The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister #1)(52)

“Madam,” Robert said, “do you by any chance know the temperature this evening?”

She seemed somewhat startled. “Why, no. But I believe there’s a thermometer mounted at—”

“It’s thirty-five degrees out. Almost freezing and likely to get colder.”

She gave him a sullen look. “If you knew already, why bother asking?”

He took another look at the boy before him. The child’s nose was red and dripping with cold. “You have no right to lecture anyone on the care of animals,” Robert said bitterly. “My cousin least of all.”

She frowned in confusion, and he left, his fists clenched. Behind him, the chants continued. We’re not animals. We’re not animals.

Sebastian was a tease. He could tweak a man to the verge of annoyance and beyond. But he’d never been so thoughtlessly, callously cruel as the woman was with her own child. It chafed at Robert that his cousin was judged in danger of losing his immortal soul, when he wasn’t the one rounding up children, treating them like cattle in order to score points.

He was thankful to leave the crowd behind him. The interior was warmer and drier. When the doors closed behind him, they cut off most of the noise from outside. He found Miss Pursling in one of the back rows, seated next to the aisle alongside her friend. Her hands were clamped around the edge of her seat. He paused next to her.

“Miss Pursling,” he said. “We’ve seats up front, if you and Miss Charingford wish to join us.”

“No, thank you.” Her voice was cool. “I…I do not care for crowds. If I’d known it would be this bad, I wouldn’t have come. If there were any way to leave…”

Her lips pressed together. It was hard to judge the pallor of her skin in the faint light at the back of the room, but he thought she looked a little wan.

“Are you well?” he asked.

“It’s nothing.” She swallowed. “It’s nothing. It’s nothing. I’m nothing.”

“Your pardon?”

She glanced up and then swiftly away. “It’s nothing,” she repeated. “Please stop looking at me.”

He sat down in the row behind her. “There. I’m not looking. You have flowers on your gown.” She did. Real ones at that. Little yellow ones edging her hem, her cuffs.

“It seemed appropriate, in light of Mr. Malheur’s work. He discusses plants, does he not?”

“There is. And yet I seem to recall that he started with snapdragons, not…what are those? Pansies. There’s a missed opportunity on your part.” He glanced sidelong at her and caught a soft smile on her face. “They’re lovely.”

“Ah.” She stared straight ahead.

“There,” he said in satisfaction. “Now you’re breathing properly. You just needed a bit of a distraction for a moment.”

He started to stand.

“Your Grace.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.” She was still staring ahead of her. She no longer clutched the seat as if it were the only thing keeping her erect. “I didn’t really wear the flowers in honor of Mr. Malheur, Your Grace.”

He smiled. “I know. I know precisely who you wore them for.”

“You…do?”

“You wore them because you knew that color would soften the angles of your gown. That touch at the neckline makes your eyes look like storm clouds. It’s a lovely effect, Minnie. I know who you wore them for.”

She held perfectly still.

“You wore them for you,” he said. “Good for you.”

She let out a breath. “You’re a very dangerous man.”

He stood. “The hall is almost full. I’m sorry you’d rather stay here. I must go to the front and see to my cousin. Shall I see you after?”

“I—the crowd…” She looked around. “I may leave early, Your Grace, so as not to be caught in the throng.” She looked into her lap as she spoke, but her face had begun to grow pale again.

“You really aren’t well.”

“It’s nothing.” She spoke more sharply this time, and the gentleman up front had stood and looked on the verge of introducing Sebastian. Robert had little choice but to leave her. By the time he found his seat, the man was running through Sebastian’s history.

“…After a distinguished beginning at Cambridge,” the man said, “Mr. Sebastian Malheur made a name for himself by…”

Distinguished beginning? Ha. He’d scarcely made it through the first part of his Tripos examinations. He’d always been on the verge of being sent down, pulling prank after college-boy prank. Nobody had been more shocked by Sebastian’s sudden success than the old men who’d once administered his exams.

In some ways, Sebastian’s subsequent success—the nature of it, as well as the manner—was Sebastian’s biggest prank of all. And he knew it. He came to the podium in front with a bit of a swagger and a smirk.

“Thank you, thank you all,” he said, “for your very kind welcome.” The quirk of his mouth was the only thing that acknowledged that half his welcomers had come to call him names. “I stand here to tell you about the science of inherited traits—the subject of years of study on my part. Over the course of my studies, I have come to several conclusions. One, that traits—like eye color, height, the number of petals on a flower, or the shape of a radish—are inherited from progenitors according to strict, inviolable rules. Second, that the rules of inheritance appear to be constant from animal to plant, from vegetable to tree, from cats and sheep to goats and, of course, the human animal.”