and led Della across to the sideboard where the canapés were on offer.
They hadn’t quite reached their destination, and conversations had barely resumed, when the Marchioness of Tavistock curtseyed before Della.
“Felicitations on your nuptials, my lady, Mr. Dorning. I wish you every happiness.” She was a willowy woman, auburn-haired, with strong features. Her age could not be much more than twenty-five, but her self-possession was that of a dowager. As a widowed marchioness, she was also very likely the ranking guest at the party, and her gesture all but compelled the other guests to follow suit.
Della stood hand in hand with Ash, graciously accepting good wishes for the next fifteen minutes, and her calm good cheer never faltered.
All the while, Ash was aware of two things. First, Chastain watched this little performance from a corner of the parlor, his expression hovering between snide and calculating.
Second, Della’s hand was colder than a January night wind.
“I have to wonder,” William Chastain mused. “Did dear Mama know that Lady Della and her toady would be on the guest list? I believe she must have.”
“Dorning is an earl’s son,” Francis Portly replied. Portly, whose build was actually on the lanky side, was a jovial sort who paid his debts graciously, though they were always the modest sums resulting from cautious play. “As toadies go, he outranks you, Chastain.”
William arranged his cards. In any combination, they weren’t much of a hand. “He’s an earl’s younger son, all but in trade, and he married used goods to keep her from ruin.”
He tossed out a five of clubs, then realized that had been a poor choice.
Portly laid a ten on top of the five and moved his peg two points. “Dorning is an earl’s increasingly wealthy son, and he married an earl’s daughter, not some émigré’s little nun, as you so ungallantly refer to the new Mrs. Chastain. Besides, you are accounted responsible for Lady Della’s ruin. Not well done of you, sir.”
They had chosen to play this friendly game of cribbage in the library rather than the cardroom, the better to make frequent use of the decanter.
William had referred to his bride as a little nun often in Portly’s hearing. Clarice wasn’t quite a nun—she hadn’t insisted on having all the candles out on their wedding night, for example—but she certainly wasn’t a siren. She was modest and agreeable, vexing qualities in a wife.
Lady Della, by contrast, had some fight in her.
William laid another five on Portly’s ten. Portly finished the pointing with a jack and moved his peg another hole.
“Portly, you wound me. I attempted to rescue a spinster from her lonely fate, spare the fair Clarice a husband she didn’t want, and you paint me the villain.”
“Count up your hand.”
“A pair of fives.” Fives were particularly valuable cribbage cards. That a pair of them had yielded only two points was also annoying.
“Fifteen-two, fifteen-four, fifteen-six, and a double run for fourteen.” Portly moved his peg about halfway up the board. “The settlements wounded you. I thought you’d never stop bellowing.”
Portly had served as William’s witness at the wedding and had thus heard William’s outrage as Papa had explained the details of the arrangements. Even Clarice had seemed displeased that most of the money remained under the collective control of the parents. William was sure that provision had been added after he’d seen Fontaine’s last offer.
Clarice would doubtless attempt to bankrupt William with her fripperies, but he’d teach her the folly of trying to manipulate her husband. He was looking forward to it, in fact.
“I have never been reliant upon my parents’ largesse,” William said, refilling his brandy glass. “Marriage won’t change that.”
Portly found another six points in his crib. “Marriage should change that. You are begging for a bullet between the eyes, Chastain, and the Dornings know their way around firearms. Your father’s title will die out with you, and the fair Clarice will become a wealthy widow. Is that what you want?”
What William wanted was to see Lady Della and her devoted Dorning brought low. Della had broken her word. She had promised to tell Papa that the elopement was her idea and that she earnestly longed to marry William. Instead, she’d been yodeling to the rafters about how dare you and this is not what we discussed.
Her volte-face meant William was doomed to marriage with a woman who was about as interesting between the sheets as an old pillow. Clarice’s complete lack of amatory enthusiasm added insult to indignity, and once William got