He listened until he could no longer hear them.
The room came into focus again. Rustles, murmurs, the slide of chess pieces across a board.
He pondered what to do.
Perhaps she did indeed need more embroidery silks, or a different needle, or her shawl. Maybe she just needed a chamber pot.
But he was familiar now with the way colormoved in and out of her face. And how she looked when visited by emotion she struggled not to show.
His gut remained icy with portent. He strongly suspected it had to do with the name Lord Vaughn had just uttered and the quiet turmoil he felt over this suspicion shocked him.
“I’ll just go and see what she needs, shall I?” he said pleasantly to whoever might hear. He waited for no reply. He left them.
“So devoted,” Mrs. Pariseau muttered approvingly, and all the ladies murmured in agreement.
Daphne was sitting on the settee staring fixedly at the fire when the doorknob turned, and Lorcan quietly entered.
She scarcely looked up.
For a long moment he didn’t speak at all.
“Daphne...” He sounded almost gentle. “Do you feel ill?”
She shook her head slowly, as if it hurt. A leisurely to and fro. It wasn’t quite the truth, and it wasn’t quite a lie.
She didn’t look up at him, but she could sense that he was frowning slightly at her. It was never going to be comfortable to be frowned at by Lorcan St. Leger.
The silence stretched.
“Who is Havelstock?” he finally said.
She turned her head slowly, in absolute amazement. “He’s an earl,” she said, with a hint of dry amusement.
He took this in.
“Who is Havelstock to you?”
She gave a short laugh. “Ah, Lorcan. You never do take the long way round with a question, do you?”
“I do not know enough words to clutter up my sentences with them. If I did, perhaps I would. But I do know your face went as white as an Irishman’s arse when Lord I-Love-Myself said the word ‘Havelstock.’”
She tried not to laugh, but he’d gone and punctured the dark tragedy of her mood, and some of it seeped out.
She sighed instead. “You couldn’t have said ‘white as a ghost’?”
“Trust me, an Irishman’s arse is the whiter of the two.”
“Lord Vaughn isn’t so bad,” she said shortly. “I’ve met worse.”
“I haven’t,” he lied.
She cast a dry look up at him.
He seemed restless and distracted. He was standing perfectly still, poised and alert.
And she realized, with a little jolt of pure pleasure, that he was genuinely concerned. He had come for her because he couldn’t help himself.
She wanted to sit for a moment in the sweetness of this realization.