ChapterNineteen
Even a sailor who had been set adrift in the South Pacific and had only just returned to England could have felt the charge in the air at Rathborne House on the night of the ball. Francis was certain that complete strangers on the other side of the world were rubbing their necks, wondering what the itching feeling that something monumental was about to happen was.
“I think you’ve done everything you can do at this point,” Sam said as the four brothers stood off to one side of the entrance to Rathborne House’s ballroom, watching their mother, Aunt Josephine, Nan, and Alice greet incoming guests. The fact that Sam and Alice had returned to London—which they despised, after what Montrose had put them through—was a sign of how desperate the situation was.
Francis sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I only hope it’s enough. I suddenly find myself wondering if this show of ostentation is going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back when it comes to convincing Narayan to give up his daughter or if the back that is about to be broken is my own, financially.”
“The ball didn’t cost that much, did it?” Joseph asked, looking worried.
“Don’t worry.” Dean rested a hand on Francis’s shoulder. “Nan said she can dip into her pin money to help pay for things. She believes in this cause.”
Francis sent Dean a frown. As grateful as he was for the fortune that Nan brought with her when she married Dean, he hated having to rely on it for what felt like his own ends. Paying off the family’s debt, shoring up their investments, and fighting off Montrose was one thing, but asking Nan to pay for his marriage battle was a blow to his pride.
“Narayan cares about his daughter,” Francis said, mostly to convince himself. “He would not want to see her miserable for the rest of her life.”
His brothers hummed and nodded and generally agreed with him, but the tension that enveloped them didn’t ease one bit.
In fact, it seemed to grow by leaps and bounds when Francis’s particular guest for the evening, Prince Petrus, stepped cautiously from the hallway into the ballroom. Francis smiled in relief at the sight of his new friend, but was puzzled by the way Petrus looked this way and that, jumping at every sound and movement as though he were waiting for an attack.
“Brothers, excuse me,” he told the others, stepping away from them.
He reached Petrus just as the man inched warily in front of the female welcoming committee.
“Petrus, thank you so much for coming,” he said, extending his hand to the prince.
Petrus smiled at him and took his hand, but the look of anxiety lingered in his eyes. “Cathraiche,” he said with a nod. “Thank you for welcoming me to your home.”
Francis was about to exchange more idle pleasantries when his mother finished greeting Lord and Lady Marlowe and turned to see Petrus. From the way she gasped and pressed a hand to her chest, Francis would have thought she was seeing a ghost.
“Mother, have you met Prince Petrus of Aegiria?” he asked, moving closer to his mother so that he could rest a hand on the small of her back to steady her while gesturing to Petrus.
“Who invited you into my home?” Francis’s mother said in a hoarse voice. All the color drained from her face.
Francis cleared his throat in embarrassment and sent an apologetic look to Petrus. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said, but he wasn’t exactly certain what for or why.
To his surprise, Petrus actually looked cowed, as though he didn’t think he should be there either.
“My sincerest apologies, my lady,” he said with a deep bow. “I have no wish to upset you at all. I understand completely if you wish to banish me from your beautiful home. But your son has become a friend of mine, and he entreated me especially to assist him this evening. Otherwise, I would not have imposed upon you.”
Francis’s jaw dropped at the speech. It was utterly incongruous. It made him feel as if there were something amiss that he didn’t know about.
Even stranger, his mother seemed to compose herself and stand straighter. “Because Lord Cathraiche needs your assistance, sir, I shall allow you to remain. But you understand my concerns, I trust.”
Petrus nodded. “I do, my lady. I shall remain sensitive to them at all times. Now, if you will excuse me, I see Miss Charlotte Sloane has noticed my arrival, and since I have become acquainted with her and find her charming, with your permission, I will speak to her now.”
“Very well,” Francis’s mother said. She tipped her head to Petrus as though she were the queen and she was allowing him to go.
Petrus sent Francis a look that said they would speak later before heading off to greet a smiling and bubbly Miss Sloane. He glanced past Miss Sloane to see that, of course, Miss Garrett was in attendance at the ball, and she’d already spotted Joseph and was making her way to him, no doubt to vex him to pieces. Francis would have found Joseph’s predicament amusing, but he had other things on his mind. He whipped to face his mother.
“What the devil was that, Mother?” he asked.
His mother was slow to answer, and in the end, she was saved by the arrival of the guests of honor.
All other thoughts were blasted from Francis’s head as Narayan, Raikut, and Jeetan arrived with Priya standing in the center of what appeared to be a phalanx of male protection. She was stunning in her bejeweled sari, practically dripping with gold, as if Narayan were using her to show off his wealth. She was also visibly shaken, and the moment she met Francis’s eyes, his feeling that everything would be decided that night, one way or another, flared.
But it was not Priya who held his attention. Even her beauty and emotion was eclipsed as none other than Lord Vegas stepped forward from behind the wall of Indian gentlemen to face Francis and Lady Vegas with a look that was both peevish and triumphant.
“You thought you could block me from my own home, did you?” Lord Vegas demanded, though whether he was speaking to Francis or Lady Vegas was unclear. “You thought you could cut me off from everything that is rightfully mine?”
It was the very last confrontation that Francis needed on the night when he had to have his wits about him.
“Father, now is neither the time nor the place,” he growled, stepping closer to the man, but feeling revulsion through his whole body as he did. “Why are you here? You were not invited.”
“I am here as a guest,” his father spat. “In my own home, no less.”