Ian let out a deep, rumbling laugh. “Dillie, there’ll be a dozen young men at your doorstep by tomorrow, all of them eager to court you. They’ll want you, not your trust fund.”
They sat side by side a little while longer, Ian gently holding her hands and she still leaning her head against his shoulder. She liked this. Felt safe beside him. His arms were hard and strong.
He cleared his throat. “Ready to go back inside?”
“No. This is nice. I could sit like this for the rest of the evening. Perhaps forever.”
“Forever,” he repeated softly. “That word seems to come up often around you.”
She turned to him, confused by his comment.
He cleared his throat again. “We had better go inside.”
CHAPTER 7
DILLIE AWOKE LATE the following morning, nursing a headache. She was still out of sorts and dreading the arrival of friends and acquaintances who would call upon the Farthingale family within a few hours. The day was cool and overcast, but the guests would come even if the skies threatened a hard, wind-driven rain. There was too much juicy gossip to be discussed, dissected, and distorted around the fashionable salons of London.
Horrid weather was no impediment when the peccadillos and scandalous perversions of the nobility were involved.
Dillie joined her mother and Aunt Julia in the breakfast room. The pair sat at the table, enjoying a late breakfast of sausage and kippers, their quiet chatter punctuated with the occasional gasp, soon followed by “no, you don’t say!”
Dillie managed a cheerful greeting, though she felt certain dragons had slept in her mouth last night, their flames aimed at the back of her throat. She walked to the sideboard and stared at the smoked fish resting on the silver salver. Its lone eyeball ghoulishly stared back. Oh, I feel ill.
Her stomach voiced protest as she was about to spoon a hefty serving of that fish onto her plate. She reconsidered her breakfast strategy, set down the spoon, and grabbed a delicate teacup, though she wasn’t certain she could hold down even that gentle liquid this morning.
Since she had to eat something to stop the angry rumbles gurgling inside her, she decided to nibble on a scone, take it slow, and pray she was able to hold it down.
“Sophie, you must tell her before she hears it from anyone else,” Julia said, exchanging a woeful glance with her mother.
“I know. I know.” Her mother sighed softly, and then motioned for Dillie to take the seat beside her.
Dillie obeyed, dragging a raisin scone and cup of tea along with her. Once seated, she waited for the news that her mother so obviously dreaded having to tell her. “Is everything all right? Father? My sisters?”
“They’re fine. No, this isn’t about our family.” She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “He isn’t for you. In truth, I’ve never liked him.”
“Nor did I,” Julia chimed in because, no doubt, her opinion mattered as well.
Her mother nodded. “But we didn’t know how to tell you. Nor did we think it right to interfere—”
Dillie choked on her tea. You always interfere! Of course, she wasn’t going to accuse them of it since she was just as determined to meddle in Ian’s affairs. For his own good, of course. Someone had to save him. He’d thank her for it later. Meddling? Yes, Farthingale curse. “Who are we talking about?”
“Oh, dear.” Her mother batted her long, dark eyelashes over expressively sad eyes.
Dillie had always loved her mother, even those times when she was so overwhelmed with the never-ending parade of visiting relatives that she forgot she’d ever given birth to her five daughters. “You! I think you’re one of mine,” she’d sometimes call out in her dizzier moments, struggling to recall that her name was Dillie, or that yes, she’d popped out of her mother with the other daughter whose name she also couldn’t recall.
Not that Dillie ever blamed her. How could she? Her mother managed a household constantly filled to the rafters with family from all parts of England single-handed, made them all feel loved and welcomed, tolerated the horde of young cousins who constantly crawled underfoot, and took care of their father—Dillie loved him dearly as well—who was always calling out to her for help in finding one object or another that he’d just set down and that was obviously still in front of him.
This morning it had been his mustache clippers.
It was to be expected. Apparently, male eyeballs didn’t know how to look down, unless it was to stare—with eyes bulging—down a woman’s bosom. Her father, to his credit, never looked down anyone’s bosom but her mother’s. He was wildly in love with her, came alive whenever he caught sight of her even after thirty-five years of marriage, even though her dark hair was now dappled with gray and tiny lines were etched at the corners of her gentle blue eyes.