It was Madelaine’s turn to scoff, and she did so loudly—so much for her delicate femininity.
“Have you ever seen a beaten dog, Lord Cotereigh? A beaten dog learns to cower, terrified into stupidity, unreliable,snapping, and nervous. Or it learns to bite back, to be the attacker, violent and unsafe. Neither makes it fit for purpose.”
“Boys are not dogs.”
“No! We treat them worse!”
Lord Cotereigh only sat back with a slight shake of his head that he turned into a glance around the room. His gaze settled on the window as though he wished to be on the other side of it.
Clearly the heat of this conversation wasn’t to his liking. No doubt it was unfashionable, badton,and unladylike into the bargain.
But, conscious herself that she was displaying more passion than sense—and how often she had fondly rued her aunt for the same flaw!—she took a deep breath, smoothed the skirt over her knee, then clasped her hands on her lap. She would attempt tolookcalm, even if she was very far from feeling it.
“Evidently we are very far from seeing eye to eye on this subject, my lord. I won’t take up any more of your time, for I’m sure you have a dozen places to be. But if you don’t mind waiting one moment longer, I will copy out the directions for some of my contacts at the SSNCB—a very worthy cause. And, if I might, I will give you a pamphlet we have prepared on the scientific and medical evidence underpinning our argument. We are not wholly without support. Or reason. It is notonlyfeminine sympathy that moves us.” She got to her feet. “I have no claim on your time, but it would do me great honour if you could find a moment to peruse the pamphlet at your leisure.”
Lord Cotereigh’s gaze moved back from the window. He studied her for a brief moment, no discernible expression in his eyes, then inclined his head. “Very well.”
Madelaine hurried back to her study. On her way, she met the maid on the stairs with the tea tray and told the confused girl to turn back, their guest was leaving. She wrote the names and addresses, her writing a sharp, shaky scrawl, poor enough tomake her frown in dissatisfaction. But it would have to do. Then she grabbed a pamphlet and returned to the black-clad viscount.
He was standing now and took the papers with a wordless bow.
“No need to trouble yourself,” he said, as she made a move to the door. “I can see myself out.”
And he did so, Madelaine staring at the door he closed behind him for a long moment before sinking down onto the sofa, her head in her hands and a groan in her throat.
She was still sitting like that when the door reopened, but it was the broad, puce-velvet-wrapped form of her aunt who bustled through it, eyes wide.
“Tell me I didn’t just see Lord Cotereigh leaving this house?”
Then, before Madelaine could even begin to think how to answer, her aunt’s watery blue eyes widened further as they snagged on Madelaine’s face. “And…er, my dear, did you know you have ink on your lip?”
Madelaine shot to her feet and turned to the mirror over the mantelpiece.
Her aunt was right. There was a blue-black splotch at the centre of her mouth. Heat flooded her yet again as she gave another groan.
No wonder the viscount had looked at her so strangely.
Three
Sebastian left Lady Pemberthy’shouse newly possessed of two documents and a deep, irritating sense of dissatisfaction.
Their cause was absurd.
And he’d just made a wager to support it.
This, he reflected, walking briskly down the sunny road, was a consequence of making rash decisions.
Generally Sebastian found it easy to say no. He didn’t game for gaming’s sake. Unlike his friend Handley, he’d never been victim to that irrational hunger for risk. And it wasn’t Handley’s eagerness which had prompted him to take the bet. One couldn’t be friends with Handley without having the ability to decline his many wagers. He would ruin—had already ruined—his friends several times over if they lacked the strength to say no.
Sebastian only gamed because it was the thing to do, because it was fashionable, because it cemented friendships with men whose friendship was valuable. Realising this early in life, he had deliberately honed his innate gift for numbers and logic andlearned to be good at it. Skill commanded respect, and respect was far more valuable than mere financial winnings.
Thosewere the reasons Sebastian gamed—sensible, rational reasons—but something else had been at play yesterday in Mrs Fishbourne’s saloon.
His uncle.
As was often the case, his uncle was the cause of the uncomfortable situation Sebastian now found himself in. The doubting sneer in his uncle’s eyes had made Sebastian sayI’m in.
Why, at eight-and-twenty, did he find it almost as impossible to say no to his uncle as he had at the tender age of seven?
