“I’m perfectly—”
“It’s the disappointment, isn’t it?” Antoinette interjected after taking a sip and leveling a compassionate look at Venetia. “No need to blush so fiercely. I could tell.” Sighing, she looked at Fanny. “I said that we wouldn’t let the lack of a ball gown prevent Venetia from attending tomorrow’s Christmas Ball, but Lady Indigo was having none of it.”
“Very disappointing,” Fanny agreed. “And now I see you’ve finished your brandy in quick time which, I suppose, is not to be wondered at since you have such an early start.”
The two sisters watched Venetia put down her glass then rise after gathering up her sewing receptacle.
“Promise me you’ll not lose too much sleep over all this,” Fanny said kindly, feeling a greater surge of sympathy when she saw the devastation in Venetia’s eyes. “I know this seems like a lost opportunity never to be repeated, but I’m sure that in a few days’ time it will have paled into insignificance.”
It was hardly to be wondered at that Venetia barely slept.
Feeling ill with fatigue the next morning after breakfast, she sat with her book of poetry, tucked away behind a couple of large plinths topped with Roman busts.
Here, she’d sought cover from Lady Indigo’s ill temper after her employer had overslept. Of course, she’d blamed it on Venetia.
Though, really, it was the maid who was supposed to have rapped on their door who hadn’t done her job.
What was strange was that Lady Indigo was generally such an early riser. Yet, she’d woken up an hour later than she generally did, saying she’d felt woolly-headed. She’d even suggested Venetia had laced her evening milk with some sleeping draft or herb to minimize her snoring.
It would have been nice if such a potion existed to mitigate the nocturnal noises that so often kept Venetia awake when they shared close accommodation. She would have to make it a point of extending her investigations in this area, she thought.
Especially considering she had many years of Lady Indigo’s snoring from the next room to disturb her rest.
She covered her mouth to muffle the sound of yet another uncontrollable sob for she’d just heard several guests enter.
Drawing her knees up to her chin, she tried to focus on the words of the book through her teary vision.
Sebastian thought he had discharged his obligations regarding full disclosure by admitting to the fact that he’d formed a relationship four months earlier. What he hadn’t told her was that Miss Reeves now claimed he was the father of her child.
A claim he disputed.
A claim which could only be disputed if he and Miss Reeves had never…
Dropping the book in despair, she pushed the heel of both her palms into her eyes.
But if he and Miss Reeves had taken their relationship to the same level of intimacy that he and Venetia had, and if Miss Reeves was with child...then how could Sebastian and Venetia, in good conscience, be married?
Venetia was not with child. But Miss Reeves was?
Which therefore meant Sebastian was honor-bound to wed Miss Reeves.
It didn’t matter how much he truly did love Venetia—and she knew he did—he would have no choice but to marry Miss Reeves.
Her eyes felt puffy from crying as she stared out of the window and onto the lawn, now lightly dusted with snow.
Tonight, the entertaining rooms would be perfumed by beeswax candles and bodies of various scents pressed together as nearly one hundred guests enjoyed the Christmas festivities primarily on Lord and Lady Quamby’s ballroom floor.
She heard Lady Fenton cry, “It looks marvelous!” as a couple of maids struggled through the doors bearing an enormous vase of hothouse blooms, adding, “You have heard Lady Indigo slept in! First time ever, she says! And now it’s too late to make the journey in a day so she’s decided to remain another night.”
“But she’ll keep to her room since she hates large gatherings,” she heard Lady Quamby reply.
Venetia watched her step back and instruct a change of position for the floral arrangement before she returned to the painful subject of Sebastian and Miss Reeves.
Venetia would rather not hear it, but she was trapped.
“Both the young people’s fathers will be in attendance, which was not at all expected. And Mr Reeves is bringing along Lord Yarrowby, who will no doubt try and pressure Arabella into a marriage she does not desire.”
A sudden surge of hope made Venetia stiffen into awareness. Could Lord Yarrowby be the father of Miss Reeves’s child? They had, after all, been on the verge of announcing their betrothal four months earlier, she’d heard.
Perhaps Venetia was leaping to conclusions before she had given Sebastian the benefit of the doubt. After all, she hadn’t given him a proper opportunity to defend himself against the charges.
It was one thing to have become romantically entangled four months ago...and quite another if, in fact, that entanglement went no further than kisses and hand-holding.
Slipping the book back into the bookshelf as her hostesses moved to the far end of the room to discuss further decorations, Venetia made her escape without the ladies even knowing she’d been there.
Well, she would not always be so insignificant, she decided with energy.
She wasn’t always going to be Lady Indigo’s unpaid servant. No, she was going to clear this matter up so that she could be what she had been destined to be since Sebastian had returned from his Grand Tour and fallen in love with Venetia. She was going to be his wife.
Sebastian surely could not be the father of Miss Reeves’s child. And he was not the kind of man who would abrogate his duty and sacrifice honor under any circumstances.
Even to marry the woman he loved.
There must be some logical explanation which Venetia had missed, coming into the drawing room halfway through her hostess’s conversation the night before.
As she turned into the corridor that led toward the billiards room where she had some hope of finding him, her palms were damp with the nervousness of what her direct questioning would uncover.
She didn’t expect to come upon him so soon. He was standing at the far end of the corridor, almost obscured by the gloom, but she had no trouble recognizing his tall, handsome physique, and she was nearly overcome by the familiar rush of excitement she always felt to see him.
She was about to call out when she saw Miss Reeves was talking to him, for she’d been half hidden by the connecting corridor.
Then Miss Reeves threw her arms about her Sebastian’s neck, as if in entreaty, before he disengaged them and put her away from him.
It was clear he was trying to let her down gently, and while Venetia should have felt sorry for the girl, she could only feel relief that Sebastian had remained true to his heart.
Now Venetia just had to satisfy herself that that did not entail compromising his integrity.
Chapter 12
“Sebastian!”
When Sebastian heard Venetia hail him from the end of the corridor, it was as if a ray of pure joy had speared him right through the heart. He’d hardly slept for fear at what a dim view she’d taken of his relations with Barbara Compton and had in fact been up since dawn due to the possibility that his attempts to stymie Lady Indigo’s dawn departure had failed.