“IN FRONT OF HER ladyship, our host!” Mrs. Abbott cried for the third time as Mildred dressed for dinner in her chambers. Her mother had already reproached her after the tea, and again when they had finished collecting flowers. “Have you gone mad, Millie? Truly, I think there was not one who was not in horror at your behavior.”
Mildred hung her head. She regretted challenging Alastair before his family and had no excuse for her lack of manners. The morning had come with promise, for she had succeeded in not spending the night before, but she had ruined her prospects for a reward. His displeasure at her defiance had been obvious.
“I cannot fathom why you would assume such familiarity with the Marquess?” Mrs. Abbott wrung her hands. “I fear for your dowry and should not be surprised at all if he retracted the endowment. Oh, Millie, what were you thinking? How will you atone for what you did? You will have to ask his forgiveness. How I hope he shall forgive you! We must not lose the dowry.”
But not everyone had been horrified by her display during tea. During the walk in the garden following, Kittredge had approached her. “Miss Abbott, I must say I am in some admiration at your courage to speak with such frankness to Alastair.”
“It is not courage but foolhardiness,” she had replied.
“Nonetheless, there are few who would have dared question him as you did.”
“I regard the subject with some passion, but I should not have allowed my sentiments to overrule common courtesy.”
Before the dinner, Mildred had apologized to Lady Katherine, but her ladyship had dismissed her apology. “Goodness knows Alastair could use a little scolding.”
That Lady Katherine had taken no offense did little to cheer Mildred. When she saw Alastair enter the anteroom, her breath caught. But she could not pass the dinner without speaking to him beforehand. Collecting herself, she went to where he stood, conscious that many in the room were gazing upon her.
“My lord, I must ask your forgiveness for my earlier rudeness,” she began. “I ought not have spoken in the manner that I did, and my wrong is worse for having done so before your family.”
She would apologize for another reason as well, but she could not speak it before company. She hoped that her eyes conveyed what she could not say.
“I accept your apology, Miss Abbott,” he said after staring down at her for far too long than was comfortable for her. “I hope that you consider the discussion of stocking frames at an end?”
She hesitated but replied in the affirmative. She curtsied and returned to the other side of the room. Though he had sounded sincere in forgiving her, she thought she had best not put herself in his way.
A footman entered to announce that dinner was ready. Alastair presented his arm to his aunt, but Lady Katherine had hooked her arm through Thomas’s.
“It is not often I have the pleasure of having my grandson escort me to dinner,” her ladyship declared.
There was a brief moment of awkwardness as the others wondered how to proceed, as Lady Katherine had upended the proper order.
Alastair, unruffled, turned to Mildred. “Miss Abbott.”
Surprised, she could only stare at his proffered arm. Louisa’s eyes widened. Mildred was tempted to protest that he ought to escort Miss Wilmington, who had more standing, to dinner but that would only call further attention to the situation. She accepted Alastair’s arm, and Kittredge was left to escort Miss Wilmington.
Fortunately she did not have to sit near Alastair during the dinner and was near enough to Kittredge that she could hear his easy, affable talk of the theater and how Charles Kemble was to perform in a production of Hamlet. But Mildred could enjoy little else of the goose, baked turnips and pie. After dinner, she declined to join the rest in cards and chose to read in the corner of the drawing room, but the words blurred often. She wanted to ask Alastair’s and Lady Katherine’s pardons once more, though she knew the former would abhor the necessity of exchanging more words and the latter would deem it unnecessary.
“Papa, I have been the rudest of guests,” she said when her father had approached. The card tables were put away, and Miss Worthington was to play the pianoforte again.
“Your mother told me what had transpired. As it cannot be undone, all that you can hope to do is ask their pardon, which you have done.”
“I must ask your pardon as well, for my want of manners must reflect poorly on our family.”
“You could not do worse than your Uncle Stephen.”
Her mother’s younger brother had run off with a married woman, but this offered little consolation to Mildred.
“I doubt Lady Katherine was much troubled by it.”
“Even if she were, she is too kind to speak of it.”
“Are you certain? She strikes me as a woman who is most comfortable with speaking her mind.”
Mildred had to agree that she saw and heard little from her ladyship that indicated she thought less of Mildred for what had happened. Nevertheless, she would not permit herself any leeway. “But I criticized her nephew before her family!”
“As for the Marquess, I doubt he heeds what anyone says of or to him. You could call him a blackguard or worse, and I doubt he would be disturbed in the least.”
“I think I would like a cordial,” Mildred started before her father could complete his sentence, for Alastair stood behind him
Mr. Abbott, seeing her widened eyes, turned about, colored, and stuttered, “Cordial, yes—yes, you, er, wished for a glass of—of cordial?”
With a curt bow to Alastair, Mr. Abbott hurried away. Mildred felt her heart sink. How many more times would her family offend Alastair? She found solace in the fact that the Marquess was to depart on the morrow.
“You may find page ninety-one instructional for your situation,” Alastair said, handing her a book before walking away.
She turned to the page he’d named and saw a note:
Midnight.
Your punishment awaits.
Her punishment. She both welcomed and dreaded it. But she would suffer whatever punishment he would mete out. Closing the book, she looked at the clock. It was just past nine o’clock. She would pass the next few hours in anxious anticipation.