Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (Scandalous Seasons #3)(47)

“The Duke of Somerset’s niece,” she muttered under her breath, shaking her head. She stopped in front of him and threw her arms open wide. “You had assured me of your intentions to court Lady Beatrice Dennington.”

Yes, he’d intended to wed the demure and perfectly proper Lady Beatrice. He’d believed she’d suited him.

Until Abigail.

“Things have changed, Mother,” he said patiently, as though speaking to a skittish colt.

“Things have changed? Things have changed, Geoffrey?” Her voice steadily increased in volume and pitch. “Days change, Geoffrey. Minutes on the clock change. One does not simply change ones selection for a marital partner.”

Geoffrey steepled his fingers and rested his chin upon them. “It was never my intention to…to…come to care for Abigail.”

She resumed her frantic pacing, muttering under her breath in a most undignified manner. “She is wholly inappropriate.”

“Her father is a wealthy shipping magnate in America.”

She cringed. “Her father is nothing more than a servant.” His mother’s scathing tone cut into his defense. “Come Geoffrey, the scandal which precipitated her mother and father’s rapid departure to America is not an old one, and it is well-known.” Mother stopped pacing. Her rapid breathing indicated the thin level of control the normally composed viscountess had on her emotions.

It occurred to him that he’d been just as pompous as Mother in his viewpoints. He shook his head. What a bloody ass he’d been.

“You’ve so admirably maintained a cool, reserved manner these past years. I had imagined,” she shook her head sadly, “or hoped, rather, after that scandalous woman, you’d put such heady passions aside.”

His mouth went dry as she dredged Emma’s betrayal to the surface. He looked away from her accusatory stare, too much a coward to confront the disapproval teeming in her gaze. “Abigail is not Emma,” he said the words for himself, just as much as for her benefit. In the years since his father’s death, Geoffrey had vastly more experience from the callow youth he’d been; he’d come to have a greater grasp on both his self-control and his ability to evaluate the character and worth of a person.

His mother stomped over in a most unladylike manner and stopped in front of his desk. She arched a brow. “Do we even know that for certain? After all, her mother was responsible for a great scandal. Is it unlikely that the daughter would be just as disreputable?”

Odd, he didn’t know the details surrounding Abigail’s mother’s flight from England. It had never seemed to matter.

Geoffrey frowned. His mother’s revelation mattered naught. He had little intention of altering his plans to wed Abigail.

He shoved back his chair and climbed to his feet, tired of his mother’s unfounded charges against Abigail’s reputation. “In the months she’s resided in London, Abigail’s done nothing Polite Society can find fault with.”

Mother folded her arms across her chest. “She cannot dance. Why, she trods all over her dance partners’ feet.”

His lips tightened. “I’d not be so trite as to not court a woman because she’s not skilled upon the dance floor.”

“Hmph. Very well, then, there was the matter of her speaking to you without introduction.” He started. “Oh, come, Geoffrey. Did you truly believe I wouldn’t have paid attention to you and that scandalous creature’s first meeting?”

Fury fell like a curtain across his eyes, and he blinked it back. His mother continued, either unknowing or uncaring of the volatile emotions thrumming through him. “And rumor would have it, that the Duke of Somerset allowed that American woman into his home because she is escaping some kind of scandal.” She dropped her voice to a low whisper as though she were imparting some great secret that would forever destroy the Redbrooke reputation. “We do not even know the details of her being here!”

Geoffrey folded his arms across his chest. “I believed it safe to assume the lady was in fact here for a London Season.”

If looks could burn, then Geoffrey would be reduced to a pile of ash at the viscountess’ feet. “This is no game, Geoffrey. This. Is. The. Redbrooke. Line.” She dropped her voice to a hushed whisper. “I also heard rumors of a most improper meeting between the young lady and Lord Carmichael…”

A loud humming filled Geoffrey’s ears. His mother’s mouth was moving, but he’d ceased to process words. Fury; potent and all-consuming spread to every corner of his body until he wanted to turn his desk upside down and storm from the room, hunting down that bloody bastard. By god, he would beat the old letch down all over again.

When he again trusted himself to speak, Geoffrey said, “Carmichael is a loathsome, reprehensible cad. It would do to not to listen to rumors from his lying lips.”

His mother cocked her head. “You considered wedding Sophie to him.”

He closed his eyes a moment, and then opened them. “I was merely trying to guide Sophie to making a match.” Then, it occurred to him. “You didn’t truly believe I would have seen Sophie wed Carmichael?”

Her silence served as the answer to his question.

Were his mother and sister’s opinion of him so low that they truly believed he’d ever accept the suit of that foul fiend?