Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

S everal more people pointed her out to their companions as she hastened past. Whether it was the rumours of her supposed elopement or her ill-concealed distress that excited them, she neither knew nor cared. She wanted only to find Oakley, in desperate need of his compassion, for she felt as though her heart was breaking.

Card tables were set up in the next room, and a crowd of people was gathered around each, observing, calling out, and cheering or booing as hands were lost and won. She edged between the tables, searching the faces of everybody there, but soon concluded that Oakley was not among them—she had run in the wrong direction. That made her smile, at least.

"'Twas ever thus," she muttered with a feeble laugh.

She ceased smiling when she heard a voice she had not heard for a very long time and had not thought to ever hear again. She froze, questioning whether it could be so, attempting to convince herself she was mistaken, doubting that he could possibly be at such a gathering as this. Then she heard it again, as clear as day—her brother's voice. Not the brother for whom she had been searching, and most definitely not one from whom she could ever expect to receive compassion—Benedict Booker.

As loath to look at him as she was to let him see her, she turned away from the sound and began trying to force her way through the swarm of onlookers with as much haste as she could, but it was too late.

"Fleeing again are you, Sister?"

She pretended she had not heard him. Her breath was coming faster, and her desperation to get away from him was making her shove too roughly; people were beginning to complain.

"A-de-laide," Benedict called in the same, singsong voice with which he had used to taunt her as a child. "My my, look how prettily they have dressed you up. Like a little doll. 'Tis astonishing what a few shiny baubles can do, even for the sorriest of creatures."

The crush around Adelaide eased as people stepped back to better observe the unfolding spectacle, forming a crude arena from which she could not find egress, despite how she pushed and elbowed at it.

"Not even all these jewels were enough to keep you tethered, though, eh? You ran away from your new family, just as you ran away from ours."

She turned around, desperate to make him stop, but her wits failed her when she saw him. His leering expression was unchanged, only now supplanted on a man's face. He had grown fat, but he must have grown rich, too, for he was dressed as finely as any of the grand noblemen in attendance. Hearing the whispers of shock and intrigue that were swelling around her, she forced herself to speak.

"You are not my family, sir. I do not recognise you." To the person next to her, she said, "Excuse me, please," but they would not move.

Benedict laughed, sending a shiver up her spine.

"Where did you go this time? To work in a mill? On a boat? You would have to go some way to beat the eight years you spent scrubbing floors." A wave of gasps was followed by the complete silence of all those who had heard him. It was as though a bubble had formed at the core of Lady Ardley's house, outside of which life continued, oblivious, and inside of which, everybody was holding their breath.

"Oh, did none of you good people know?" Benedict asked with exaggerated innocence. "The Richmonds found their precious little orphan belowstairs at High Brook. Where she ended up after she ran away from us. Did you enjoy emptying chamber pots to earn your supper, Sister?"

"I never saw a chamber pot whose contents I did not consider better company than you," she retorted. She ought not to have said it, but the pretence was done; she had no secrets left to keep.

"I told your cousin not to trouble himself looking for you when he came sniffing around the house. Seems he did not take my advice."

"Viscount Oakley knows what it means to care for his family. "

"You were not my family though, were you? If you had been, I should have taught you some damned manners."

"Lay off, Booker. This is no way to speak to a lady," said somebody Adelaide could not see.

Someone else scoffed contemptuously. "Whoever heard of a lady doing a servant's work?"

"Plenty of people," came another voice. "Not everybody has the good fortune to snare a widowed, octogenarian duke when they fall on hard times."

"That was not good fortune, my lord," the woman replied. "That was good planning."

This remark sparked an argument between the pair that was rapidly subsumed by a welter of other voices as more and more people passed judgement on the case. Occasionally, Adelaide heard somebody speak in her defence, but the tide of opinion was strongly against her, and she knew not what to do.

"Please let me through," she begged the people closest to her.

Nobody moved at first, but the crowd reluctantly stirred and shifted when somebody began fighting their way through from the outside. Mr Hanson was abruptly spewed into the centre of the ring. For one beat of her heart, Adelaide thought he had come to offer his support. It was a vain and short-lived hope. He sneered at her balefully.

"You were a maid ?"

"Might we discuss this somewhere else?" Adelaide pleaded, sweat trickling down her back.

He ignored her. "I was prepared to put up with your boorish conduct and want of accomplishments to become your husband, but Lord above! I wish to go up in the world, not down ! I will not shackle myself to a servant !"

"As you can see, sir, I am not a servant."

Without warning, Mr Hanson thrust out a hand and grabbed one of hers, lifting it roughly to inspect it and tugging her a few steps off balance in the process. "These are the hands of a labourer. A labourer, and a liar . What else have you neglected to disclose? Are you even truly a Richmond?"

She snatched her hand back. "More a Richmond than you ever will be a gentleman."

"Is that so? Then you ought to have no difficulty finding yourself a different husband. You may consider my offer withdrawn. With God and everyone here as my witness, I renounce this sham of an engagement!" And with that, he spun on his heel and forced his way back into the throng.

It ought to have been a joyous turn of events, but it was clear from the looks of pity on the faces of every person Adelaide could see that this was not an auspicious development.

Benedict began to laugh. "Dear oh dear, Adelaide. What have you done now?"

Nobody else was laughing. Even the people who had refused to denounce her moments before were turning their noses up now, frowning and shaking their heads. She felt faint, and it gave a dreamlike timbre to the whispers echoing around her .

"Orphaned, impoverished, and jilted. She is cursed. I would not marry her if you paid me."

"No one will now."

"Never mind her, who will have poor Lord Oakley?"

With humiliation threatening to overwhelm her, Adelaide staggered away from Benedict, but bumped into somebody behind her. "Pardon me, I?—"

"Would you care to take a turn about the room with me, Miss Richmond?"