Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,115

a minute believe you had anything to do with this.”

Apparently, Mr. Morris had passed the first character test with Papa. At this moment, he had probably passed another.

“Actually, he does,” Ashmont said. “He’s part of the conditions.”

“The what?” said Mr. Morris.

Ashmont briefly outlined the conditions for suppressing the information.

“This is the outside of enough,” Mr. Morris said. “The kind of thing I’d expect from one of my brothers, nothing but trouble my whole life. But she. Good gad, I hardly know what to think. She never offered the slightest hint of disliking . . .” His gaze went to Hyacinth.

“Oh, I doubt she truly dislikes me,” Hyacinth said. “I suspect it’s something else.”

“Well, it’s nothing to do with my father, that’s certain.” Mr. Morris returned his attention to the judge. “He was pleased as he could be when I told him I’d meet with you today. But it’s all of it rather thick, don’t you think? What’s m’ mother care who Miss Pomfret likes or doesn’t? I wonder if she’s taken some kind of turn. Had a shock. Nerves all ahoo. Talking strange, like when old Birdwell started imagining his laundry maid was putting poison in the starch. But is she old enough to go senile?”

“Mr. Morris, perhaps you will pour yourself a glass of brandy,” Mama said. “Ashmont? One for you?”

“Not at present, thank you, Lady deGriffith,” he said. He still had his arm about Cassandra’s shoulders, despite the black looks Papa sent his way.

“Tea, then,” Mama said. “I could do with a cup. So soothing, yet at the same time stimulating to the senses. Hyacinth, my dear, be so good as to ring.”

While the tea was in preparation, Ashmont found himself studying Lady deGriffith. He couldn’t say why, but at the moment she held his attention. She sat calmly enough—calmer than anybody else—observing and listening.

Any of a score of mothers, in these circumstances, would have been weeping and dropping into fainting fits.

He supposed Lady Bartham would have liked to see that. But would she suppose that Cassandra would have the courage to face her parents with the truth?

He had no idea. Women were complicated. He remembered his uncle saying something about the usefulness of listening to women.

Until recently, Ashmont had never, actually, listened. So many words and usually confusing.

Cassandra had changed that. Now he listened with all his might, noting the smallest change in expression. If he’d thought about it, he would have realized that the listening started with her, but then somehow spread out to other women.

The book that Mrs. Roake had suggested clearly had something to do with this change. It had made him take notice of a great many things.

And so he noticed that Lady deGriffith, who ought to have been the most distraught person in the room, seemed to be the calmest. At present she was murmuring something to Lord deGriffith, who had moved his chair slightly to be nearer to her, and was leaning toward her, his head bent, his brow knit.

He muttered something in answer. She spoke again. More muttering. She said something else.

. . . the woman who strengthens her body and exercises her mind will, by managing her family and practicing various virtues, become the friend, and not the humble dependent of her husband.

He’d read the passage over and over. He’d had to read so many passages in the same dogged way, as he’d rarely studied in school, to understand and digest and remember.

This woman was the friend of her husband.

A friend. His gaze moved to Cassandra, who’d drawn her sister aside to share some thought or reassurance or apology.

Whatever they might be talking about, the sight of the two heads bent together, the fair and the redhead, touched something inside him and warmed the place.

This was a family. A loving family.

He’d wanted a family without having much idea of what it was.

This was what it was.

How could she help but want to protect them? He wanted to protect them, too.

At the moment, he didn’t know how he’d do this. But he hadn’t any doubt a scheme would come to him. They always did. Eventually.

The tea arrived, and even before they’d begun to drink, while Lady deGriffith was still pouring, Ashmont had the curious sensation of a change in the atmosphere.

He looked up to find Lord deGriffith’s sharp grey gaze upon him once again, but this time, it seemed somewhat less murderous and somewhat more—what? Resigned? Speculative? Impossible to say, except that he seemed more the politician now and not