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“You would have to ask my father.” It wasn’t in my nature to blame my parents for the ‘situation’, the words had slipped out, and they had an immediate effect on Derith D’Orsay.
“Your father?”
“I should go.” I got up and hurried for the door, but Derith was up out of his seat and vaulting across the table before I could reach it. He stopped me with a gentle hand.
“Your father sold you to my brother?”
“No!” I snapped. “Our marriage was arranged and your brother… agreed to pay some small recompense for the cost of losing a daughter.”
Derith looked at me quite differently now, and when he spoke, his voice was shorn of that unpleasant edge.
“I have been a complete ass. I can only apologize.”
“No, no, not at all,” I fumbled, though silently I agreed with him.
Derith waved away my objections. “For goodness sake, Miss Cherval. Forget your manners for ten seconds and tell me what you really think of me.”
And before I had the chance to think better of it, I blurted out, “I think you’re horrible. You’ve been rude to me since I arrived and I don’t know why.I’ve been nothing but polite to you and all you’ve done is insult me. And your apology isn’t worth much.”
Derith grinned. “Now didn’t that feel good?”
It had.
He got down on one knee then. “I humbly and profoundly apologize for my behavior. I thought you were like the others. The money-grubbers who swarm around my brother like flies around… well I cannot say in a lady’s presence. The point is: they come and go. They entertain him for a week or two during the ‘engagement’ and then they leave. He has his fun with them and they are richer for very little work. Perhaps I should pity them, but I feel nothing but contempt.”
“You should be more understanding,” I said, even as I was shocked to learn this about my future husband and his philandering ways. “You don’t know their situation. They might need the money.”
Derith smiled. “You always see the best in people, don’t you?”
“Not in you,” I pointed out.
He laughed; a big, hearty sound that I found unexpectedly attractive.
But the laugh stopped sharply. “Then you and he are not…”
I looked at him blankly.
“Sharing a bed?”
I blushed crimson at that and stamped my foot (which, in hindsight, did not do a great deal for my authority). “How dare you suggest such a thing! I am an unmarried woman!”
“My apologies.” Derith bowed but his mind was clearly somewhere else. “In which case… he actually intends to marry you?”
“Of course.”
Derith turned away then, his face etched into a frown. Finally, he turned back to me. “Miss Cherval, I realize you have no reason to listen to me, let alone trust me, but please believe that I have your best interests at heart.” He paused. “You must not marry my brother. Only misery lies that way.”
I drew myself up in affront. “You go too far. And you are hardly in a position to tell me…”
“I know, but…”
“No, Lord D’Orsay. The matter is closed. We shall pretend we never spoke of it. I have found your brother to be kind, courteous, and to have comported himself like a gentleman, none of which I could say for you.”
Derith slumped. “I hope you are right. But if you ever need a friend, then you may rely on one in me.”
At the time, of course, I did not know what he meant. I was to learn not many days later.
Chapter Fifteen
