Page 22 of The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter

Now Maria Fairford sat beside Lady Brightwell, one arm around her shoulders as if to console her. Lord Lynden was seated in a chair near the fire, as ominously silent as he’d been since the moment he entered the conservatory. And Valentine…

Tristan felt an overwhelming swell of guilt as his eyes came to rest briefly on her face. She sat, pale and frighteningly white, with her hands clasped on her lap. She’d said not a word in her own defense. He very much feared she was in shock.

“Well, I will say it if no one else will,” Lord Fairford proclaimed from where he stood behind his wife. He was a heavyset gentleman with thinning hair and a perpetual smile of slightly lecherous bonhomie. “If it had to happen anywhere, it’s lucky it was here.”

“Fairford’s right,” Lady Fairford agreed. “Our house parties are—” She glanced anxiously at Lord Lynden. “What I mean to say is that—”

“What m’wife means is that no one here’s going to spread any gossip. Discretion is the byword at our parties. There’ll be no scandal attached to this incident.”

“No scandal?” Lady Brightwell moaned, a handkerchief clutched in one hand. “My daughter walked in on the man she hoped to marry in a sordid embrace with my companion! Do you think she’ll ever forget the sight of it? And can you imagine she’ll ever forgive me for hiring such a person? For bringing her here and allowing—”

“It would seem to me, madam, that your daughter has very little to do with the present situation,” Lord Lynden said.

Tristan looked at his father in mild surprise.

“My daughter is the victim!” Lady Brightwell cried.

“If there is a victim here,” Lord Lynden said, “it’s Miss March.”

“My companion? She’s no victim of anything. She’s an impudent slut who’s no better than she ought to be. And I’ll have her gone tonight. On the night train or the stage or a dogcart if need be. Do you hear me, Miss March? You’re dismissed without reference. And without your wages, too, for you owe me the cost of those spectacles.” Lady Brightwell pressed her crumpled handkerchief to her mouth. “Oh, get her out of here, Maria. I can’t stand to look at her a second longer.”

Tristan had had just about enough of Lady Brightwell’s histrionics. “Miss March is not going anywhere,” he said in a voice of perilous calm. “She’s under my protection now. And anyone else who casts aspersions on her character will answer to me.”

“Under your protection?” Lady Brightwell looked as if she might swoon. “Not even you, St. Ashton, would be so lost to decency as to make this…this creature your mistress.”

“Enough.” The earl rose from his chair, standing to his full, imposing height. “Fairford, I would have a moment alone with Miss March and my son.”

“I can’t allow that, my lord,” Lady Fairford objected. “We’re largely informal here, to be sure, but to leave Miss March alone with two men without the benefit of a chaperone is passing all bounds.”

Lord Lynden met Valentine’s eyes, and Tristan could have sworn that some silent communication passed between the two of them. “Do you wish for a chaperone?” he asked her.

“No,” she whispered.

“As that may be—” Lady Fairford began, but she was silenced by her husband who moved at once to bustle the two women out of the room.

“Come, ladies,” he said. “Leave them to their negotiations. Gentlemen’s business, you know.” Lady Brightwell declared that she must see to her daughter, and then the library doors shut and Tristan heard no more. When he looked again at Valentine, her cheeks were flaming.

“Gentlemen’s business? The devil!” he swore with sudden violence. In three strides he was at her side, sinking down on his haunches in front of her and possessing himself of her two hands. “Valentine. Valentine, look at me. I have no intention of offering you a carte blanche. I mean to marry you.”

Valentine gave him a look of heart-wrenching anguish. “Do you?”

“If you’ll have me, yes.” He squeezed her hands. “I’m a bad bet. You know that. But if you’ll have me—”

“I can’t marry you.”

“Can’t you? Why not? Because of what happened tonight? Do you fear I’m offering for you only because I’ve compromised you? I assure you—”

“It doesn’t matter why. I can’t marry you. I simply can’t. I’m sorry, my lord, but you mustn’t ask me anymore.”

She tried to withdraw her hands, but he wouldn’t allow it. He was suddenly, and quite unaccountably, angry. Never in his life had he come to the point with any lady. Never had he even considered it. And here he was, as good as on bended knee, in front of a bloody vicar’s daughter and she would not have him? It beggared belief! “Why not?” he asked again. His voice was harsh. “Is it because of the money? Because I confessed to you that I have been cut off?”

“I don’t care about your money.”

“Then what?”

Valentine swallowed convulsively. “You said your father forbade you marrying Miss Brightwell. A baron’s daughter. Trust me when I tell you that I’m a hundred times less suitable and ask me no more. If you’ll…” Her eyes clouded with tears. “If you’ll but lend me the money for the train to Surrey and enough for my meals along the way, I’ll leave at first light and you may forget you ever met me.”

“The hell I will!”