“You are correct that I’ve allowed Falmouth to dictate the terms of this exercise. He has four daughters, not three, and I’d at least like the pleasure of a dance with you. The most difficult part of my conundrum is how to make my choice without hurting anybody’s feelings. But for that, I’d have asked Falmouth for permission to pay my addresses to one of his daughters weeks ago.”
A conscientious brother would know all about hurt feelings between sisters. Iris hadn’t thought that far ahead, though—gracious days—what of the two sisters
“Dance with me, Lady Iris. Please.”
She ought not. He was being kind again, decent and gentlemanly, drat him. “Why dance with me?”
“Because I wish it above all things.”
That reply could have been a jest, a line of flirtatious banter. Clonmere presented his answer like a single rose, lovely and fragrant, though thorny enough to require careful handling.
“You may have my supper waltz tonight,” Iris said, “though I’d ask that you decide within the week, which of my sisters to court. For everybody’s sake.”
The sun had crested the horizon, and golden beams were slanting through the trees. Overhead robins caroled a greeting to the day while a pair of swans glided regally across the Serpentine. On his white steed, Clonmere looked like some fairytale prince, which mattered to Iris not at all. Mayfair was full of handsome lordlings who rode well. Clonmere, though, had impressed her.
He’d given her the one justification for equivocating among her sisters that she could respect: He didn’t want to hurt the feelings of those he rejected. Would that Falmouth had shown his daughters the same consideration—all of his daughters.
“Until this evening, then,” Iris said, turning Rosie back the way they’d come. “I’ll look forward to our waltz.” She was, for once, telling Clonmere the absolute truth.
“As shall I, my lady.” He doffed his hat, and smiled, as if he too, were telling the absolute truth.
CLONMERE HAD SPENT the past several weeks engaged in two deceptions. The first deception was that he intended to offer for Lady Lily, Lady Holly, or Lady Hyacinth. They were adorable, sweet, pretty, and not in love with him—thank heavens. Marriage to him would be a duty to them, albeit a tolerable duty.
The second more difficult deception was to pretend he was only cordially disposed toward Lady Iris when he was wild for her.
She had the patience of a saint, standing amid the wall flowers by the hour, smiling while her sisters twirled down the room with every eligible bachelor sober enough to dance.
She was kind, fetching punch for the dowagers, bringing them their shawls, sitting with them at supper.
She was dignified, ignoring Billings Harman’s wandering hands—Clonmere’s fist had had a short discussion with Billings’s nose thereafter—and refusing to be drawn into gossip. Thomas, Dersham, and Amherst had all assured Clonmere of that.
“Though I must tell you,” Dersham said, “I don’t think Lady Holly would suit you either.”
Clonmere occupied an alcove in the Duke of Quimbey’s ballroom. Dersham had joined him, and the violins tuning up meant that their conversation was not overheard.
“Lady Holly seems a very agreeable sort,” Clonmere said.
“She’s too agreeable for you, meaning no disrespect to the lady. You’d trample her delicate spirit inside a year.”
Clonmere consulted his watch. “Do I detect in your warning more than a champion’s chivalrous regard for the lady?” Please, please, let Dersham be as besotted as he sounded.
“Well, you can’t marry them all, Clonmere, and marrying the youngest first isn’t the done thing.”
No, it wasn’t. The eldest typically married first. “If Lady Holly is not my choice, do you intend to offer for her?”
Dersham struck a pose, hand on hip, nose in the air. “I believe I well might. I won’t stand in her way if she longs for a tiara, but neither will I push her into your arms when a more suitable fellow has learned to appreciate her charms.”
“There you are,” Amherst said, slipping into the alcove. “Dersh, be a love and fetch us some punch, would you?”
Dersham sent Clonmere a look that was probably intended to be severe, but mostly looked desperate. “Do we understand each other, Clonmere?”
“We do.”
Amherst and Dersham exchanged the same sort of look Ladies Holly and Hyacinth traded. “Only need a minute of your time, Clonmere. Dersh, I’ll meet you—”
“—at the punchbowl,” Dersham said, sketching a bow and bouncing away.
“Here’s what you need to know, Clonmere. I’ve spent the past few weeks getting to know Lady Hyacinth, just as you requested. I know her favorite flavor of ice, I know she speaks French nearly as badly as I do. I know she likes puppies better than kittens, but she don’t care for you above half.”
Amherst, who was notably vague on many points, was very sure of his lady.
