Page 22 of Miss Delancey’s Tragicomedy

“No.” Dessie bit her thumbnail, smiling around it. “But I feel terrible for not thinking of it.”

“Miss Delancey?” One of the men came forward and handed her an envelope.

She noted the seal, gulped, then set it in her lap. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

She and Dessie waited until Peters had ushered the men out.

“Dare I ask?” Dessie said.

“Trentham.” She felt a pang in her chest. She opened the envelope. He wrote in a firm, legible hand with loops as tall and narrow as he was.

Dear Miss Delancey: Eli has assured me that a musician of your athleticism can play the harp with one foot in the air. I hope this token of my regret that you should have fallen upon misfortune while a guest in my home will help to make your recovery less burdensome. Yours etc., T.

“I can’t possibly accept this.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too much!”

“If you were going to reject it, you shouldn’t have let those men leave it here. I agree, it is rather much, but it’s not too grand a gesture from the duke who maimed you.”

“But how many heads will he have to part with?”

“Heads?” Dessie squinted her confusion.

“I can’t have him selling his ancestors to gift me with a harp.”

“Selling his ancestors?”

Ophelia waved her hand, fanning the air. “You know.”

“I don’t.” The pleasantly amused air fell away and she scowled. “But I can hazard a guess. I don’t know why you think every titled gentleman in England is down to his last tuppence. It’s…it’s condescending.”

“I don’t mean to be. I just assumed—”

“That is my point! Your assumptions. Trentham is not purse-pinched. He is one of the wealthiest men in the country. Not only land, which he has scads of, and not only entailed property either, but also an obscene bank account and investments, good ones, that would even impress Daddy.” Her voice rose. “Believe me, he could purchase a concert hall full of harps and the concert hall too, without batting an eyelash.”

“Well, good for him. I don’t know why that makes you so angry.”

“I’m not angry at him. Ophelia, you can’t go on assuming every man who pays attention to you is after Daddy’s money. You are going to end up—”

“A wizened old spinster?”

“I was going to say, unhappy.”

Now her chest hurt even worse. “I don’t know why you are pushing Trentham at me. Only last week, you were warning me away from him.”

“The warning still applies. But he’s Lynch’s friend. It’s a thoughtful gift and the appropriate response is ‘thank you.’”

“I will thank him,” she said, chastened. “Anyway, how is it that you know the extent of Trentham’s bank account—”

“It’s common knowledge.”

“But not his deep dark scandal? Is that not common knowledge?”

“Probably it is.” Dessie’s voice dropped low, subdued. “But the fact that it is buried so deeply that no one ever talks of it makes me think stirring the pot is not in anybody’s interest. Let’s not stir the pot. I like Robin. It’s difficult to believe he did anything very terrible, but if he did, and Lynch stands by him, I think I’d rather not know what it was.”

Ophelia didn’t want to know either. Yet somehow, that made him seem even more dangerous.