“Last night, you didn’t care for her. Yet tonight you escorted her and fawned all over her.”
“I didn’t fawn,” he insisted. “As it happened, I saw her crossing the street at the same time as I was, and it would have been beyond rude for me not to accompany her.”
She fell silent. Maybe it wasn’t his fault. There might be no conceivable way for a man to ignore a woman who was wearing a sheer gown with nothing underneath.
“What was terribly rude was Lord Dodd not escorting his aunt,” Hargrove said.
“By marriage,” she reminded him.
“He should have at least brought Isabelle across the street.”
“Because she is a doddering old auntie?” Glynnis shot back. “In a translucent dress!”
Hargrove barked out a laugh before he could stop himself.
“That dress!” he remarked. “I think she would be more at home in Paris.”
“Is that how they are clothed there?”
“The courtesans at the Palais Royal are.” Then Hargrove sobered. “Anyway, why do you mind if I escort a woman to a party? It should be nothing to you.”
“It’s not,” she insisted. “No more than my taking a lovely stroll to listen to the birds ought to be of any interest to you.”
“With Dodd,” he muttered.
“The prince said he was a good man.”
Hargrove’s eyebrows drew together. “Did he? I wouldn’t count his recommendation for much. After all, Prinny has two wives and at least that many mistresses.”
She shook her head. The Regent’s father was considered above reproach, salt of the earth, and interested in agriculture and in hunting more than in affairs of state. And certainly not one to have any other kind of affair either. Yet he and his devoted Queen Charlotte had managed to sire more than one dissolute son. Now the eldest and some said the most unprincipled ruled the kingdom as regent, and the only thing he seemed to have inherited from his moral-minded father was a love of art and music.
“On the other hand,” Hargrove said, “perhaps we shouldn’t judge Prinny too harshly. Rumor has it he’s turning this very ballroom into his own private chapel after he shuts the Castle’s doors at the end of the year. Thus, one could give him high marks for his faith.”
She glanced around her as he twirled her past the maroon sofas lining the walls, and tried to imagine them as hard wooden pews. Men were a mystery to her.
When the dance ended, Hargrove left her with a bow to go to the card room, the third largest of the Castle Hotel’s public rooms. She danced a few more dances with men whom she couldn’t imagine as her husband, and then it was time for dinner in the hotel’s dining room, which Prince George had rented out in its entirety.
As if by magic, Lord Dodd appeared by her side to escort her to dinner and be her partner. He was attentive and thoughtful. He drew out her chair, then naturally looked over her shoulder and down the front of her gown as he pushed her in. If he hadn’t, she would have been worried.
The tables had been pushed together into three long rows, and Hargrove and another woman whom Glynnis didn’t know sat at the far end of a different table. She didn’t bother looking for Isabelle, as she could not possibly care less.
Stripping off her gloves and laying them upon her lap, she picked up the already-filled wine glass and turned her full attention to the man whom she decided would become her husband.
***
ALTHOUGH MISS TALBOThadn’t needed him to escort her into the dining room, James kept his eye upon her. He couldn’t particularly say anything against Dodd. He didn’t really know the man. He knew Dodd’s father had married a much younger woman after he’d become a widower, hence the youthful “Aunt” Isabelle.
When Payton had joined him at cards earlier, James asked him if he’d heard anything alarming. The answer had been a disinterested no.
So why was he bothered by seeing Miss Talbot firmly attached to Lord Dodd all night?After all, he didn’t know Lord Aberavon either, nor did he particularly care if the man were cuckolded even before his wedding day.
James’s concern was all for the lady. He didn’t want her hurt by some scoundrel, even if she were careless with her attention and her affection. Why on earth she’d let him into her room and almost into her bed the previous night, James still couldn’t fathom.
Sighing, he gestured to a server to refill his wine glass and realized he was already tired of Brighton. With any luck, he could get Prinny to spend a serious moment looking at the art he’d managed to bring back from Paris.
Would he be dissatisfied and decide some nasty fate for James or pleased and send him back to London?A yea or a nay was all he needed to decide his future.
Glancing again at Glynnis, he thought the best thing would be to get away from the seacoast as quickly as possible.
