before I met her again. Jim Owens wasn’t a good man, but Peter Walsh is, only I haven’t known him long…”
“It would not be kind to wait for an offer of marriage before you see your mother,” he said flatly.
“I know,” she whispered. She raised her head with conscious bravery and took a deep breath. “I’ll go on my next day off.”
“Which is when? Next week?”
“The week after,” she admitted. “I’ll get the evening off on Wednesday, but there won’t be time to go to Kidfield and back.”
“Write to her,” Dan commanded.
“I can’t write,” she confessed.
Dan regarded her with a mixture of amusement and frustration. “Very well. I’ll tell her.”
“Thank you.” She flashed him a half-frightened smile and turned away before swinging back and saying hastily, “Sir, you will tell her I’m sorry?”
Dan nodded and strode on to his bedchamber. When he thought about it, he wouldn’t mind a jaunt into Kidfield for a change of scenery. Though it would probably be more fun if Juliet came, too.
He smiled to himself at that, for he couldn’t really go jaunting about the country with an earl’s daughter.
Five minutes later, he entered the breakfast room to find everyone there. He bowed but received little acknowledgment beyond his mother’s bright smile and Aunt Hetty’s vague one.
He helped himself to the fresh eggs and toast he found on the sideboard dishes and sat down.
“So, will you go over to Hornby today?” his mother asked her sisters.
Tabetha immediately frowned at her. “Why?”
“You talked about it yesterday,” Jenny reminded her.
“It depends on whether or not there is time after I have seen Papa.”
“Has he sent for you?” Hetty asked in surprise.
“No, but I expect he will, for I didn’t see him yesterday.”
“Neither did I,” Hetty said gloomily.
“The doctor came this morning,” Colin told Dan. “He believes his lordship somewhat improved. It’s possible you can go back to London.”
“Oh, that was always possible,” Dan assured him. “Are you leaving?”
“Of course not. I am my mother’s escort.”
“Why would he go?” Tabetha added. “He is not here merely to toady his inheritance out of his grandfather!”
Dan smiled. “More coffee, Aunt?”
She seemed confused by this offer, though she accepted automatically.
While Dan poured it for her, Jenny said, “Actually, you should go to Hornby. There is some calumny circulating in the press about one of the Cosland daughters. It would be kind to show you don’t believe such nonsense.”
Dan set down the coffee pot, watching the reactions of his aunts and cousin. Hetty’s eyebrows lifted in bewilderment. Colin’s lips tightened, and Tabetha looked supercilious.
“Yes, I heard about that,” Tabetha said carelessly. “Of course, Lady Cosland would never countenance such behavior, but the eldest daughter was always lively, and living with the Princess of Wales, you know, must have encouraged such manners beyond what is proper.”
“The princess wasn’t there,” Colin said dryly. “Which is the root of the problem.”
“No, it isn’t,” Jenny said. “The root of the problem is the spite behind such obvious lies.”
“Well, you would stand up for someone in the midst of a scandal,” Tabetha said maliciously.
She was right, of course, but Dan wasn’t having such mud slung at either his mother or Juliet Lilbourne.
“If there was scandal about my mother, it was as manufactured as this was, by those who have nothing better to talk about than other people’s lives. It’s nothing but envy.”
“Envy!” Colin repeated, outraged.
“Envy,” Dan repeated, holding his gaze. “But by all means, run up to Hornby and tell the countess her daughter is too lively, and it’s her own fault her name is traduced in the gutter press. Which, of course, none of you have ever read.”
“Have you?” Colin shot back.
“Naturally,” he mocked.
“The point is,” Jenny interrupted this locking of horns, “if you wish to support the countess, you should call on her. You might even learn the truth of the matter.”
For a moment, Dan could see these arguments weighed with Tabetha, then suspicion returned to her eyes. “You want us gone for the afternoon so you can cozen Papa without us knowing what you are about!”
Dan squashed his surge of temper with some difficulty. “I, for one, won’t wait until the afternoon. I shall be off cozening immediately after breakfast.”
“You can’t,” Colin said, staring. “He hasn’t sent for you.”
“I need to talk to him,” Dan said. “He can throw me out of he wants to.”
They waited, with some glee, he suspected, for this to happen. But he still strolled alone into his grandfather’s dressing room.
“Good morning, Waits. Is he awake?”
“Of course, I’m awake!”