Heiress in Red Silk (Duke's Heiress #2) - Madeline Hunter Page 0,85

chair. “I swear, I will kill Nicholas. The coward, leaving this to me alone.” He sighed deeply. “I did not say she took service with a family, Kevin. I said she took service in a house.” He turned his head and looked Kevin right in the eye.

Kevin looked back, perplexed. Then clouds parted and light flowed. Of course. He had been an idiot not to see it before.

Just then the door opened and Nicholas strode in. He came over and looked at the two of them. His expression fell. He sent a questioning glance to Chase, who merely nodded.

“Welcome back, Nicholas,” Kevin said. “Just in time to be spared the moment when Chase told me my intended was a whore.”

* * *

“I should have seen it at once. After all, it is where I learned her name. At Mrs. Darling’s.” Kevin mused over the revelation while Nicholas sat down. “I assumed they only bought bonnets from her. Not that she had lived there. Yet it would have been an excellent place for Uncle to have met her, because it was one of his haunts.”

“You are taking this awfully well,” Nicholas said. “It must be a shock.”

“Not too much of a shock. It does fill the gap neatly.”

“But to learn—That is, to discover—”

“Better now than later,” Chase said.

“So you said this afternoon,” Nicholas said. “I told him your intentions and he turned green. I got it out of him. We decided we should tell you. Better now than later, he said.”

“You decided I should tell him, as I recall,” Chase snapped.

“I feared a big Kevin scene. Cursing. Rudeness. Nasty sarcasm. Only look, he is being a real soldier despite the destruction of his plans.”

“That is because this doesn’t affect my plans.”

They both peered at him. Nicholas looked dismayed. “Damnation, I knew it. Practical marriage hell. He is enthralled by her, Chase. He’ll do this even now that he knows.”

“I’m never enthralled. I’m sure, however, that while she may have taken service in that house, she was not one of the ladies of the house.”

“You can’t be sure,” Chase said.

“Mrs. Darling would never employ a woman as ignorant as this one is. That house is famous for an elevated level of expertise.”

It took a five count for them to comprehend what he had said.

Chase looked relieved, probably because he would not have to explain to Minerva how he had ruined Miss Jameson’s possible engagement. “Tell me, if you didn’t know with such certainty that she could not have worked there as a soiled dove, would you still become engaged to her?”

“Yes.” It surprised Kevin that he knew the answer right away.

“Good. Because it is inevitable that men probably saw her there. One day one of them may say something. You might start practicing with pistols as well as swords.”

Chapter Seventeen

Rosamund did not see Kevin for two days after their return. After spending the second one with her morning tutor, then setting her house in order, she donned a bonnet and walked to Minerva’s house in the afternoon. As she handed over her card, she realized it was the first time she had paid a social call like this, in her new role of wealthy heiress.

She wondered if Minerva knew about her liaison with Kevin. It entered her mind that her friend might disapprove, and not receive her.

While she waited for the verdict, she pictured what it would be like to be rebuffed. It would happen eventually. Perhaps not with Minerva, but some other woman. She might think she had started a friendship only to arrive like this and be turned away. A husband or father might interfere, or her new friend might prove not to be a friend at all.

Kevin would spare her much of that, but there was only so much he could do. She had not lived in society, but she knew it could be cruel. The more people learned about her, the less they would want her in their circles. Daughter of a tenant farmer might be the least of it. If word ever was spread about her time working at Mrs. Darling’s brothel, she doubted anyone would talk to her again.

Not for the first time during the last few days, she weighed the likelihood of that happening. She had been a servant, and they are rarely noticed. In that white cap and shapeless sack dress, she was hardly impressive. Nor did she spend much time among the women once their trade began. She completed her duties prior to