“You should worry about yourself,” Catherine interjected.“The gentlemen are full of questions foryou.”
Leith sighed and glanced over to where the duke and the viscount were seated.
“Very well.”
It was amazing, Beatrice thought, how bored he could sound.He fairly drawled out his answer.He was once more now the aristocrat he had been in Lord Montaigne’s drawing room that first day.With her, when they were alone, he was so different.
When Leith strode over to his friends, Beatrice turned to the duchess.“I so appreciate your kindness in inviting me.”
“Oh, it is I who should be thanking you.We haven’t met a…paramour of Leith’s since—well, in fact, as we were just discussing… Neither of us think that wehaveever met a woman he has favored.”
She gestured towards a sofa and Beatrice followed her.Beatrice had to admire how easily the duchess carried off the difficulty of her scandalous relationship to Leith.
On the sofa, she sat next to the duchess, who proceeded to offer her refreshment of all kinds.She accepted a glass of wine and some teacake but was too on edge to ingest much of either.
Lady Tremberley inquired kindly after her family and whether she had been enjoying her stay in Leith’s town house in St.James’s.Then the duchess asked a few clarifying questions about where her family was from in Somerset.Beatrice understood that Lady Edington had an academic interest in folklore and her questions seemed to tilt in that direction.But she did not get far before she was interrupted.
“I am sorry, Catherine,” said Lady Tremberley, her pretty face alight with mischief.“But I cannot abide you talking of Somerset when I am burning with questions of a different nature.”
“Henrietta!”Catherine said, in a tone that Beatrice herself would have used with Sally.“We are not to plague Miss Salisbury with our questions.And you wouldn’t want to upset Leith.”
“Speak for yourself.I am too curious to be contained.”She turned to Beatrice.“Miss Salisbury, we have never met one of Leith’s mistresses.He positively refuses to introduce us, no matter how much we beg.And now you’re here.”
“I am here,” she agreed, unsure of where this line of questioning was going.
“And so I must know, what is he like?Is he different with you than he is with us?”
“Well, I suppose that depends on how he is with you.”
“Oh,” Henrietta said casually.“Well, I’ve known him all my life—I’m John’s sister, if you didn’t know—and so I’ve known him as long as I can remember.And he’s always been the most prig—”
“Reserved, she means,” Catherine interrupted, giving Henrietta a gaze full of warning.“And a bit formal.We love Leith.But he likes to have matters arranged neatly.”
Henrietta gave a little huff.“That is one way of saying it.”
“He’s fastidious about his affairs,” Catherine said, with a decided tone, which seemed to function as both a reproval and confirmation of Henrietta’s intimation.“But, of course, we all want him to find love.”
“We do,” Henrietta said, tartly.“Although it is hard to be optimistic on that score.”
“That is taking it a bit far,” Catherine said.“I have not quite abandoned hope of seeing him happy.”
“He has, of course, sworn he’ll never be felled,” Henrietta said, with a roll of her eyes.“But they all did once, did they not?”
“Well, not Monty,” Catherine said.“Or, at least, when he did, none of us knew it was because he was still in love with Olivia.”
Beatrice found herself, truthfully, a bit overwhelmed by this comfortable banter.It appeared the relationship between Augustus and Olivia had been quite the dramatic affair indeed.
“Well, Leith almost put an end to that, didn’t he?”Henrietta said.
“Henrietta, really,” Catherine said.
“It’s no matter now, Catherine—they have resolved the matter.I think now we can speak of it.”
“What do you mean?”Beatrice asked.“Leith tried to part the earl and his wife?”
For a moment, Beatrice imagined that Leith had fallen in love with the beautiful Lady Montaigne himself.But, on a second thought, such a thing made little sense, given what she knew of him and his history with women.
“I fear we are making a terrible hash of this conversation.It is all a bygone drama now.When she was younger, Olivia was a maid in Augustus’s house—the very house that she lives in now—and they fell in love.But she received a note ending their affair and so left London altogether.”
