Or anybody else’s, of course, not that he’d want to be anybody else’s.
“You aren’t appalled?” he asked as they made their way toward the buffet tent.
“Of course I am appalled,” Della replied. “That you should have to contend with this all on your own, that you’ve carried this burden by yourself for years, that medical science has nothing worthwhile to offer you… You have consulted with physicians?”
“Several.”
“And they were generally useless.” She stalked along as if the buffet tent were an enemy citadel in need of storming. “Bleedings, tonics, dull books, bland diets, harp music. All of it useless, am I right?”
“You are.” And why would she know this? “My oldest brother, Casriel, is a talented harper, but his efforts have never had any noticeable effect. When I am at the Hall, it’s all I can do on fine days to sit on my balcony and wave back to the children playing in the garden should they take any notice of me.”
Della sailed right past Lady Caldicott with a single terse nod. “Does anything help?”
Her ladyship gaped after them, looking like a surprised bulldog. Ash managed a tip of his hat and a smile, but Della was intent on her objective.
“Nothing helps.” That wasn’t quite true. “Nothing helps for very long. You must be quite hungry.”
“I want this ordeal behind us,” she said. “Flinging me up before polite society, like a clay target to draw their fire, has grown tedious. You and I have matters to discuss.”
Ash would allow Della to discuss them, just this once. She must satisfy herself that his situation was hopeless, and then she would understand that their situation was hopeless.
Not that they had a situation.
“Do you want to know what helps?” Ash said. “What temporarily knocks the damned beast back on his haunches?”
“Do you have a name for your beast?” Della asked, taking up two plates and shoving them at him. “Women name their menses, you know. Aunt Betty came to call, that sort of thing.”
He accepted the plates. “I hadn’t known that.” Had not ever wanted to know such a thing and would be unable to forget it.
She gave him a look, assessing, a trifle peevish. “There is much you do not know, Ash Dorning. Tell me how you placate your beast.”
“A thorough beating improves my spirits considerably, but only for a short time.” He had not meant to say that. Not to a lady, not to anybody. He should have referred to putting up his fives, a few rounds at Jackson’s, anything but the bald, pathetic truth.
Della slapped a spoonful of apple compote onto his plate. “Do you mean with riding crops and that sort of thing?”
The tent was all but deserted, an amazing stroke of luck. “What do you know of that sort of thing?” Ash asked, keeping his voice down, despite the lack of an audience.
“I have a regiment of older, randy, naughty brothers. The naughtiest of the lot is George, who looks the most angelic. He has explained the English vice to me. I do not entirely understand it. Ham, fowl, or beef?”
Ash did not understand how a lady could discuss sexual games between the vegetables and the cheeses.
“Ham, please,” Ash said. “I am a pugilist. A regular at Jackson’s. I box.”
“And thumping away on another fellow raises your spirits?” she asked, adding some cheese and bread to their plates.
“It’s not like that,” Ash said. “It’s not a friendly round of thumping away. Perhaps we should change the subject.”
“No, we should not.” Della forked a final wedge of cheese atop his ham. “If I let you get away with changing the subject now, when the discussion has grown interesting, you will think I permit such evasions in the normal course. I do not.”
He had expected that Della would be if not disgusted, then at least put off by his mental frailties. That she would look at him differently. Her scrutiny was as intense as ever, and in no regard was Della Haddonfield put off. If anything, she looked determined and curious.
Which cheered Ash, even as it gave him cause to worry. “Let’s eat down by the water.”
Della collected two glasses of punch and some table napkins and preceded him out the tent’s back entrance.
“Tell me about this boxing,” she said. “How does it help?”
“It just does.”
She cut across the grass to the path that led down to the river. A slight breeze had sprung up, sending fallen leaves dancing across the lawn. Della made