Page 92 of Lady Daring
“I expect that Lord Pinochle has been bending the Prime Minister’s ear about me,” she said in a subdued tone. “I don’t expect Mr. Pitt to approve of my stealing his maid away when good servants are so hard to keep. Likely there is a crime in it somewhere.”
“Pinochle is in no position to harass anyone at the moment,” Darien said. “It seems his debts have caught up with him and he has withdrawn to the Continent. His servants were offered board wages, but not a one of them wanted to stay in that house.”
Henrietta’s heart fluttered in her chest. Nancy was safe. She need never fear Pinochle might try to find her or her child. “You did this?” she whispered.
His mouth twisted in a wry grin. “My father. You are right that a marquess is a handy threat to wave about.” He coveredher hand with his, squeezing her gloved fingers. “I won’t let them take you, Henry.”
Her throat was too tight to speak. The threat of transportation did seem remote, especially when men like Jasper filled the King’s war chest. But a worse result seemed far more likely—she would be squashed, silenced, dismissed. Her argument about justice and reform and proper rights for women would be flicked from the monarch’s sleeve like a flower bug, while men like Pitt kept the wheel of government turning, crushing the lesser in body and soul.
“Perhaps I shall flee to the Continent too,” she said. “Flanders has always interested me. There is a long history of fabric production.”
She wished, for a wild moment, that they could run away together. Leave everything that was unsettled, everyone they owed behind.
Horatia’s innocent remarks over the past few days had drawn a picture for Henrietta of the Bales family and Darien’s place within it. The spirited youngest, indulged and protected by his brothers. As his family members left him, one by one, he’d found refuge in larking about the Continent, escape in turning his reputation for wildness to some use.
But she better understood his outrage at the unfairness of the world, that the two men destined to inherit the Langford patrimony should not be here to take it up.
“I’ll run away with you if you wed me first.” The sculpted planes of his face were severe, but so dear as he stared down at her. She wanted to trace those fine, beautiful lips with her fingers.
“I thought you had withdrawn your offer,” she said. “We have not seen you at Hines House since—” Since their last, terrible parting.
“I’ve been attending to business. Henry, you goose.” His face filled her vision, her heart, her world. “My offer stands until you finally accept. You won’t be rid of me. Not ever.”
She nodded as tears rose to her eyes. Somehow she, the most unlikely of women, had won this most winsome of men. She was the most unsuitable woman he could possibly have chosen, and he had come, with his father, to support her as she went on trial before the King.
“Could get you a special license,” the marquess rumbled from behind them. “The Archbishop of York is my cousin.”
“You talk to her, then,” Darien said as they lined up outside the King’s presence chamber. “I would swear she loves me, but I can’t persuade her to take on the leg-shackle.”
“Thought it was all they were out for, women,” the marquess remarked.
“Not this one,” Darien said.
Henrietta clenched her hand on her arm, wondering if she were being foolish. She had been convinced that love alone was slender ground on which to marry when there was so much else to consider. But her objections were harder and harder to call to mind. With Darien at her side, all she could think about was how magnificent he was. How deep and good he ran, true to the bone.
She would deal with that discovery later. She had to survive this interview first.
“The Most Honorable Marquess of Langford,” the herald intoned as they filed by rank into the King’s presence chamber. The marquess had left off his coronet, but his dress sword banged against his boot, a mark of respect.
“Langford!” King George sat up in his chair. The red velvet upholstery matched the patterned red canopy suspended from the ceiling. Henrietta glanced at the sculpted head of a woman looming above the fireplace and hoped it was Minerva. She could use some of her strength today.
“Heard you were in town, old man,” the King said. “But Pitt’s taking up my afternoon. Some chit he wants to put through the wringer.”
“The chit,” said the marquess, “is to be my daughter. So naturally I interest myself in her future.” He made a deep leg to Queen Charlotte. “Your Majesty.”
“Hello, Cassius,” the Queen said with a small smile.
“Haha! Hear that, Pittsy?” the King bellowed across the room. “Daring’s getting shackled to the bluestocking! You owe me a pony.”
“You may add it to the great list of debts I owe you, sir,” came the reply.
“Lord Darien Bales, son of the Marquess of Langford, and Miss Henrietta Wardley-Hines, daughter of Sir Jasper Wardley-Hines,” the herald droned, and Darien swept Henrietta into the room.
“Riveted him after all, did you?” the King said with glee. “Well done, minx! You just won me five hundred pounds off Pittsy. Much obliged.”
In fact, the King’s was not the only bet lodged on the chances of Miss Wardley-Hines succeeding where so many had failed, and many a gentleman forced to settle a debt entered into the book at White’s laid a curse on her head and on those of her progeny down five generations.
“Your Majesties.” Henrietta made her curtsies to the King and Queen.
