Page 91 of Miss Delightful
“I love you, and I respect you, and if I never thanked you for being such a dear older brother, I’m thanking you now.”
He studied her, his gaze both puzzled and concerned. “Are you well?”
Isaiah lifted his glass of punch in her direction and kept his gaze upon her while he sipped. That display of besotted devotion felt like a warning slap.
“No, Michael, I am not well. I am so weary I could drop. If Mornebeth doesn’t stop making sheep’s eyes at me… Oh no. The Prebish twins are threatening to play a duet. Excuse me.”
Dorcas hastened to the piano, where two seven-year-olds were trying to push each other off the bench by virtue of excessively undignified wiggling.
“Ladies,” Dorcas said, “did I hear that a game of tag is starting up out in the churchyard? Food always tastes better when we’ve worked up an appetite, don’t you agree?”
“Is Charlie Bothey playing?” Beatrice Prebish asked, scrambling off the bench. “He’s very fast, but Beulah and I are faster.”
“Fetch your coats, and you can go see for yourselves. Let your parents know where you’ve got off to.”
One disaster averted. Dorcas noted Mrs. Matilda Merridew sitting alone, half hidden by the lectern. That would not do, and Michael and Papa were remiss for neglecting her. She was a young widow just out of first mourning, and such a large, loud gathering had to be overwhelming for her.
“You can’t spare a greeting for your intended?” Isaiah Mornebeth stepped in front of Dorcas as she crossed the hall. His smile was doting, while his eyes held a challenge.
“You are not my intended.” Dorcas kept her voice down and even managed a smile of her own.
“Oh, but I am.” He took her hand and not only bowed over it, but pressed his lips to her knuckles.
“Your behavior is unseemly,” Dorcas hissed, though she knew better than to try to snatch her hand away. Isaiah would either make his grasp hurt, or create a fuss as she tried to free herself.
How did he always, always manage to put her in situations where she had no good options? No safe choices?
“My behavior is devoted, Dorcas, even besotted.”
“You lied to me. You never forgave Michael’s debts.”
Isaiah’s smile became doting. “And I never will. He seems to think a bit of paper with my initials on it will somehow safeguard him from further repercussions. He ismuchmistaken.”
Isaiah had no honor, and worse yet, he exploited the honor of his victims. Alasdhair and Melanie had seen that easily. Michael had paid in full, with interest on debts Isaiah had goaded him to incur. Dorcas had tolerated Mornebeth’s advances all three times. What havoc would he wreak on Papa, on Michael, and on Dorcas herself if she again capitulated to his bullying?
Alasdhair would not care that I am ruined.Melanie would not care. None of the women scrapping for their lives on the streets or in jail would care. They’d commiserate with Dorcas and show her again how to drop a man with her knee.
She called upon their generous tutelage, using her left hand to grip Isaiah’s smallest finger and bend it back until he released his grasp.
“You, Isaiah, are the one who’s much mistaken. Ruin me if you must, ruin Papa and Michael, and spread a few vile rumors about Mrs. Benton while you’re at it, but I will not marry you.” She did him the very great courtesy of keeping her voice down.
“You will regret this,” he retorted. “You will regret it bitterly. You are Grandmama’s choice, and by God, I will have you.”
Over by the main table, Papa appeared a trifle concerned. Mrs. Benton, guarding the dessert table, looked ready to leap across the room and pin Isaiah’s ears back. Ophelia Oldbach and Michael were also watching, and old Mr. Bothey was frankly gawking.
“Excuse me,” Dorcas said. “I am needed elsewhere.” She wasn’t needed anywhere—never had been—but surely she could find someplace else to be useful.
Isaiah grabbed her by the arm. “But, my darling,” he said, declaiming as loudly as Mr. Garrick embarking on a Drury Lane soliloquy, “I offer you my heart, my hand, and my fortune, and you turn aside from me. Such cruelty from one so fair!” He sank to one knee, the rotter, Dorcas’s hand again trapped in his. “Say you will marry me. Say you will make me the happiest man in all the world.”
Mornebeth will try to ambush you, but you must stand fast. Reinforcements are at hand.
Reinforcements werenotat hand, and the entire congregation was looking on with the sort of smiling indulgence a lovesick swain generally merited. Except that Isaiah Mornebeth was not lovesick, and he was not on his best day any sort of swain.
Dorcas twisted her wrist and extricated herself from Isaiah’s grasp. “Do get up, Mr. Mornebeth. We all enjoy the occasional jest at St. Mildred’s, but there’s no need to make a complete cake of yourself.”
His expression became mulish as he popped to his feet. “I am entirely in earnest, Dorcas Delancey. Think carefully before you cast me aside.” His words held a thread of venom, and Michael and Papa were elbowing their way through the gawking crowd.
This was precisely how a lady was ruined. She caused talk and speculation. She aired the family’s dirty linen in public. She spoke intemperately, and shecaused scenes. But Dorcas hadn’t caused this scene. She had not caused anything.
