Devil in Spring (The Ravenels #3)(11)

“No need,” Trenear replied easily. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“You may not think so after I explain why I’m here.” Gabriel felt his color rising as he met their inquiring gazes. Furious and stunned to find himself in a dilemma that smacked of high farce, he continued with stone-faced resolve. “I’ve just come from the Chaworth ball. An unexpected situation has . . . cropped up . . . and it must be resolved with all due haste. I—” He paused to clear his throat. “I seem to have compromised Lady Pandora.”

Utter silence descended on the room.

In other circumstances, Gabriel might have been amused by the couple’s blank expressions.

Lady Trenear was the first to respond. “What do you mean by ‘compromised,’ my lord? Were you overheard flirting with her, or perhaps discussing some inappropriate subject?”

“I was discovered alone with her. At the summer house behind the mansion.”

Another all-encompassing silence, before the earl asked bluntly, “What were you doing?”

“Helping her out of a settee.”

Lady Trenear looked increasingly bewildered. “That was very courteous of you, but why—”

“By ‘helping her out,’” Gabriel continued, “I mean to say that I had to pull her out through the settee. Somehow she had managed to wedge the upper half of her body into the middle of the carved open back, and couldn’t free herself without tearing off her dress.”

Trenear rubbed his forehead and briefly pressed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. “That would be Pandora,” he muttered. “I’m going to ring for brandy.”

“Three glasses,” his wife told him, her worried gaze returning to Gabriel. “Lord St. Vincent, come sit by me, please, and tell us what happened.” As he complied, she gathered up a thimble, a spool of thread, and a few bits of cloth, and distractedly shoved them into a mending basket near her feet.

Gabriel explained the events of the evening as succinctly as possible, omitting the part about Dolly’s earring. Although he had no obligation to keep Dolly’s secret, he knew Pandora would want him to hold his silence on that point.

Trenear came to sit beside his wife and listened intently. After a footman had appeared with a tray of brandy, he poured the vintage into short-stemmed glasses and handed one to Gabriel.

Taking a bracing swallow, Gabriel felt the biting glow sink deep in his throat. “Even if Chaworth hadn’t been determined to hold my feet to the fire,” he said, “Lady Pandora’s reputation was already in ruins. She shouldn’t have left the ballroom.”

Lady Trenear’s shoulders drooped like a weary schoolgirl’s. “This was my fault. I persuaded Pandora to take part in the Season.”

“Don’t start that, for God’s sake,” the earl said gently, guiding her to look at him. “Not everything is your fault, much as you would like to believe otherwise. We all urged Pandora to go out in society. The alternative was to let her stay at home while Cassandra went to balls and parties.”

“If she’s forced to marry, it will break her spirit.”

Taking his wife’s small hand, Trenear coaxed her fingers to curl around his. “No one will force her to do anything. Come what may, she and Cassandra can always rely on my protection.”

His wife’s brown eyes were tender and radiant as she smiled at him. “You dear man. You didn’t even have to think about it, did you?”

“Of course not.”

Gabriel was disconcerted—no, baffled—by the way they discussed the situation as if there were a choice to be made. Good God, was he really going to have to explain that the disgrace would cast a shadow over the entire family? That the Ravenels’ friendships and connections would be severed? That Pandora’s twin would have no chance of finding a decent match?

Lady Trenear’s attention returned to him. Taking in his confounded expression, she said carefully, “My lord, I should explain that Pandora is no ordinary girl. She has a free spirit, and an original mind. And . . . well, obviously, she’s a bit impulsive.”

The description was so contrary to the ideal of a proper English bride that Gabriel felt his stomach sink like a millstone.

“. . . she and her sisters,” Lady Trenear was saying, “. . . were raised in extreme seclusion at the family’s country estate. They were all educated, but very unworldly. The first time I met them was the day I married their brother Theo. They seemed like a trio of . . . forest sprites, or wood nymphs, something out of a fairy story. Helen, the oldest, was quiet and shy, but the twins had been left to run wild on the estate, unattended, for most of their lives.”

“Why would their parents allow that?” Gabriel asked.

The earl answered quietly. “They had no use for daughters. The only child they valued was their son.”

“What we’re trying to convey,” Lady Trenear said earnestly, “is that Pandora would never thrive with a husband who expected her to be . . . well, conventional. She needs someone who will appreciate her unique qualities.”

After swirling the brandy in his glass, Gabriel finished it in two expedient gulps, hoping it would ease the chill of dread in his gut.

It didn’t.

Nothing was going to make him feel better about the disastrous turn his life had just taken.