Gideon exchanged glances with Jeremy, who remembered Catherine from that night at Spencer’s a week prior.
“Fate, old boy.Fate,” he muttered. “Please, do partake in the rest of my cellar.”
“Don’t mind if I do!” Thomas crowed.
Gideon looked across the room, his eyes finding Catherine as they had done a thousand times since they’d arrived at Almack’s, the assembly rooms he had rented out for the morning. She was talking to Obadiah Threnthorpe and his wife. Gideon’s breath caught.
God’s wounds. Of all the people she could have chosen, she engages in conversation with two who are crucial to my ambitions. Coincidence?
“Jeremy, old boy, you are the only other who is privy to the circumstances, and I should like to keep it that way,” he murmured distractedly.
“Your secret is safe with me, of course. Perhaps, at a more convenient time, we could have a private discussion?”
Gideon looked at his friend, startled. Jeremy wasn’t smiling but looking back at him with sharp, expectant eyes.
“Regarding?”
“The secret and its keeping. Enjoy your wedding breakfast. Congratulations.”
Jeremy thumped Gideon on the shoulder as he took his leave. Gideon clasped his hands behind his back to hide his clenched fists. He felt a strong urge for a brandy but wanted to keep his wits sharp.
No more accidents with Catherine. I lost control of myself earlier, and it will not happen again. No matter what provocation she puts me to.
Again, as he threaded around the large assembly room packed with members of London’s elite society, his eyes fell upon his new wife. She was alone now, glancing around with wonder on her face and merriment in her eyes. Gideon found himself a quiet alcove where shadows embraced him. He watched her sip a glass of wine and give a wince at the taste. Quick to appear and quickly suppressed.
She was a stranger to the taste of alcohol, it seemed. That only served to increase her air of innocence. She drifted with careful grace. Her hair was pinned up, revealing a swan-like neck. Her ivory dress flaunted pale shoulders and the merest hint of the swell of her breasts. It was modest but clung to her figure just enough to be suggestive. He found it all a bit… alluring.
Look away. Find the Threnthorpes and ask about their investment in the mine. I do not have time to moon around over a woman. God, why could I not have just sent her packing!
He knew the answer.
It was no more in him to abandon a woman in such distress than it was to elicit said distress in the first place. Life had made him hard and as focused on his ambitions as an arrow. But it had not dulled his sense of honor and integrity. Now, his life was complicated, where before it had been as simple as a sword blade.
He managed to pass the rest of the breakfast while making as little contact as he could with his new wife. He mingled as she did, the two of them presenting the appearance of a sociable couple who took obligations to their peers seriously enough to forgo the pleasure of each other’s company.
Finally, he managed to get the elusive Obadiah Threnthorpe alone.
“There you are!” Gideon forced joviality into his voice.
“I am indeed. Splendid bash this, Your Grace,” Threnthorpe replied with a broad Lancashire accent.
“T’is indeed.”
“And a splendid couple you make. I don’t mind saying that when I first mentioned to the wife that I was considering going into business with an unmarried Duke, she had her reservations.”
Gideon feigned surprise. “Truly? Whatever for?”
“Because we are Friends, Your Grace. And clean, moral living is chief to us. I hold that a man ought to be safely wed as soon as he is able. It keeps him from mischief, if I may speak plainly. The longer he puts it off, the more mischief he is likely seeking—if thee takes my meaning.”
Gideon grinned, while in his head he’d much prefer tell the sanctimonious Northerner to go hang.
“I do and echo your sentiments precisely! Hence my choosing to seek out a wife for myself.”
“Aye, and not because you seek my brass, eh?” Threnthorpe chortled, actually nudging Gideon with a well-padded elbow.
“I would not sully theinstitution of marriage with such a mercenary motivation,” he nodded solemnly.
“A sound reply. You and your wife must dine with Mrs. Threnthorpe and me while we are in London. We do not often stray from the North—the South has never quite felt the same to us.”
