Page 23 of Souvenir of Love

“Indeed, I’ve heard much the same. Lady Elizabeth Harcrest! Dinsmore, you dog.”

It was precisely the type of moment Anne would relish: Elizabeth Harcrest’s reputation being dragged through the muck. Only James felt it was himself that was suddenly immersed in filth. He had the urge to leap from his chair and plunge himself into a bath, a very deep one.

“Lady Elizabeth? Isn’t she the one whose brother you said would have my arm if I asked her to dance?” Ashton leered. “You seem to have both arms, Dinsmore, and from what I hear, you did much more than dance with her.”

With expensive soap.

“You’ve been most closed-lipped on the subject, Dinsmore.” Lounsbury turned his eyeglass full force on James. “Do tell.”

And a scrub brush. A stout one.

“A gentleman must never kiss and tell,” he said stiffly.

“What a rubbishy cliché!” Lounsbury hooted. “A gentleman doesn’t make love to an earl’s daughter in the library either!”

Lounsbury was right. No amount of soap and brushes would scrub his honor clean. He might mouth the code of a gentleman, but he’d lost all sense of how to behave as one.

“Come on, spill the juicy details.” Lounsbury leaned close.

“Tell, Dinsmore, tell,” Ashton encouraged him.

“Lounsbury,” James said as he rose from his chair, “as you so astutely pointed out, my behavior last night was unworthy of a gentleman. Nevertheless, Elizabeth Harcrest is still every inch a lady.”

He’d madeup his mind.

He would ask for Elizabeth’s hand in marriage.

A bit late, true, but it would repair some of the damage he’d done to the girl’s reputation. He would tell Anne as soon as she returned from whatever affair she was attending. James settled into the most comfortable armchair he could find in the sitting room outside his sister’s bedchamber—damned difficult since most of them were delicate straight-backed things. She’d protest, of course, but she’d gotten more than her pound of flesh… It was time to put the scandal to rest…

“You must be drunk.”

James awoke to find his sister leaning over him, inhaling sharply.

“I haven’t had a drop since I left Lady Lambert’s.” He yawned, fumbling for a watch hanging from a fob beneath his green-and-gold-striped waistcoat. “It’s four thirty now, so that was at least”—he yawned again—“four hours ago. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You might have come with me. The Lindsays’ card party would have been far more amusing had you attended. Though we did have ourselves quite a laugh over poor Moreham’s predicament.”

There was the sound of a door slamming several floors below them, echoing up the corridors like an angry wooden slap. Thehouse should have been quiet; most of the servants had gone to bed ages ago. Apparently, a few of the clumsier ones were moving about.

“I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with the things being said about Elizabeth,” James began.

“Nothing is being said about her that isn’t true, brother.”

Somewhere in the house, feet pounded on stairs. Pitiful really, the performance of the serving class when they weren’t paid regularly. James glanced quickly at Anne, who also looked irritated by all the noise. Then he continued, “You know she didn’t expect to become a sideshow for gossipy matrons, or a nasty item in the latest London broadsheet.”

“Butyouknew, James. Well ahead of time. It’s a bit late to be cultivating a conscience?—”

“I’m seeking to retrieve my honor.” The words sounded hollow even to his ears.

“I thought you were helping to retrievemine.”

“I thought I was too, Anne.” Silence settled over the room.How could he explain?He spoke again, after several long moments. “This thing has gone too far. Elizabeth didn’t cause any harm to you. Moreham’s the one who led you to believe he’d offer for you, then scurried off…”

Anne held up her hand. “You needn’t elaborate, James. I know precisely what he did. I’m the one who has to listen to snide insinuations whenever he appears with that French creature.Iwill be the one who decides when the Harcrests have suffered sufficiently.”

As if to emphasize her words, the loud bang of a door being flung open resounded down the hall. He’d have to have a talk with the housekeeper about the servants in the morning…unless of course his father was wandering. He pushed the thought from his mind. Now was not the time to wonder whether dementia, like the Dinsmore title, would be passed down.

“Consider this, then.” James swept a stray lock of hair off his forehead. “Consider how humiliated Rafe will be when I offer for his sister. No one else will. What man would want my leavings? And her dowry, all that Harcrest money, will be in Dinsmore coffers. Isn’t that what you wanted from the first, Moreham’s money? You’ll have achieved all the things you set out to when you first set your cap on the earl.”