Candice Hern Read Free Page B

can quickly change and be at Daine House well before the guests arrive.”
    “Not so fast, girl. We still have this to sort out.” He made a gesture encompassing the hallway.
    “What?”
    “You have spent the night under this man’s roof.”
    Her cheeks flamed. She was thoroughly ashamed that Nicholas should have to be a part of this foolishness. How could her father do this to her? She wasn’t a schoolgirl, for heaven’s sake.
    “No harm has been done, Papa. Nicholas did not even know I was here.” Pru glanced atNicholas and gave him a shy, but hopefully encouraging, smile. Surely he knew she did not hold him responsible in any way for her own forgetfulness.
    “That is of no consequence,” her father said. “Your reputation has been compromised.”
    “Nonsense. Besides the lot of you, who will even know I was here?”
    “The whole blasted family by now, if I know your sister.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “When you did not show up at Daine House last night, Margaret was furious. She sent everyone searching for you, and when you could not be found…well, you can imagine the ruckus.”
    Pru rolled her eyes. If they’d paid the least attention to her, they would have known where she was. She was forever reminding them all of her work on the magazine, but she was generally ignored.
    “Finally,” her father continued, “when your brother Willy dragged his tail home, from God knows where, at the crack of dawn, he suggested you might have spent the night here.”
    Nicholas groaned.
    Pru looked at him. He had gone quite pale, and rubbed the back of his neck with a hand. She was feeling anything but pale as heat continued to flood her cheeks. She turned to her brother. “Willy! You didn’t.”
    He had the good sense to look embarrassed. “I never meant it like that,” Willy said. “I only mentioned that you sometimes worked late at Parrish’s house, and if you had not come home, you were likely still there.” He gave a little snort. “I ought to have known Margaret would have a fit of the vapors. She decided you’d been…Well, you know how she is.”
    “When your brother was so obliging,” her papa said, “as to reveal that you had probably spent the night in the house of a single gentleman—”
    “Margaret asked who he was—”
    “—and that no other female was present—”
    “Well, you told me, Pru, that your friend Edwina was on her wedding trip—”
    “—your sister decided the worst had happened. And so now you’re in the suds, girl. There’s only one thing to be done.” Her father glanced at Nicholas.
    “No, Papa, there is nothing to be done,” she said. “It was an innocent mistake. I will explain it all to Margaret.”
    “She has already taken to her couch in a flood of tears,” her eldest brother Roderick said. He could not keep the hint of scorn from his voice. They had all experienced Margaret’s dramatic collapses over the years. “Says you are trying to upstage her daughter’s come-out Season.”
    “What nonsense.”
    Nicholas pushed away from the wall and came to stand beside Pru. “It is not nonsense. It is quite serious, Pru. Your reputation has been compromised, and it is all my fault.”
    She wondered if a person could actually die of mortification. “No, Nicholas,” she said, hervoice barely above a whisper, “it is not your fault.”
    “Oh, yes it is,” her father said. “And I am glad to hear this gentleman admit it. You had no right, sir, to allow my daughter to remain alone under your roof.”
    “But Papa, I was only here downstairs in the magazine office, not—”
    “It does not matter,” Nicholas said. “Your father is right. I should not have allowed it. My only excuse is that I always considered you one of the family, Pru. I am deeply sorry.”
    “I’ll bet you are,” her father said.
    Nicholas gave him a challenging look that was quite startling in its intensity.
    “But you will marry Prudence,” her father said.
    Dear God.