He saw nothing in her plan with which to quibble. “Very well.” He met her eyes. “I’ll see you in the drawing room.”
Letitia nodded and left. Christian stood in the gallery and watched her walk away down a corridor; absently he noted which door she chose. Without real thought, he stored the information in his memory, then turned and headed for his room.
The one part of the evening Letitia hadn’t foreseen was her father’s contribution. She wasn’t the least surprised that her eccentric sire evinced not the smallest degree of grief over Randall’s demise. What stunned her was that instead he appeared to have stepped back twelve or so years—or rather, seemed intent on behaving as if those intervening twelve years hadn’t existed.
Not for any of them.
Especially not for her and Christian.
The instant her father stumped into the drawing room and set eyes on the pair of them standing before the empty hearth, his eyes lit. He chuckled as he came to her and offered his cheek. And proceeded to comment on what a handsome couple they made.
By the time she’d shaken off her shock—he was usually guaranteed to grumble and grouse and grump through any meal—he and Christian were engaged in a discussion of her finer points.
As if she’d been a horse.
She immediately too
k charge of the conversation.
And her father immediately tried to wrest the reins back.
Christian, of course, understood perfectly. Amused, he walked between them, her hand on his sleeve, to the dining room.
There was no telling what, if given free rein, her outrageous sire might say. The only way Letitia could think of to distract him was to focus the conversation firmly on his bête noir, namely Justin.
“I tell you it’s simply unbelievable what the ton are saying. I even heard someone remark…” She prattled on, deliberately choosing comments that would most effectively ignite her sire’s ire.
Christian, of course, did nothing to help; he sat back as course followed course, his eyes on her, occasionally switching to her father when he grew colorfully irate, but his gaze always returned to her, with a glint of amusement lighting the slaty gray, a subtle smile curving his lips, and his ears flapping.
He’d expected her to follow him, had expected to sit at a table with her and her unpredictable father; it seemed clear he’d hoped to discover, uncover, rather more than just her brother.
If she could have, she would have boxed his ears, verbally at least, but she had to keep her wits focused on her father.
“I honestly can’t believe that Justin had the gall to think I’d murdered Randall. Do I look like a murderess? Do I have an evil glint in my eye? It can’t be the color of my hair. But regardless, I can’t help see what’s happened as anything other than ironic—the ton believing it was he for precisely the same reason he believed it was me….” She glanced swiftly at Christian, saw he’d noted the point. Mentally cursed.
“Humph!” Her sire sat back, waving aside a vegetable tureen. “Regardless, can’t say I blame anyone for believing it of either of you, all things considered.”
To her horror, Christian looked up from helping himself to another serving of roast beef. “What ‘things’?”
“Well…”
Letitia tried desperately to catch her father’s eye, but he was looking at Christian, opposite her.
Then her father waved generally. “Randall, of course.” To Letitia’s relief, her father’s peripatetic attention swerved back to her. “I still can’t believe you married the bounder.”
She glared at him. She’d married the bounder to save him and the family, as he damned well knew. For one finite moment her temper threatened to snap its leash for good and all, but then she glanced at Christian—waiting, hovering, wanting to know—and she forced it down, drew a huge breath, held it for an instant, then calmly—awfully—stated, “I do not believe we should continue this conversation. Randall is dead, after all.”
Her father, from whom she’d been very careful to hide the depths of her hatred for Randall—and equally, thankfully, the heights of her love for Christian—grumped, but subsided.
Christian narrowed his eyes at her, then gave his attention to his beef. She looked around, saw the platter was empty, and dispatched a footman to the kitchen for more. Anything to keep the twin banes of her life occupied.
At last the meal ended and, as she’d predicted, her father excused himself and returned to his library.
Christian dutifully refused her offer to retreat and leave him to enjoy a solitary brandy; he prowled at her heels as she led the way back to the drawing room. Claiming to be exhausted after the journey from London, she requested the tea trolley be brought in immediately. She and Christian made a show of pouring and sipping, then left the trolley in the drawing room and headed for the stairs.
It was only as she was climbing them with Christian beside her that she solved the riddle of the strange look on Hightsbury’s face as they’d passed him in the front hall and she’d airily informed him they were retiring immediately.
Hightsbury, and no doubt the rest of the staff, assumed she and Christian were “retiring” to the same bed.