Gil?Abigail stared at him blankly as she got to her feet with her cousin and her stepsister.
“A pair of hefty servants were carrying pails of steaming water into his room an hour ago,” Alexander said, offering his arm to Wren, his countess.
“Who is Gil?” Estelle asked.
Harry did not answer directly. “Well, there you are,” he said, addressing a man who was hovering outside the door the butler had left open. “Just in time for dinner. Come inside and be introduced.”
He was a large man, tall, straight backed, broad shouldered, dark haired, dressed neatly though without ostentation in black-and-white evening clothes. For a few moments he remained in shadow, but then he stepped into the room. He had a lean, forbidding countenance, dark eyes, and a scar slashing across cheek and chin.
He wasnot, apparently, a servant.
“My longtime comrade and friend, Lieutenant Colonel Gil Bennington,” Harry said by way of introduction. “My mother, the Marchioness of Dorchester, Gil, and her husband. My aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Netherby. My half sister, Anna, Duchess of Netherby. You already know Avery. Wren, Countess of Riverdale. You already know Alexander. My cousin Lady Jessica Archer, Aunt Louise’s daughter. My stepbrother and stepsister, Bertrand and Estelle Lamarr. And my sister Abigail.”
Lieutenant Colonel Bennington’s eyes had rested upon each in turn as he acknowledged the introduction with a slight nod of the head. They rested eventually upon Abigail, looking quite unsurprised. He gave her the same nod. Nothing else. No raised eyebrow. No smirk. No hostile glare.
Abigail would have sunk through the carpet and the floor and stayed there if she could. He was alieutenant colonel. He outranked Harry. He was a longtime comrade and friend. And...whathad she said to him?
Were you given permission to remove your coat and shirt?
Oh, she could die of mortification.
“There will be a written test later this evening after dinner,” Anna said, smiling as she walked toward him andtook his arm. “By then we will have been able to tell you also about the children in the nursery—mine and Wren’s—and about those family members who will be coming tomorrow or the next day.”
He looked sternly down at Anna while the rest of them laughed and moved toward the door. “Does spelling count?” he asked.
“He looks deliciously ferocious,” Jessica murmured as soon as he had left the room.
“He does,” Estelle agreed, laughing softly.
No, Abigail told herself, she wouldnotsink into the floor even if a hole were to open obligingly at her feet right at this moment.Ordie of mortification. He had had nobusinesschopping wood beside the stables if he was a guest of Harry’s. Alieutenant colonel,no less. He had had even less business stripping to the waist for anyone to see who strayed even a short distance from the house. And he must have known perfectly well about Harry’s guests and that some of them had already arrived. He had looked her over quite deliberately from head to foot, as no true gentleman ought to do. Any other gentleman would immediately have dived for his shirt and apologized profusely and explained who he was. He would have been intent upon saving her from further embarrassment.
It had been quite deliberate, that insolent behavior of his. He hadmeantto embarrass her and cause her humiliation when she realized her mistake.
Well, she was not going to be embarrassed. Or humiliated.
“There is nothing the least bit attractive about him,” she said, though she was careful to keep her voice low. “He looks like a barbarian. And he is ugly.”
She was being petty. And untruthful.
Jessica laughed. “But deliciously barbaric, you must confess, Abby,” she said.
“And deliciously ugly,” Estelle added.
“I am hungry,” Abigail informed them as they laughed with delight at their own wit.
•••
He had, of course, been ridiculously unfair earlier, Gil admitted to himself later in the evening. It was never sensible to make a sweeping statement about half the world’s population—perhaps more than half since the male portion of it was more often than not intent upon killing itself off during endless wars.
He did not dislike all women.
He never had. He had generally liked the camp followers, the crowds of women—wives, widows, cooks, washerwomen, whores, and others—who had tailed the armies about in droves wherever they went, many of them loud, coarse, slatternly, cheerful, cursing, generous with their favors, courageous, lusty, undemanding, and tough. It was theladieshe had disliked, the wives and daughters of officers who had insisted upon bringing their families to war. They were almost invariably haughty and demanding. Often they were helpless and clinging and inclined to the vapors and expected every man to dash to their assistance, bowing and scraping and generally debasing himself as he did so. Almost to a woman they had despised those colleagues of their husbands and fathers who were of lower rank or—far worse—not true gentlemen at all.
He had despised the lot of them heartily in return.
Except one...
Except Caroline, Lord help him.
