On the reception room settee sat a girl who, they could see in an instant, came from a family of some means. Her turkey-red wool dress and matching pelisse were enviably smart and current, and a darling felt bonnet trimmed in darling cherries and leaves sat next to her on the settee.
She’d made herself quite at home, so it seemed.
“I can’t go through with it. I can’t! I can’t, I tell you. I’d ratherdie,”was how she greeted the two of them when they appeared.
Delilah suspected she’d been saying this to herself since Dot left the room.
“Of course you wouldn’t rather die, darling,” Angelique said firmly. “Whatever the ‘it’ in question is. You could always open a boardinghouse instead.”
Delilah shot her a dry look.
“You don’tknow!” the girl wailed.
“I expect a man is involved,” Delilah said.
This brought the girl up short.
“How did you know that?” she asked suspiciously. “Is it true what my mother says, with age comes wisdom?”
She was wide-eyed and disingenuous.
There was a little silence.
“I say we throw her outside to the wolves,” Angelique said.
The girl flicked her uncertain blue gaze between Angelique and Delilah. She was pleasingly round, with charming little pale freckles across her nose that she probably hated, and her honey-colored hair, neatly curled and pinned, was surprisingly unmussed for one so frantic.
Delilah sat down next to her and touched her arm gently.
“Why don’t you take a breath and tell us how you’ve come to grace our establishment, Miss...”
“Bevan-Clark. Lucinda Bevan-Clark.”
“Miss Bevan-Clark, I am Lady Derring and this is Mrs. Angelique Breedlove.” Angelique sat down opposite them. “We are the proprietors here at The Grand Palace on the Thames. Why don’t you tell us what brings you here and what has you so upset?”
Miss Bevan-Clark took a breath. “Are either of you married?”
After a little hesitation, Delilah answered for both of them. “We are widows.”
“It’s the most awkward thing,” Miss Bevan-Clark said fervently. “He’s been my friend my entire life. But I am not inlovewith him. The very notion ofmarryinghim!” She gave a shudder. “But my parents got it into their minds that we should make a match because our families are rich, you see, and well, our families would only get richer should we marry, and wouldn’t that be lovely for everyone.” She said this with great snideness. “I’m terribly afraid he’ll be so awfully disappointed because I think he’s in love with me, otherwise whywouldhe propose? I got word from a mutual friend of ours that he intended to propose at a house party we were both meant to attend and I took it upon myself to run away from the coaching inn. I asked to be brought to the nearest boardinghouse and this is where the driver took me.”
She looked proud of this, and she really ought not be.
“Rich, you say?” Angelique said just as Delilah said, “Are you in love with someone else?”
“Well, I’d certainly like the opportunity to find out if I’m in love with someone else!” she said indignantly. “Wouldn’t you? I know you’re both a bit on in years but I daresay even now you wouldn’t turn away from the possibility of a grand romance.”
Delilah and Angelique very, very carefully did not look at each other. Neither of them was yet thirty.
They were both tempted to give her ears a slight boxing.
They could tell her a lot about the myth of romance. Delilah, in particular, could now tell her that a disappointing marriage could be stifling but magnificent sex on a boardinghouse settee with a man she hardly knew and who was not a gentleman could be in her distant future by way of compensation. The delicious soreness between her legs and a hint of whisker burn against her cheek conspired to remind her of that all day.
But it seemed impossible to say that to such an open, indignant, hopeful face.
And something about that open, hopeful face made Delilah feel just a little bit sordid. A little bit nostalgic for a time when she didn’t know all the things she knew. A little wistful that Miss Bevan-Clark could marry a friend, who knew her so well.
It wouldn’t matter, regardless. Miss Bevan-Clark wouldneverbelieve them if they told her there was no such thing as romance.