Page 74 of Miss Dignified
Dylan ran his fingers over the hem of his waistcoat. The stitchery was mostly blackwork over black silk, but Lydia had added a few golden daffodils to her design. Discreet, exquisite, and delightful, because the work was hers.
“We’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Tegan said, spooning up a bite of her lemon ice.
“Ask. I will be coming home when the Season concludes, or shortly thereafter.” Dylan had made that decision two days previously. Bowen had received a note purportedly from his brother, claiming William had recovered from a bender and found himself in Portsmouth, where he planned to look for work along the docks.
A man with one functional hand should not have to seek such employment, but Dylan’s heart for that fight was waning. William had a strong back and sooner or later would leave his brother’s watchful eye.
“Dylan is planning to come home,” Marged said, waving her spoon as if to summon attention from the pigeons strutting on the walkway. “Alert theTimes.”
“Send for the fatted calf,” Bronwen muttered. “Again.”
“I am being ambushed.” Dylan folded his arms, crossed his legs at the ankle, and closed his eyes as if to cadge a nap, though he was in truth spoiling for a good sibling row. “Fire away, ladies. I know I’ve tarried in London longer than anticipated, but I’ve had my reasons.”
“We gave up on your promises to come home two years ago, Dylan.” Tegan spoke with patient amusement, and that grated more than Bronnie’s or Marged’s sneering. “We’re more curious now as to why you have an earl’s sister employed as your housekeeper.”
Dylan had been shot twice. Once a graze, once a more serious wound where a ball had passed through his arm. On both occasions, his body had known of the wound a few instants before his mind had accepted the truth of the injury.
Tegan’s words cast him into the same lacuna, where his reactions lagged behind reality. On the battlefield, that gap could be fatal. Sitting on a bench beneath the maples of Berkeley Square, Dylan told himself not to panic. He kept his eyes closed and his posture relaxed.
“I did not know Mrs. Lovelace was an earl’s daughter when she sought the post. She executes her duties conscientiously, and that is all you need to know of the matter.”
“She takes a very great risk,” Tegan observed, setting aside her empty bowl, “dusting your parlors and blacking your andirons.”
Dylan sat up and swiveled his gaze at his oldest sister. “What risk?”
“I recognized her,” Tegan said. “While you were off at war, I was subjected to a London Season. I noticed Lady Lydia then because she was different. She wasn’t dimwitted or vain, she never gossiped, and she was seldom asked to dance despite being an earl’s daughter. She has a certain presence, a presence that does not suffer fools, and I envied her that.”
“Cousin Jeanette,” Marged said, scraping her spoon against her bowl, “who gained something of a reputation as a matchmaker, recognized her ladyship, or perhaps Cousin Sycamore did. Those two are very much in each other’s pockets, and you’d think an earl’s son would know of other earls’ daughters.”
“You’d think,”—Bronwen took up the narrative—“that a man renowned for his reconnaissance skills would realize that polite society’s vigilance, when it comes to searching out scandal, has no limit.”
Dylan wanted to pace, but he would not give his sisters that satisfaction. “As ambushes go, this one is proceeding in the usual fashion. Surprise the unsuspecting, attack in force, storm the opponent before he can get organized, and overwhelm him with numbers and strategic advantage. I must ask myself, though, what sort of surrender do you seek from me? Lady Lydia is free to leave my employ at any time, and she took the post of her own volition.”
“Typical,” Bronwen muttered. “You see an attack where we offer only support. Dylan, what are you about, employing Lady Lydia as a domestic? What issheabout? Why must she hide in your pantries, andwhat have you done to aid her?”
Dylan considered dodging and dissembling, but these were his sisters, and he hadn’t done anything wrong.
Not truly, awfully wrong. Lamentable and regrettable, yes, but notwrong. “She did not disclose her identity until after she gained my trust. I do not approve of self-serving liars.”
“Papa would be proud of you,” Marged said, taking the last spoonful of her ice. “So sure of your principles. So upright and steadfast.”
Papa, may he rest in peace, had been a rigid, righteous old pedant. “You insult me because I expect honesty from those who take my coin?”
“How many times,” Tegan mused, “have you lied to us, Dylan? You tell us you’ll come home with us, but something always necessitates that you tarry yet longer in London. You meant to pass Yuletide in Wales, but that hasn’t happened all three times you’ve proffered such a plan. You intend to return in time for harvest, when the weather improves… Lie after lie after lie.”
“And do you know,” Marged said, “what results from your lying?”
“I do not lie.”
“We lie too,” Marged went on, as if Dylan hadn’t spoken. “We invent excuses for you, regimental business, difficulties for our cousins, bad weather to the east, a bout of ague—you are very prone to the ague since Waterloo. We’ve become adept at supporting the fiction that you yearn to come home soon, always soon.”
“I do expect to go home. I long to go home. Why would you lie about my reasons for staying in London?”
The silence that ensued felt very much like the silence that had followed when Dylan had reported seeing French forces where French forces were not supposed to be. Pained, incredulous, profoundly disappointed.
“How can you not know,” Bronwen said, “that without your consequence, we are a trio of increasingly pathetic spinsters? Rhys Campbell left for Scotland after trying to compromise me. His efforts failed, and I made it known we were off to London to fetch you home. I might have mentioned that you are a dead shot and in some ways as old-fashioned as our papa. And no, Dylan, he did not violate my person. Margs prevented him from transgressing to that extent.”
“He tried it with me too,” Tegan said. “I’m old enough to be desperate, of course, or perhaps my darling brother has spent my settlements living the high life in London. I had no idea that having found me unreceptive, Rhys would simply keep opening cupboards so to speak. He’s handsome and charming. I was supposed to be flattered.”
