Rafe hesitated. “One must assume it can be, given the number of couples I know who are in that very situation.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Dammit, I feel like the worst sort of guardian! I should have turned your father down. Here we are, not even a week into my guardianship, and one of his daughters has already ruined her reputation. And with an empty-headed high player like Maitland! Your father’s probably cursing me at this moment.”

Tess smiled at him wanly. “Papa was never able to stop Imogen’s adoration for Lord Maitland, for all he told her that the man was a horse-mad fool who would never hold on to a penny. The truth is that Papa was quite similar to Lord Maitland.”

“I should have locked her up,” Rafe muttered. “From now on, none of you are to leave the house without being accompanied by a groom and a maid. No, a groom and two maids!”

The door burst open. “I am accompanied by my son’s betrothed wife. Betrothed!” Lady Clarice said shrilly. “I consider it appropriate that you explain to her precisely how it happened that your ward has enticed my son into this improvident and scandalous match.”

Miss Pythian-Adams followed Lady Clarice into the room, looking the very picture of charming contentment.

Rafe slammed his glass onto the sideboard so sharply that brandy sloshed onto the rosewood surface. “And how in the devil’s name was I to stop your dissolute son from stealing away my underage ward, madam? I consider Maitland entirely at fault. He has seduced an innocent maiden, stolen her fancies with clever words, and destroyed her reputation by this wild and improvident act! If anyone deserves an apology, it is Miss Essex, whose infant sister was stolen by your depraved offspring!”

Lady Clarice fell back in the face of Rafe’s howling voice, but quickly rallied. “The woman is nothing more than a grasping chit who stole my son. Nothing to her name but a horse. A horse! As if Draven hadn’t more than enough horses. I’m sure that I’ve never denied him a horse.”

Tess retreated toward the back of the room. How could Imogen have done this to all of them? But she knew the answer as well as she knew the question. Imogen had eloped because, even if Draven Maitland did not love Imogen the way Romeo loved Juliet, Imogen herself was every bit as passionate as the Shakespearean heroine. More, perhaps. She had simply reached out and taken what she wanted. She was no passive observer. Although, Tess reminded herself, naturally Imogen will be a great deal happier and longer-lived than Juliet.

“That hussy,” Lady Clarice shrieked, “has broken not only my heart but that of his fiancée as well. No thought for others, none! Miss Pythian-Adams is utterly distraught, as well she might be! The heartache of having one’s future husband stolen by a loose girl who—”

“That’s enough!” Rafe bellowed.

Miss Pythian-Adams was displaying her heartache by smiling like someone freed from the hangman’s noose. She drifted over to Tess and, under cover of Rafe’s prolonged diatribe on Maitland’s undesirable qualities, said, “I feel an urge to apologize to you, although I assure you I had nothing to do with this affair. I do hope your sister’s reputation does not suffer unduly.”

“It’s quite all right,” Tess said wearily. Rafe had found a brandy decanter on the sideboard. “Rafe,” she said, taking advantage of Lady Clarice’s pause for dramatic sobs, “are you quite certain that you couldn’t overtake Lord Maitland on the road?” She swallowed hard. “It’s just—I don’t believe that Imogen knows what—she’s really quite young.” Tears choked her throat. “She just doesn’t know what Maitland is like.”

“He’s not a monster,” Miss Pythian-Adams said sympathetically. “I admit that I am quite pleased to be free of the attachment, but I believe your sister has a genuine attachment to Lord Maitland.”

“Please, Rafe,” Tess said, ignoring Miss Pythian-Adams. “Couldn’t you try to stop her?”

“It’s no use,” Rafe said wearily. “Maitland drives like the very devil, even when he’s on a simple excursion. The very idea that he might be chased will delight him and make him go even faster. His horses are the best. There’s no chance, not with a five-hour start on his part.” He tossed back the drink in his hand.

“You could try,” Tess insisted.

“Frankly, at this point I’m not sure we want to catch her,” he said. “Her reputation is ruined. Better married in disgrace than merely disgraced.”

Tess swallowed, then curtsied to Miss Pythian-Adams and Lady Clarice, who was now sobbing into her handkerchief and ignoring the company utterly. “If you will forgive me, I must return to Holbrook Court and inform my sisters of Imogen’s…marital status.”

“I shall return to London this afternoon,” Miss Pythian-Adams answered. “I know we do not part under auspicious circumstances, Miss Essex, but I would feel great pleasure to meet you again in London.”

Tess murmured something and escaped. The moment she reached the corridor, tears began to pour down her face. Her sweet, silly little sister. All those years Imogen spent tracing the title Lady Maitland came to this.

I should have tried harder to convince her that Maitland was a stupid, blockhead of a man, she thought with anguish. I should have known that she would take any opportunity to marry Maitland, even if it meant ruining herself. If I had told her—if we had all told her—over and over that she had no chance of marrying Lord Maitland, this wouldn’t have happened.

She began to run down the stairs, only to be brought up short by Lucius Felton’s voice.

He was standing in the entryway and had clearly just arrived, as he was in a greatcoat. “Miss Essex,” he said, and took a few quick steps up to her.

“I can’t—” she said in a trembling voice. Then he was next to her and had taken out a large white handkerchief.

“Hush,” he said, wiping her cheeks. “I just heard what has happened. I’m going to go after them, as far as the post road. It’s worth the effort, just in case something happened to Maitland’s cattle and he’s had to hire some broken-down job horses crossing the border.” His jaw set; he looked more than a match for Draven Maitland.

“I’ll come with you!” she said, clutching his arm.

“No.” His voice was uncompromising. “I’m certain you wouldn’t wish to be as compromised as your sister now is, Tess.”

She bit her lip. “Of course not.”

“Unless—” he said, and stopped.

She blinked at him, but he said nothing. So she said, “I must return home and tell Annabel and Josie. They will be distraught.”

He bowed. “I shall do my best to bring your little sister back to you.”

“Oh—” But everything she could say was inadequate. “Good luck,” she finally whispered.

He smiled at her, a lopsided smile, and was gone.

Chapter 22

The next morning

“I f you don’t find the notion too distressing,” Mayne said, raising Tess’s hands to his lips in a brief caress, “I suggest that we marry without delay.”

Tess felt all the exhaustion of a sleepless night and all the confusion of their miserable situation. She certainly didn’t feel like undertaking a marriage.He took one swift look at her and obviously guessed what she was about to say. “If we were married, I could whisk your sisters up to London and separate them entirely from the unhappy circumstances of your sister’s elopement,” he continued. “I wouldn’t wish Annabel’s prospects on the marriage market to be at all dimmed by Imogen’s behavior.”