Page 49 of Two Vows and a Viscount

Fulvia said, “Father, I suspect that you engaged in unwise gambling this evening.”

“How dare you!” the viscount said, blowing up like a child’s balloon.

“I recognize the shame you evidence when you have had a particularly poor showing at the gaming tables,” his daughter said.

“How dare you question me?”

“Ella’s inheritance paid for this ball,” Fulvia said in her high, clear voice. “For the hired footmen, for the salmon patties, for the bottles and bottles of champagne that were sent into the gaming room.”

Fiennes’s eyes narrowed. “Is that the case?”

Fulvia put a hand on his arm. “We shall repay her.”

He glanced at his fiancée and nodded.

They were partners.

The truth of it sank into Ella’s chest like a blade. It didn’t matter that Fiennes was marrying Fulvia as the act of a gentleman. It didn’t matter that he had briefly wanted to marry Ella.

He and Fulvia would bed each other, eat breakfast together, parent children together. Her cousin was not a terrible woman. She wasn’t vain or cruel.

He would come to love her, as Ella loved her. Even though she was jealous of Fulvia, she still loved the girl who endlessly begged her to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream just one more time.

Next to Ella, the viscountess was muttering, “Oh dear, oh dear.” She began to rise, so Ella stood as well, supporting her aunt with an arm around her waist.

“My useless wife has decided to join the conversation!” the viscount said. “Ella’s inheritance was sacrificed for naught because of your laziness. What lady retires to bed during her own daughter’s debut ball ?”

The viscountess swallowed hard. “I … I was so tired that I became dizzy,” she faltered.

“For shame!” Fulvia said to her father, showing her first sign of emotion as she came around to take her mother’s other arm.

“The shame is yours and your mother’s,” the viscount snarled.

“My mother is likely carrying the heir to your title,” Fulvia retorted. “You are shouting at a woman in a delicate condition, moreover, one who is vital to your future and that of the house in which we stand.”

The viscountess gave a little moan.

Her husband’s eyes bulged until he resembled a bullfrog, to Ella’s eyes. If he’d been purple earlier, now he looked as if he’d been steeped in beet juice.

“A child,” he said, his voice dropping a full octave. “A child, my lady. Is this true?”

The viscountess nodded her head with all the animation of a wooden puppet on strings.

“Since you rarely attend church, I assume you are not claiming immaculate conception.”

His wife gasped but didn’t answer. The viscount stepped forward, and before Ella had any idea what he planned, he slapped his wife in the face hard with his gloves.

Ella screamed and pulled her aunt backwards. Fiennes took a step and shoved the viscount to the side. Her uncle lurched and caught himself on the back of a chair.

“A child!” The viscount glared at Ella’s aunt. “It seems my wife is as much of a whore as my daughter, because that is not my child!”

The only sound in the room was a solid thunk as Fiennes knocked out Viscount St. Trevelyon with one blow to the jaw.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HORROR ON ALL SIDES

The viscountess gave a small gasp and fainted dead away, her right cheek stained crimson from the imprint of her husband’s blow.