LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Oh, no.’ Lady Sarah paled and reached for her orange juice. ‘I need something stronger,’ she muttered. ‘Orange juice alone just won’t do.’ She picked up a silver bell and rang it. ‘Someone bring me some vodka.’

      ‘It gets worse.’

      Harry’s father glowered down the table at him. ‘How could it possibly get any worse?’

      With a grimace, Harry met his eyes. ‘The Longbourne Tattler got wind of it somehow, and there’s a photograph, and it’s on the front page of this morning’s paper. And,’ he added glumly, ‘Ciaran’s threatening to file a lawsuit against me. For assault.’

      Hugh leaned back in his chair in disgust. ‘I’ve no doubt he’s already filed it, knowing Ciaran. This is just the sort of thing he lives for.’

      ‘It just gets better and better,’ Lord Darcy snapped. ‘It’s not enough Duncan dragged our family through the mud once before! What on earth were you thinking, Harry? You young idiot!’

      ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have got involved,’ Harry admitted, and sighed. ‘It was incredibly stupid.’

      ‘Yes,’ his father agreed curtly, ‘it was.’

      ‘No, it wasn’t.’ Holly spoke up in Harry’s defence. She turned to him. ‘You did a brave thing, standing up to Ciaran Duncan.’

      Harry’s eye – the one that wasn’t purple and nearly swollen shut – met hers. ‘Thanks.’ He gave her a crooked, but very grateful, smile.

      ‘He’s a womaniser and a nasty piece of work, and I know it only too well,’ Holly said. ‘Charlotte’s far too young to resist the attention of someone like him, and if she falls for his lies, he’ll use her and toss her aside like the – the paper in the bottom of a bird cage.’

      ‘You sound as if you speak from experience, Holly,’ Lady Darcy said, and lifted her brow quizzically.

      ‘No need to go into all of that,’ Hugh interjected, and laid a hand protectively atop Holly’s. ‘It’s in the past now.’

      ‘No.’ Holly regarded her fiancé, and then Lady Sarah, without expression. ‘No, it’s all right. Your family deserves to know. And I’ve nothing to be ashamed of, except for my own stupidity.’

      In as few words as possible, she told them all how Ciaran had romanced her in Manhattan the previous summer, how he’d dazzled her with expensive dinners, private box seats at the theatre, a cruise in New York Harbour on a hired yacht, and repeated declarations of love, until she agreed to his proposal of marriage and wore his engagement ring on her finger.

      ‘It was a beautiful ring,’ Holly finished. ‘I was deliriously happy. But then I found out he didn’t really love me,’ she added, and fidgeted with the stem of her water glass. ‘Not one jot. It was all to do with money.’ She looked up. ‘My family’s money.’

      ‘God, I’m sorry,’ Harry said, and scowled. ‘He’s an arse. It seems some things never change. Take what he did to Phoebe, for instance…’

      ‘It’s most distressing,’ Lady Darcy cut in quickly. ‘All of it.’ She gave her youngest son a quelling glance. ‘But there’s no need to go into personal family matters at the dinner table, Harry.’ She turned back to Holly. ‘I’m just relieved that you realised your fiancé’s true intentions before you actually married him.’

      ‘Yes. I count myself very lucky.’ Holly smiled at Hugh’s brother. ‘That’s why I’m glad Harry confronted Ciaran. You prevented her making a very big mistake.’

      ‘That’s me,’ he said wryly, ‘defender of virtue. Champion of teenage girls everywhere.’

      ‘Hardly that,’ Hugh retorted.

      Holly pushed her chair back. ‘I think it’s wonderful, what Harry did. Now, if you’ll all excuse us, I’m taking him into the kitchen to have that eye looked after.’

      ‘The kitchen?’ he echoed, surprised. ‘Don’t you mean the local A&E?’

      ‘No. That eye needs an ice pack on it, and straight away,’ Holly said firmly. ‘A bag of frozen peas will do nicely. Come along, you can show me where the kitchen is.’

      Harry grinned, then winced. He glanced at Hugh as he stood to follow her. ‘Your fiancée is a bit bossy, isn’t she?’

      ‘What about our plans to ride?’ Hugh called out as Holly headed towards the door. ‘Elizabeth’s arranged to meet us at the stables later this morning.’

      ‘And we’ll be there,’ she informed her fiancé firmly, ‘after I take care of poor Harry’s eye.’

      ***

      ‘Good morning, Daddy,’ Charlotte said, and leaned down to kiss his cheek as she entered the kitchen. ‘Did you sleep well?’

      Mr Bennet looked up from the table, where he was sitting with a cup of tea – which had gone cold now – and the newspapers.

      ‘I slept very well, thank you,’ he replied evenly.

      ‘Fab. I slept like a top,’ she confided as she reached into a cupboard for a mug and switched on the kettle. ‘What does that mean, anyway, to “sleep like a top”? Tops don’t sleep, after all; they spin.’

      ‘I’m sure I don’t know.’

      If his daughter noticed his lack of enthusiasm for the topic at hand, she gave no sign.

      ‘I’m surprised Lizzy and Emma aren’t up yet. I’m usually the last one out of bed.’ She plunked a tea bag in her mug. ‘I thought I’d go to Longbourne again today,’ she added, her words casual, ‘and hang out with the girls. We had such a good time yesterday.’

      ‘Evidently. It seems you had such a very good time,’ Mr Bennet went on, and lifted up one of the newspapers on the table, ‘that it made the front page of the Tattler.’

      ‘What…?’ Charlotte turned, mug in hand and surprise on her face. ‘What are you talking about?’

      But as her gaze came to rest on the photograph of her, and Ciaran, and Harry, and a smaller one of her and Ciaran snogging on the aft deck, her words trailed away and her eyes widened in horror.

      She suddenly remembered the sandy-haired bloke with the Nikon, madly snapping photos of Ciaran and Harry fighting from another yacht docked nearby.

      ‘I think I can safely say,’ Mr Bennet pronounced as he tossed the offending paper down and regarded her balefully over the top of his spectacles, ‘that you’re not going anywhere today, Charlotte, nor for the remainder of the month – because you’re not leaving this house.’

       Chapter 14

      ‘What?’ Charlotte cried in outrage. ‘You can’t do that!’

      ‘I most certainly can. What were you thinking,’ he snapped, his face dark with anger, ‘visiting that film star on his private yacht… alone?’

      ‘He invited me out for an afternoon cruise, that’s all! It was nothing.’

      ‘Nothing? Then why didn’t you tell me about it?’ her father demanded. ‘Why did you not ask my permission before you went gallivanting off to Longbourne to spend the day with that womanising scoundrel?’

      ‘I – I didn’t think you’d mind.’ Which was nonsense, of course. She had known Daddy would mind horribly, so much so that he’d never have let her go off to meet Ciaran.

      ‘Of course I mind!’ Mr Bennet scraped his chair back and stood. ‘I very much mind. I’m disappointed in you, Charlotte. Not least because you snuck off to meet that lying

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