Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(99)

“Parts of it,” said Flora. It had seemed so pleasant, then, to wear prettier dresses and attend evening parties and…fritter away her time, Papa would have said. She’d met Lord Robert’s mother and discovered that a duchess could be both sensible and cordial, not the least high-nosed. But she saw now that a few outings in a university town were nothing compared to a true conclave of the haut ton.

Harriet looked exasperated. “You decided you wished to increase your social experience.”

She had wanted more from life than she’d accepted previously, Flora admitted silently. But for some reason, she hadn’t pictured a host of strangers from the upper reaches of society giving her sidelong glances, wondering who in the world she could be. There seemed to be so many of them. Well, who did they think they were, these…natterers?

“And you were quite forlorn when Lord Robert left town with no plans to return,” Harriet added.

“I was not!” She spoke far too loudly. Heads turned. Conversations faltered.

Harriet gave the crowd an impenetrable smile. They subsided.

“I was not ‘forlorn,’” Flora hissed. What a limp, pathetic word! She’d never been forlorn in her life. It was the opposite of all she’d been trained to be—acute, observant, active, and intelligent. “I may have missed his…conversation. I took Lord Robert at his word, you see, that he wished to be…a friend. And now I arrive here and find that he is quite displeased to see me.” Flora kept her voice rigidly steady. “He was not glad. At all.”

“He probably wasn’t,” Harriet replied.

“What?” She’d expected a denial, or at least some sort of excuse.

“When one is running away from something,” her older friend said, “one often doesn’t like to be chased. At first.”

“I am not chasing him!” Flora spoke more softly this time, but with utter revulsion.

“I didn’t say he was running from you,” Harriet pointed out.

Flora felt her cheeks redden. But curiosity overcame embarrassment. “What did you mean?”

“We really haven’t time for a philosophical discussion.” Harriet gave the gathering another bright, general smile. “So, are we to do this or not? It would cause a minor scandal to simply turn and leave. And I must say that you won’t get another invitation as brilliant as this one, Flora.”

What did she want? Across the room, one of the girls around Lord Robert gave a musical trill of laughter. He looked achingly handsome, and charming, and…inordinately pleased with himself. What was that slang phrase—a care-for-nobody? That seemed to apply. As far as she could see, that is, as he pointedly did not look in her direction. All the other times they’d been in a room together, he’d concentrated on her. It had been a heady, tantalizing experience. But the ton hadn’t been watching then, she thought. The idea hurt, but Flora faced up to it. If she’d been wrong to change her mind about him, it was best that she find out, once and for all. Then she’d know what to do.

Flora put her shoulders back, her chin up. In any case, everything didn’t have to be about, was not about, one maddening man. She gave Harriet a nod.

“Good girl. Come along. And, my dear?”

Flora looked at her chaperone.

“A smile is not a concession,” Harriet added with a lift of her sandy eyebrows. “It is a…a tool, shall we say. A rather versatile one. It can pry things out or smooth things over. Substitute for things one doesn’t wish to confide. Very useful.”

The thought made Flora smile.

“Much better.” Harriet led her over to a couple near the center of the large room and introduced her to Gerald and Anne Moreton, Earl and Countess of Salbridge. They were both about Harriet’s age, and Flora knew they’d been friends for years. That connection had made her invitation possible. The countess was also a distant relation of Flora’s mother. She strongly suspected that Harriet had reminded her of this when her hostess asked, “How is Agatha? I haven’t seen her in an age.”

“She’s well,” Flora replied, not quite truthfully. Back home in London, her mother was fretting, as agitated as Flora had ever seen her. She’d admitted that it could be helpful for Flora to extend her social horizons, while being terribly worried about what might happen to her when she did.

“You’re also a cousin of Robert Gresham’s, are you not?”

Flora suppressed a start. She doubted that Harriet had provided this information. It seemed the countess had made her own inquiries. “Very distant,” she said, proud of the unconcern in her voice. “Third or fourth, perhaps. We used to try to work it out when I visited at Langford as a child.” There, let her noble hosts chew on the fact that she’d stayed at a duke’s home. They needn’t know that all the visits had been years ago. Flora felt her resolve returning. She’d decided to come here, and she’d been taught to trust her own thought processes, even when she didn’t quite fathom them. She would not draw back, and she did not feel Lord Robert’s presence at her back like a constant pulse of heat. That was irrational.

“You must meet our daughter,” the countess said. At her signal, one of the young ladies left the circle clustered around Lord Robert and joined them. “Victoria, this is Miss Flora Jennings.”