Chapter 5
“Ido not know why you had to come with me.” Cassian tugged at his cuff. He did not look at his sister. “This is a matter among men.”
“No, it is not!”
“Joanna.”
“You are proposing to my best friend. I had to be here. I would have come if you had locked me in a cellar, Cassian. You do understand that.”
“I am beginning to.”
The carriage swayed around the corner of Bruton Street.
London at half past nine in the morning had a brittle quality, the streets gray with a thin morning damp, the costermongers pulling their carts.
He watched a butcher’s boy step around a horse and thought briefly that he would rather be doing anything else this morning.
Cleaning out a chimney. Sitting for a tooth-pulling. Anything.
He had not slept.
He had got back to Langton House past one in the morning, dismissed his valet, and gone straight to his study where he had sat in the dark in his evening dress with a glass of brandy he had not drunk and a number of conversations playing over and over in his head.
He had been tired, but also a part of him he did not wish to examine had been pleased which was the most disquieting part of the entire evening.
He had kissed Lady Alice Lockwood in the middle of the Worthington ball and had somehow been unable to stop himself.
That was not true. He had stopped himself.
He had stopped himself within thirty seconds.
He had performed every public motion required of a man who had committed a public scandal, and he had walked out of Worthington House with his sister on his arm and his face set into the proper grim concern.
The performance had been adequate. It was not what bothered him.
What bothered him was the fact that he had wanted to do it.
He had wanted to do it, and then he had done it, and then he had spent the whole night discovering that he wanted to do it again, and that was a problem of a kind he had not had since he was twenty-years-old and learning for the first time that wanting things did not make them sensible.
Lady Alice was a hellion.
She was a bad influence on his sister. For the past two years, she had been a thorn in his side, a disturbance to his peace, and he had spent every encounter with her plotting how to remove her from his sister’s company, and now, he was about to ask her father for her hand in marriage on the grounds of a kiss he had given her because he had not been able to bear the thought of her being ruined by someone else.
That was the explanation. Not because he had wanted to kiss her.
Not because he had thought about her mouth more than once over the past two years.
But because his sister’s reputation was tied to hers, and Lady Alice Lockwood being kissed by a stranger in a public ballroom would have spilled the scandal onto Joanna by association.
He had only been doing what duty required.
They hated each other for God’s sake. That was the entire truth of the matter. He had told himself so all night, persistently, in the dark of his study. If some unacknowledged part of him was not quite convinced, he was not ready to listen to it this morning.
He had a proposal to make. That was the only point.
“Cassian.” He turned to find his sister looking at him. “Have you been listening to me at all this morning?”
“No.”
“Cassian, you cannot.”
“I cannot what, Joanna?”
“You cannot just sit there and remain silent. You must tell me what happened, what she said, what you said, why you kissed her, what—”
“Joanna.”
“What?”
“I have not slept.”
“Neither have I!”
“Then we shall be a quiet pair this morning.”
“Cassian.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know you were interested in her.”
He looked at his sister. She had their father’s red hair, pinned this morning in a coil under a respectable bonnet, and their mother’s steady gray eyes, and she was looking at him with a very serious expression.
He had bounced her on his knee when she was five years old and read to her until she fell asleep.
He had taught her to ride. He had, every Christmas Eve since their mother had died, sat beside her bed and read out loud whatever she had asked for because she had always been afraid of the long dark of midwinter, and he had not been able to bear it.
He could lie to her, but he could not lie well to her.
“Joanna…” he sighed.
“Yes?”
“I am asking your friend to marry me this morning because I gave her no other choice last night.”
“Cassian.”
“It is the right thing to do.”
“Cassian, are—”
“That is what I have to say on the matter. The first part is the duty. The second part is, as I understand it, the disgrace. We shall be at her house in five minutes. So, please try to behave.”
His sister stared at him.
She did the thing she had done since she was four years old where her mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide. Then she gathered herself, leaned across the carriage, took his hand in her gloved ones, and squeezed it.
“You are an idiot,” she said fondly.
“I am aware.”
“She is going to be terribly difficult about this.”
“I am aware.”
“She is going to make it as bad as possible.”
“I am aware.”
“Cassian.” She squeezed his hand again. “I am very, very pleased.”
He did not know what to do with that.
The carriage drew up at Westbury House, and the footman opened the door. Cassian descended into Bruton Street with his sister behind him, straightened his coat, and went up the front steps to ask for the hand of a woman he had been determined to keep at a distance for two years.
Joanna poked him in the back as the door opened. He realized he had not heard the last thing she had said. She rolled her eyes at him with the long-practiced forbearance of a younger sister.
“I was saying, we just arrived, and we shall make a great deal of trouble, Cassian. I want you to know.”
“Yes, Joanna.”
He stepped inside.
Alice heard the door.
She was in the morning room. Her sister sat on the chaise across from her, embroidering or trying to.
Alice had a book on her lap. She had been stuck on the same page for forty minutes. The page had a water stain on the upper right corner. She had counted the stain three times and the lines of text twice, and she still did not know what was on the page.
Daphne looked up. “Was that the bell?”
“I did not hear.”
“Alice, was that the bell?”
“It might have been.”
The door of the morning room burst open.
Their mother stood in it like an overdressed weather event, her hands clasped to her bosom, her cheeks pink, her cap slightly askew.
She had been at the front window of course.
She had been at the front window since breakfast which had been at half past eight which was an hour at which Lady Westbury had not voluntarily risen since the year of Alice’s first Season.
“He is here,” she breathed.
“Mother.”
“He is here, Alice. The Duke is here, and Joanna is with him. They have come up the steps already. Your father is in his study, and the Duke has asked to see him, and—”
“Mother.”
“Stand up. Stand up at once. Both of you. Where is your sash, Alice?”
“I am wearing my sash, Mother.”
“It is crooked. Daphne, my darling, you have a thread on your sleeve. Both of you, presentable, I beg of you. Presentable.”
Their mother straightened Alice’s sash with the focused desperation of a woman who had been waiting for this exact moment for at least three Seasons.
She tucked a stray curl behind Alice’s ear.
She turned, gave Daphne’s sleeve a brisk pluck, and then turned back to Alice and rested both hands on her shoulders.
“Be agreeable, Alice.”
“Mother.”
“Be agreeable.”
“Mother, I will not.”
“Alice, you will be agreeable to the Duke of Langton when he is shown to your father’s study. You will be agreeable to him when he is shown out. You will be agreeable to him until I tell you that you may stop. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Good.”
Their mother kissed her on the forehead, a quick fierce kiss like a brand, and then bustled to the door to listen for the butler.
“You did not really answer my question about the Duke last night,” Daphne said mildly, smoothing her sleeve.
Alice closed her eyes. “Daphne.”
“I am only saying.”
Fortunately, at that moment, footsteps sounded down the corridor. Their mother straightened. The butler appeared in the doorway, and behind him, looking faintly amused, was Joanna. Behind Joanna, looking faintly nothing, was the Duke of Langton.
“Lady Joanna Arnolds and His Grace, the Duke of Langton.”
“Lady Westbury.” The Duke bowed. “Lady Alice. Lady Daphne.”
“Your Grace.” Lady Westbury bobbed a curtsy of such depth that Alice was briefly worried for her knees. “What an honor. What a great honor. You will, of course, wish to see Lord Westbury. He is in his study at this hour. Please allow me; I shall take you there myself.”
“Most kind, Lady Westbury.”
“Joanna, my darling, do come and sit. Alice, you will entertain Joanna while His Grace and your father speak.”
“Yes, Mother.”
The Duke’s eyes flitted to Alice. Nobody else in the room would have caught it, but she did.
She felt the previous evening rush back into her chest in one hot, inexplicable flood, and she had to look at her hands for a long second to compose herself.
“Lady Alice.” His voice was the correct shade of formal. “I trust you slept well.”
“Tolerably, Your Grace.”
“I am pleased to hear it.”
“Are you?”
It came out before she could stop it. A faint bite. She heard her mother make a tiny sound. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Duke’s mouth twitch.
“Quite,” he said.
He turned to her mother, who led him out of the morning room, flustered. The door clicked shut behind them.
Joanna sat down on the chaise.
There was a long, ringing pause.
“What are they talking about in there? And what is taking them so long?” Joanna asked, half to the rug.
“The wedding, of course,” Daphne said absent-mindedly, not looking up from her embroidery.
Alice and Joanna both looked at her.
She did not look up. She was halving a knot of pink silk with the placid concentration of a young woman unaware of the gravity of what she had just said.
“The wedding?” Alice was shocked.
That had not been at the top of her list of possibilities last night. In fact, it had not been on the list at all. She could not imagine the Duke wanting to marry her. He’d made it perfectly clear that he did not approve of her. And then he’d kissed, and she…
She thought maybe he wanted to tell her father the truth. But a wedding?
Alice caught Joanna’s eye. “Sweet Daphne, I am going to take Joanna out for some air. We shall be just on the terrace.”
“Mm,” Daphne hummed, threading.
Alice was on her feet before her sister had finished. “The terrace,” she muttered to Joanna. “Now.”
She crossed the morning room, opened the long French door at the rear, and stepped out onto the stone terrace that overlooked the kitchen garden. Joanna followed, and Alice shut the door behind her.
The morning was cold. The terrace was empty. The kitchen garden was full of cabbages.
“Joanna,” Alice said, “I still have no idea what happened. What the hell was your brother thinking, kissing me like that?”
“He kissed you!”
“That is what I just said.”
“It is not the same thing as you kissing him, Alice. He kissed you. He chose you.”
“Joanna, I went looking for someone to ruin me. I picked the man. He stepped in. We were looking for someone to make my situation less complicated, and now, I am going to end up married to him? Are you sure?”
Joanna stared.
“Are you sure?” Alice repeated. “I mean, maybe he just wanted to tell my father that he wants nothing to do with me. He could have come to forbid us from ever speaking to each other. He could be telling my father this very moment that he had a fit of madness and apologizing.”
“Alice.”
“He could.”
“He said it himself in the carriage. He is here to propose.”
“He is?”
“He is dutiful like that, Alice. He is the most dutiful man I have ever met. He kissed you in front of half of London, and now, he is in your father’s study, and there is only one possible outcome.”
Alice stared at her. “Oh no.”
“Alice.”
“No. No, no, no.”
“Alice.”
“We must stop him.”