Katherine held out a steady hand. “We’ve met, I believe.”
“Ah yes,” Brummell said with a half smile. “Your absence has been keenly felt. I do hope we will be seeing more of you this Season.”
“How kind,” Katherine responded. “So you shall.”
“Capital.” Brummell’s reply echoed through a suddenly silent room. He turned to the side and raised his quizzing glass. “Come. This istoodelicious.”
“Him,” Clarissa whispered in the appropriate tone.
Katherine ceased to care about the elaborately dressed dandy. She ceased to care about anyone at all. Anyone, except her husband, who was making his way across the ballroom with a loose stride, as if he had released a weight that had long held him hindered. A few steps behind him was a woman. And following her were a dozen or more people unlike any she’d ever encountered.
Giles stopped an arms-length away, his red-rimmed eyes narrowing as if she were the only one present in the room.
His clothes could only be described as an eyesore. His hair was in disarray. And the line of his chin marred by days-old stubble.
He looked shockingly unkept—and endearingly hers.
“You once asked me what I esteem,” he said.
Her heart flopped. “You replied, ‘honor.’”
“Ask me again,” he said.
She held his gaze, and the arrogant peer who had so infuriated her fell away like battle-worn armor. Beneath, she saw a boy—a child raised to shoulder the burden of hundreds of lives, raised to duty without love. A child alone. Brave but lost. Alone but reaching.
Ah, Giles.She wet her lips. “What do you esteem, Lord Bromton?”
“I esteem courage. I esteem humor. I esteem goodwill,” he visibly swallowed, “and I esteem kindness.”
Her vision blurred. She blinked away the tear.
“Ask me why,” he urged.
“Why?” she asked.
“I esteem those things, because you embody them,” he grasped her hand, “and you make me wish to embody them as well.”
Lady Clarissa sighed.
Katherine shook her head no. “Not always. I once believed pious propriety meant perfection—”
“God forbid.” Brummell’s murmur elicited a round of titters.
“What do you believe now?” Giles asked.
“Perfection is a myth,” she finished.
“No,” Giles answered. “It cannot be. I’ve found it in you.”
“This is most unusual,” Lady Merriweather said, loudly enough for the whole room to hear.
“What do you expect?” Lord Merriweather replied. “Scandal begets scandal.”
“Careful, Lord Merriweather,” Giles said, “If you insult my lady, I will require a remedy.”
“I merely pointed out—”
Giles turned sharply.
