His hands clenched at his sides. “I’ve already forgotten that,” he said coldly. “I do not wish to think of it.”
“Of course you don’t want to think of it,” Free told him. “It’s obvious that you don’t want to think at all. But despite your carefully cultivated ignorance, you’ll have to comprehend that a woman has a right to say no.”
He bristled further. “That’s precisely it. You said no, so that is what I wish for you. No newspaper, no voice, no reputation, no independence.” He looked away. “No is apparently all you understand, and so I’ve made sure that when I talk to you, I use language that you can interpret.”
“I see.” Free glared at him. “You’re as sordid and despicable as I thought.”
He held up a hand. “It would be sordid, Miss Marshall, if I threatened to do those things to have you in my bed. As it is, I don’t want anything from you. I just want you to understand what it’s like to be humiliated. Tit for tat.”
It was hardly that. She’d told him no in private, and had only wrenched his arm when he tried to kiss her as a form of persuasion. He’d set fire to her dwelling and had tried to do the same to her business. He could have killed someone. Only the most self-centered fool would equate those two things.
Someday, she told herself grimly, someday, she’d look back at this moment and she’d turn it into a damned good joke about lords. Something like…
“So sorry to intrude,” said another man, coming up to them. “But Miss Marshall, you did tell me earlier that you wanted to be introduced to Mrs. Blackavar, and she is just over here. She mentioned she had a headache, but I told her she couldn’t possibly leave before you’d met.”
Free looked up to see the Duke of Clermont smiling at her.
Clermont was…
A lord, yes. But he was also an acquaintance. She scarcely knew him herself, although their paths had crossed quite a bit. He was her brother’s brother, and that made them…absolutely nothing. She had no idea who Mrs. Blackavar was; she hadn’t talked to Clermont in months, and then only in passing. On the other hand, she wanted to stay with Delacey about as much as she wanted to stab herself repeatedly in the eye with an ice pick.
“My apologies, Delacey,” Clermont said with a little bow, “but if you’ll excuse us…”
“Of course.” Free took Clermont’s arm. “Thank you.” She allowed him to conduct her away.
When they’d gone a short distance, he leaned down to her. “I’ll take you back, if you like,” he whispered. “But you had gone bright red here.” He indicated a semi-circle on his cheek. “When Oliver looks like that, it usually means he’s on the verge of punching someone in the face.” He glanced at her. “I… Maybe I presumed a little, but…”
They were a little more than nothing to each other. She found it difficult to believe in the other half of Oliver’s life—but here was proof that it existed anyway.
It was odd, sharing her brother with this man. He knew Oliver as well as she did. Perhaps, she admitted to herself, better than she did. It was so strange, her brother having a brother, one whom she scarcely knew.
“No,” she told him. “You were perfectly right. If I’d had to stay one more minute in his company, I would have clawed his eyes out. Which isn’t a problem, but there would have been witnesses.” She glanced over at him. “It was good of you to intervene, Your Grace, especially when you have no obligation to me.”
He smiled oddly at that. “Oliver had to leave the room momentarily,” he told her. “If he’d been here, he’d have walked over himself and done the same thing. I was just acting in his stead.”
Maybe the Duke of Clermont felt that same strangeness that she did, that they ought to mean something to one another, because he cleared his throat and looked away. “I’m not your brother, but I’m still an interested party. And if there’s ever anything you need, anything I can do for you, please ask.”
“I should hate to put you out, Your Grace.” She smiled. “Besides, while I was listening to Delacey, I was developing a theory that all lords were self-centered. You’re smashing that to bits, and it was my only comfort.”
“No, no,” he told her, taking her hand and threading it through his arm. “Keep your comforts. We are all self-centered, Miss Marshall. It’s only that some of us are better at hiding it. Now, let me introduce you to Mrs. Blackavar. You’ll like her.”
Free glanced behind her.
James Delacey glared at her still. But it was the grandfather clock behind him that she noted, its face showing twelve minutes to nine.
Delacey could glare all he wanted. But in twenty minutes, the show would start—and after that, he’d regret everything.
IN THE END, it was even more glorious than they had planned.
Oliver’s undersecretary, looking pale and frightened, came into the ballroom. Free had been watching for him; he stole through a servants’ door, sweating profusely. His forehead shone in all that crystal light. He plastered himself against the wall, looking about the room until his eye fell on Delacey.
He inhaled, straightened his spine, and then did his best to slink to the man through the crowd.
That was Free’s cue. She signaled, and a servant brought her a sheaf of papers.
Andrews, meanwhile, bumped into everyone as he moved. He ducked his head in apology every time he did, jumping away and inevitably jostling someone else as he did it, necessitating yet another apology. Free would almost have felt sorry for him had he not been part of the plot to destroy her. As it was, her sympathies were low.
“Pardon,” she heard him mutter as he moved by her. “Pardon. So sorry. Argh.” That last happened as he knocked a wineglass out of a woman’s hand.
By the time Andrews found Delacey, half the room was pretending not to watch him. Free had situated herself a strategic ten yards away, with a perfect view of the coming storm.
“Sir.” At least, that’s what she assumed Andrews said; from here, she could see only the movement of his lips.
Delacey turned to Andrews and then turned a little pale. But he harrumphed creditably and narrowed his eyes. “Do I know you?”
“Sir.” This, she could hear. Andrews spoke a little louder, but just as importantly, those around him had stopped talking, the better to overhear. “Yes, sir. Of course. We’ve never spoken before.” He said that with a little flourish, as if he were winking at the man. “But the thing we’ve never spoken about…”