Devil in Spring (The Ravenels #3)(15)

“Oh, God.” Gabriel leaned over the table to make the opening break. Staying down on the shot, he struck the cue ball, which struck the yellow ball and knocked it into the net. Two points. With the next shot, he potted the red ball.

“Well done,” his father said. “What a sharper you are.”

Gabriel snorted. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me two nights ago at the Chaworth ball. You’d have called me a prize idiot—rightly so—for being trapped into marriage by a na?ve girl.”

“Ah, well, no bull can avoid the yoke forever.” Sebastian moved around the table, set up his shot, and executed a perfect in-off. “What is her name?”

“Lady Pandora Ravenel.” As they continued to play, Gabriel explained in disgust, “I didn’t want to attend the damned ball in the first place. I was pressed into it by some friends who said that Chaworth had spent a fortune for a crew of self-styled ‘fireworks artisans.’ There was supposed to be a ripping exhibition at the end of the evening. Since I had no interest in the ball itself, I walked down to the river to watch the workmen set up rockets. As I returned”—he paused to execute a carom, a three-point shot that hit two balls simultaneously—“I happened to hear a girl cursing in the summer house. She had trapped herself arse-upwards on a settee, with her dress caught in the carved scrollwork.”

His father’s eyes twinkled with enjoyment. “A fiendishly clever lure. What man could resist?”

“Like a clodpate, I went to help. Before I could pull her free, Lord Chaworth and Westcliff happened upon us. Westcliff offered to keep his mouth shut, of course, but Chaworth was determined to bring about my comeuppance.” Gabriel sent his father a pointed glance. “Almost as if he had an old score to settle.”

Sebastian looked vaguely apologetic. “There may have been a brief dalliance with his wife,” he admitted, “a few years before I married your mother.”

Gabriel took a heedless shot that sent the cue ball rolling aimlessly around the table. “Now the girl’s reputation is ruined, and I have to marry her. The very suggestion of which, I might add, caused her to howl in protest.”

“Why?”

“Probably because she doesn’t like me. As you can imagine, my behavior was somewhat less than charming, given the circumstances.”

“No, I’m asking why you have to marry her.”

“Because it’s the honorable thing to do.” Gabriel paused. “Isn’t that what you’d expect?”

“By no means. Your mother is the one who expects you to do the honorable thing. I, however, am perfectly happy for you to do the dishonorable thing if you can get away with it.” Leaning down, Sebastian assessed a shot with narrowed eyes, lined it up, and potted the red ball expertly. “Someone has to marry the girl,” he said casually, “but it doesn’t have to be you.” Retrieving the red ball, he returned it to the head spot for another strike. “We’ll buy a husband for her. Nowadays most noble families are in debt up to their ears. For the right sum, they’ll gladly offer up one of their pedigreed progeny.”

Regarding his father with an arrested stare, Gabriel considered the idea. He could foist Pandora onto another man and make her someone else’s problem. She wouldn’t have to live as an outcast, and he would be free to go on with his life as before.

Except . . .

Except he couldn’t seem to stop brooding over Pandora, who was like annoying music he couldn’t get out of his head. He’d become so obsessed with her that he hadn’t even visited his mistress, knowing that even Nola’s extensive repertoire wouldn’t serve to distract him.

“Well?” his father prompted.

Preoccupied, Gabriel was slow to reply. “The idea has merit.”

Sebastian glanced at him quizzically. “I rather expected something more along the lines of, ‘Yes, dear God, I’ll do anything to avoid spending a lifetime shackled to a girl I can’t abide.’”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t abide her,” Gabriel said testily.

Sebastian regarded him with a faint smile. After a moment, he prodded, “Is she pleasing to the eye?”

Gabriel went to an inset sideboard to pour himself a brandy. “She’s bloody ravishing,” he muttered.

Looking more and more interested, his father asked, “What is the problem with her, then?”

“She’s a perfect little savage. Constitutionally incapable of guarding her tongue. Not to mention peculiar: She goes to balls but never dances, only sits in the corner. Two of the fellows I went drinking with last night said they’d asked her to waltz on previous occasions. She told one of them that a carriage horse had recently stepped on her foot, and she told the other that the butler had accidently slammed her leg in the door.” Gabriel took a swallow of brandy before finishing grimly, “No wonder she’s a wallflower.”

Sebastian, who had begun to laugh, seemed struck by that last comment. “Ahhh,” he said softly. “That explains it.” He was silent for a moment, lost in some distant, pleasurable memory. “Dangerous creatures, wallflowers. Approach them with the utmost caution. They sit quietly in corners, appearing abandoned and forlorn, when in truth they’re sirens who lure men to their downfall. You won’t even notice the moment she steals the heart right out of your body—and then it’s hers for good. A wallflower never gives your heart back.”