The usually quick-witted Kingham looked as if he were at a loss for words. He lifted his wineglass to his lips and took several hasty draughts. Then he stared at her some more.
Sybil regarded him solemnly in return, wondering what he was looking for in her countenance. A hint of deception? If so, he would find none. She hadn’t such subterfuge in her, even if it would have proven a boon. She had realized just how little stomach she had for deception when she had attended this house party.
“You aren’t lying,” Kingham pronounced.
Sybil sighed. “Dishonesty doesn’t serve anyone.”
“Liars seem to think it serves them quite well,” the duke pointed out.
She nodded. “I suppose it does. But I’m not a liar.”
“No.” His shrewd gaze passed over her as if he were studying her like a pinned insect specimen on a board. “I don’t believe you are.”
She huffed out a small laugh. “I’m so relieved to hear it, Your Grace. My good opinion of myself was hinging upon your verdict concerning my character.”
Kingham’s lips twitched. “A lady with an appreciation for sarcasm. I do believe I like you.”
“Well, I don’t know yet if I like you,” she told him honestly. “And considering the friends you keep, I should think you an unlikely judge of character.”
He laughed, perhaps at her candor. “How the devil did you meet Riverdale?”
“His country seat borders my father’s. Eastlake Hall. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”
“Your father is the Marquess of Eastlake?”
“Yes,” she answered grimly. “He is.”
“My apologies, madam.” Kingham raised his glass of wine to her in mock salute. “Little wonder you were eager to marry a scapegrace like Riverdale.”
The duke was alarmingly accurate in his assessment. Sybil supposed her father’s reputation was infamous, even though no one could know the full truth. But it didn’t escape her notice that Kingham was quick to rake Riverdale over the coals.
She raised a brow. “He is your friend, and yet you call him a scapegrace?”
Kingham grinned. “As a wise lady so recently said, dishonesty doesn’t serve anyone.”
Sybil smiled back at him, charmed despite herself at his rejoinders. “Quite.”
Kingham leaned toward her in conspiratorial fashion, his pleasant scent winding around her as he did so. “Make certain to laugh uproariously at everything I say, as if I’ve told you the world’s most clever sally.”
“Why should I do that?” she asked, reaching for her wine.
“You wish to make him jealous, do you not? He’s been scowling in your direction every few seconds, and I daresay he is presently planning my untimely demise.”
Ah, so Riverdale had noted her presence at dinner today at last, after days of revelries? The rotten man. It would serve him right if he were stewing in jealousy just now.
“I like the way you think, Your Grace,” she told Kingham quietly.
And then she laughed just as he had suggested, not missing the way Riverdale’s pale gaze swung to her, narrowed and sparkling with vexation. A lovely woman was seated by him, with her generous breasts nearly toppling from her silk evening gown. Sybil stifled the resentment rising within her at the cozy picture the two presented. She wouldn’t consider whether the woman was her husband’s lover. What would be the point of that? Instead, she would focus upon the entertaining duke seated to her right.
“I do believe you’ve just saved dinner,” she told Kingham.
He raised his glass to her once more, and they spent the remainder of the meal in conversation. But she’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel the weight of her husband’s gaze—heavy as a stone—upon her for the duration of the meal.
The night ahead was going to be interesting indeed.
CHAPTER 4
Sybil stared at her bleak reflection in the looking glass and took a deep breath, holding it in her lungs as she struggled to calm the fit of nerves that came to life so swiftly within her. Her lady’s maid had helped her out of the elegant dress she had worn to dinner and into a night rail that was modest and laden with buttons, an equally circumspect dressing gown buttoned atop the unflattering raiment. Her hair was plaited into a simple braid.
