Page 35 of The Wallflower Manifesto
Freddy stiffened, his grip on the doorframe tightening for a moment before he released a sigh, seeming to deflate.
Abe frowned, a pang of guilt hitting him square in the chest. “I’m just teasing, Bentley. That’s all in the past now.”
Freddy shook his head and vanished deeper into the house, leaving Abe alone in the foyer, frowning at how things had taken such an unpleasant turn.
The Fletcher househad never looked quite so fine, as far as Abe knew.
Hell, just two years ago, the place had been stripped of its furniture and was as silent and cold as a mausoleum. In the wake of Freddy jilting Dorothy Fletcher and leaving her alone with her sick papa and not a soul to help, things had likely seemed desolate and hopeless in this house.
Things had warmed and filled significantly since then. Dot and Silas had found one another. Percy Fletcher had regained his ability to walk. A baby had joined the family. There was more bringing warmth into this home than just the direly needed furniture.
It was enough to give a cynical man hope. And Abe had always considered himself a bit of a cynic.
“Mr. Murphy!” Silas Cain called, weaving his way through the party guests. Aside from his eyes being the same startling shade of blue, one would likely never guess that this dark-haired, dour-faced man was Freddy Hightower’s half brother. “You came!”
“Of course I did,” Abe replied, greeting the other man with a hearty handshake and a wide grin. “Much to the chagrin of certain third parties.”
Silas grimaced, giving his head a little shake. “I can imagine. I’d ask how that is going, but I’m afraid I can imagine it perfectly well.”
“Oh, you might be surprised.” Abe scanned the crowd, searching for a head of shiny brown curls with narrowed eyes. Plenty of blondes and redheads were about, but he didn’t see the object of his search.
“Oh?”
He sighed, abandoning his search after a second sweep of the room, and turned his gaze to Silas. “I got a full lecture on my way here for tracking mud into the foyer and leaving my waistcoat on the bannister. He’s turning into a proper old hen.”
Cain blinked at him, apparently uncertain if he was being teased with such a story. “You don’t say.”
“I wish I didn’t,” Abe replied with a chuckle. “He was awfully put out at not being invited when I was. I imagine he’d turn himself completely inside out if he found out his mother had been granted access as well.”
Silas made a noise like a dry cough, motioning to a servant with a tray of punch to come in their direction. “I can’t say I was thrilled about that, to tell you the truth, but my wife insisted. After all, how would it look to invite Miss Yardley and not her patroness? Still, it is rather uncomfortable.”
“I won’t pretend to understand the chapbook dramatics of your family ties, Cain, but I do have it on good authority that Lady Bentley knows another person of shared salacious history at this soiree. I daresay she’ll be too distracted to worry about her late husband’s byblows.”
“Charming,” Silas grunted, flattening the line of his mouth. “Is that all I am?”
Abe thought for a moment, tapping his chin. “You also consort with a demon cat.”
Silas huffed, though the quirk at the corner of his lip gave away the sincerity of his discontent.
As though summoned by their conversation, Lady Bentley and Miss Yardley made their appearance, sweeping in through the front doors to the raised interest of several of the gathered guests.
Cain’s bastard status to the late Lord Bentley was not exactly widely known, but neither was it a secret. Abe imagined that there would be a short mention of this scandalous attendance in the gossip sheets in the coming days, even if nothing further of any note took place.
Millie’s eyes found him at Silas’s side almost immediately, her pretty rosebud lips breaking into a quick and demure smile.
Damn him, but it made his heart leap.
“Shall I join you in greeting the lady?” he said quickly, hoping his voice would intercept Cain’s progressing frown.
“What? Oh.” Silas straightened his shoulders and took a sip of his drink. “Yes, I suppose so. Where is Dot?”
She was dancing, as it happened, with her father.
Percy Fletcher’s steps were still uncertain, and he was a man whose posture would never be quite right again, but one might simply think these things were just the result of progressing age. The signs of his apoplexy were lesser by the day. And he positively shone in the presence of his daughter.
Upon spotting her, Silas tarried for such a long time in awe of his wife that Abe had to take him by the elbow and move him toward the Lady Bentley and her fetching companion. But he knew better than to comment upon it.
There were few things that sent Silas Cain into defensive vapors, but any observation of his infatuation with Dot Fletcher was definitely one of them. Or it had been, at least, the last time Abe had attempted it.
