Worth More Than Rubies by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes [Burrowes, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781956975949
Publisher: Grace Burrowes

“Dunfallon’s father was awful,” Emmie said. “A martinet with no sense for his children’s feelings. What sort of man numbers his sons?”

Leah, Lady Bellefonte, sipped her tea and marveled. For the first time in living memory, Emmie Armstrong was babbling. She had been holding forth since ensconcing herself on the love seat opposite her ladyship’s perch on the sofa. The fire on the hearth in the countess’s private parlor softly crackled, and flurries danced past the window, while Emmie Armstrong chattered gaily on.

And about time too.

“His given name is Tertius,” she said. “The older brother was Secondus. He was consumptive and expired while Dane was in the military. Secondus held out until Dane could get leave so they at least took a proper farewell of one another. Secondus was also Dane’s ally. I suppose I should refer to Dane as Dunfallon, but the children still call him Mr. Dunn, when I so want them to be able to call him Mr. Dingle.”

Emmie was wearing a pretty frock for a change, in holiday red and green, and her eyes had taken on the sparkle Lady Bellefonte usually saw only when Emmie was critiquing Mr. Coleridge’s poetical maunderings.

“Emmie?”

“Hmm?”

“Has His Grace declared his intentions?”

“Yes.”

Nicholas had predicted as much. He’d said that if and when Dunfallon succumbed to love, he’d fall hard and not for a predictable diamond.

“Have you informed your brother?”

Emmie’s sparkle dimmed, and she considered her tea. “Ambrose is in Town. I know not why. He sent a note, and my fingers nearly froze holding it, the tone was so chilly. ‘I plan to spend the holidays on Humboldt Street. Please inform Aunt. Threadham.’”

“Now that is odd,” Lady Bellefonte said. “He might have written to your aunt rather than to you, and by rights, a dutiful nephew should pay a holiday call on his auntie.”

Emmie made a face at a cup of excellent China black. “You think he was warning me of such a visit? Or does he expect me to go down on my figurative knees, begging for his brotherly forgiveness when he’s the party in the wrong?”

Her ladyship considered what she knew of brothers—she had grown up with two, Nicholas had four, and the lot of them were difficult, dear men.

“I suspect Lord Threadham wasn’t clear in his mind about his own motives. He probably told himself you had a right to know his movements, that you and he might meet at some holiday function, and you are his sister after all. He would not have examined his reasoning more closely until after the letter had been posted, when it was safe to do so.”

Lady Bellefonte knew Ambrose, Viscount Threadham, only in passing. That no gossip concerning the viscount had reached her ladyship spoke well of him, but perhaps both discretion and debauchery numbered among his talents.

“Ambrose was such a happy boy,” Emmie said. “That he has become a grim, judgmental prig baffles and disappoints me.”

“Dunfallon might understand the transformation. He’s not exactly a dashing blade himself.”

Emmie cut herself a slice of the gingerbread loaf that had as yet escaped predation by Nicholas or the children.

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