Another odd little silent interval ensued.
Daphne cleared her throat. “Your rules are so elegantly printed.” She gestured with the little card she’d been given to read. “One just wants to sit and admire them.” This was a patently inane thing to say, but it did the trick of changing the subject.
One quick glance at their rules had, in fact, brought home to her how deep in she and her fake husband Lorcan were.
“We’ve thought about framing them and hanging them in all the rooms,” Angelique told her.
“What a clever idea. Perhaps one or two done in needlepoint?”
“Or in elegant calligraphy!” Delilah suggested.
Suddenly every man present tensed with wariness as all the women seemed poised for a lively discussion about the domestic arts.
Delilah noticed and, with some apparent regret, decided against such a digression. “Daphne... if I may I ask... how fares your family?”
She hesitated. “My father is well.” She was pleased with her choice of word. It wasn’t untrue, and revealed nothing, really. “My brothers are touring the continent.” She had no idea where her brothers were currently, though her best guesswas Paris. Their last letter had been sent from there, nearly a month ago. They’d been gone nigh on half a year.
“It’s lovely to know your father is well. I confess I often thought of how you managed your father’s home so brilliantly for so many years, when you were so young. My mother aways held you out as an example.”
“Oh, what a joy that must have been for you,” Daphne said dryly.
Delilah laughed. “Truthfully, I always considered you the very model of graciousness. Everything in your house seemed to me so beautiful and so harmonious. When I inherited this building from my first husband, it was quite the proverbial sow’s ear. But I confess I thought about you a time or two, Daphne. I told myself if Lady Worth could manage that grand house as a little girl, Angelique and I could certainly create a silk purse from a tumbledown building. It has all turned out better than we dreamed.”
Daphne was motionless as the words sent grief and gratitude washing through her.
She could at least still see the house that Delilah had so admired from the caretaker’s cottage, where she now lived with her father.
“Thank you,” she said finally. “I am touched. And I am so pleased for you, Delilah. It’s a beautiful place. It very much seems like a home.”
Both Angelique and Delilah glowed.
“You’re the first person I’ve seen from our village in a very long time,” Delilah admitted. “Iconfess we’ve been very happy here in London at The Grand Palace on the Thames, with our friends and loved ones.”
She cast a fleeting, searching look up at her stern, handsome husband, who returned it with a swift inscrutable one.
“Well,” Angelique said, cheerfully. “Dot no doubt informed the two of you that The Grand Palace on the Thames is an exclusive establishment. And it is, in that we care so much for the happiness and comfort of all of our tenants that we like to have a little discussion first regarding whether we think a new guest would be a happy fit for all concerned. But I think under the circumstances we can forego our usual—”
“Delilah, I should like a private word with you and Angelique.”
Captain Hardy didn’t apologize for the interruption.
Daphne’s heart clenched again. Both Angelique and Delilah slowly turned to Captain Hardy, their faces carefully expressionless.
Lord Bolt was staring at him, too, one brow upraised.
Next to her, she could feel Lorcan St. Leger’s great, hard thigh tensing.
Oh God. Daphne silently prayed.
“We should be grateful to stay with you for the duration of the storm,” Lorcan said pleasantly. “I think this will pay for a suite and any other conveniences.”
And Lorcan slowly, with great ceremony freedthe gold earring from his ear and placed it on the table.
It twinkled next to the teacups.
In silence, the four of them crossed the foyer to the sitting room, home of the Epithet Jar and a pianoforte, and scene of merriment, spirited discussion, cutthroat chess matches, innuendo, mock pirate battles, and lovemaking.
They stopped in the center of the room.