“You don’t think she agrees?”
“She loves me, but she puts so much importance on my making a match.” Lady Valeria glanced across the table at Lady Earlington, who was caught up in a hearty discussion with a gentleman Thomas did not know. She was paying no attention at all to what the two of them were saying.
“She wants you to be happy, I suppose,” Thomas said.
“I know,” Lady Valeria said. “I know that’s what she wants. I’m very lucky to have someone in my life who wants me to be happy.”
“Even if it means you aren’t happy?”
“Having someone who values your happiness is important,” Lady Valeria said. She hesitated, then added, “I haven’t always had that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know who my brother is. What he did.”
“I’ve never met him,” Thomas said. “I don’t know what he was like. I only know what he was accused of.”
“He did what he was accused of,” Lady Valeria said, sounding rather bitter. “And as for what he was like… well, I shouldn’t have been so taken by surprise, that’s all. I should have expected him to be the kind of man who would give up anything and anyone for the sake of his own interests.”
Thomas was startled by how resentful she sounded. He hadn’t realized until this moment that she felt this way toward her brother.
He didn’t know what to say.
He wished there was some way of consoling her. He wished that he could tell her that she deserved to be cared about, and that if her brother hadn’t done that, he was the one who had been wrong.
Before he could find the words, though, a voice spoke from the end of the table. “I’m shocked that Lord Harlston invited her here tonight, knowing the stock she’s from. But I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? Not now that she’s come to live with Lady Earlington. I suppose we can expect her at every social event all season, the little witch!”
A gasp went up.
The speaker was Lord Milton, and he was glaring down the length of the table directly at Lady Valeria.
Chapter 13
No one moved.
All the conversations around the table were silenced. Everyone was staring at Lord Milton—except for those who were starting to turn to look at Valeria.
And I have no bedroom here at Harlston Manor. There’s nowhere I can go to make myself safe from this.
“What do you mean by it, Lord Milton?” Lord Harlston asked quietly. “Speaking that way at my dinner table, to a lady who is a guest in my home?”
Lord Milton didn’t look remotely abashed. “I’m stunned, personally, that you invited her at all,” he said. “But I suppose it’s to be expected.”
“And why wouldn’t he invite my cousin?” Duncan asked.
Valeria wanted to get up and run from the room. She knew that Duncan was trying to help, but if he imagined that this was going to be helpful—he was very mistaken. She knew that. He was only giving Lord Milton an opportunity to say all the terrible things he was thinking.
And, indeed, Lord Milton now got to his feet, as though ready to give a speech.
“This has come up on two separate occasions now,” he began.
“You’vebroughtit up,” Lord Harlston said.
“Perhaps it must be addressed,” Lord Milton went on, as though Lord Harlston had not spoken. “I think the fact that everyone else here is too intimidated to say what must be said only underscores the need for the conversation to be had, and the fact is that we are rubbing elbows with a common criminal.”
“Lady Valeria is innocent of any wrongdoing,” Duncan said fiercely.”
“You say that,” Lord Milton said. “But you can’t know it, can you? You believed that her elder brother was innocent at first. I know you did.”
