“You surprise me, Nicholas.”
He lifted a brow. “That I could read?”
She rolled her eyes. “That you took the time to.” Hermina hesitated and said softly. “I do not know under what circumstances you met Lady Cressida. I urge you to consider all those points when you converse with her.”
“Warning noted,” he murmured, deftly slipping from the room before she could say any more.
* * *
“Robert! Robert!”The Countess of Dunmore called shrilly, her blonde curls dancing about her forehead with her vigorous agitation, quite forgetting her manners in addressing her husband so before the servant and her daughter. Their mother had always been so careful to always refer to their father as ‘my lord’ or ‘dear’ and sometimes ‘darling’ in front of others, though they had been married and deeply in love for the past twenty-five years. Never ‘Robert.’ This was rather grim indeed. Still, a stiff upper lip was needed on Cressida’s part, and she straightened her spine and awaited her father’s arrival in the drawing room.
He did not take long and was even mildly out of breath, suggesting he had sprinted to them upon hearing his wife’s shrieks.
“My dear,” he said, closing the door behind him with a snick. “What is all this uproar about. You frightened my wits from me. I left them and ran, my nerves and the damn solicitor in my office.”
Cressida giggled. Her father never cursed, at least not in front of his daughters. The sound was quickly suppressed under the fierce glare of her mother.
“It is your vexing daughter, my lord! The nerves you speak of have been sorely agitated this morning after I woke in such a happy mood! To think two of my daughters so spectacularly wedded and now…” A choked cry came from her mother.
Cressida sighed. Perhaps mama was not so out of sorts. She had quickly reverted away from ‘Robert.’ Cressida tried to think if this was promising, if only to settle the disquiet churning in her gut at her mother’s reaction.
“What is it, my dear? Sit and tell me of it all.”
“She has informed me she will never marry Lord Linfield, not even under threat of being locked in her room with water and bread. We have spoilt her, my lord, that she thinks she could behave in this manner.”
Emotions tightened her throat, and she glanced at Leigh, who had called over an hour ago, with misery beating inside her breast. Their father soothed their mother into some semblance of calm, and she sat in the armchair as all the energy had wilted from her. Her father sat on the sofa before her and pinned her with a most serious stare. One he never cast her way, for she was his spoiled youngest. Cressida squirmed, gripping her fingers in her lap so tightly they ached.
“What is this about, Poppet?”
That loving moniker made the ache in her throat grow tighter, and she almost wavered. Then she thought of her happiness in being married to a tomcat, one who would shame her with his uncaring ways.
“He does not love me,” she said quietly.
Her father frowned while her mother wailed, “Love? He is a marquess with unmatched wealth!”
She looked up at her mother. “But you love papa and papa loves you.”
Her mother closed her eyes and dropped back on the sofa’s headrest. Papa considered her for long moments before he said, “Your mother and I did not love each other as we do now when we just got married.”
“I could hardly stand him,” her mother muttered, aggrieved.
Her father fondly smiled. “She, however, grew to love me in only a matter of weeks—”
“At least a year!”
“My dear, do not interrupt.”
Their mother scoffed, but she remained silent.
“Love will grow, Poppet. The marquess is fairly solicitous of you. Surely there is some affection. Society will expect a wedding given how the two of you have been seen at so many events in a clear courtship. The scandal will not be kind if a marriage does not happen.”
“I do not care about what society expects! What about what I want?”
“That is not the way of the world we live in,” he said firmly. “Has the marquess harmed you?”
It hovered on her tongue to confess it all to her father but could not bear to speak to him of intimate matters. She cast Leigh a plea for help.
Her sister sighed. “If I might be allowed to be frank with my words, papa.”