Just Like Heaven (Smythe-Smith Quartet #1)(84)

“I have but one question, Mr. Bridgerton.”

He cocked his head.

“How was this catapult constructed?”

He grinned. “Simple spoon, Lady Honoria. But in Gregory’s devious hands, there was nothing simple about it.”

She laughed at that, and then quite suddenly felt a hand at her elbow.

It was Marcus, and he looked furious.





Chapter Twenty-one



Marcus could not remember the last time he had been moved to violence, but as he stood there, staring into Colin Bridgerton’s smirky face, he was sorely tempted.

“Lord Chatteris,” Bridgerton murmured, greeting him with a polite nod. A polite nod and a look. If Marcus had been in a better mood, he might have been able to articulate just what it was about that look that so irritated him, but Marcus wasn’t in a good mood. He had been in a good mood. He’d been in a very good mood, as a matter of fact, despite having just endured what was possibly the worst rendition of Mozart ever known to man.

It did not matter that some tragic portion of his ears had died tonight; the rest of him had been awash with happiness. He’d sat in his seat and watched Honoria. If she’d been a grim warrior during her final rehearsal, then she was a happy member of the corps for the concert. She’d smiled all the way through, and he’d known that she hadn’t been smiling for the audience, or even for the music. She’d been smiling for the people she loved. And he could, for however brief a moment, imagine that he was one of those people.

In his heart, she’d been smiling for him.

But now she was smiling at Colin Bridgerton, he of the famous charm and sparkling green eyes. That had been almost tolerable, but when Colin Bridgerton had started smiling at her . . .

Some things could not be borne.

But before he could intercede, he had to extricate himself from his conversation with Felicity Featherington—or, rather, Felicity Featherington’s mother, who had him in the verbal equivalent of a vise. He had probably been impolite; no, he had certainly been impolite, but escape from the Featheringtons was not something one accomplished with tact or subtlety.

Finally, after literally wrenching his arm from Mrs. Featherington’s grasp, he made his way over to Honoria, who was all aglow, laughing merrily with Mr. Bridgerton.

He had every intention of being polite. He really did. But just as he approached, Honoria took a little step to the side, and he saw, peeking out from the hem of her skirt, a flash of red satin.

Her lucky red shoes.

And suddenly he was on fire.

He didn’t want another man seeing those shoes. He didn’t want another man even knowing about them.

He watched as she stepped into place, the seductive little scrap of red hiding itself back beneath her skirt. He stepped forward and said, in perhaps a frostier voice than he’d intended, “Lady Honoria.”

“Lord Chatteris,” she replied.

He hated when she called him Lord Chatteris.

“How lovely to see you.” Her tone was that of a polite acquaintance, or perhaps a very distant cousin. “Are you acquainted with Mr. Bridgerton?”

“I am,” was Marcus’s succinct reply.

Bridgerton nodded, then Marcus nodded, and that, it seemed, was the extent of the conversation the two men wished to share.

Marcus waited for Bridgerton to make up some excuse to leave, because surely he would understand that that was what was expected of him. But the annoying sod just stood there grinning, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Mr. Bridgerton was just saying—” Honoria began, at the precise time that Marcus said, “If you will excuse us. I require a private word with Lady Honoria.”

But Marcus was louder, and more to the point, he actually finished his sentence. Honoria clamped her mouth shut and retreated into stony silence.

Mr. Bridgerton gave him an assessing stare, holding his ground for just long enough to make Marcus’s jaw clench, and then, as if the moment had never occurred, he turned charming in the space of a second, executed a jaunty bow, and said, “But of course. I was just thinking that I should like a glass of lemonade above all things.”

He bowed, he smiled, and he was gone.

Honoria waited until he was out of earshot, then she turned to Marcus with an angry scowl. “That was incredibly rude of you.”

He gave her a stern look. “Unlike the younger Mr. Bridgerton, this one is not wet behind the ears.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You should not be flirting with him.”

Honoria’s mouth fell open. “I wasn’t!”

“Of course you were,” he retorted. “I was watching you.”

“No, you weren’t,” she shot back. “You were talking with Felicity Featherington!”

“Who stands a full head shorter than I am. I could see right over her.”

“If you must know,” Honoria ground out, quite unable to believe that he was acting like the aggrieved party, “your aunt called him over. Do you expect me to be rude and cut him here in my own home? At an event to which, I might add, he possesses an invitation?”

The last she was not strictly positive about, but she couldn’t imagine that her mother wouldn’t have invited one of the Bridgertons.

“My aunt?” he asked.