Page 47 of The Lady Knows Best

And with that, he was gone.

Hardly had the door closed behind him when her family’s voices rose, surrounding her, speaking to one another, rather than to her. “The nerve!” and “We certainly cannot allow . . .” and “Hertfordshire?” buffeted her like so many waves.

And then, worst of all, Cami’s voice, in a terrible whisper: “If it weren’t for that ridiculous Misbehavior Magazine, or whatever it is, he’d still be marrying Miss Grey and we would be well out of it.”

Daphne sank beneath the weight of those words and rested her forehead on Zwolf’s warm flank.

She could only pray that she would find what she needed—the truth about Miles—at Lyneham Park.

CHAPTER 15

“Feeling better, old chap?” Miles called out as the door of Alistair’s library swung open. “When Mrs. Swetley answered my knock, she told me she had brewed up a pot of her special tea, just for you.” Alistair’s housekeeper had always treated Miles as one of the family.

Alistair was seated at the table, bathed in a narrow circle of lamplight. Pen poised above the letter he’d been writing, he turned and grimaced at Miles. “Mrs. Swetley’s special tea may be special. But it is decidedly not tea. I poured it out, as usual.” He nodded toward a half-dead plant in the corner of the room. His eyes were still bloodshot and his nose was red, but he sounded considerably more like himself. “What improved matters was last night’s rain. Cleared the air.”

“Excellent.” Miles threw himself into a chair. “Then you’ll be fit to travel day after tomorrow.” The trick always, with Alistair, was to deliver news as if it were a foregone conclusion.

With a sharp sigh, Alistair laid his pen in the tray and corked the ink bottle. “Where exactly am I going?”

“Lyneham Park. With me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m getting married, of course. Congratulate me?”

Alistair tipped back slightly in his chair, the better to bring Miles directly in his line of sight. “To Miss Burke?”

“Who else?”

“I can think of—very well,” he broke off when Miles hefted a nearby book and threatened to lob it at his head. “You have my heartiest congratulations. I can see that you’ve come through your dinner at Finch House unscathed, and I take it from your jovial mood you managed to secure both Miss Burke’s and her family’s approval—”

“Well, approval might be a bit strong,” Miles conceded, thumbing through the book—a surprisingly weighty tome on the care of sheep. “But the matter’s all settled. We’re to be wed in Lyneham in a few days. You’ll come?”

Alistair appeared to consider the matter. “Do I get to give you away?”

“You know you’d miss me if you did,” Miles retorted with a laugh.

He was feeling more chipper than he had any right to be, given the death glares that had been cast at him by the extended Burke family this evening, and given that Daphne had all but told him that she didn’t want to marry him.

Ah, but she had kissed him. And with none of the reticence he’d sensed in her the night of the Estleys’ musicale. She was not indifferent to him, not cold or prudish. She had indeed looked lovely in that yellow dress, and her bosom nestled perfectly in his palm, just as he’d predicted.

It was not a great deal to be getting on with, but he could think of several marriages among his acquaintances that had been contracted on less.

“What am I to do with my sisters if I go hying off to the country?” demanded Alistair. “I suppose they could tag along, but you know they’d sooner die than leave Town during the Season.”

“Bernie has agreed to come and stay with them,” Miles explained, “until you return.” Bernie—Bernadette—was Alistair’s eldest sister.

“You understand that Bernie prefers you to address her as Lady Brinks,” Alistair pointed out with a chiding look.

“Yes, well.” Miles tossed the book aside. He knew Alistair was more enthused at the prospect of a week or more’s freedom from the responsibility of squiring Freddie, Georgie, and Harry about than he let on. “Lady Brinks forgets that I once saw her run shrieking down a corridor in nothing but curlers and a nightdress.”

“Ah, yes.” Alistair chuckled. “The great toad incident of ’95. You’re fortunate she’s pushed the memory of that morning from her mind, or else she never would have been willing to lift a finger to help either of us.” He picked up his quill and twirled it absently. “Day after tomorrow, you say?”

“First light,” Miles vowed.

“Which means ten o’clock at the earliest.” He uncorked the ink, added a line to his letter, then signed with a flourish before tossing the pen back on the silver tray, where it landed with a quiet clatter. He did not, however, turn back to face Miles. “You’re certain about this?”

“I am,” Miles vowed, with more confidence than he felt.