“Frannie, quit buzzing around what you mean to say.”
“You know what I mean. The parties, his circle of friends, the late nights while her father was alive. And of course Miss Brancelli kept house for him.”
“Whatever went on in Mr. Brancelli’s house before his daughter came to stay with the Howicks is none of my business.”
“Then why are you here?”
“There is someone who wishes her harm. Dr. MacCloud and I happened by and intervened when some hired villains tried to kidnap her, and now Lord Howick has retained me and my men to guard Miss Brancelli and Lady Lydia Howick.”
“I thought there was an understanding between you and Miss Brancelli.”
“Who is spreading that nonsense?”
“Why, it’s all over town. Didn’t you know?”
She stopped her stream of gossip as abruptly as she’d begun and turned back to Lord Howick.
Arnaud whipped his head around to Cullen and spoke barely above a whisper. “What was all that blather about? Why was she going on and on about Sophie?”
Cullen, who had been caught mid-bite, merely shook his head. “You have to be the densest man in the Royal Navy, Captain, if you can’t figure out why one woman is trying to tear down another.”
“But she’s spent the last three weeks avoiding me. Why would she suddenly reverse tides?”
Cullen rolled his eyes and tucked back in to his roast beef.
“In my opinion, you Royal Navy men are to be commended.”
Now what?Arnaud turned to the elderly woman who ruled their end of the table by dint of serving as Sir Thomas’s official hostess. His mother, Lady Fitzroy, the dowager countess, was a veritable dragon of theton. She’d thus far been quiet, but Arnaud feared he was probably in for a drubbing by yet another woman in the dinner party.
“We’re glad to be of assistance,” Arnaud said, and both his surgeon and Captain Neville nodded.
“No, no, I’m not talking about guarding the Brancelli chit. I mean I laud your efforts with the African problem.”
For a moment Arnaud’s mind stopped working. He gave her a quizzical look. What was she trying to say?
“For heaven’s sakes-ending slavery at sea.”
“We do what we can, Lady Fitzroy.” Cullen saved Arnaud from another social gaffe.
“Yes, sometimes it seems like we go three steps back for every two steps ahead, but we keep going. There are a lot of ship owners who fight us in the prize courts, but every once in a while we win,” Arnaud said.
“You all seem successful, if the papers are to be believed. Why are all of you still without wives?”
Captain Neville choked on a piece of beef and covered his mouth with his napkin. Cullen sat up straighter in his chair and looked to Arnaud for help.
“Our squadron handles some of the most dangerous duty in the service. It would not be fair to marry young women only to make them widows in the first year. Also, our tours of duty last a year and a half to two years at a time, sometimes longer.”
“What do your mothers think of your single states?”
Cullen raised his hands in surrender. “My mother died when I was a babe. And my father doesn’t care what I do as long as I work my way up to a larger ship of the line.”
So that’s why Cullen’s father had kept him occupied so much the last few weeks. Arnaud would be sorry to lose his surgeon and friend to another assignment, but he understood. The elder Dr. MacCloud was one of Prinny’s court physicians and could use his influence to get Cullen promoted.
After dinner Arnaud and his men joined the others for brandy. The women of the party adjourned with Lady Fitzroy for tea.
Sophie sat enveloped in the warm velvet night in Sir Thomas’s torchlit garden and let Mrs. Withers’s velvet delivery of Titania’s speech wash over her.
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
