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“That’s not very nice. My wife is lovely.” He gave them both a broad smile. “Did you know that my wife’s father, Lord Charles Lightwell, was the older brother of your first wife, Lady Susan Lightwell? Cozy, isn’t it? All of us tangled up like the plot of a Gothic novel. Do you care for novels, Lady Treyford?”
“You will not address the countess.”
And they called Joshua the rude one! Here he was, making pleasant and polite conversation, while his impulsive, hotheaded father said what he pleased. But as always, his father would get away with it and Joshua would be blamed.
He started peeling off his gloves as they talked. “Married again, are you, my lord? Only one wife this time?”
“Get out. You don’t belong here.”
“Now, now, Papa, that’s no way to talk to your eldest son. I am a guest here too.” He gathered both gloves in his right hand. “It’s remarkable, isn’t it, the way a huge fortune can give back what an invalid marriage license took away.”
Joshua scratched his cheek, thoughtfully. As it happened, it was his left cheek that needed scratching. Which meant he had to use his left hand.
Which just happened to be the hand that bore the signet ring.
Which just happened to catch the earl’s attention.
“That ring does not belong to you,” the earl snapped, leaning toward him.
“Ring? What ring? Oh,thisring.”
Joshua held his hand up high, made a show of admiring the ring. A voice in his head was yelling at him to stop, but he couldn’t. And why in blazes should he? Let everyone watch. They had been content to shrug off his father’s sins. Bigamy was usually considered a serious crime, yet Treyford had said, “But I didn’tmeanit,” and all these people had nodded and said, “Well, then, if you didn’tmeanit, it’s all right.” As for the consequences of Treyford’s perfidy, his selfishness, his lack of restraint, they all wanted to ignore those too, probably because the fatuous hypocrites wanted their own actions overlooked.
Then he met his father’s eyes and grinned.
It was like waving a handkerchief at the start of a race.
Treyford lunged, fingers outstretched to grab at the ring, coming fast at Joshua, who knocked his father’s hand away. Treyford’s arm windmilled back and cuffed his wife’s hand in turn, causing her to drop her glass of punch with a cry.
The glass smashed on the hard floor. Orange punch splattered nearby hems and stockings, and spread across the floor. The smell of alcohol and fruit rose in the air.
The crowd fell silent, but for the swishing of skirts as bodies turned. After the eerie hush, the tittering began. A space opened up around them, but no one intervened.
Let them watch. Let them stare. Let them see what happened when aristocrats tossed children away like the first draft of a letter.
“I rather like this ring,” Joshua said into the silence.
“That ring belongs to my son and heir, curse you!”
The earl lunged again, but Joshua was taller. He held his hand out of reach, leaving his father to swipe at him like a thwarted cat.
“Speaking of sons, I hear your latest mistress is expecting,” Joshua said. “What are your plans for her baby? Or is that not your concern? Making a child is much more diverting than dealing with it afterward, isn’t it?”
The tittering swelled to a murmur, and then to a roar, rushing through Joshua’s head along with his blood.
A pair of footmen slid in to clean up the glass and the punch. Orange splashes stained the embroidery on Lady Treyford’s hem. Joshua had to stop this. He wished someone would stop him. Please, someone stop him. But no one ever would, just as no one would stop Treyford from discarding children.
The worst of it was that the earl wasn’t even cruel, merely selfish and careless. He took what he wanted and never cared who might be hurt and what others might lose or what mess might be left behind.
No, the worst of it was that nobody condemned him for it, whatever Joshua said. It was like one of those nightmares, where he tried to yell but had no voice.
And then: A touch on his shoulder.
A moment later, two warm, feminine hands closed around his raised arm, gently lowering it, trapping his forearm against a pleasantly soft female body, holding it still. One of those hands slid up his forearm, and pressed into the crook of his elbow.
Cassandra, her shoulder pressing against his arm as she joined herself to him. Claimed him. Acknowledged him as her own.
He was so surprised that he let her do it. He breathed in her fragrance. His heart began to calm.
