“Henry. The Duke’s brother.”
Rowena frowned, forgetting all of her mother’s warning. “Henry? I thought you consider him a bore.”
She found her sister looking back once more at the young man who was seated beside Charles. To her surprise, he too appeared to smile at her sister. She elbowed Catherine gently and they broke their gaze.
“I thought he was a bore too, but after you took ‘ill’ after the dinner and had to remain in your chambers, I had to find entertainment somewhere. Papa and the Duke were often engaged in conversation, especially when Charles called later in the evening.”
“Charles?” Having been forced away for the evening thanks to her feigned headache, she’d missed the entire rest of the night.
“He called around after you went to bed. Took up all of Papa and the Duke’s time. If it had not been for Henry asking me to play him some music it would have been one boring evening. Henry even danced with Mama!”
Rowena’s head spun. She’d had no idea any of this had taken place, as she’d spent the evening with Betsy, the last evening they had together before her departure.
“Does this mean you…are you enamored of the Duke’s brother?”
Catherine shrugged. “He is a very nice young man. He is going to lend me one of his books.”
Books? Rowena felt as though she had woken in some other reality where her sister was an avid reader.
“Is that so?”
Catherine smiled and picked up the prayer book before her. “It is. He’s very well read. And I shall be too, with his help. A lady can never have too many virtues, Rowena.”
With that, she threw herself into the hymn that had just begun, leaving Rowena to look back at the young man who watched her sister intently.
* * *
Once the service was concluded, the Burton and Newmont families gathered in small groups outside the church. Rowena had hoped she would be able to converse with Christopher. However, the Duke of Thornmouth quickly resumed his place at her side.
“A lovely service, was it not?” he remarked, standing so close to her she felt as though they were already betrothed, rather than promised to one another.
“Indeed,” Rowena nodded, even though she had not paid any attention whatsoever to the service.
She looked ahead and saw Christopher standing beside her father, brother, and sister-in-law, while Henry Newmont conversed with Catherine, a few steps away. Just off to the right, her mother was deep in conversation with Betsy.
It always touched Rowena to see her mother with her best friend. There was something so maternal, so kind about her whenever she was with Betsy.
“So does Miss Carmichael enjoy her posting with Lord Portsmouth?” the Duke of Thornmouth asked her.
She looked up at him and found herself suddenly irritated by the ever-twitching corners of his mouth. It was irrational, she knew it, but it bothered her.
Does he do it on purpose, or is it a nervous tic?
Deciding to ignore it, she looked past him and at Betsy, nodding as she did so.
“It appears as though she does.” Suddenly, she recalled a remark he’d made at Catherine’s coming-out dance. A smart remark about the Viscount’s need for yet another governess. It had bothered her then, and now that she thought of it, it bothered her still.
“You know the Viscount well, do you not?”
He nodded, evidently pleased that she had decided to engage him in conversation.
“We were at Eton together. Good man.”
She nodded, mulling over her questions in her head and deciding how to put them to him.
“Do you consider him a good employer? I mean, for someone like Betsy?”
He looked over to Rowena’s mother and friend, the twitching becoming stronger, as if he were trying to keep from grinning.
