The low, insinuating female voice reached Pen on her return to the crowded ballroom from the ladies’ retiring room. Shock more than curiosity made her pause. The tone was repellently malevolent. Just hearing it made her want a thorough wash.
What on earth could engender such spite?
A palm tree concealed the speaker—Lady Frencham’s soiree had a tropical theme—so Pen had no idea who she was. Even after a fortnight in London society, she had difficulty identifying people. Although if she’d heard that nasty voice before, surely she’d remember it.
A second woman replied before Pen could do the decent thing and move out of earshot. “He’s done a grand job of convincing the world to forget his slut of a mother. I’d mention his father, but nobody knows who that is. There are two likely candidates. But given the late duchess’s depravity, hundreds more could have sired him.”
The late duchess? Although no names had been mentioned, a sick foreboding coiled in Pen’s belly.
“He gives himself such airs that one might almost believe him the gentleman he apes. Almost.”
“Until he turned up with that Thorne strumpet.”
Dear Lord, they were talking about Cam. And her.
Horror kept Pen trapped beside the palm tree. Was this what everyone thought?
She flattened a trembling hand against the wall and told herself to leave. The proverb about eavesdroppers hearing no good of themselves came to mind. That clearly counted double for hearing no good of those one loved.
“A marriage in Italy? I for one don’t believe a word of it. Don’t tell me she wasn’t sharing his bed. After the shipwreck, the game was up, so they married in haste. I see trouble already. They act more like strangers than newlyweds. There’s more Rothermere scandal ahead, my dear. That hussy Penelope Thorne won’t limit herself to one man. And Sedgemoor will tire of her soon enough and seek entertainment elsewhere. It’s in the family line, isn’t it?”
Humiliated color seared Pen’s cheeks. The witch’s remarks contained enough truth to cut. She and Cam had struggled so hard to contain any gossip about their wedding. She supposed it was inevitable that they’d failed. But this squalid meanness nauseated her.
“I heard they were at it like rabbits even before she went abroad.” Pen wouldn’t have believed that the first speaker’s voice could become more waspish, but it did. “Everyone knows why she left England before her debut. You mark my words. There’s a Thorne bastard with Rothermere eyes somewhere in France or Italy. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s talk in a few years of them adopting some obscure cousin’s child that nobody’s heard of. A bastard spawning another bastard. It would be amusing if it wasn’t such a blow to society’s standards. Heaven knows, one pays respect to the title when one meets the villain face to face, but it becomes tiresome pretending to honor a mongrel, whatever his noble pretensions.”
Pen could take it no longer. She forgot every promise she’d made never to shame Cam. She didn’t care that the ballroom was packed with observers. Such lies couldn’t go unchallenged. Drawing herself up to her full height, she sailed around the palm tree to accost the women.
“Just as it becomes tiresome to follow the dictates of good manners,” she snapped, unfolding her fan in a single movement and waving it as though the air reeked in the vicinity of these two old cats.
To her surprise, she recognized both of them. They’d fawned over her, angling without subtlety for invitations to Fentonwyck.
“Your Grace…” Mrs. Combe-Browne rose and started a curtsy before recalling that if Pen had overheard them, the gesture was misplaced. Instead she staggered like she’d had too much to drink before landing so awkwardly on her spindly chair that she nearly tumbled to the floor. Pen felt no urge to smile.
“Ladies.” Pen focused a hostile eye on the first speaker, Lady Phillips, a woman notorious as the late Duke of Kent’s mistress. “Although I use the term advisedly.”
“Your Grace!” the woman protested. “I have no idea what prompts such discourtesy.”
Pen glared. “Don’t you?”
Lady Phillips was less easily rattled than her companion. Her eyes narrowed as she stood. “Were you eavesdropping on a private conversation?”
“No conversation audible from the other side of the room counts as private.” Pen matched tone to actions by closing her fan with a contempt that the old bat couldn’t miss. “How ironic that a woman of your blemished reputation sees fit to malign the finest man in England.”
Lady Phillips didn’t retreat, although Mrs. Combe-Browne whimpered like a sick piglet and huddled into her chair as if trying to melt into the wall. “A noble title does not of itself denote honor. Nor in this case breeding.”
Pen stepped forward. Unfortunately Lady Phillips was almost as tall and twice her weight. This might be like confronting a bad-tempered rhino, but nothing could calm Pen’s outrage. How dare this raddled hag insult Cam?
“Perhaps a noble title doesn’t. But character and honesty and heart do. And my husband has those in abundance. If courage and intelligence and generosity form no part of a gentleman’s character, he’s no gentleman, whatever his parents got up to. And that counts for ladies too.”
“Well, I never!” Mrs. Combe-Browne bleated behind her friend.
“You never should have, either of you,” Pen snapped. “My husband is a man of influence.”
Lady Phillips sneered. “You dare to threaten me, you trumped-up whore? Don’t imagine your brazen antics across the Channel are any secret.”
Pen squared her shoulders, ready to do battle, but before she could engage, Cam spoke behind her. Usually she was preternaturally aware of his presence. It was one of the burdens of loving him. But she’d been so furious, nothing else had registered.
“That’s quite enough, Lady Phillips,” Cam said in an icy voice.