“And the problem with that is?” Gabe asked politely.
“It’s untrue!” Zach scowled. “She is an annoying woman, and most of the time looks like she’s sucked a lemon.”
“Only when around you. She smiled sweetly at me last night while we danced, and commented on my intelligence,” Nathan said.
“What intelligence?” Michael asked.
“We were discussing Thales, and I held my own admirably.”
“Greek mathematician and astronomer?” Zach screwed up his face as he concentrated, making him look younger. “Why would anyone want to discuss him?”
“Imagine my surprise that you know about him,” Nathan drawled.
“I learned the same boring stuff as you lot.”
“Perhaps if you talked to Miss Blake about that boring stuff and didn’t scowl at her, she may be more receptive.”
“Good Lord, why would I want her more receptive?”
“I see the problem here,” Michael said. “You don’t want to be in the company of a woman who could outthink you using half, nay, a quarter of her brain.”
“Children,” Gabriel sighed. “That will do.”
“Mary Blake told me we were to be nice to Miss Carlow,” Zach said, looking at Nathan. There was nothing but sympathy in his eyes now.
“I have no intention of being nice to that woman,” Gabriel snapped. “She showed her true colors by simpering all over Valentine.”
“I would not wish you to be mean to her just because she chose to walk away from me, Gabe,” Nathan said. He may want her in purgatory, but if he was honest, she’d done nothing but speak the truth by telling him she no longer cared. “It is no concern of ours who she does or does not dance with.”
“I don’t like her.”
“Which I understand, and I thank you for your loyalty, but as I have stated, she did nothing wrong.”
“She hurt you!” Zach thundered. “That is wrong, and I certainly let her know how I felt.”
“What did you say?” Nathan sighed.
“It was odd, actually, because she was on the third floor of Lord Russell’s house the night of the ball. I found her walking back down.”
“After you’d been ravishing someone?” Michael asked.
Zach merely smiled.
“Perhaps she was lost?” Nathan said.
“Perhaps.”
“What is even odder to me is that I liked her a great deal before she left London. She never struck me as false and was in fact a genuinely nice lady. Yet last night she seemed different. Cold, and then there’s that business with her simpering over Valentine,” Michael said. “Very odd if you ask me.”
“Maybe that is her true self.” Gabe shrugged.
“Maybe, and yet why did the Carlow family leave London suddenly? Why has there not been so much as a murmur about any of them? Lord Carlow has been seen in London twice, briefly, but without his family,” Michael added.
“How do you know he’s been seen?” Gabe asked.
“I overhead Haynes discussing him at the club. Apparently, they were once friends. He said Carlow now rarely associates with anyone. It all strikes me as a bit smokey.”
“I have no wish to discuss this, Michael,” Nathan said in a voice he hoped would shut his brother up. “It is done with. Miss Carlow is back, and I am quite comfortable with that,” he lied. “I wish you all to be polite to her and nothing more.”
