“I hope you realize now it wasn’t you,” he said gently. “George would have treated you poorly no matter who you were. He treated everyone that way.”

“I suppose,” she murmured, peering down at her embroidery again.

Richard sighed, a sound that struck her as slightly exasperated, but he let that subject go and instead said, “While I understand why you and Suzette would be angry with your father, I think it may be undeserved.”

She raised her eyebrows in question. “Oh?”

“Do you know how the first losses happened?” he asked.

Christiana shook her head. “All I know is Father went to town to meet with his solicitor about estate business and came back several days late, terribly upset. It took some effort to get him to tell us what was wrong, and then he finally confessed he’d somehow wound up at a gaming hell and gambled us into debt and that the owner of the gaming hell was demanding payment and while he’d managed to pay some of it, he just didn’t have the money to pay the rest. We were all upset and trying to work out a way to get the money when Dicky showed up to save the day.”

“How did he know to save the day?”

Christiana blinked at the question. “What?”

“You said Dicky showed up to save the day,” Richard pointed out. “How did he know the day needed saving?”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Well, I didn’t mean that he knew about it when he arrived. It was just a grand coincidence, or at least I think it was. I’m not sure about anything now, but at the time it seemed coincidence, and I just assumed that Father told him of his troubles while they talked and Dicky offered to pay his remaining debt to sweeten his offer of marriage.”

“Hmm,” Richard’s mouth thinned out, and then he said, “Well, Daniel and I suspect Dicky had something to do with getting your father to the gaming hellion the first place that time too.”

“You do?” she asked with surprise. “Why?”

“Because there are rumors in town that the Earl of Radnor has become friendly with a certain owner of a gaming hell where it’s suspected the players are drugged and fleeced. I believe it’s the same gaming hell where your father lost his money. And it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that George had taken your father there both times.” He frowned and added, “I shall ask your father about that on our return. If I’d been thinking clearly I would have done it yesterday.”

Christiana stared at Richard blankly, and then blurted, “But why? Why would he do such a thing?”

“Well, if he did it the first time, it was probably to force an opportunity to marry you and get his hands on your dower,” he said apologetically.

“But no one knows about it.”

“Langley does,” he pointed out.

“He’s like family. Robert wouldn’t tell anyone,” she assured him firmly.

“While I knew him as a child, I don’t know him as a man yet, so I will trust your judgment on that,” he said and then asked, “Who else knows?”