Page 32 of The Duke's Impetuous Darling
“Yes. Silly, isn’t it?”
Marjorie nodded. "He came here for you, sweetheart."
"Did he?" Del glanced around the room, tears in her eyes. "Who would know?"
“Marjorie and I do. And in your heart, you do too.”
Marjorie dug a handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it into Del’s hand. “Shall we sit together?”
"I prefer to stand," Bee said.
“As do I,” added Del.
“So I’ll stand with you,” said Marjorie with a tremulous grin.
Bee found in her younger sisters’ gazes the trust and companionship that had buoyed them through years of loss, deaths, disappointment, scandal and poverty. It was easy to love when life was good. More vital to keep faith with each other no matter what came.
* * *
He'd kill him.
Alastair shot up so quickly from his chair at the table that the damn thing tottered backward. He caught it, set it right and found Griff staring at him.
His friend approached with Bromley beside him. "I say, are you well?"
"Incensed." He curled his fingers into a fist. If theCustoms man, Sir Henry Torrens was right in use of his evidence, this blackguard Carlson was pretending to woo Bee. Perhaps seduce her and ruin her, all the better to burnish his own reputation. Alastair had to protect her.
Griff placed a strong hand on his shoulderwhile Lord Bromley gazed at him with curiosity.
"I have problems controlling my anger," he informed Bromley. "Griff knows. He's seen it. I apologize. I can usually master it, but this man beside Bee incensed me. I think he's drunk too much and assumes too much."
Bromley glanced toward the doorway as the guests departed for the music room. "I saw him. If Wellington's able men can't surround him and usher him up to his room, who can?"
Griff smiled. "He does need to retire from the field."
Bromley rubbed his hands together in glee. "Let's go. If we'd do the same for his friend Hallerton, I'd be most grateful."
Alastair noted that Hallerton had sat beside Delphine tonight at dinner and that man had appeared as forward to Delphine as Carlson to Bee. "Nothing like friends in arms to win the day."
But as the three walked toward the music room, Alastair could not suppress his ire. He breathed deeply, purposely. That had helped him calm himself before. But as he and his friends entered the small room, he noted that Carlson maneuvered to stand beside Bee. Marjorie and Delphine inserted themselves between him and his prey.
What's more, Simms raised his proverbial disapproving brow at the man, then caught Alastair’s eye. He strode toward the men as if summoning the troops to save the day. "Time to intervene, don't you think?”
"With pleasure," Griff said.
Alastair went to Bee. "Are you well?"
She sent him a wan smile. "I am now."
He grasped her hand in brief regard, then let it go.
But his gaze traveled around the room...and it was ablaze with candles. The glint of metal thread in the drapes, the gilt upon the wainscoting, the shine of the ivory French pianoforte and reflections off the golden harp assaulted his eyes.
The light was a necessity for the musicians. Certainly. He understood that. He himself liked a goodly amount of it cast upon his score sheets. But his eyesight since Waterloo blurred in these bouts of brilliance and tore at his reason. His sense of place and time askew.
Griff's step-mother, the countess, rose before her guests and declared she was honored to have so many accomplished musicians with her for the Christmas holiday. "Our first will be our own, my niece, Miss Delphine Craymore. My dear, please, at the pianoforte."
Bee's youngest sister took her place and asked for Bromley to turn the pages for her. That left Griff to interfere with Carlson's attempts to draw near to Bee. Worry ate at Alastair. The brilliance in the room suffused him, sending flashes of lightning through his head. Whatever Delphine played, Alastair could not name it.
