style="font-size:15px;"> ‘You could try smiling, too,’ she hissed up at him through a smile so forced it was hurting her teeth. ‘To look at your face, anyone would think some great disaster had just befallen you.’
‘It’s my natural expression,’ he replied. ‘Better get used to it.’
‘I thought we were trying to persuade everyone we hadn’t done something to be ashamed of.’
‘Aye. But that doesn’t mean I need to go about with a fatuous grin on my face.’
‘There’s a world of difference between a fatuous grin and the murderous look you’ve got on your face.’ Though her own smile faltered as she said it. Because she’d seen Papa. ‘And my father has seen us,’ she said, pointing towards the fireplace. ‘Over there.’
He was standing beside one of the ornate marble fireplaces that were a feature of Ness Hall, eyeing them with one of his bushy grey eyebrows raised in reproof. Hardly surprising. Julia’s scandalously low-cut gown was crumpled and stained now, her exposed bosom streaked black with what remained of her attempt to make it look as though she had a mole, her mask gone, her hair straggling round her face. In short, she looked as though she’d just been thoroughly ravished.
Once Papa learned she had just been thoroughly ravished, all hell was going to break loose. If he’d been so adamant he wouldn’t have her throwing herself away on a perfectly respectable man she’d known all her life, he was going to be furious to learn she’d flung herself at a total stranger.
Nevertheless, they made straight for him. Because she had to face him sooner or later. Better to get it over with.
‘I should like to speak to you in private, if I may, sir,’ said Captain Dunbar.
‘I should think,’ said Papa, raking her from head to toe, ‘you do.’ He drained the glass of wine he’d been holding and set it down on the mantelpiece with a snap. ‘My study. Now.’
* * *
Lord Mountnessing turned and made his way out of the reception room. They followed close behind, leaving a trail of avid eyes and speculative whispering in their wake.
Alec scanned the inquisitive faces as people made way for them, searching for one of her particular friends. It would be better if he could palm her off on one of them. This was not an interview Lady Julia needed to attend. Both men were going to have to speak bluntly, and it wasn’t going to be pleasant. No gently born lady should have to go through that kind of scene.
No matter what she’d done.
‘You should make yourself scarce now,’ he murmured into Lady Julia’s ear, when he failed to spot anyone to take care of her. ‘This isn’t going to be pleasant.’
‘You think I’m going to run away and hide while you and my father decide my whole future,’ she hissed back at him. ‘I think not!’
‘But you agreed to let me handle this.” He couldn’t believe she’d changed her mind so quickly.” I’m only trying to spare you unpleasantness. Your father is going to lose his temper when he finds out what we’ve done. He may say things he later regrets. Better for you to face him once he’s had time to cool down, and can speak to you rationally.’
She shot him a suspicious look through narrowed eyes.
‘I can handle my own father. But if you think I’m going to trust you, or meekly do as you say, at a time like this, then you have another think coming!’
‘I might have known,’ he muttered, as the earl opened a door to their left, and went into a book-lined room. ‘He is the one who has spoiled you, isn’t he? The one who has made you think you can have whatever, or whomever, you want for the crooking of your finger?’
‘He has done no such thing,’ she just had time to spit back at him, before the earl reached yet another fabulously intricate fireplace, turned, and took up the very same position he’d adopted in the ballroom. Legs apart, with his back to the writhing Greek demi-gods.
‘Well?’
‘I have to beg your pardon, sir,’ replied Alec stiffly, ‘but also to inform you that your daughter and I will be getting married.’
‘Indeed? And what makes you think that I will grant my permission?’
‘We have been indiscreet. And the indiscretion was witnessed.’
The earl’s shrewd eyes flicked over the state of Lady Julia. His lips compressed into a hard line for a second. Then he looked at Alec again.
‘By whom was this indiscretion witnessed?’
Alec couldn’t believe the old man was taking this all so calmly. He’d expected an explosion of wrath. But it seemed that the earl was the type to weigh everything up, and take his vengeance cold. He stood a little straighter.
‘Lady Julia’s companion. I forget her name.’
‘Marianne,’ put in Lady Julia in a woeful, almost penitent voice.
‘And the leading lady,’ he continued, not sure whether to be annoyed by her interruption, or glad she was doing what she could to soften the old man’s heart.
‘I believe she goes under the name of the Nightingale,’ he said, squeezing Lady Julia’s hand hard in the hopes she’d understand he’d rather she didn’t interrupt again.
‘And a young man, by name David.’
Something flared in the old man’s eyes at that.
‘David Kettley?’
Lady Julia nodded her head. Then hung it. She looked the very picture of repentance. If he was her father, he might almost have been taken in by it.
But the old man didn’t look the least bit compassionate.
‘And you, sir, what have you to say for yourself? What do you mean by it, eh?’
‘Oh, please, don’t be cross with him, Papa,’ blurted Lady Julia, before he’d managed to utter a single word of the excuse he’d planned to make. ‘It was all my fault.’
What? She was admitting it? For some reason, though he’d said the very same thing not five minutes ago, hearing her try to take the blame didn’t sit right with him.
‘We are both—’ he put in swiftly before floundering to a halt. He may not have come up with a story to satisfy the heart of a doting father, but he knew the truth wasn’t going to suffice. ‘That is, neither of us—that is—the truth is, sir, that...’
Actually, there could probably be only one excuse he could give that might, eventually, mollify an outraged father.
‘Our feelings for each other overwhelmed us.’
That eyebrow went up again. ‘Your feelings?’
‘Yes, sir. We got carried away.’ Well, that was certainly true. He couldn’t remember ever being so completely entranced by a woman. There had been nothing in his head but her. After all the months of oak and muscle
