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‘Bodkin has been keeping us vastly entertained with his tales of how you and he broke into your own factory at dead of night and had to fight your way out,’ said Hugo with glee. ‘Lord, but I’d have given a monkey to have seen it!’
His own factory? Of course it was his own factory. He didn’t work for anyone as any sort of investigator.
He was a duke.
‘You would first have had to be in possession of a monkey,’ said Gregory scathingly.
‘I don’t see why you need to bring monkeys into it,’ Lady Mixby complained. ‘As well as talk of brawling with common persons. No offence, Mr Bodkin. I am sure you are a very worthy person in your way, and I have found your company most refreshing, but for Halstead to declare he means to have a new duchess is far more interesting!’ She waved one dimpled hand in Prudence’s direction. ‘For him to perform such a volte-face will rock society to its very foundations.’
It certainly would if they knew where she’d come from and how they’d met.
‘We were not speaking of real monkeys, Lady Mixby,’ said Gregory witheringly, ‘but a sum of money. Vulgar persons describe it that way.’
‘Halstead, I know I owe you a great deal,’ said Lady Mixby, her face flushing. ‘But I must really protest at anyone using vulgarity in my drawing room.’
‘Bravely said, Aunt,’ he said icily. ‘I beg your pardon, Aunt, Miss Benderby, Miss Carstairs.’
‘Never mind begging everyone’s pardon,’ said Hugo, going to stand behind Lady Mixby’s sofa and placing his hands on its back. ‘We’re all of us dying of curiosity. Oh, and I had to let Lady Mixby in on the nature of our wager once Bodkin turned up, so you don’t need to go into why you went haring off to Manchester under an alias, without your valet or groom.’
Well, that was what he thought. Prudence most definitely wanted to know the exact terms of the wager.
‘No,’ continued Hugo, ‘what we want to know is how you came to acquire a fiancée who looks like a gypsy when everyone knows you’d rather cut off your right arm than ever marry again.’
So that was why Lady Mixby had said society was going to be rocked to its foundations. Well, she’d known about his reluctance to marry again. Because he’d confided in her. But she’d never suspected it was common knowledge. That put a different complexion on things entirely.
Gregory gave him a look that should have frozen the blood in his veins. ‘I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head,’ he growled.
She supposed she should be grateful that he was trying to defend her but, really, who could blame Hugo for speaking of her this way when it was obvious they’d never have crossed paths if he hadn’t been engaged in trying to win some sort of wager?
At that moment there was a knock at the door and the butler came in with a tea tray.
‘Better bring a decanter of something stronger,’ suggested Hugo as the butler deposited the tray on a table beside Prudence’s sofa. ‘Tea may suffice for this wench, but my poor old cousin looks decidedly in need of something more restorative.’
So did she.
‘Ale,’ said Gregory to the butler. ‘If this young scapegrace must start drinking at such an early hour I would rather keep him away from anything too strong. Since I have good reason to know he does not have the head for it.’
‘That was uncalled for,’ said Hugo sulkily once the butler had gone off on his errand. ‘Raking me down in front of the servants.’
‘Would you kindly pour the tea, Lady Mixby?’ said Gregory, ignoring Hugo. He’d been studiously ignoring her, too. He must know she was shocked, and felt betrayed and insecure. But he was explaining himself to the others. His family. As if he suspected them of thinking she was some terrible catastrophe that had befallen him and he needed to reassure them that he hadn’t lost his mind.
Though if he gave her an opportunity to express any opinion at all she’d prove that she was, and he had.
‘I feel sure we would all benefit from a cup.’
‘I know I certainly would,’ Lady Mixby muttered as she lifted the lid to examine the state of the brew in the teapot. ‘Milk and sugar?’
Lady Mixby plunged into the ritual of the tea tray with such determination that Prudence could only follow her lead. Though she felt rather like a marionette having her strings pulled as she responded mechanically to the familiar routine.
The one good thing to come out of it was that as Lady Mixby held out the cup of tea she’d poured, milked and sugared for her, it gave her the perfect excuse for wresting her hand from Gregory’s. Though her hand was trembling so much that the cup rattled in its saucer with a sound like chattering teeth.
