Lessons from a Scandalous Bride (Forgotten Princesses #2)(76)

“I didn’t jilt him, Mama,” Clara said. “One cannot jilt someone to whom one is not engaged.”

Longmore had heard this argument too many times to want to be boxed in a closed carriage, hearing it again, his mother’s voice going higher and higher, and Clara’s climbing along with it. Normally, he would simply call the carriage to a halt and get out, and leave everybody fuming behind him.

Clara could defend herself, he knew. The trouble was, that would only lead to more quarreling and screaming and messages for him to come to Warford House before she committed matricide.

He thought very hard and very fast and said, “It was clear as clear to me that they did it behind the scenes, so to speak, to spare your feelings, ma’am.”

There followed the kind of furiously intense silence that typically ensued when his parents were deciding whether he might, against all reason and evidence, have said something worth listening to.

“What with the aunts and all, the Queen would be in a fix,” he went on. “She could hardly snub Clevedon’s whole family—which is what she’d be doing, since the aunts had accepted his bride.”

“His bride,” his mother said bitterly. “His bride.” She threw Clara the sort of look Caesar must have given Brutus when the knife went in.

“This way at least, the deed was done behind the scenes,” Longmore went on, “not in front of the whole blasted ton.”

While his mother stirred this idea around in her seething mind, the carriage reached the front of Warford House. The footmen opened the carriage door, and the family emerged, the ladies shaking out their skirts as they stepped out onto the pavement.

Longmore said nothing and Clara said nothing but she shot him a grateful look before she hurried inside after their mother.

His father, however, lingered at the front step with Longmore. “Not coming in?”

“I think not,” Longmore said. “Did my best. Tried to pour oil and all that.”

“It won’t end,” his father said in a low voice. “Not for your mother. Shattered dreams and wounded pride and outraged sensibilities and whatnot. You see how it is. We can expect no peace in this family until Clara finds a suitable replacement for Clevedon. That’s not going to happen while she keeps encouraging that pack of loose screws.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Make them go away, will you, dammit?”



One o’clock in the morning

Saturday 30 May 1835

Countess of Igby’s ball

Longmore had been looking for Lord Adderley for some time. The fellow having proven too thick to take a hint, Longmore had decided that the simplest approach was to hit him until he understood that he was to keep off Clara.

The trouble was, Sophy Noirot was at Lady Igby’s party, too, and Longmore, unlike Argus, owned only the usual number of eyes.

He’d become distracted, watching Sophy flit hither and yon, no one paying her the slightest heed—except for the usual assortment of dolts who thought maidservants existed for their sport. Since he’d marked her as his sport, Longmore had started to move in, more than once, only to find that she didn’t need any help with would-be swains.

She’d “accidentally” spilled hot tea on the waistcoat of one gentleman who’d ventured too close. Another had followed her into an antechamber and tripped over something, landing on his face. A third had followed her down a passage and into a room. He’d come out limping a moment later.

Preoccupied with her adventures, Longmore not only failed to locate Adderley, but lost track of the sister he was supposed to be guarding from lechers and bankrupts. This would have been less of a problem had Sophy been watching her more closely. But Sophy had her own lechers to fend off.

Longmore wasn’t thinking about this. Thinking wasn’t his favorite thing to do, and thinking about more than one thing at a time upset his equilibrium. At the moment, his mind was on the men trespassing on what he’d decided was his property. Unfortunately, this meant he wasn’t aware of his mother losing sight of Clara at the same time. This happened because Lady Warford was carrying on a politely poisonous conversation with her best friend and worst enemy Lady Bartham.

In short, nobody who should have been paying attention was paying attention while Lord Adderley was steering Clara, as they waltzed, toward the other end of the ballroom, toward the doors leading to the terrace. None of those who should have been keeping a sharp eye out saw the wink Adderley sent his friends or the accompanying smirk.

It was the crowd’s movement that brought Longmore back, with an unpleasant thud, to his surroundings and his main reason for being here.

The movement wasn’t obvious. It wasn’t meant to be. Men like Longmore were attuned to it, though. He had no trouble recognizing the sense of something in the air, the shift in the attention in some parts of the room, and the drifting toward a common destination. It was the change in the atmosphere one felt when a fight was about to happen.

The current was sweeping toward the terrace.

His gut told him something was amiss. It didn’t say what, but the warning was vehement, and he was a man who acted on instinct. He moved, and quickly.

He didn’t have to push his way through the crowd. Those who knew him knew they’d better get out of the way or be thrust out of the way.

He stormed out onto the terrace. A small audience had gathered. They got out of his way, too.