Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (Scandalous Seasons #3)(42)

Her family spoke of Abigail making a match, and yet, for the first time since she’d learned the extent of Alexander’s deceit, she began to believe that maybe, just maybe, she could love again.

***

Geoffrey could name all manner of things he’d rather to do than sit at the Duke of Somerset’s long dining hall table, as Abigail conversed with Lord Sinclair.

Why, he’d rather be forced to sit through Mama’s lecture about his duties as viscount.

Which was saying a good deal. Because he loathed the nuisance his mother so often made of herself as much as he detested being the subject of public scrutiny.

Geoffrey punished himself instead with the sight of Abigail seated beside Sinclair. It didn’t escape his notice the number of furtive glances she stole in Geoffrey’s direction. It didn’t escape his notice, because he studied her with the same dogged intensity.

He growled. If Sinclair didn’t remove his gaze from the generous swell of her décolletage, by God he’d drag the blighter across the table, and…

“You seem preoccupied, my lord,” Lady Beatrice murmured.

Geoffrey blamed his distractedness on too much drink earlier that day. He shook his head, returning his attention to Lady Beatrice. “Forgive me,” he murmured, and reached for his glass of wine. He took a sip, and then sat the glass back down.

“It is Abigail,” Lady Beatrice interjected, her words nothing more than the faintest whisper.

Geoffrey choked on his red wine.

“Come, my lord. I see the way you study her.”

He cleared his throat, mind curiously blank.

Lady Beatrice leaned closer and said quietly, “You do not want to court me, my lord.”

“Of course, I want to court you,” he said with a steely edge to his words.

Her lips twitched. “I’m almost flattered, my lord,” she teased. “But your heart would never belong to me.”

“Hearts needn’t be engaged in a marriage,” he said, his response automatic. “I would protect you. You’d never want for anything.”

She gave him a sad little smile. “Anything except love.” Lady Beatrice leaned back in her chair. “I mention love, and you look at me with such shocked horror, I wonder if I’ve merely imagined the way you study my cousin.”

Unbidden, his gaze flitted to Abigail, and then back to Beatrice.

A smile played about her lips. “No. I do not think I’m wrong. I suspect, however, that even if you don’t yourself realize it, you care for her. With no malice or regret, I encourage your courtship of Abby.” With that dismissal, she turned her attention to Lord Sedgwick.

The logical portion of Geoffrey’s brain urged him to protest, to maintain his devotion to courting her.

The words wouldn’t come.

Lady Beatrice had rejected him. Quite simply and with a directness he’d not expected of the demure, gentle young lady. As Geoffrey sat there, he expected he should feel some regret or disappointment at Lady Beatrice’s rejection. Since he’d inherited the Redbrooke title, he’d become accustomed to acquiring everything and anything he desired. He’d employed a ruthless determination to business ventures, and matters of politics. Even his familial obligations where his sister Sophie’s future was concerned had been conducted with a needlelike precision and steely logic.

In a matter of days his world had been tossed upside down.

Instead of panic or regrets, Lady Beatrice had somehow freed him. He stared down at his plate of nearly untouched veal.

His mother, Lady Beatrice, they both spoke of his desire for Abigail.

He’d resolved to never give himself over to those fickle, unreliable sentiments. With Abigail’s outlandish interests, and her birthright as a servant’s daughter, she would never be considered a suitable bride.

Furthermore, ladies did not study matters of astronomy and astrology.

And young ladies in the market for a husband most certainly didn’t publicly denigrate their own dancing skills. His lips twitched. Even if one happened to be a more than poor study.

And yet…

This lady did.

“My lord?”

Geoffrey started, and looked to Lady Beatrice. “Yes, my lady?”

“The meal has concluded.”

Geoffrey blinked, and looked around. His cravat tightened with sudden embarrassment at the lords and ladies present who eyed him sitting there, staring at his plate like a moonstruck calf.

“Ahh, yes. Forgive me,” he said quickly, and rose, grateful when the gentlemen withdrew to partake in brandy.

He required distance from Abigail Stone. With space between them, it would be easier to forget the glimmer in her gray-blue eyes, or the way her bow-shaped lips curved up in a smile, or her endearing tendency to trod upon her dance partners’ toes, or…

He was a bloody liar.

He would never be able to forget the lovely Abigail Stone.





Following a formal supper, a gentlemen needs to strictly observe the after-dinner customs of withdrawing for port with his fellow gentlemen.

4th Viscount Redbrooke



15

Abigail ignored the inane conversations about fripperies and soirées and everything else the young ladies and their mothers present happened to be discussing throughout the Duke of Somerset’s parlor. She wandered to the edge of the room, tugged the curtain back and gazed out at the night sky.