“Then a birthday party it will be,” he said. “My fortieth. As you planned it originally. With a grand guest list of neighbors and valued house guests from farther away. A lavish and precious and quite undeserved gift from my children.”

Or so they must make it appear to their guests.

It was Bertrand who answered him, his voice firm and dignified but with more than a tinge of bitterness. “Perhaps love does not have to be deserved, sir,” he said. “My sister has always loved you regardless.” He swallowed awkwardly, and his next words seemed grudging. “So have I.”

Marcel closed his eyes briefly and grasped his temples with a thumb and middle finger.

“I am sorry, Bertrand,” he said once again. “I am sorry, Estelle. So very sorry. I do not know what else to say. But let us put a good face on the rest of today. And let me try to do better with the future. Not to make amends. That is impossible. But to . . . Well, to do better.”

“There will still be a party, then?” Estelle asked. “But a birthday party instead of a betrothal party?”

“It had better be the best party ever,” Marcel told her. “A man turns forty only once, after all. But I am sure it will be. You have worked hard over it, Estelle. So have you, Bertrand.”

He gazed at his children, and they gazed back, one of them wistfully, the other troubled and still faintly hostile. None of the three of them were happy, but . . .

“But our family?” Bertrand asked. “And hers? And Miss Kingsley herself?”

“You are going to have to leave all that with me,” Marcel said.

He knew something at that most inappropriate of moments.

He loved Viola, by God.

And he would set her free, even at the cost of his claim to be a gentleman.

Nineteen

There had been exactly this many people at the table last evening, Marcel thought, gazing along its length to where the marchioness, his aunt, sat at the foot with Viola on her right and the Reverend Michael Kingsley on her left. He had not particularly noticed then what a vast number it was. He noticed now. And somehow or other they were all relatives—his and hers—gathered to celebrate a merging of their families. He wished there were not a meal to contend with and polite conversation to be made with Mrs. Kingsley on his right and the Dowager Countess of Riverdale on his left.

Estelle, roughly halfway down the long table, was flushed and looking a bit anxious. Bertrand, on the other side of the table, was grave in manner. But he always was. He was also bending his head attentively toward Lady Molenor, who was talking. He turned his face toward her even as Marcel watched, and he laughed.

“It must be one of the loveliest views in all Europe,” Mrs. Kingsley was saying, speaking of what she could see from the front windows of her house on the Royal Crescent in Bath. “I am very fortunate.”

“I know the view you speak of,” Marcel said. “I spent a few days in Bath a couple of years ago.” He had not stayed long. He had found very little there with which to amuse himself. Bath had become largely a retreat for the elderly and infirm.

The meal seemed interminable and came to an end all too quickly. He almost missed the moment he had decided upon. His aunt was getting slowly to her feet at the foot of the table as a signal to the ladies that it was time to leave the men to their port. The first outside guests would begin arriving in an hour’s time. Viola stood too and turned to look along the table. She was drawing breath to say something.

Marcel got to his feet and held up a hand. “Do sit back down for a while longer,” he said.

His aunt looked at him in some surprise and subsided back onto her chair. A few other ladies who had begun to rise did likewise. Viola locked eyes with him, hesitated, and then sat. He gave the signal for the servants to leave the room.

“I have something to say,” he continued when the door closed, “that will surprise most of you and perhaps distress a few.”

If he had not had everyone’s full attention before, he had it now. He tried to gird himself with his famous disdain for anyone’s opinion of what he said and did. But it would not work this time.

“I hold Miss Kingsley in the deepest regard,” he said, “and I flatter myself with the belief that she returns it. However, a little less than a month ago I forced a betrothal on her when I made the unilateral decision to announce it to four members of her family and then four of my own. It was wrong of me, for an hour or so before I made that announcement Miss Kingsley had expressed her wish to return home to her own family and her own life. With my impulsive announcement I placed her in an impossibly awkward situation, and she has become more enmeshed in its consequences ever since. She has told me a number of times that she does not wish to marry me. So I am making another announcement now to correct the first. There is no betrothal. There never has been. There will be no wedding. And I must stress that Miss Kingsley is entirely blameless.”

Everyone had listened in absolute silence. There were a few murmurings when he stopped, and it became something of a babble when it was clear he had finished. Marcel took no notice. His eyes were locked upon Viola’s. She was looking like the marble goddess, the ice queen of memory, her chin raised, her face pale and utterly devoid of any expression except that which lent her unassailable dignity.

No one asked questions. No one voiced any protest. No one challenged him to a duel. He held up his hand after a few moments and looked along both sides of the table as silence fell again.

“My daughter has planned tonight’s party with meticulous care,” he said. “It is the first such event she has organized, and she has done it on a grand scale. She decided upon it because I have reached the milestone of my fortieth birthday and she wished to do something special for me. It is special, and I trust you will all help us celebrate.”

“I certainly will,” Viola said, the first to speak up. “I wish you a happy birthday, Marcel, and Estelle a successful party.”

“I will echo what Aunt Viola has said,” Anna, Duchess of Netherby, said. “Happy birthday, Lord Dorchester. And, Estelle, thank you for inviting us all to be participants in your party. It is a delight to be here, and I must confess to having peeped in at the ballroom earlier. I thought perhaps I had discovered a glorious flower garden instead.”

The duke, across the table and a little way down from his wife, was cocking an eyebrow at her and looking faintly amused.

Bertrand was on his feet, a glass of . . . water in his hand. “I hope everyone has some wine left,” he said. “Will you join me in wishing my father a happy fortieth birthday? I know you do not particularly like to be reminded of the number, sir, but enjoy it now. Next year will be worse.”

Bertrand making a joke?

There was general, perhaps embarrassed, perhaps a bit overhearty laughter and the scraping of chairs as everyone stood and raised a glass in a toast. And dash it all, they were going to bring this thing off in a civilized manner, it seemed, when everyone must surely be wanting a piece of his hide.

“Thank you,” Marcel said. “I believe the gentlemen will be willing to forgo the port tonight in favor of getting ready for the party. I will see you all in the ballroom in one hour’s time.”

And just like that, he thought as he turned to offer his arm to the Dowager Countess of Riverdale, the worst of it was over. He had in the nick of time saved Viola from having to make the announcement herself.