She took him by the hand and towed him along another path. “You are kind,” she said. “Even when you tried to keep your distance from me, you did so because you were trying to spare me from an attraction that you believed had no future. When I was so despondent over Jonathan’s unwillingness to acknowledge me, you were kind. Even your kisses are kind.”
“Kind?” Ash had behaved as a gentleman toward Della—for the most part—but kind kisses did not comport with what they’d exchanged the previous night. “You’d marry me because I’m a nice fellow?”
“You are a very nice fellow,” she said, “also kind, and that is more attractive to me than all the strutting peacockery or witty banter in Mayfair. Sycamore probably tells himself that he took on the Coventry in a bold exercise of business acumen and financial derring-do. That his keen judgment and superior cunning have taken Jonathan’s idea and burnished its glory to an unprecedented shine.”
“That might be Cam’s humble version of events,” Ash said. “The usual version includes saving London’s entire economy, defeating the French, and teaching the cherubim how to wield their harps.”
“Precisely, but the fact is, without you to talk him out of his more fanciful flights, to tend to the books, to keep the staff from quitting en masse when Sycamore is in a biting mood, the club would have closed its doors in a week flat.”
She had led Ash to a corner of the conservatory outfitted as some sort of reading nook or hideaway. A well-cushioned sofa long enough to accommodate a reclining Haddonfield male sat before a trio of wide hassocks. Pillows adorned the sofa corners, and a pair of worn quilts had been folded over the back. The glass walls let in hazy light, while the plants along the walls ensured privacy.
“What has the Coventry to do with your reasons for marrying me?” Ash asked. “And why are we here?”
“I’ll get to that,” Della said, occupying the middle of the sofa, “but the point of my digression is that you quietly allow your younger brother to strut and carry on, the great entrepreneur, such a keen young business talent—and he desperately needs to be regarded as such—while you are the unacknowledged net that allows him to occupy his trapeze so successfully.
“That is kind, Ash Dorning,” she went on. “Sycamore loves that damned club, but he’d make a hash of it without your hand on the ribbons. You could fritter away your days in the country, but you do what you can for Sycamore, when the rest of your family simply wishes he’d do his impersonation of a cockerel someplace else.”
Ash took the place beside her when she patted the cushion. “You mustn’t call Cam a cockerel to his face, no matter how apt the description. For all his posturing, he’s tenderhearted.”
“And that is precisely what I mean. You could easily characterize your brother as an obnoxious mushroom, yet you defend him. That is the behavior of a wise, kind man.”
Ash was losing the thread of the argument—the discussion. Della had brought him to a secluded location, behind two locked doors, on the gardeners’ half day.
“Della, what are we doing here?”
“I made my lists, but the reason we should marry did not lend itself to a tidy description.” She rose, then settled herself astride Ash’s lap. “I thought to convince you of our compatibility by having my way with you.”
“This is our fault,” George said, gazing down into the back garden, where a moment before, Della had led Ash Dorning down the path.
Literally and perhaps figuratively.
Nick remained behind his desk, an absurdly delicate French piece with exquisite inlay. “How is Della’s tendresse for one of the less prepossessing Dornings our fault? We’ve escorted her through Season after Season, introduced her to everybody from ducal heirs to American explorers. She has been gracious to all and smitten with none. Then he shows up.”
George did not know Nicholas all that well. Nick was the oldest legitimate sibling; George was an “extra spare.” They had different mothers. Their stations were different, and the roads they’d traveled had been very different. Nick had known from a scandalously young age that his intimate interest lay with the female of the species. George had never enjoyed the clarity of an exclusive preference in either direction.
Nick had been the Bellefonte earldom’s heir, his path in life affected at every turn by that reality. George had been far down the birth order in a very large family,