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An uncomfortable silence filled the sitting room, and with an effort, Talia searched her mind for a means to be rid of her companion.
It was not that she didn’t appreciate Hannah’s attempts to offer comfort, but for the moment she desperately wished to be alone.
Clearing her throat, she glanced toward the door. “Has my father returned?”
“Do you wish me to discover if he is here?”
“If it is no trouble.”
Hannah gratefully latched onto the small task, obviously pleased to be of service.
“Not at all. And I shall bring you a tea tray.”
Talia shuddered at the mere thought of food. “I am not hungry.”
“Perhaps not, but you are very pale.” Hannah’s soft brown gaze lingered on Talia’s face with obvious concern. “You should try to eat something.”
“If you insist.” Talia managed a smile. “You’re very kind.”
“Nonsense. I am your friend.”
Hannah left the room and softly closed the door behind her. Talia heaved a sigh of relief. Later she would appreciate Hannah’s staunch loyalty. After all, the young lady could easily have used her position in the center of the brewing scandal to elevate her status among the gossipmongers still cluttering the rose garden.
Instead she had stayed at Talia’s side, anxious to provide comfort.
It was not her fault that Talia was incapable of weeping and wailing and wringing her hands like a proper bride who had just been publicly jilted.
With a frown, Talia reached to push the window open, hoping for a breeze to stir the air. The room felt…stifling. Too late, she realized that two of the unwelcome guests had strayed from the banquet tables and were currently standing just below her window.
“Good heavens, Lucille, you appear quite flustered,” one of the ladies was exclaiming.
“Have you heard the latest?” the second woman demanded.
Talia froze on the point of sliding shut the window.
It was absurd. What did she care what rumors were swirling about society? The gossip could be no more humiliating than the truth.
Still, she found herself unable to curb the destructive urge to know what was being said.
“Tell me,” the first woman breathed, her voice vaguely familiar.
“Lord Eddings is said to have been with the missing bridegroom last eve at some horrid gambling establishment.”
“That is hardly news. It is Harry’s fondness for the cards that forced him to become engaged to Dowdy Dobson in the first place.”
Talia’s hands clenched in her lap. Dowdy Dobson. It was an insult she had endured since her first season.
“Yes, well, last eve he was heavily in his cups and he confessed that he never intended to wed the vulgar chit.”
“Never?” There was a malicious giggle. “But why become engaged at all? Surely it was not just a cruel hoax?”
“According to Eddings, the naughty boy insisted on a portion of the dowry to purchase a suitable townhouse he discovered in Mayfair.” There was a dramatic pause. “Instead he intends to take his windfall and disappear.”
The first woman sucked in a scandalized breath. “Good…heavens.”
“Precisely.”
Talia knew she should have been equally scandalized.
Despite the fact that Harry had all but ignored her since the announcement of their engagement, he had appeared resigned to the notion of taking a wife. Certainly she’d had no warning that he intended to deceive her father into handing over a small fortune and using it to flee from London.
And from her.
“A daring scheme, but Harry cannot possibly imagine that he can hide from a man such as Silas Dobson,” the first lady said, her tone edged with revulsion at the mention of Talia’s father. “The brute no doubt has a dozen cutthroats on his payroll.”
“True enough.”
“Besides, think of the scandal. Lord Ashcombe will have his head on a platter.” Would he?
Talia was not nearly so confident.
From the whispers that had circulated throughout society, the earl had washed his hands of his younger brother when he had announced his intention to wed the daughter of Silas Dobson.
“Not if Harry escapes to the Continent,” the unknown Lucille insisted.
“In the midst of a war?”
The woman’s sudden laugh drifted on the breeze. “Obviously the danger of being shot by a Napoleon is preferable to marrying Dowdy Dobson.”
“And who could blame him?” her companion swiftly agreed. “Still, he cannot intend to remain exiled forever?”
“Certainly not. In a year or so the scandal will have faded and Harry will make his glorious return.”
“And be welcomed as the prodigal son?” There was the sound of a fan being snapped open. “You have a very odd notion of the earl if you believe he will forgive and forget. The man terrifies me.”
“He may be terrifying, but he is so wickedly handsome.” Her soft sigh was filled with the feminine appreciation shared by most women. “Such a pity he has so little interest in society.”
“Well, at least polite society.”
“I would be as improper as he desires if only he would glance in my direction.”
The two shared a giggle. “Shocking, my dear.”
“Oh, there is Katherine. We must tell her what you have discovered.”
There was a rustle of silk as the two women slowly moved away, their conversation muted but still clear enough for Talia to follow.
“Do you know, I almost have it in my heart to pity poor Miss Dobson.”
Talia grimaced. Despite her words, there was a decided lack of pity in the woman’s tone. In fact, it sounded remarkably akin to gloating.
“Yes,” her companion purred. “One thing is for certain, she dare not show her face in society again.”
“She should never have forced her way among her betters to begin with.” Talia detected a sniff of smug disapproval. “Nothing good ever comes of getting above your station.”
Despite the heat, Talia shivered.
She remained safely cocooned in her odd sense of detachment for the moment, but she wasn’t stupid. Eventually the protective shell surrounding her heart would shatter, and she would be laid bare to the endless disgrace of a woman scorned.
She couldn’t even console herself with the thought that her father would have the decency to allow her to withdraw from society until the scandal had passed.
No. Silas Dobson would never comprehend the notion of a dignified retreat. He would insist that she face her tormentors regardless of the pain and embarrassment it might cause her.
She was brooding on her bleak future when the door was opened, and Hannah crossed the threshold carrying a large silver tray.
“Here we are then,” she said in the overly bright tones that people used in a sickroom. “I have brought a small dish of poached trout in cream sauce and fresh asparagus, as well as a few strawberries.”
“Yes, thank you,” Talia softly interrupted, her stomach rebelling at the smell of fish.
Perhaps sensing Talia’s distress, Hannah moved toward the low cherrywood table near the white marble fireplace.
“I’ll just leave it here, shall I?”
Talia managed a weak smile of gratitude. “Did you locate my father?”
“No. It is…” Hannah broke off her words, gnawing on her bottom lip. “What?”
“I was told that Mr. Dobson has not been seen since he left the church.”
Talia shrugged. Her father was stubborn enough to search for Harry Richardson until hell froze over.
“I see.”
Hannah cleared her throat. “No doubt he will soon be returning.”
“No doubt he will,” a dark, sinfully dangerous voice drawled from the open doorway. “Mr. Dobson is rather like a cockroach that scuttles about the shadows and is impossible to be rid of.”
Talia went rigid with horror, as she easily recognized the voice. How could she not? As much as it might embarrass her to admit, there was no denying that she had used her position among the shadows to spy upon the Earl of Ashcombe like a lovelorn schoolgirl.
He had fascinated her with his golden beauty and predatory grace. He was like a cougar she had seen illustrated in a book. Sleek and elegantly lethal.
And of course, his aloof manner of treating society with barely concealed disdain had pleased her battered pride. He obviously had no more regard for the frivolous fools than Talia did.
Now, however, it was not breathless excitement she felt as she turned to regard the stunningly handsome face and the frigid silver gaze.
Instead it was a chill of foreboding that trickled down her spine.
CHAPTER THREE
GABRIEL, THE SIXTH Earl of Ashcombe, made no apology for being a cynical bastard.
His cynicism had been hard earned.
After inheriting his father’s title at the tender age of eighteen, he had shouldered the burdens of several vast estates, hundreds of servants and a mother who refused to leave her bed for weeks at a time.
And then there was Harry.
Six years younger than Gabriel, his brother had always been outrageously spoiled by Lady Ashcombe. Gabriel had done what he could to mitigate the damage, but he was often away at school, and when he did return to Carrick Park, his ancestral home in Devonshire, he’d been expected to devote his time to his father, learning the complex duties of being an earl.
As a result, Harry had been allowed to indulge his worst impulses. He’d been sent down from school for cheating on his exams, he’d gambled away his generous allowance, and he had fought at least two duels. All before traveling to London.
Since his arrival in the city, his wild excesses had become even worse. Gambling and whoring and risking his neck on every ludicrous dare that might be uttered in his hearing.
Gabriel had tried to impose a few limitations, only to be constantly undermined by his mother. In desperation he’d at last warned the countess that he would have her beloved Harry banished to Carrick Park if the boy didn’t learn to live within his allowance.
Christ. He had suspected that Harry would plead, lie and even cheat if necessary to avoid being forced from London, but it had never occurred to him that he would become engaged to an upstart female who could only bring shame to the family.
His mother, of course, had taken to her bed with the vapors, demanding that Gabriel do something to rescue her darling son from the clutches of the evil Dobson chit. Gabriel, however, had grimly refused to interfere. If his brother wanted to toss away his future by wedding a female who was a social embarrassment—and worse, related to Silas Dobson—then Gabriel washed his hands of him.
A grim smile touched his lips as he stepped into the private salon. He should have known Harry would find a means of saving his own damned hide while leaving Gabriel to clean up his mess.
Shrouded in the icy composure he had honed over the years, he cast a quick glance around the room, absently noting a plump female with brown hair before turning his attention to the female perched on the window seat.
Miss Talia Dobson.
Gabriel was braced for the frustrated rage that clenched his heart. Any man would be ready to commit murder at having been so neatly trapped. But what he did not expect was the odd sense of recognition that stirred in the pit of his stomach. As if during his rare social appearances he had actually taken notice of Miss Dobson’s silky black hair that was forever slipping from its pins and the eyes that shimmered like emeralds in the afternoon sunlight. That he’d contemplated how soft the ivory skin would feel beneath his fingertips and the precise manner her inviting curves would fit against him.
The mere thought only intensified his anger.
The female might have played the timid wallflower to perfection, but the past hour had proved that she was as greedy and conniving as her boorish father.
“Oh…” The unfamiliar female fluttered in the center of the room that was surprisingly decorated with the simple elegance that he preferred. Unlike the public rooms that had been a garish combination of lacquer furnishings covered in a crimson velvet. “My lord.”
He waved a dismissive hand, not bothering to glance in her direction.
“You may leave us.”
“But…”
“I am not in the habit of repeating myself.”
“Yes, my lord.” He heard her faint gasp swiftly followed by the sound of the plump female hurrying to obey his command.
His gaze never shifted from Miss Dobson regarding him with an expression of frozen shock. Rather like a mouse watching a hungry cat suddenly approach.
Did the wench think he would accept being blackmailed?
If so, she was in for a bitter disappointment.
