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‘What exactly are you saying, Briggs?’
‘You sent the lady from the room, so we cannot ask her. But do you not suppose that she was taking matters into her own hands? Now she is ruined. If I don’t marry her my honour will be worth nothing. If you don’t call me out as a result of this ruination, your honour will be nothing. If Beatrice does not marry, she will be... Well, she will never be received in society, will she? Not that you were to allow her out. She is, of the three of us, the one who stood to lose the least.’
‘You do not think...’
‘I am telling you that I have never laid a hand on your sister. And somehow, she came to be in my embrace in this study, which, I believe she knows you make use of in the evenings following such gatherings.’
Briggs could see the wheels turning behind Kendal’s eyes.
‘Shocking though I know you find it,’ Briggs said. ‘Not everyone agrees that you know best. Clearly, Beatrice is among that number.’
‘Beatrice,’ Kendal said.
And this time it was her name that held the tinge of murder. Kendal turned and tore from the room, and Briggs went after him, because after all, why should he not? He had already ruined the lady, why not accompany her brother to her bedchamber?
They wound down the labyrinthine halls of the massive estate, Kendal’s footsteps announcing his outrage against the marble floor. He flung her doors open, and a maid, who had been kneeling by the fireplace, immediately scurried away.
Beatrice was laying on a chaise, looking collapsed, which gave Briggs a strange sort of squeeze in his chest. He had come to know Beatrice when she was aged fourteen or so, and had not known her in the worst part of her illness. And he had to wonder if this was how she had looked then. Pale, drawn, and not infused with the sort of life he had come to associate with her.
She sat up, her face swollen, her eyes red. She looked distraught, so much so that it would nearly be comical were it not for...everything.
‘Briggs,’ she said. ‘Please know that I did not mean...’
‘You did not mean to entrap Briggs?’ Kendal asked. ‘Then who, my sister, did you intend to be caught with tonight?’
‘Hugh...’
‘Do not think me a fool, Bea, I know that this was a plot of yours.’
Of course, Briggs had been the one to tell him that. But it was not the time to comment on such a thing, he was certain.
Kendal continued, ‘Who did you intend to be trapped in a marriage with, Beatrice?’
‘Had I been caught with James rather than Briggs you would never have known it was a plot...’
He curled his lip. ‘James. James. That friend of yours from the country estate next door?’
Beatrice tilted her chin up, intending to look imperious, clearly. It was not terribly effective, given the tip of her nose was red. ‘Yes.’
‘His father is a merchant,’ Kendal said.
‘His father is an earl. The same as Penny’s, and you were going to marry her.’
At the mention of his former intended, Kendal’s face went to stone. ‘That is of no import. That is enough for me. It is not enough for you.’
Beatrice swung her legs over the edge of the chaise, the motion sudden a
nd not at all ladylike. ‘You were not even going to allow me to marry, so what concern is it of yours the title of the man that I choose?’
‘I feel we are perhaps having the wrong fight,’ Briggs said. ‘As he was not going to allow you to marry, and now you cannot marry this...this boy anyway.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, turning her focus back to him. ‘I did not know that you would be there. I expected for James to be there already. But he was not and... It was you.’
‘This is dangerous,’ Kendal said. ‘And foolish. You were playing with things that you knew nothing about. What you have done... You have potentially damaged yourself beyond saving. You have to marry Briggs, but that does not mean that society is going to be kind to you. You were caught in his embrace. Unfortunately for you, the wrong sort of people, the worst sort of gossips, saw. And from where I was standing the embrace had the mark of the obscene.’
Briggs snorted. Because, honestly, it was becoming theatrical. ‘I dare say that it looked nothing like obscene to you, Kendal. You might be playing the prig in front of your sister, but you and I both know that you have seen and participated in more decadent pursuits of a common afternoon, let alone a night in an empty drawing room.’
And yet, the impression of her luscious roundness remained in his hands, and he had to confess if only to himself that it felt a bit like obscene where the sensation lingered.
