Page 9 of An Inconvenient Vow

“Only the most tenuous of familial links existed between my late husband and Alfred Hendry,” she said steadily, and once again saw the same reaction as Lady Maud had given her. Sir Charles drew back, looking as though she had offered him mortal insult. Did none of them think she had a tongue in her head to make a reply?

Did they truly expect her to stand meekly by while they made their barbed comments and not retaliate? More than likely, they expected her to be tongue-tied in their magnificent presence, she thought with gathering resentment. Well, they could think again! She was not so easily intimidated.

Sabina gazed back at Sir Charles, more than ready to defend herself. She was no sniveling child, but a full-grown woman of five and twenty, who knew her own mind. If he had meant to get his son off the hook by selecting her for his scapegoat, then he could think again! “I am surprised to find your son no longer center-stage, Sir Charles,” she opined coolly. “He seemed so at home in that spot, I wondered if performing to a crowd might be in his blood.”

Sir Charles’s gaunt cheeks filled with hectic color and Sabina felt a rising satisfaction that her bolt had struck home. Sir Charles was a proud and autocratic type, ‘twas plain to see. He gave her a stiff nod. “My son was mortified to have falsely accused the duke’s intended on the information he received in good faith.”

Sabina let her lip curl. Men like Leland Ellis were never mortified. Having seen his wicked plot fail, he had either fled from repercussions or had grown bored and sauntered off in search of further sport. Personally, she suspected the latter.

“Well, well,” huffed the duke fractiously. “The damage is done. This Hendry fellow is clearly a mischief-maker of the highest order, or else a most muddle-headed individual,” he tutted. “Shouting accusations from the rooftops when he would be better counseled to have stayed at home!”

“He is lucky he was not horse-whipped,” Sir Charles agreed haughtily.

“He is lucky?” Sabina cut in. “If he is, then he is not the only one.”

Sir Charles looked almost apoplectic at this rejoinder and Sabina felt Jeffree’s arm turn beneath her own and his fingers grip her there, warningly. Sabina almost gasped aloud at this unexpected contact. Instead, she pressed her lips together firmly and lapsed into silence. No one spoke for a full minute, and Sabina took the opportunity to gather her scattered wits.

“Might I enquire, Your Grace, the current whereabouts of my family?” she asked at last.

The duke gazed about in bewilderment. “Naseby!” he cried, and his ever-attentive steward hurried forward. “Where is the Mistress Isemay and her parents?”

“They have been taken into an adjoining room, Your Grace. For the ladies to—er—recover,” he said with a small bow. “I would be happy to lead Lady de Crecy there, if that would be agreeable.” He directed a polite glance Sabina’s way, and both she and Jeffree had started violently at this form of address.

Lady de Crecy? Sabina gave a shudder that she wasn’t sure was not echoed in Jeffree’s tall frame. Gods, was that to be her name from now on? Heavens forbid!

*

In a daze, Sabina allowed herself to be led by Naseby into a small adjoining chamber where she found her mother lying on a wooden settle bench with her head on a cushion, moaning. Isemay’s slender form was pacing up and down the floorboards. She swung about on hearing the door open. “Sabina!” Her sister flew across the room to embrace her.

“So!” her mother said, striving to sit up. “You’re here are you! Well, I hope you are proud of yourself, that’s all I can say! I have never been so ashamed in my life! Announcing in front of everyone that you’ve been acting like a—like the veriest trollop! In front of all the duke’s fancy company too!” her mother wailed.

Sabina released her sister and approached the bench. “Mother please!”

“I don’t care what your sister says,” Thora Burrell sniffed, swinging her legs onto the floor. “It was utterly humiliating, and I will ne’er be able to show my face abroad again!”

“Mother—”

“My own father would have beaten me soundly for daring to act in such an abandoned fashion, but not your father—oh no! Won’t lift so much as a finger to put our reputation to rights!”

“What do you mean?” Sabina asked carefully. Surely, her mother did not believe the ridiculous tale of her acting as Sir Jeffree’s paramour? Nay, it could not be so. “If you mean Father won’t banish me, then he did threaten that, if it makes you feel any better.”

Her mother sniffed. “You deserve to be soundly whipped and put from our door!”

Sabina felt her shoulders sag. “Mother, please,” she said wearily. “Father has done everything he could, indeed it was at his insistence that I went ahead with—”

“Quite ruining your sister’s wedding day, you wicked creature!” her mother continued, heedless of her interruption. “Well, it’s all come to naught now, thanks to your conduct! Isemay is too mortified to go ahead with the ceremony. She will ne’er be wed now! Oh, you have disgraced us all!”

Sabina’s heart thudded. Had it all been for naught then? For a moment she felt quite bereft. Then she remembered, she had succeeded in clearing Isemay’s name. “Nay Mother, Isemay has emerged from this ordeal with her reputation untarnished,” she pointed out desperately.

“Untarnished?” her mother raged, clutching her fists. “With her own sister branded a—”

“That’s enough Mother!” Isemay said fiercely, crossing the room to stand beside Sabina. “Father and I have explained it to you a hundred times!” She took a firm hold of her mother’s arm and shook it. “You are being foolish and refusing to listen to reason. Sabina saved me, and I shall forever be grateful to her.”

Turning, Isemay reached for Sabina’s hand and gripped it fiercely, before continuing, “If I hear you maligning my sister again, I vow I will never forgive you, Mother. Not ever!”

At these vehemently spoken words, their mother collapsed into a heap of heartrending sobs. Isemay pulled a wry face. “She’s overwrought; do not listen to her. She is beside herself that I did not marry Bethencourt.”

“It is true then; you do not mean to be married this day?” Sabina asked feeling dumbfounded.