“Charnock? Sir William Charnock?”
“Yes, she is his daughter, his only child. He married Elizabeth Snavely—you remember the Snavelys. Like the Charnocks, they have close ties to India.”
“The Nabobs.” He referred to those officers of the East India Company, many who had earned great wealth through their services.
“Exactly. Miss Charnock’s great-grandfather was Job Charnock, one of the first of the Nabobs.”
Gavin set aside his knife and fork, his appetite disappearing. He knew he must marry, but right now, with his heart battered, he didn’t appreciate the conversation—
His heart battered.
The direction of his thoughts startled him.
What bloody nonsense. He realized he was becoming ridiculously dramatic and acting like Rovington. His heart was not the portion of his anatomy upset over Sarah Pettijohn. It couldn’t be. He didn’t know her that well. In truth, given her high-handed ways, he was better off not knowing her that well.
It was another part of his anatomy that was severely disappointed by her rejection.
“I’d like for you to meet her, Baynton,” his mother was saying, after waxing on about Leonie’s looks, her breeding, and her manners. “I believe the two of you would be an excellent match.”
“Arrange an introduction then,” Gavin said.
“I have . . . for this evening.”
“This evening? Does this mean you and Imogen have already decided the matter and are merely manipulating me?” he asked his mother, only half in jest.
“No, we are prodding you. I don’t want you to waste any more time licking your wounds. I want you to have children and know the peace your brothers have found.”
“I am at peace,” he murmured, nodding to a footman to pour him coffee.
His mother waited until the small service was done and then dismissed the servants attending the breakfast room with, “Leave us now.” When the duchess spoke, the servants obeyed.
Once alone, the dowager said, “Are you happy? Remember, I know you well, my son. You are no monk. Although, some are beginning to wonder.”
Tension tightened his shoulders. “Do you, Mother?”
“I told you, I know you well.”
“You would have made a skilled politician,” he answered.
“The territory of men or else I would have tried my hand at it. So, will you meet Miss Charnock this evening?”
Gavin realized when he had been outmaneuvered. “Tell Talbert to arrange my schedule.”
“I have,” his mother informed him. “We will leave this evening at half past eight for dinner with the Charnocks.”
“Have you even informed Michael what I am to wear?”
His mother did not flinch from the mild rebuke. “Do you wish me to?”
Gavin waved away the suggestion, aware that his life was moving on . . . while a part of him moped over Sarah—and, in truth, he was not one to sulk. He liked action. He rarely allowed a setback to disturb him—and yet, her rejection had hit him hard, and it shouldn’t have. She was just not that important.
Or so he told himself.
“If you will excuse me?” He rose from the table, gave his mother a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and retired to his study and away from her too astute observation. Henry, his butler, passed on the word that Jackson would be sending over a man in two hours’ time.
Good.
Gavin tried to read through the treatises he would need for the Bank of England later that day, but snippets of his conversation with Sarah kept intruding. At one point, he was so caught up in his errant thoughts, he’d snapped his wooden pen in half and that was as Talbert, his secretary, was giving him pertinent information about Wellington’s latest plea for supplies and money for his troops.
