Chapter Twelve

When James had first called at Falstone House, he’d expected Daphne Lancaster to be grasping and pampered, a young lady who could have any gentleman for the taking at a mere snap of her guardian’s fingers. He’d quickly discovered otherwise. She was quiet and vulnerable and fragile. She was also, he had realized during their short walk to the drawing room, good-hearted.

She had offered, without hesitation or any degree of pretense, to help his mother. She had listened to his confessions about being the paste keeping his family together—a confession he’d not intended to make—with sincere concern and interest.

She’d proven entirely unspoiled and inherently likable. That made the ruse he was enacting all the more despicable.

He led Miss Lancaster across the drawing room. The Duchess of Kielder appeared to be listening to whatever Father had chosen to expostulate on, though James could not guarantee the accuracy of that evaluation. The duchess’s social mask was far more polished than Miss Artemis’s, who looked unmistakably bored and inattentive at her sister’s side.

The duke never had bothered to hide his annoyance with people. He didn’t do so in that moment either.

Does Father have any idea how little His Grace cares for his company?

James guided Miss Lancaster to where Ben stood a little apart from the rest of the group. “Miss Lancaster, may I present my brother, Mr. Bennett Tilburn.”

“I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Tilburn.”

“Miss Lancaster.” Ben dipped his head but only the smallest bit. “Welcome.”

His distinct lack of enthusiasm could not have been more apparent. The show of incivility was uncalled for. Miss Lancaster looked a touch confused, and though the high color in her cheeks remained, the rest of her countenance turned a bit pale.

James skewered his brother with a look of warning. No matter the injustice of the situation, mistreating Miss Lancaster would help nothing.

“Please forgive my brother’s lack of manners, Miss Lancaster. Our riding master regularly tossed him from his pony during childhood, and I’m afraid the experience had a profound impact on his mental capacity.”

“How tragic.” Miss Lancaster managed a tone of near sincerity with just the right amount of irony. She had grasped James’s intent quickly. “Reliable help has always been difficult to come by.”

James nodded gravely.

“Are you still afraid of ponies?” she asked Ben.

The slightest twitch tugged at his brother’s lips.

“Sweets generally stave off any truly juvenile behavior, Miss Lancaster,” James said, enjoying watching the obvious struggle required for Ben to not be entertained by their humor. “I have also found naps are very efficacious.”

“That works with my four-year-old nephew as well.”

A smile finally broke across Ben’s face. “Enough, you two. You win.” Ben executed a very respectful and proper bow, then spoke to Miss Lancaster. “I apologize for the incivility of my initial response to our introduction. I can offer no excuse beyond my own weariness. Life has been tumultuous here as we have prepared for this dinner party a scant three days after arriving in Town.”

“Tumultuous is a rather large word for a person who was dropped on his head,” Miss Lancaster observed.

James laughed out loud at the unexpected parry. Ben, he noticed, smiled ever broader. Miss Lancaster’s eyes shifted between the two of them, and her frequent blush returned.

“I hope I have not offended you, Mr. Tilburn,” she said.

“On the contrary,” Ben replied. “I am rather enjoying hearing James laugh—he seldom does.”

“Ah, but I know any number of people at the opera earlier this week who would disagree with you.” A twinkle of mischief lit her eyes. James would not have thought that possible during their very first encounter. She’d sat so still and quiet in her sister’s drawing room.

“Was it a humorous production, then?” Ben asked.

“It was when Miss Lancaster translated it.”

She bit back a smile.

“I’m sorry to have missed that,” Ben said. “A bit of joviality could only improve an opera.”

“I take it you do not care for opera?” Miss Lancaster asked.

Ben shook his head.

“I think my brother far prefers a country-fair offering of ‘Punch and Judy,’” James said.

She assumed a look of overdone sympathy. “That seems fitting.” She motioned quickly to Ben before tapping her temple as she shook her head. “Considering.”

Ben’s chuckle joined James’s, and the tension that had built between them since Ben’s arrival in London evaporated.

“I like you, Miss Lancaster,” Ben said with a grin.

The poor lady blushed again, but she didn’t try to slip away nor hide as one might have expected of someone so timid and easily embarrassed. That was an argument decidedly in her favor. Timid, she might be, but Miss Daphne Lancaster had steel in her.

“Tilburn. Bennett.” Father’s voice interrupted their brief moment of revelry. He had crossed the room and stood near at hand, the air of confident contentment he always wore in public firmly in place. “I certainly hope I taught you to behave in a more civilized fashion before guests. Miss Lancaster will think you had a poor upbringing.”

Miss Lancaster grew quiet, though her eyes retained a bit of their earlier playfulness. Father’s imposing presence had never failed to drain Mother of every ounce of animation. James hated seeing it happen to yet another lady.

“Has our lack of civility shocked you beyond bearing?” James asked her, keeping his tone light and teasing.

She answered in kind. “I will no doubt spend every moment of tomorrow’s morning calls spreading gossip about how ill-mannered the Tilburn brothers are. It will be quite the scandal.”

The Duchess of Kielder had come near the group as well. Her husband and youngest sister remained across the room, deeply discussing something. Her Grace eyed James, Ben, and Miss Lancaster with an irrefutable degree of confusion.

“You must forgive my brother and me, Your Grace,” James said. “I fear we have been a poor influence on your sister.”

The duchess did not immediately reply but continued to study them a moment. Her eyes rested longest on her sister. “On the contrary,” she finally said. “The three of you seem to be enjoying each other’s company.”

“We are.” James found he truly meant it. Miss Lancaster had proven herself a diverting addition to their conversation.

Her Grace’s gaze held an analyzing quality that left him more than a touch uneasy. He looked away only to find Ben regarding Miss Lancaster and him in much the same way.

Billingsley announced dinner as if cued by a burst of divine intervention.

“And I am most honored to walk Her Grace in to dinner.” Father made a bow.

The duke’s already stern demeanor turned even more icy. “No one other than myself ever walks Her Grace in to dinner when I am present.”

“But . . . but formality dictates—”

“I said ever. There should be no further words coming out of your mouth.”

If James hadn’t been certain doing so would only cause more difficulty, he would have applauded.

Father recovered quickly. “Then I shall be pleased to escort Miss Lancaster—”

“Lord Tilburn will be afforded that honor,” the duke declared. “And before you make the next impertinent leap, Mr. Tilburn may escort the youngest Miss Lancaster.”

Ben did the wise thing and nodded without objection. His eyes met James’s for the briefest of moments. The duke’s ease in dealing with their usually difficult and overbearing father had not escaped Ben’s notice.

Father’s expression of pleased contentment seemed a little strained. “And with whom am I to walk in to dinner?”

“Your guest list is no concern of mine.” The duke offered his arm to his wife and turned without comment toward the door. Father stood on the spot, dumbfounded.

“Adam is accustomed to having his way,” Miss Lancaster said quietly. Her eyes held an unmistakable apology. Little did she know just how well James understood the strain of difficult relations.

“My father is as well. The two of them in the same house for the next few hours ought to be entertaining at the least.”

Amusement replaced some of the embarrassment in her expression. “Perhaps they will annoy each other into silence. That would be an unforeseen benefit.”

“Indeed.” He offered her his arm.

“Do you promise not to hold my relatives’ actions against me?” Her lightheartedness hadn’t entirely disappeared. James was grateful for that—it gave him one less person whose problem he needed to fix.

“Only if you will make the same promise to me.”

“It seems we are to be coconspirators, Lord Tilburn,” she said, “bonded together by our mutual lack of Italian and the need to overlook one another’s embarrassing family members.”

“I do believe we could start our own very exclusive club only to find most of London is in similar straits, at least as concerns their relatives.”

She offered a timid smile, nothing earth-shattering nor transformative but sweet and lovely just the same. She would never be declared a diamond nor a breathtaking beauty, but she was pretty.

And she’d surprised him with her show of wit that evening. That she had the strength of character to hold up even in embarrassing and difficult situations was endearing. But liking her even that little bit more made the ruse of his deception that much harder to justify and the pain his dishonesty would cause that much more unfair.

* * *

“Oh, but, Daphne, he was looking at you in such a way!” Artemis flopped down on her back on Daphne’s bed, both hands pressed to her heart. “He thoroughly likes you. I am certain of it.”

The door of their shared dressing room had opened not long after Daphne had retired for the night. Artemis’s dancing, spinning entrance had quickly given way to an excessively emotive discussion—on Artemis’s part—of James’s hypothetical feelings for her. Under normal circumstances, Daphne would have shooed her from her bedchamber. James’s feelings, however, were too much of a mystery and far too important to forgo the opportunity to hear another opinion.

“Likes, however, is a far cry from loves,” Daphne pointed out.

“Not so very far.” Artemis spoke as though from great experience. Still lying on her back, she held her hands up, counting off on her fingers. “‘Notices’ comes first, followed by ‘is interested in.’ Then comes ‘likes.’ Then ‘thoroughly likes.’ Next is ‘desperately likes.’ Then the only step left is ‘loves.’” Artemis clasped her hands together and allowed them to sink back down against her heart. She sighed rather too loudly. “You are only two steps from ‘loves,’ Daphne.”

“And you obtained this information from where? A novel?” Daphne knew enough of Artemis’s reading habits and daydreaming tendencies to put very little faith in her declarations of expertise.

Artemis turned on her side, propping herself up on her elbow and looking at Daphne with absolute conviction. “Novels are the very best place to look for this sort of thing. The heroines are always finding themselves the object of affection from a dashing hero.”

“Aren’t these the same heroines you declared do not always survive their amorous adventures?”

“Only the truly tragic ones.”

Daphne leaned back against the pillows piled at the head of her bed. “I believe you said only this morning that I was poised to be a tragic heroine.”

Artemis crinkled her nose. “Persephone is proving far more tragic. She hardly ate a morsel at dinner, seldom spoke, and it was she, not Adam, who wished to leave the dinner early.” Artemis executed another highly dramatic drop onto her back. “’Tis a shame those closest to the tragic heroine always suffer as well. And they are far less likely to survive all the way to the final page.”

“You are not fooling me in the least. You were more anxious than anyone to leave the dinner this evening.”

“Only because everyone treated me like a child.” Artemis’s pout lasted only a moment before a flash of something resembling an epiphany crossed her features. That look had always preceded a disastrous plan of some kind or another. Daphne braced herself for her sister’s next words. “If you would only hurry and get married, I could have my come-out, and then I would not be looked at like I’d only just arrived from the nursery.”

“You say that as if getting oneself married were as simple as selecting fabric at a dressmakers.”

Artemis shifted to a seated position, her eyes growing larger with obvious excitement. “But you are a mere two steps from ‘love.’ A little effort and you could get there quickly.”

Daphne shook her head. “These schemes you are hatching will do you no good. For one thing, Lord Tilburn and I have been acquainted for only a couple of weeks, hardly enough time to be scheming as deeply as you are. For another thing, you are only fifteen. Adam will not agree to a come-out while you are still so young.”

A dismissive wave of the hand clearly communicated Artemis’s feelings about Daphne’s logic. “Adam has been desperate to be rid of the lot of us for years.”

Obviously Artemis did not know their brother-in-law very well. Though he often grumbled about his responsibilities as a guardian, he cared more for them than he let on.

Daphne had been rather afraid of her formidable brother-in-law when she’d first come to live with him. She had taken solace in the assumption that she would be as overlooked in his home as she had been in her own. Her family loved her—she didn’t doubt that—but when she was little, she often went days at a time without any of them paying her much heed. Only Evander, her oldest brother, had regularly thought to check on her when the silence had stretched out.

Adam, however, had surprised her. He had noticed when she was particularly withdrawn. He had never permitted long periods of self-pity. He had welcomed her company, had even sought it out. In his home, she no longer felt so disposable.

“We could do this, Daphne. Two steps is not so very large a leap.” Artemis’s thoughts had not strayed far. “Lord and Lady Techney certainly would not have invited us to dine with their family if Lord Tilburn weren’t at least leaning in the direction of an earnest courtship.”

Good heavens, the girl looked ready to burst with excitement. The last thing Daphne wanted was to be Artemis’s latest project.

“Persephone’s abigail could fix up your hair—your Eliza prefers styles that are far too simple. And you could borrow that paisley shawl I pestered Adam into buying me—”

“I appreciate your offer of help”—the white lie seemed entirely necessary—“but I would far prefer to leave things as they are.”

“You mean you would prefer to not draw attention to yourself.” Artemis clearly disapproved of that notion. “If Lord Tilburn doesn’t notice you, how can you expect him to ever move past ‘liking’ you? There is a reason gentlemen do not fall in love with the furniture.”

The comparison was not particularly flattering. Daphne wanted to believe she had made more of an impression that evening than Artemis insinuated. She had forced herself to join in the conversation with the Tilburn brothers. After her initial moment of timidity, she had found them remarkably easy to talk with. Lord Techney, however, was not. His visage never wavered from stern, his tone of voice always a mixture of overdone civility and arrogance. She had overcome her discomfort with Adam once upon a time and hoped the same would occur with James’s father.

Artemis rose from the bed and leaned against the bedpost in a pose that would not have been out of place in a painting of some epic tragedy. “When Lord Tilburn begins to grow bored with you and you realize that leaving things as they are is not enough to make you stand out in the crowd, I will be more than happy to help.” She sighed rather loudly. “I will be in the nursery, pining away and suffering.”

Daphne shook her head as Artemis left the bedchamber. She would have far preferred to have Persephone offer advice. Their oldest sister, however, had seemed a touch worn out that evening. Daphne didn’t want to bother her if she was unwell.

She blew out the candle and settled in under her blankets. Though she wanted to entirely discount Artemis’s warnings, Daphne found the words would not leave her thoughts.

When Lord Tilburn grows bored with you . . .

Not enough to make you stand out in the crowd . . .

Daphne never had stood out, never had garnered notice. The smallest of knots began to form in her stomach. James didn’t overlook her as nearly everyone else did. He had noticed her as a child and again now that she was grown. He did not so readily dismiss her from his thoughts. Not yet, at least.

“All will be well,” she told herself. But deep inside, a hint of doubt remained.