A green garter the same color as Della’s dress? Found in a conspicuous location by no less gossip than Lyle Mannering?
“Mannering said that?” Susannah murmured. Green was an unusual color for a debutante, but Della looked well in it, and she was older than most debutantes. The color had almost become her signature, in fact.
“My lady, people will talk,” Will said in the same repressive tones he used on Comus when the dog was in an excitable mood.
“Men especially,” Ash added. “Idle talk, much of it. You mustn’t make anything of it, and I should not have spoken so freely.”
The music came to its final cadence as Tresham bowed, Della curtsied, and again, scandal beckoned.
“You will have Lady Della’s next dance, Ash Dorning,” Susannah said. “Will, if you would find her an earl, a marquess, a baronet, or even a colonel for the dance that follows. Anybody with consequence, a decent reputation, and two functioning feet. This is a disaster, for Della to be gossiped about by the men, and I cannot think, I can’t—”
Dread wrapped a cold fist around Susannah’s windpipe, and where all had been warmth and wonder, the evening turned rank and anxious. Again, she felt like the too-tall girl with the punch spilled down the back of her skirts at Lady March’s tea dance—bright red punch nobody had alerted her to until Willow Dorning had slipped her shawl around her shoulders and suggested she favor him with a turn on the terrace.
“It’s talk,” Will said quietly. “Nothing but talk. Lady Della has attracted an eligible bachelor’s notice, and talk is inevitable. Ash, fetch Lady Della. Susannah, breathe.”
Not as easy as it ought to be, but Susannah managed. No less person than the Duke of Quimbey was soon at her side, while Will slipped off who knew where to find more dance partners for another Haddonfield sister who did not deserve the unkindness and slander hurled in her direction.
*
“Your brother Will might tell you to speak to me in a stern tone, then turn away,” Sir Worth Reverence Kettering informed his wife. “I have been a naughty knight.”
Jacaranda passed him the baby, who was blissfully asleep after her last meal of the day. The sight of the infant at the breast provoked a riot of feelings in her papa. Tenderness, protectiveness, and a touch of…well, jealousy. Worth Kettering had admired those breasts before they’d provided sustenance to his daughter, and part of him longed to be their exclusive admirer again.
“Ready to go nighty-night?” he asked the child, nuzzling her downy crown while Jacaranda did up bows and ribbons and other armaments of maternal modesty. “Papa’s ready to go nighty-night, and all those fussy, frilly distractions your mama thinks will keep him from having the sort of thoughts that resulted in you will only inspire him to prodigious feats of persistence. Papa can be a very determined fellow when he’s missing Mama’s special kisses.”
“Worth Kettering, fatherhood has made you daft,” Jacaranda said, kissing his cheek. “Let’s tuck in your princess, and you can tell me all about your latest misbehavior. Come along, Meda.”
While Jacaranda had dealt with the baby, Worth had taken Meda out for her last garden visit of the day. His little family had a routine now, though once upon a time, routine had loomed before Worth like durance vile, the tribulation a man tolerated for growing successful enough to misbehave with impunity at least some of the time.
“That child is always so good for you,” Jacaranda observed as they reached the nursery, “and you never lose patience with her.”
“Like your brother Willow never loses patience with his dogs? I wish wealthy dukes were as canny and self-disciplined as Will. But, no, Their Graces as a species expect the laws of finance do not apply to ducal coin.”
Worth laid the sleeping child in her bassinet, and Meda curled up on the carpet. He put an arm around his wife, and took a moment to simply behold the little miracle they’d made.
Though the child wasn’t so little anymore. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. If she kept growing, then someday, long before Worth was ready for such a trial, their daughter would have beaus and wear ball gowns.
Fatherhood had made him daft, indeed.
“You usually enjoy the company of your ducal clients,” Jacaranda said. “The Regent earns your most colorful language.”
Jacaranda was absorbed with motherhood, with her opera dancers—they had once been Worth’s opera dancers—with organizing the social lives of his clerks and his business associates, with organizing him. Had she studied on the matter, she would have realized the royal dukes and princes were more bothersome than the Regent himself.