Chapter Fourteen - William
After breakfast, William ushered the gaggle of ladies towards the parlor. Dahlia took a chair in the corner that offered an excellent view of the room. William took his customary place at the desk in the corner, where some of his ledgers and the post waited for him.
He tried not to notice as Dahlia opened her sketchbook and her fine pencil began to scratch against the parchment. But Dahlia was not a lady who was easily ignored. It wasn’t just her beauty, William thought as he examined the fair head bent over her work. It was the intelligence in her gaze.
Even now, Dahlia's clear blue eyes latched on to Margaret. A heavy silence descended upon the room.
"I feel awkward," Margaret stage-whispered from the corner of her mouth. "She's watching me."
"Act naturally or she'll dress you in something that looks like your dead Aunt Mildred's curtains," Rachel said. "Take it from me."
"How did you know we have a dead Aunt Mildred?" Margaret asked.
"Do you really?" Rachel said, her eyes wide.
"No, I just wanted to see your reaction."
Her shoulders slumped. "Ah. For a moment, I thought myself clairvoyant.”
“We do, however, have a dead Aunt Lucinda, if that helps.”
“I will edit my future remarks accordingly."
A moment of silence descended, broken only by the low rasp of Dahlia's pencil.
"Is she really that good at designing dresses?" Lily asked, nervously pleating her skirt with her fingers.
Rachel nodded. "She’s had loads of experience. She has a trunk full of drawings locked up in her room. In unrelated information, did you know that a hairpin can be used to pick most common locks?"
William shook his head and smiled as he sliced open a report from India. Dahlia sighed across the room but continued sketching.
Margaret smiled. "Can you show me?"
"Of course." Rachel reached around to her bun and pulled out a pin. "Just point me towards a locked door."
Margaret and Rachel hurried from the room, their heads bent together.
"That will be trouble, mark my words," Dahlia murmured as she shaded something in her book.
"Good heavens, it is unnerving," Lily whispered from the leather sofa. "Now she keeps looking at me."
"I can hear you."
"She can hear us." Lily's eyes went wide.
"Focus on something else. Go about your day. What would you ladies be doing if I wasn't here?"
"Probably going to stop Rachel and Margaret from picking our doors," Beatrice said.
"A valid concern. I'm not sketching you anyway, Beatrice."
Beatrice stood.
Lily grasped her hand. "You don't mean to leave me?"
Beatrice laughed. "Why ever wouldn’t I?"
"Well, because…" Lily bit her lip and released her sister's hand.
Beatrice laughed and went to find the younger ladies.
Dahlia asked, "What colors do you like, Lily? Other than yellow."
"Purples and blues, mainly." She swallowed deeply.
"For your skin tone, those colors are perfect."
Lily exhaled a gust of relief as if she had passed some sort of exam.
"And what of me?” William couldn't help but smirk as he asked the question. "What colors suit my undertones best?"
He didn't know why, but he wanted to provoke Dahlia, just a little. Perhaps it was how self-possessed she was. Perhaps it was how easily she'd integrated herself among his sisters, as if she were more comfortable in his home than even he felt.
"I wouldn't know, my lord. I only draw ladies' fashion. However, if you'd like a fetching day dress, please say the word."
His eyes narrowed. An image flashed into his mind’s eye—the fair Miss Warrington, standing before him, wrapping her cloth tape around his bicep.
He flexed the arm propped upon the desk in automatic reflex.
If Dahlia noticed the motion—or him at all for that matter—she gave little sign.
She just looked down at her infernal sketchbook.
He glanced over to find Lily studying him, a little smile playing about her lips. He tilted his head in question. Her smile grew. She shook her head; her cheeks pinkened. Without a word of warning, she stood from the leather couch and fairly fled from the room through the open archway.
“Thank goodness at least one of them remained long enough for an idea to descend.” Dahlia sighed, shook her head, but kept sketching.
"Your sisters do understand that the reason I came here was because I'm unable to sketch a subject unless I'm in the room with them, correct?
Or was I not clear enough on that fact?"
William chuckled. "They’ll be back, I assure you. Beatrice will round up Margaret and Rachel, and even Lily will be seduced by the promise of new dresses."
"If you say so, though it took less than five minutes for them to clear the room." She frowned at the archway, then bent her head towards her book.
"How long will it take, do you think?"
"The sketching or the sewing? For I have no idea on the latter."
William tapped his own pencil against a spare scratch of parchment where he was doing some of the larger calculations he couldn't accomplish in his mind. "It's simple math, really. How many dresses will they need?"
"Each of them or combined?" She didn't wait for him to answer, simply plowed onward. "Each will require approximately three dozen dresses minimum for this Season. As there are four of them, this will be a difficult endeavor indeed."
She glanced up at him as if she expected him to be shocked by the sheer number of his commitment. Instead, he jotted a quick mathematical notation upon his parchment.
"Assuming they each need fifty dresses, that is an even two hundred."
"Fifty?" She arched an eyebrow.
"You cannot claim you don't have fifty yourself."
"At least," Dahlia agreed. "However, I acquired them over time, not all at once."
"My sisters require the variety."
"You certainly are keen for them to be well presented," she said. "Pray tell, how am I to sketch your sister Claire fifty times in the next week if she won't even agree to be in the same room with me for more than two minutes?"
“I am sorry for how she behaved this morning."
It was a relief that she was comfortable enough in his presence that they could speak alone.
Neither of them wished to press the other into marriage—they’d already established as much.
He could tell by her business-like manner that any emotion that had transpired in the Marquess of Whittaker’s garden all those years ago had been on his side only. She felt nothing for him.
"I fear that I need to explain—"
"Certainly not," Dahlia said. "She is, as she repeatedly claims, a grown woman. She’s in control of her own mind and her own actions. I don’t lay them at your feet."
"Even still, there is more to the story than you’re aware."
"Very well." She looked at him expectantly. "You may explain if you'd like, and then I’ll decide whether to bestow my forgiveness carte blanche."
A smile hovered at the edge of his lips. He had never known a lady quite like Miss Dahlia Warrington.
“I fear she’s not the only one who needs to give an apology.
” William cleared the awkwardness from his throat and forced himself to continue.
“Four years ago, my brother disowned me.
He made it clear that I was no longer welcome in the family home, that I was to have no contact with our sisters, and that if I did, he would strip them of their dowries. "
Dahlia frowned. "What was the reason he gave for such a drastic action?"
William braced himself. Though she’d promised to help his sisters, he knew that telling her the truth was a risk. "I returned to England and told my brother…it was because of my money, you see, about how I earned it."
A stony look passed her features. "How did you earn it?"
"Trade.”
She blinked at him as if waiting, then finally said, "Trade. Your brother disowned you because you went into trade. What kind of trade?" Her eyes narrowed.
"The import of silk, mostly."
She frowned once more. "And the acquisition of this silk is legal?"
"Completely."
"I'm sorry, I'm confused. Why would your brother disown you for that?"
He gave a little exhalation, surprised at the relief he felt at her reaction. Many other noblewomen might have understood why his brother did as he had, but not Miss Warrington.
She frowned and insisted, "What was the problem? I fail to understand why an elder brother would care that his younger had gone into trade. Isn't that common practice? Younger brothers are obliged to make their own way because they aren't to inherit the title."
He nodded. "In retrospect, my brother's issue wasn't that I had gone into trade, but that I was so successful at it."
"Very well. Your brother was jealous of your success." She shrugged. "Every family's different; I concede that point. But why wouldn't he want you to have any contact with your sisters?"
"My brother was clever in some ways. Perhaps if he hadn’t been, I would have seen the real reason behind his actions.
It might sound foolish to you that I believed him when he said he was ashamed of me for my profession.
At the time, he made it seem quite reasonable.
It was only later that I learned the truth. "
"Which was what?"
"That the reason my brother’s pride was injured was because, by that point, he’d nearly run the estate into the ground."
"How did he accomplish that?"
Once again, he was impressed by her pragmatic view. Other women's attention would have snagged on the emotional horror of it. Not Dahlia—she simply wanted to know the mechanics of it.
"The night that you and I met, I only went to that ball to try to speak to my sister Claire.
Of course, my brother was too clever for that.
Of all the times for him to attend a ball…
" He shook his head. "I must apologize to you for my behavior that evening. I was not of sound mind; I wasn’t acting to the extent of my character. Though of course, that’s no excuse. "