Page 106 of The Duelist for the Ton
“You took advantage of her weakness?”
She nodded, as more tears rolled down her cheeks.
“So you came to see me this morning not to plead on your behalf, but hers.”
She nodded. “Punish me all you like. I shall remain within these walls until you declare me fit to venture outside. I-I’ll mend the sheets—even do the laundry—anything you name, if you’ll only tell Mrs. Stowe she can remain.”
“And why’s that, so you can take advantage of her again?”
“I promise I won’t,” Angela said. “I-I didn’t like seeing her in pain, but Heath said…” She flinched, and he drew her close once more.
“Very well,” he said. “Speak his name no more and I’ll reinstate Mrs. Stowe. I’ll admit that until yesterday I was very satisfied with her services. She’s even encouraged you to practice your music—somethingInever managed to achieve.”
“She’s very proficient at the pianoforte, at least when her hand doesn’t pain her.”
“Her hand?”
“I saw it once,” Angela said, “when she took off her gloves—the fingers were misshapen. But when she caught me looking, she put her gloves back on and looked so angry, I didn’t like to ask her.”
“Quite right,” Stephen said, recalling how the quiet, demure chaperone always seemed to favor her left hand. When she’d signed their contract with her left hand she’d hesitated, a flicker of fear in her eyes. But he’d refrained from asking. After all, which hand a person favored did not affect their ability to undertake their duties, no matter what Society thought.
Society be damned.
He smiled as Portia’s voice whispered in his mind. His beautiful, intelligent, courageous fiancée, who doubtless would think nothing of scaling a garden wall to meet her lover. Why punish Angela for having the same impulse when her only sin had been to believe that Heath Moss loved her? Countless women of greater experience and sophistication had succumbed to that rake’s charms. Angela was an innocent—and did not deserve to be censured for behaving as many others would have done.
What mattered was that she’d learned her lesson.
Stephen took his sister’s hands and guided her to her feet. “I’m pleased that you came here to plead the case for another,”he said. “For that alone, I shall ask Mrs. Stowe to continue to chaperone you until the end of the Season.”
“And can you forgive…him?”
“Surely you don’t mean…”
“Nothim,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I meant the Farthing. After all, you shot him.”
“I fear I must ask you not to make a request that I cannot honor,” he said. “You must pray, for my sake and for his, that I do not encounter any injured young men over the next few days, for I don’t know if I’ll be able to restrain myself.”
She took his hand and squeezed it. “Then for that, I am truly sorry. I cannot bear the thought of the brother I admire harboring such hatred for another.”
He placed a kiss in her hair. “Then do not think of it, dearest sister,” he said. “It’s my burden to bear—and I shall bear it alone.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“He’s here.”
Portia glanced up from her embroidery. Her brother stood, silhouetted against the drawing room window.
“He has the largest bouquet of roses I’ve ever seen.”
“Larger than the bouquets you’re continually sending to Mrs. Scarlet?”
“Careful, puss,” he teased. “You sound envious.”
“I wouldn’t envy any woman who’d fallen in love withyou.”
He laughed. “And quite right. But I have it on good authority that Mrs. Scarlet is incapable of love.”
“Which explains why the two of you are such good friends. I believe that’s what they call it—friends?”
