Reckless Angel by Jane Feather Page B

your interference that has led to this.”
    â€œYou mind your tongue, girl!” Sir Gerald decided that he had been off center stage for long enough. “Y’are coming with me. Lady Mary will know how best to bring you to a sense of duty.” He seized her arm, pushing her toward the door.
    â€œOne minute, Sir Gerald.” Daniel moved swiftly to stand before the door. He had no choice and had known it since he walked into the room. A man who would take a horsewhip to his daughter while she was attending to an unconscious lad was not a man to listen with a sympathetic ear to the idea that Henrietta should be established in the childless household of Sir Daniel Drummond’s sister. Frances would have welcomed her companionship, and Daniel had assumed that Sir Gerald and his lady would be only too glad to be rid of their troublesome daughter in respectable and economical fashion once such a solution was presented to them. It was commonly done, after all. When disagreement or disgrace made family harmony impossible, the cuckoo would be sent to another nest.
    Now there was but one way out of this tangle. It was a tangle he had woven for himself when all was said and done, and the solution, while it had elements to alarm, for some reason did not throw him into despondency. With a calm resignation that a few weeks ago would have amazed him, he heard his voice above the gentle hiss and crackle of the fire. “There are some matters I would discuss with you before you leave.”
    â€œIf ’tis a matter of what I owe ye for taking charge of this—”
    â€œNay, ’tis not that,” Daniel interrupted. “I would ask your daughter’s hand in marriage, Sir Gerald.”
    The silence in the room was profound. Will gawped, his jaw dropping slackly. Henrietta stared. Sir Gerald’s bloodshot eyes popped in his suffused countenance.
    â€œWhy ever would you wish to wed me?” Henrietta said finally, just when it seemed as if the silence would continue forever, the figures remain forever graven in the attitudes they held.
    â€œWhy should I not?” He looked at her with quiet eyes.
    Henrietta shook her head slowly. “I think perhaps this is the way you would make amends.”
    â€œYou do not think that perhaps I could not in honor wed you without your father’s permission?”
    â€œAnd that is why you told him I was here?” Her eyes became even larger in the heart-shaped face. “Why would you not say something of this to me first?”
    â€œMake amends?” broke in Sir Gerald, recovering from his astonishment and thus sparing Daniel the need to reply. “If ye’d make amends for a maidenhead ye’ve spoiled, sir, I’ll tell ye now—”
    â€œI am not Master Osbert, Sir Gerald. Ye’ll cast no aspersions on my honor as if I were some young puppy!” For the first time anger flashed in Daniel’s eyes. “I have said that your daughter is as chaste as my own child. Do not doubt my word.”
    â€œMy daughter is promised,” Sir Gerald said, a sullen note in his voice—the note of a bully obliged to back down.
    â€œI’ll not marry Sir Reginald!” cried Henrietta.
    â€œYe’ll marry where I bid ye!” He still held her by the arm, and now he raised his other hand in threat.
    She turned her head aside in a quick ducking movement that told Daniel more than anything could have done how accustomed she was to both threats and their fulfillment.
    â€œYe’ve a debt due on staple-statute as I understand it,” Daniel said. “Let us see if we can come to some arrangement.”
    Sir Gerald looked uncertain. “What mean ye?”
    â€œI think ’twould be best to discuss this alone,” Daniel said evenly. “Henrietta, take Will to his chamber and see what you can do for him. ’Tis a monstrous bruise appearing on his chin.”
    â€œI do not understand,” she said.