Did she think he was not?

He had rarely been angrier in his life. Perhaps never.

* * *

• • •

Marcel did not immediately follow everyone else into the parlor. He went upstairs, presumably to remove his hat and greatcoat. Viola followed him up, making the excuse that she needed to wash her hands and comb her hair and change her shoes. She followed him into his bedchamber and shut the door behind her. He turned to face her, his raised eyebrows and half-lowered eyelids giving his face an arrogant, almost sneering appearance. It was the look he usually presented to society.

“Marquess of Dorchester?” she said. Of all the things with which she might have begun, it was the detail that somehow stung the most. Who was this man with whom she had been having an affair? Did she know him at all?

He shrugged again as he had shrugged outside. “My uncle died two years ago,” he said. “He was a very old man. I daresay he could not help it. I happened to be next in the line of fire since in all his long years he had produced only daughters. I have always considered the title a cumbersome appendage, but what was I to do? I do not believe I would have convinced anyone that my brother was older than I.”

She let it go. There was so much else. So much.

“What did you mean,” she said, “by announcing that we are betrothed? The very idea is laughable.”

“Laughable?” He was speaking softly in that way he always had in public, even though she was the only other person in the room. “You wound me, Viola. Am I no more than a figure of fun in your eyes?”

“Alexander must know it is laughable,” she said. “Elizabeth must know. Everyone, the whole world will know it if word ever gets out.”

“Word will surely get out, my love,” he said. “The marriage of an aristocrat always does. There is little privacy when one is the Marquess of Dorchester. Or the marchioness.”

“You cannot be serious,” she said. “You could hardly wait until tomorrow to be rid of me.”

“Did I say that, Viola?” he replied in a pained way that came across as mocking. “How very ungallant of me. I would call you a liar, but that would be equally ungallant. What am I to say?”

“You do not want to marry me,” she said.

The mocking look disappeared to be replaced by something more grim. “What I want is no longer of any significance,” he said. “Neither is what you want. We embarked upon a great indiscretion a few weeks ago, Viola, and we have been caught out and must pay the price.”

“That is nonsense,” she said, “and you must know it. Alexander will not breathe a word of any of this. Neither will the others.”

“Let me see,” he said. “Riverdale will whisper it to his wife. Cunningham will tell his wife, and she and Miss Abigail Westcott will inform your mother in the strictest confidence. Your mother will inform your brother. All the Westcotts, who are so worried about you, will have to have their minds set at rest, and my guess is that they will not be told lies and that, even if they are, they will see through them in a moment. Servants will hear the story, as servants inevitably do. And servants will tell it in the strictest confidence to other servants, who will pass it on to their employers. Is my point becoming clear? Your virtue has been compromised, Viola, and I am the compromiser. I must, then, as I occasionally manage, do the honorable thing and marry you. You have no cause for complaint. I did not write to my family. My family has not put in an appearance here, breathing fire and brimstone, have they?”

They both heard it at the same moment. It would have been hard not to despite the fact that the window was closed. The valley was normally so very quiet. Viola hurried to look out, expecting to see that it was just Alexander’s carriage being moved out of the way. But it was still outside the doors of the house, no orders having been given for its disposal. No, what they had heard was the arrival of another carriage. It came to a halt on the driveway, still partially on the slope. Marcel had stepped up beside her. He swore, as he had down in the valley.

The coachman descended from the box to open the door and set down the steps. A familiar figure stepped down and looked out over the valley. He was the young gentleman who had been with Marcel at that inn. His brother. But he was not alone. A much younger man, really no more than a boy, tall, slender, dark, with all the promise of heartbreaking good looks, got out after him and turned back to hand out an older lady and then a mere girl, whose face was hidden by the brim of her bonnet.

“Sometimes,” Marcel said, “the farce at the end of a play is overdone and loses any amusing quality it might otherwise have had. Have you observed that, Viola?”

My family has not put in an appearance here, breathing fire and brimstone, have they?

Apparently, they had.

Thirteen

What in thunder had got into André that he had come here—and brought Estelle and Bertrand of all people? And Jane. Had the world gone mad? Marcel turned from the window, strode downstairs, and stepped onto the terrace.

“I say,” he heard André say, “there is not another building in sight. This must be the loneliest place on earth. I could not see myself wanting to spend much time here.”

“Fortunately perhaps,” Marcel said, “you have not been invited to do so, André.”

“Oh, I say.” His brother swung about to face him. “You are here, Marc.”

The others had turned in his direction too. Jane was tight-lipped and ramrod straight, a look and posture she surely reserved for him. She made no pretense of either liking or approving of him and never had from the moment of his announcing his intention of marrying Adeline. Bertrand, slender and very tall after a sudden growth spurt a couple of years ago, took a few steps toward him. Estelle, smaller but just as slender, narrow faced, big eyed, not really pretty but with the potential for extraordinary beauty, came striding toward him in a manner that was surely forbidden in Jane’s rules for the proper conduct and deportment of young ladies.

“Father,” she cried, and he realized in some surprise that she was furiously angry. “You have ruined everything. You said you were coming home, and I believed you, fool that I was. I ought to know by now that you never do what you say you are going to do. I believed you because it was going to be your special birthday, and I thought you would want to spend it with us. I organized a party to surprise you—my first ever. I planned everything down to the finest detail. I made long lists so I would not forget anything. And you did not come. You sent Uncle André home in your carriage, which showed that you had no intention of coming at all. Which was fine, but you ought not to have said you were coming in the first place. I came to find you because I wanted you to know that I will never believe another word you say—ever. But that is all right because I do not care.”

Marcel was too taken aback even to reach for his quizzing glass. He had just heard possibly more words from his daughter than he had in all the almost eighteen years since she was born.

“My sister is upset, sir,” Bertrand told him. “She put her heart and soul into planning that party to surprise you.”

“Estelle, my love,” Jane was saying, “that is hardly the way a genteel young lady speaks to her f—”

“Silence,” Marcel said softly, and she stopped abruptly.

André was clearing his throat. “Good day, Miss Kingsley,” he said, and in a glance over his shoulder Marcel could see that she had indeed stepped outside, though she was keeping her distance.