“I know. My apologies for not being Her Grace, but she does send her regards. I’m afraid she has not a single word she wishes to say to you, however. I, on the other hand, do.”
His eyes narrowed, his chin lifted, and he turned sharp as a soldier on one toe, preparing to leave.
Lillian stood her ground and raised her voice. “I will have my say. If that requires me to follow you from this room and to wherever it is you are currently going, I will do so. Or we can speak in civilized tones here in this room.” She meant every word. She hoped he heard her conviction, her resolution.
He turned back around, slower this time, but when his gaze met hers, his eyes had narrowed even more into hard, animal slits. He was a snake with poison in his bite.
But Lillian had come this far, and she would not flinch now. “I have done nothing to earn your censure.”
He snorted.
“Nor has my husband.”
He snorted two times in a row.
“He brawled because of me. Someone said something less than gentlemanly about me, and he, being a hot-headed man with a large heart, jumped to my rescue. Even you must know that such rescuing isde riguer. Men often do barbaric things when their honor or the honor of their lady is at stake. Would you not do similar for your daughter? Lord Devon’s manner of doing so may have been questionable, but his motives were not.”
“You and your lot,” the earl said, fluttering his hand toward her, “who manage somehow to claw your way into a circle of existence you don’t belong, always try to justify your actions. You have even managed to bring a duke down low. I’ll not let you take my daughter along with you.” He turned and strode toward the door.
“Have you not noticed, my lord,” Lillian called out, “that your daughter is happier than before?”
Devon paused, his shoulders heaving with each heavy breath. He turned his head slowly until she could see his profile like a stamp upon a coin, but he did not look at her. He noticed,and because he wasn’t a monster, just a snob, his daughter’s happiness mattered to him.
She hoped.
He closed his eyes and pressed the fingers and thumb of one hand into the sunken sockets of his eyes. His chest seemed to cave in, then expand before his arm dropped limply to his side, and he looked up once more, his eyes opening. “Why are you and your husband so concerned about my daughter’s happiness? Why do you think, the both of you, that I cannot make her happy? That I do not know what’s best for her?”
Lillian was about to answer the question, but then something he had said struck her as odd. “I am sure Lord Devon wishes her happy the same way any human wishes for another’s happiness, but I did not think he was… preoccupied with it.”
“Then why was he here this morning?” He swung into movement, striding toward her, and she flinched back, somehow managing to keep her ground.
He stopped close enough for her to see the red spots on his face, to see a vein at his temple popping out. “He was offering large sums of money to settle my debt!” He snorted again. Did the man have something caught in his nasal passages? Perhaps she should offer him a handkerchief. “In exchange for me allowing you to remain an acquaintance and friend with my daughter.”
“My husband? Lord Devon? Surely you are mistaken, my lord.” There. She’d kept her voice from trembling.
“Mistaken? Me?” This time heharrumphed, a welcome change from his snort.
Lillian groped blindly for a chair, her eyes locked on him, and when she found a wooden arm, she sank slowly, carefully into it. Her mind turned like a clock that had not been wound, too slow. There was simply too much to comprehend.
Why would Devon make such an offer? With what money? He’d won a significant amount the other night, of course, but surely, he did not have enough to both buy Frederick’s and pay off the earl’s debts.
She spoke through a haze. “Did you accept Lord Devon’s offer?”
The Earl’s lip curled into a sneer. “Ask your husband. Leave my house.”
Lillian stood on wobbly legs, trying to translate his meaning. She turned slowly to make sure she had his attention, then smoothed her skirts where she’d wrinkled the fabric in her clenched fist. She wet her lips and took a breath to make sure that every word she spoke was annunciated clearly and calmly.
His eyes looked her way, though his body remained angled away from her.
She did not need him to see her, just to hear her. “Whether you accepted it or not, Lord Devon no longer extends his offer. I wish very dearly to remain friends with your daughter, but I will not buy her. You should act solely for her happiness. I do not know why you are in need of such sums as my husband has offered you, and I will not listen to gossip about it. But if your daughter is ever in need of my friendship, my hand is always waiting to comfort her. Lord Devon’s offer, however, is off the table.”
“Can you control such things,LadyPennworthy?”
Oh, how she hated the sneer in his voice as he said her name.
She hated his question more. She hated him for not answering her own question. Had he accepted Devon’s money?
He would not tell her, so she must find the man who would. She left, and the air on the street, warm and oppressive as it was, provided sweet relief from the thick stickiness of the earl’s misery.
