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“Miss Desmond, I can’t believe your father is in genuine danger,” Jack answered mollifyingly. “The work will not be made public for a month. He cannot be imprisoned on mere rumours. Actually,” he went on, “it’s you who can most expect to suffer in the immediate future. Mere rumour is enough to make a social outcast of you. Your father is quite right in his advice. You ought to return to Scotland.”
“Yes, my dear. I fear the news will frighten all your beaux away—which, may I remind you, was the reason in the first place we decided against publishing.”
“Then who wants such paltry fellows?” she retorted. “I shall certainly not run away on their account—or on account of a lot of hypocritical females, either. I have some pride too, Papa. You did not bring up your daughter to be a coward. I shall never desert you,” she concluded rather melodramatically.
***
Melodrama or no, she had looked very fine, Jack reflected as he left the house some time later. Proud, noble—and obstinately wrong-headed, of course—but that was why he loved her.
Mr. Langdon paused, thunderstruck, as he reached the corner of the square. Then he turned to stare at the house he had just left. Loved her?
“‘How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude,’” quoted Mr. Stoneham. “But—to make a proper shambles of Cowper—do you mind a friend in your retreat?”
Jack shook himself out of his unhappy reveries to welcome the scholar. Stoneham, at least, would not weary him with the current scandal.
“It seems you’ve found the only quiet corner of White’s,” said the gentleman. “Perhaps the only quiet corner of the kingdom. All London is buzzing over this impending publication of Desmond’s memoirs. What is your opinion? Will the tales of Society’s excesses stir the mob to revolution?”
“It’s all idle gossip,” said Jack, for what must have been the hundredth time this afternoon. “Desmond’s appearance in Town is a nine days’ wonder, and everyone is convinced he’s come with a purpose other than the entertainment of a marriageable daughter. Naturally some fool has decided it must be a book of reminiscences and that fool tells another and soon the newspapers print it as solemn truth.”
“So I had thought,” was the complacent answer. “Now we’ve had our obligatory discussion of Mr. Desmond, I am eager to pursue the matter we were debating the other day.”
Jack smiled. “We’ve said all there is to be said, I think. You may argue until you are blue in the face, Stoneham, but you will never convince me any mortal is capable of ‘improving’ the Bard.”
Mr. Stoneham promptly asserted that the issue was not improvement. “Is it not better that young ladies read the work in diluted form than never read it at all for fear of being put to the blush?” he asked, warming to the debate.
“Young ladies read whatever they please, in spite of their mamas and teachers. To trick them with a work of art mutilated beyond recognition is criminal.”
“Bowdler doesn’t mean to mutilate, I am sure. A passage here, a change of phrase there. The meaning would remain, but in more palatable form for the innocent.”
“Dr. Bowdler is a meddling, officious old busybody who, if he had a grain of wit, would write his own work instead of attempting to rewrite—” Mr. Langdon stopped to gaze blankly at his companion.
“Emendations merely,” Mr. Stoneham insisted.
“Emendations.”
“Nothing more—and all to a very good end, I must in—Langdon? Where are you going?” the scholar asked in some bewilderment, for his adversary had bolted up from his chair, a wild look in his eyes.
“So sorry. A thousand apologies,” Jack muttered. “Just recollected an appointment.”
With that, he was gone, leaving a rather affronted Mr. Stoneham to stare after him.
Chapter Fifteen
Had he been a less selfish young man, Lord Berne would have been deeply distressed by the chilly reception Miss Desmond received that evening at Miss Melbrook’s birthday gala. Since, however, this only cleared the field of all other rivals, Lord Berne was most selfishly ecstatic.
Still, he made a creditable show of gentle attentiveness as he hovered by her, making conversation and helping her pretend the rest of the company was not keeping its distance. If he expected this thoughtfulness to soften her hard heart, he learned he was much mistaken. Miss Desmond held her head high, and though her smile was brilliant, it was unpleasantly cold.
He bided his time until they danced. Since her card was as yet nearly empty, he’d had no difficulty in obtaining a waltz. Not until they danced did he allow himself to touch upon her difficulties, express indignation with all of Society, and beg her to make use of him.
“The services of a libertine are scarcely what I require,” was the unpromising answer. “Besides, they are all afraid of a little book, nothing more. It’s not my trouble, but theirs.”
Inwardly excusing her unflattering language as emotional distraction, Lord Berne answered gently, “You are a convenient scapegoat. I cannot tell you how my heart aches to see this injustice to one so innocent. You are a national treasure, a splendid jewel in the crown of English womanhood.”
“My Lord, I am not in a poetical humour this evening. You would be better served, I think, in returning me to Lady Potterby and addressing your pretty metaphors to some other lady. I am bound to put you out of temper.”
“You are distraught,” he said, “though no one else would know it, you disguise your feelings so well. Only because your smallest gesture speaks volumes to me do I discern your distress. Miss Desmond, may I speak frankly?”
She shrugged, inadvertently calling his attention to the smoothness of her neck. One part of his mind speculated upon the silken attractions closely connected to that neck, while the other framed his speech.
“I confess I w
as rather surprised when I first heard of this memoirs matter,” he said cautiously. “Your father is a man of vast experience, Miss Desmond. Naturally I was puzzled why he should wish to publish his recollections at this time, when you’ve so recently entered Society. Was he not aware of the repercussions that would follow? Or was the reason so pressing—”
“Good grief, can you believe my father has had anything to do with this provoking situation?” she asked incredulously.
“Then he hasn’t written the story after all?” was the innocent response.
“Yes, he wrote the curst thing—ages ago, when he was ill, and concerned lest Mama and I be left destitute if he died. Since he survived the illness, there was no longer any urgent necessity to publish.”
“Yet he did not destroy it.”
With some impatience, Miss Desmond explained why not. Not until she was concluding did she reflect that perhaps she was unwise to tell Lord Berne so much. Aunt Millicent had insisted on denial. They must all maintain that the memoirs did not exist and the rumours were unfounded. Still, Delilah thought wearily, what was the use? In another month or so the world would only add the epithet “liars” to all the rest.
“Miss Desmond, are you telling me this work is being published without your father’s permission?” He was genuinely surprised. Hadn’t his father told him he’d gotten the memoirs from Desmond himself? Why, then, had the earl not destroyed them?
“Without his permission, against his wishes—and no one can find Mr. Atkins or the manuscript to make him give it up.”
“No one else,” Lord Berne corrected. “I will get the memoirs back for you, if that is what you wish.”
The music had stopped, but Delilah scarcely noticed. She was not certain whether to laugh at him or hit him, so exasperatingly confident he looked.
“You make promises too easily, sir,” she reproached, “I do not care to be sported with in this way.”
“You’ve never believed my concern for your well-being is genuine, Miss Desmond. I cannot blame you. Nor will I bore you with protestations and promises. My actions must speak for me in future,” he said, his blue eyes ablaze with fervent sincerity.
