Page 70 of Miss Delightful
“I will not take tea with you.”
His smile became pained. “As much as I would enjoy holding this cup to your lips and watching you choose between the ruin of a frock and a simple sip of tea, today is not the day for that little exercise. Let’s be logical, shall we? You find my advances abhorrent. They aren’t. My advances are as skilled and respectful as any other fellow’s, but you have decided to be affronted. Very well.”
His gaze fell on the little pot of forget-me-nots, the blue of the flowers the same shade as Alasdhair’s eyes.
“Be affronted,” he went on. “You are a lady, and your brother’s behavior put you in a situation ladies do not expect to deal with. You made the only reasonable choice.”
“Youput me in that situation.”
“I gave you a way to preserve your family from serious disgrace, Dorcas, but let’s not quibble about the past. The present sees Michael Delancey, son of dear old Tom Delancey, returning to London for a visit, but we all know his real agenda. He’s served out his penance in the north, put in a few years before the mast at a drafty rural manse. He served his time marrying lusty couples and baptizing squalling infants. Now he seeks advancement, and thus he’s flaunting himself before the church leadership in London.”
A moan of grief was building in Dorcas’s soul, for she could see exactly where Isaiah’s little homily on Michael’s ambitions was heading.
“You will tarnish Michael’s reputation at precisely the time when he’s trying to make a good impression.”
“Heavens, you have a lively imagination, Dorcas. I would never willingly interfere with a friend’s ambitions. I might, though, express a quiet hope to my superiors at Lambeth that Michael Delancey has seen the error of his youthful ways. I might suggest, out of kindness, that the blandishments of Town ought not to be dangled in Michael’s very face, lest he yield to London’s many temptationsagain, as he did so woefully in the past.”
“You led him into temptation.”
Isaiah took a placid sip of his tea. “He will tell you that, Dorcas, and be very convincing, but I assure you, I was trying to dissuade him from his folly at every step along the way. I prayed for him, and I would not abandon him and leave him entirely friendless in unsavory company.”
Isaiah shook his head, the picture of regret.
Dorcas wanted to smash the teapot over his head. Two thoughts preserved her from giving in to that impulse. First, Isaiah would delight in her display of temper and gently hint that her spinster status had inclined her to a touch of hysteria. She could not risk handing him that weapon.
Second, he was not bluffing. He could sink Michael’s reputation in the course of a day’s idle socializing. A word here, a pointed silence there. An intimation in the right ears and a suggestion in the wrong ones. Papa’s prospects would suffer by association to the degree Isaiah wanted them to. Dorcas might well be ruined without a word of Isaiah’s perfidy toward her being spoken.
Nothing had changed.She was older and wiser, but she was still at the mercy of a man who saw her and her family only as tools with which to advance his own interests.
“You are silent,” he said, perusing her. “I have ever admired your common sense, Dorcas. Humility is a virtue, and any woman I take to wife will be a very virtuous woman.”
“I cannot marry you.”
He sat back and sighed. “We aren’t even courting yet, but you need not make a great drama of this. I will be a considerate husband—you already know this. I am not a loutish lover, and I am prepared to limit my intimate demands upon you. Grandmother has decided that we will suit, and thus I will also arrive at the altar with a certain lack of freedom in my choice. I will make the best of the situation. Besides, I am the precise sort of husband you need. I will be kind but firm.”
By Lucifer’s pitchfork, his arrogance exceeded all bounds. “I am not a lapdog that the likes of you must show me how to go on in company.”
He sat forward, his expression eerily earnest. “Dorcas, you struggle. With your temper, with your outspokenness. You could easily fall into the willful, opinionated stubbornness of the confirmed spinster, but I will spare you that. We will have a few children—perfect children, of course—upon whom we will dote. I can offer you a good life, but because we got off on a somewhat unusual foot years ago, you regard my offer with dismay.”
He patted her knee, and Dorcas had all she could manage not to shrink away from him.
“Take some time to adjust to the idea,” he said, rising. “A highly strung female must be dealt with gently. I’ll settle into my post at the palace. We’ll enjoy Michael’s visit, and perhaps our wedding can serve as his excuse to tarry a few more weeks in the south. Old Tom will like that notion. I will take my leave of you. No need to show me out.”
He bent and brushed a kiss to her forehead. Dorcas ignored him and kept her gaze on the fire. She thus did not see him push the pot of forget-me-nots to the floor, but she heard the crash and saw the flowers and dirt scattered all over the carpet.
“My apologies,” Isaiah said. “I’ll send the housekeeper along to clean up the mess.”
“Don’t bother.”
He bowed and left Dorcas alone to repot the abused little blooms as best she could. The note, now stained and damp, read,Fondest regards, A.She was still sweeping dirt off the rug when Mrs. Benton appeared in the doorway a quarter hour later.
“He’s here! The prodigal has returned! Master Michael has safely arrived, and you must come on the instant to welcome him! I’ve already sent the potboy over to the church to fetch your father.”
Dorcas dredged up a smile, set the bedraggled flowers on the windowsill, and went to greet her long-lost brother.
Chapter Fifteen
Dorcas had been indisposed the previous week. She’d handed Alasdhair that confidence, along with her bonnet and scarf, and then blushed as vermillion as a winter sunset. He had hugged her, because she was simply too dear not to hug, and had ordered Henderson to serve up a pot of chamomile tea with ginger biscuits.
