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The pleasure had gone out of the evening for Ella. Gentlemen thronged about her, asking to dance, but she could scarcely manage a smile.

Just looking at Fiennes made her feel cold and stiff.

A childish internal wail insisted that her cousin had everything that she wanted. No matter how often she reminded herself that she scarcely knew Fulvia’s fiancé, and couldn’t really say she “wanted” him …

She didn’t believe herself.

She did want Fiennes.

Finally, she retreated upstairs and changed into a plain gown, creeping down the rear stairs to discover the kitchen in a frenzy because the Regent and his friends had demanded herb omelets. Ella coaxed their cook out of bed and helped her crack eggs for the next hour.

At dawn, the last of their guests trundled out the door, stuffed with omelets and the extra food from the Savoy Club—better than anything supplied by Fortnum & Mason.

Ella was wearily helping Jarvis wash the gold-rimmed china her mother had brought with her to the marriage when a nervous footman arrived with the unwelcome news that the viscount had demanded that the family join him in the drawing room.

Ella walked into the chamber to find Fiennes seated beside Fulvia, looking bored and dismissive. Of course, he was a member of her family.

She felt as if she couldn’t breathe, panic rising in her chest, but somehow her body kept moving forward. Her aunt was drooping on the settee, so Ella sat down beside her.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” she whispered.

“I rose to bid goodbye to His Majesty,” her aunt said miserably.

“You deign to join us, Niece!” her uncle snapped. “Those pearls on your head do not pair well with a filthy apron. You look a fright. Remove that circlet at once.”

Ella looked down at herself. “They’re only water spots from washing china.” But she unpinned her pearl headpiece and set it to the side.

Fiennes glanced at her apron and then turned to regard her uncle from under lowered lids. She was acutely aware that he no longer looked bored. His face was hard and angry.

“Back to the kitchens,” her uncle snapped, which was when Ella realized that Jarvis had followed her and was standing just inside the drawing room door.

“I am certain that you would not wish the household to overhear your concerns, my lord,” the butler said quietly. “I shall guard the entrance, so no one enters.”

With a huff, the viscount wheeled about, glaring at his family. They’d all seen him in a million rages, but there was something unnerving about his abandonment tonight. He was obviously drunk, for one thing.

He launched a diatribe that his sozzled state rendered nearly unintelligible.

Apparently, after he followed His Majesty into the gaming room, a guest had shared a vivid depiction of Fulvia “playing the role of a shameless wench, no better than a brassy wag-tail in a brothel,” as the viscount summed it up.

“This is scrupulousness run mad,” Fulvia said dispassionately. “Shakespeare cannot be considered ill-fit for any educated woman to know by heart.”

“Not true,” the viscount bellowed. “Parts of your speech were described to me as ‘unfit to be uttered by any woman of modesty.’ ”

The recollection further inflamed him; he began swaggering up and down delivering a lecture about propriety, his slurred words echoing in the near-empty room as he slapped his white gloves against his thigh for emphasis.

He moved from Fulvia—whose uninterested attitude made her difficult to chide—to his wife, for leaving her “stupid, stupid daughter unchaperoned”—with no reference to his own role in parenting.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” he demanded, bending down and thrusting his red face close to his wife’s.

The viscountess flinched. “I didn’t feel very well,” she faltered.

“While you were resting in your bed, having given in to your nerves as only the most selfish would do during a daughter’s debut, that same daughter was ruining herself. Cavorting with a ruttish actor, disgracing herself in front of all polite society.”

He paused for breath. Ella wrapped an arm around her aunt’s shoulders and whispered, “Don’t listen.”

The viscountess sighed, a noise so quiet that it could scarcely be heard by a mouse. “I never do.”

Meanwhile, Fulvia sat quietly, her eyes resting on her father with calm derision. She refused to answer any demands, turning her attention to her fingernails when directly addressed.