Nothing like Catherine, with her prim blonde beauty he had always likened to an angel. There was nothingangelicabout Aurelia’s mischievous eyes or the unholy plumpness of her mouth. No, that spoke ofsin—the kind of which he was desperate for a taste.
“People are staring,” he murmured.
“How would you know?” she whispered back. “All you are looking at is me.”
Not an argument he had any power against, although he had been stared at enough to know when it was happening. With effort, he righted her and replaced her hand in his arm. “We should promenade, and hope everyone here forgets what happened.”
“Or they will report back to London at large, and everyone will know that you are married to a lady who is not ashamed to be with you.” She patted his hand. “After all, I am the bastard child of a gentleman, remember? Unacknowledged by my father, and brought up as a lady with no prospects. I’m accustomed to the world passing judgment and finding me wanting.”
“And yet you shout your defiance into the wind?”
“Betterthatthan giving up.”
They had only made it a few more paces before a young lady almost dashed up to them from where she was walking beside a man in a chair. At the sight of her, Aurelia smiled, and Sebastian was able to deduce this must be one of her friends.
“Duchess!” the lady chimed as she approached, dipping into a very slight curtsy. “Fancy seeing you here!”
“I could say the same about you, my lady,” Aurelia replied, half laughing.
“Call me Mary Ann, do.” The girl turned sharp blue eyes on him. She was pretty, in a passing way—the type a gentleman might appreciate if he stopped to look, but that would not inspire him to stop and look with any particular haste.
“This is Sebastian,” Aurelia beamed, her hand returning to his arm. “My husband, the Duke of Ravenhall.”
The lady sank into a curtsy.Lady Mary Ann, he ascertained. The only lady in the village who had deigned to call on him, although he did not know her family. Perhaps he ought to have investigated if she was to be his wife’s new friend.
“Your Grace,” she greeted.
“Sebastian, you must recall I told you about my friend, Lady Mary Ann.”
“Charmed,” he offered, bowing over her hand with as much grace as he could muster for a breezy day at the beach.
Lady Mary Ann merely giggled, clapping a hand over her mouth to stem the sound. “The pleasure is all mine, Your Grace. Come, do me the honor of meeting my father.” She gestured at the man in the chair, and Sebastian frowned, surprised despite himself that anyone would go out of their way to introduce him to someone.
And, when he approached the man in the chair, he found himself both delighted and surprised once again to find the elderly gentleman there so amenable to making his acquaintance.
“Your Grace,” he smiled, holding out a gnarled hand. “You must forgive me for not attending your dinner the other week. If I had not been in my current position, I have no doubt I would have been in attendance.”
Aurelia laughed, obviously charmed by him, and Sebastian was hardly less so.
Perhaps the man had not heard the rumors surrounding him.
But his daughter evidently had, given the fact that she relayed those rumors to Aurelia. Had she merely not discussed them with her father? It seemed unlikely if they lived together; in a small village, what else was there to talk about but village gossip? And his reputation was a step above village gossip.
The man’s watery eyes passed to him, and Sebastian knew immediately that the rumors had not escaped him. He had just, for whatever reason that eluded Sebastian, decided to ignore them or put them aside.
“As it is, it is an honor to finally meet you, Your Grace,” he said to Sebastian.
“This is my father,” Lady Mary Ann supplied. “The Right Honorable, The Earl of Ware. Father, this is His Grace, The Duke of Ravenhall.”
Were he a younger man, he could have made a great deal of jokes surrounding the title, and by the expression on Lady Mary Ann’s face, she was expecting him.
The Earl of Where?!
Sebastian didn’t make them. He clicked his heels together and executed a crisp bow, as though they were meeting in a drawing room rather than on this blustery beach. “It is an honor,” Sebastian declared. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” said Lord Ware, and if all social interactions could be like this, Sebastian reflected that they would not be so bad after all.
“He isjustas handsome as I thought he might be,” Mary Ann whispered to Aurelia in a rush the second they were out of earshot. “I have been positivelydyingto tell you ever since we encountered you. What a funny thing it is to both be here today.”
