,” Portly said, his gaze going past Ash’s shoulder up the path toward the house. “Felicitations, by the way. I don’t know the lady well, but she’s certainly pretty.”
Stay away from my wife. The anger behind that sentiment was entirely irrational, also welcome.
“Lady Della is in every way worthy of esteem,” Ash said. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to retrieve something from the saddle room.” He had to dodge around Portly, who was apparently intent on detaining him in the stable yard.
Ash half expected to find a lady adjusting her décolletage in the saddle room, or maybe Chastain hiking a lady’s skirts, but the only people on hand were the Marquess of Tavistock and Mrs. Tremont’s brother, one Barrymore Golding. The saddle room door was open, and Tavistock had a saddle over his arm.