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inspecting the various portraits and framed documents hanging there, as if he were merely engaged in a friendly chat. “I went shooting the other day with William Hutchence,” he said, and Camden was not fooled by the air of casualness in the statement. “He is also a theater-goer, apparently.” He gave a slight emphasis to “theater-goer,” as if the activity were something vaguely distasteful.
    Camden said nothing.
    “He saw you there,” George continued, his back to his son. “With a woman.” He turned to face Camden, his hands clasped behind him. “You were seen with the same woman in the park at least twice. Once before the play and once just yesterday.”
    “Are you having me followed?” Camden blurted before he could stop himself. He hadn’t meant to say more than necessary — no use providing any extra length of rope with which his father could hang him — but his father’s detailed knowledge of his whereabouts was a disconcerting surprise.
    “Followed?” George scoffed. “No. It is not necessary to have you followed. I have told you again and again you must guard yourself at all times. There are always people watching, waiting for you to acquit yourself in a manner that belies your origins, that proves we are not worthy of moving beyond our humble station.” George began to pace the small office. Camden could see redness creeping up his father’s neck and knew he was becoming increasingly agitated.
    “I don’t think — ”
    George slammed his hands down on Camden’s desk, cutting him off. “Dammit, Rhys!” George said, the oath another indicator of his loss of composure. “After all I have done, after all the work and the sacrifice to achieve what we have! For you to just throw it away by appearing out in public — multiple times! — with that — that —
whore
!”
    “She’s not — ”
    “Do not try to deny it! I have been apprised of who and what she is. It is one thing to discreetly visit one in the darkness of night, if you must. But to be seen in general society with such a creature, to defile the family name this manner — I will not allow it.”
    Camden’s instincts warred within him. He wanted to leap from his chair and come to Del’s defense. He wanted to yell that she wasn’t a whore or “creature” and he wasn’t defiling anything when he was with her. He wanted to command his father to leave him alone, to finally accept that his son was an adult and fully capable of living life without constant interference. But those impulses were tempered by years of being trained — by sharp glances, harsh words, or even a beating if necessary — to obey his father. George Camden demanded compliance in everything, great and small, and nothing was greater than his desire to achieve a level of social respectability to match his newly made wealth. Camden knew his father would abide nothing that threatened to quash his upward progress.
    “Are you even listening to me?” George snapped, leaning over the desk. “You are not to do or say or even
think
anything that could endanger our reputation or your eligibility for a suitable marriage.”
    “But I don’t want — ”
    “This is not about what you want! We have more money than most of the blue-blood lords in this country — hell, half of them are indebted to me for more money than their crumbling estates can ever hope to repay — and yet still they balk at aligning their families with ours.”
    Camden hated it when the subject of marriage came up, and it came up with alarming frequency ever since he’d turned of age. George was convinced the final step to social grace was his son marrying into one of the families — and there were many — who possessed the good name, breeding, title, and respect George desperately craved but who, perhaps through generations of peevish idleness and estate mismanagement, currently lacked the wealth the Camdens could provide. And so Camden was expected to enter into a marriage that