Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,116

quite so much the vengeful father.

“Ah, then, that’s better,” Lady deGriffith said into the quiet. “Difficulties seem to fall back into proper proportion, rather magically, over a cup of tea.”

“All I see at present is a matter of her word against ours,” Cassandra said. “When you pare away the threats, real and imaginary, it comes down to this could happen and that could happen. The question is, can she make it happen? Can she make it impossible for any of us to show our faces in Society again? Can she cause Hyacinth to be tarred with the same brush as I? Will the world blame you, Papa, for having a wanton hussy for a daughter?”

“Yes,” said Lord deGriffith. “It can be done. A dedicated smear campaign can destroy a career.”

Cassandra stared at her father, her grey gaze bleak. “Might this destroy yours?”

“Not likely.”

“But it won’t be pleasant,” she said.

Her father shrugged.

“Not pleasant?” Morris said. “Miss Pomfret, I don’t like to distress you, but it’ll make Lord deGriffith’s job a deal harder. This sort of thing gets out, the satirists have a festival. Then there’s people laughing behind your back, that sort of thing. As bad as boys at school—you know, making remarks about a fellow’s sister. What’s a gentleman to do? Call them all out? He’d be fighting every dawn for months.”

“Should he be so fortunate as to survive the engagements,” Lord deGriffith said. “And should he be so fortunate as to survive his wife’s wrath, were he to undertake them.”

“Makes it deuced hard to get any proper work done,” Morris went on, “when people are making puns and jokes at your expense. It’s a low thing to do, and I wonder at my mother. I still think I ought to talk to her, at least find out what maggot’s got into her brain.”

And here Miss Flower smiled upon him, and lo, his face became suffused with crimson.

That girl, Ashmont thought, could do anything she liked with poor Morris. But then, Ashmont was in much the same case with her sister.

“That is very good of you, Mr. Morris,” Lady deGriffith said. “But it will not be necessary.” She put down her empty teacup and rose. “I shall speak to Lady Bartham myself.”

Lord deGriffith sprang from his chair. “Jane.”

“This time she has gone too far,” said she. And out of the room she went.

Chapter 18

Cassandra’s father hurried out of the study after her mother. Cassandra heard their voices and footsteps gradually recede. Then one set of footsteps returned. They were not her mother’s.

Her father came to the study doorway. “I will speak to Cassandra. Duke, you will wait. Mr. Morris, I had hoped to continue our conversation, but as you see, family matters have arisen. You are welcome to wait, though I cannot say how long the wait will be. Hyacinth, be so good as to show these gentlemen the billiard room, and have refreshments sent to them. Regardless what it does for your mother’s faculties, I doubt that a cup of tea suffices, in the circumstances.”

“Sir, I’d like to speak to you first,” Ashmont said.

“You will speak to me second,” said Papa. “My daughter comes first. Kindly do as I say. My patience is shredded to its last thread.”

Ashmont looked to Cassandra for confirmation. She nodded. He went out with the others.

Her father walked back to his place behind the desk.

Cassandra stood in front of it, hands folded at her waist. “It might be wisest to disown me,” she said. “I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me sooner. It would solve a host of problems, and spike Lady Bartham’s guns in the bargain.”

“I will not disown you,” he said. “Among other things, my mother would never forgive me. She would call me puritanical, and overfastidious, and those are the kindest terms. But I shouldn’t do it, mother or no mother. You are my daughter, and you should have to do a great deal worse than this for me to cast you out. Not that you are to consider this a challenge.”

She wanted to run behind the desk and hug him, the way she’d used to do when she was a child. She only swallowed the lump in her throat.

“I do not approve,” he said. “I do not like it. I especially do not like the fellow on whose account you got yourself into all this trouble. But it seems to me that, at the very least, you act in accordance with your principles. As your mother has pointed