Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(26)

Dinner proceeded. Eliza, now at ease, chattered on about her hopes and fears for the season. Sebastian simply had to listen. His efforts were further compensated by a very good dinner. Whatever he might think about the marchioness’s manners, he couldn’t fault her cook.

And so he enjoyed his food, and talked with Eliza’s sister when the table turned, and watched the ladies file out of the room sometime later with regret. He would much rather have gone with them than stayed with the decidedly mixed male cohort.

The port was brought out. The gentlemen gathered at the marquess’s end of the board—all but Mitra, who excused himself with a regal bow. Sebastian thought it a wise choice. The sort of talks Mitra and his host conducted after dinner would not go over well with tonight’s guests.

“That fellow doesn’t care for a good port?” asked Sir Robert when Mitra was gone.

“He didn’t have any of the beef either,” the baron added.

“He doesn’t eat meat,” replied Georgina’s father.

“What?” Sir Robert looked aghast.

“Not any sort?” said the baron’s son Wyatt. “Chicken? Pheasant?”

The marquess shook his head. “No. It’s against his religion.”

There was a stunned silence. Charles Kenton reached for the decanter and refilled his quickly emptied glass.

“Ain’t he a Hindoo?” said the baron then.

Georgina’s father nodded.

“Well, what about the nabobs coming back from Hindoo country with their curries? They’ve got meat in them. Fellow served me a dish once that nearly burned my tongue out of my head. I’m sure it had mutton in it.”

The marquess shrugged. “There are different varieties of Hinduism, just like with us and our sects. Mitra’s forbids meat. He drinks a bit of wine on occasion. Says all things in balance, you know.”

It was clear that Sir Robert did not know. Looking incredulous, he finished off the last drops in his glass and grasped the decanter. His son followed his lead.

“What’s he doing here in England anyway?” asked the baron.

“He’s consulting with me on my studies,” replied Georgina’s father. “He’s been very helpful.”

It was a more circumspect answer than Sebastian would have expected. He hadn’t thought the marquess capable of tact.

Talk turned to agricultural prices and the eternal complaints of those who drew their incomes from the land. The baron and his son were stark pessimists about the future. Sir Robert seemed determined to drink as much port as humanly possible, and Charles was not far behind him. All too soon, Charles was propping his chin in his hands, elbows sprawled on the table. “Duke’s sons,” he said with quiet vitriol. “Get whatever you want. Cut the rest of us out without trying. It’s not fair.”

Sebastian was weary of the company, and Charles most of all. “That’s not true,” he said.

“Georgina never would have looked at you if you weren’t one,” the other hissed.

Sebastian thought of the determined campaign he’d waged to win his fiancée, how hard it had been to stand out in the mass of her suitors. Several of them had had noble titles, far above a second son, duke or no. Many had been cleverer, without doubt. No, this he’d accomplished on his own, with the aid of Ariel’s good advice, of course. It was a personal triumph, nothing to do with his heritage. And the opinion of this unpleasant sprig mattered not a whit.

The object of Sebastian’s ruminations sat upstairs in the drawing room with the rest of the ladies, seething with impatience. The other pugs had been brought in to join Drustan, and they surrounded her mother and Elaine Kenton like spreading brown skirts. The two picked up and examined one dog after another, deep in discussion. It seemed that Elaine aspired to breed a similar kind of dog. But not just the same, so there was no danger of rivalry.

The baroness and Lady Robert sat nearby, chatting about the high cost of hiring houses in London and the wickedness of town-bred servants. The three girls looked over sheet music at the pianoforte, perhaps plotting entertainments for later, when the gentlemen at last arrived.

Georgina could think of nothing but Sebastian. She watched the doorway like a cat at a mousehole, waiting for him to appear. The mere sight of him had become incendiary. And after his kindness to young Eliza Kenton at dinner, she liked him more than ever. It was such a potent combination—admiration and physical passion.

“Do you not agree with me, Lady Georgina?” said the baroness.

Georgina turned to find the two older women looking expectantly at her. Should she admit she had no idea what they were asking? It was rude. “I’m not certain,” she ventured.

“You’ve never had to manage a house full of servants,” continued the baroness. “Wait until you do. You’ll find that a season in London quite ruins good country workers.”

“I haven’t found that to be true,” said Lady Robert. She spoke as if she’d been accused of some insensitivity.

“Well, perhaps with a much smaller staff…” began the other.

Lady Robert bridled, and it seemed as if a quarrel was in the offing when the gentlemen finally, finally came in. Georgina’s pulse accelerated as Sebastian entered first. She scarcely noticed the baron, Wyatt, and her father behind him, talking, or Sir Robert and Charles straggling at the end of the group, clearly the worse for drink.