Dangerous in Diamonds - Madeline Hunter [55]
He closed by saying he was writing from the ladies’ house, where he had taken position in the front chamber, pistol at the ready, and asked whether he should write and inform Mrs. Joyes of this development.
The last words made Castleford sit up straight and curse.
He set aside the coffee tray and threw back the sheet. He went to his writing desk and penned a reply without bothering to don a robe.
He exhorted Mr. Edwards to of course do what was necessary to protect the ladies but to also exercise good sense. He suggested that Mr. Edwards remain at the house in the future and allow the men to report on their progress there. He explained that this stranger probably represented no real danger. He assured his secretary that he had every faith in his judgment and courage but that it would probably be best not to shoot anyone if it could be avoided.
He closed by writing that under no circumstance was Mrs. Joyes to be worried about this matter, lest she feel obliged to return home to brandish a pistol as well.
Trusting that he had averted the two disasters of Mr. Edwards being tried for murder and Mrs. Joyes departing London, Castleford then penned a letter to the lady herself.
He forced himself to add enough words to make it look gracious and not too brief. Then he informed her that he required her presence at another meeting regarding her property. Would she be good enough to indulge him and attend one tomorrow at five o’clock?
He sealed both letters and gave them to one of his valets. Content that his day’s work was done, he went back to bed.
A hot August day has a way of burning through illusions. So it was that while Daphne woke the next morning still in a daze—due to shockingly explicit dreams involving her, Castleford, and a bed made out of a huge diamond—she felt very much her old self by the time she finished her breakfast. Decidedly so. Somewhat sadly so.
Sitting in the late morning light pouring through her chamber window, she assessed what had happened the night before and spared herself not at all.
She had imbibed too much wine. She would like to claim Castleford had pressed it on her as part of his plot, but nevertheless, she had, of her own free will, drunk sufficiently to abandon all good sense.
True, a different man might have refused to take advantage of her condition, but this was Castleford, for heaven’s sake. It was a miracle he had not ravished her while she stood against that wall.
She could not ignore that, while he had unaccountably not ravished her, what he had done had convinced him that she was his to ravish in the future. That business about wearing diamond bobs and nothing else—it was not so much that he had said it but rather how he had said it. Calmly, frankly, as if it were inevitable. As if he had a right to her now.
When the mail arrived, she eagerly looked through it, hoping for a return letter from Margaret. Her spirits sagged when there was nothing from the north.
Perhaps she should just make that journey uninvited and hope for the best. She might have given Margaret pause by mentioning the past. This visit had become more of a necessity with each passing day to make sure that people dear to her were protected. The way emotions kept running higher about the trouble up there only increased her worry.
She flipped past two letters from writers she did not recognize. They appeared to be invitations. She wondered who would be inviting her to anything.
Then she found the letter from Castleford himself.
Very gracious, very polite, and containing only the barest allusion to last night’s intimacy (he had delighted in seeing her “freely enjoy her own high spirits” during the party), he finally mentioned that, by the by, they needed to meet tomorrow about her property.
She set the letter down and wondered how long it took a jeweler to make diamond ear bobs.
Daphne went out later that morning to meet with one of the stewards who had written about contracting for plants. She did not return until one o’clock. Having