It gave Gwendolyn great pleasure to smile and give a small finger wave. Miss Purley refused tobe baited. She turned her attention to Lord Ellisfield.
“She doesn’t wish me to defeat her, to reestablish myself as the best player,” Lady Orpington said for Gwendolyn’s ears alone. “She is afraid. She knows how determined I am.”
For a second, Gwendolyn thought she referred to Miss Purley, but then realized she was talking about Lady Middlebury.
“She might have other activities in mind for her guests,” Gwendolyn felt she should suggest.
“Pfffft,” was the rude reply. “She is doing this to spite me. Magpie. I need Magpie. Where is my Magpie? What did that servant do with him?” She charged off to track down her dog.
And Gwendolyn found herself alone. Fortunately, Mr. Steele entered the room. She was relieved to see him and would have smiled, until she realized he wasn’t by himself. A lovely, very curvy and petite redhead walked beside him. She gazed up at him with nothing short of adoration.
To his credit, Mr. Steele appeared uncomfortable. However, the woman seemed to glow, and Gwendolyn had a sense, in that way women seemed to know things, that they were not strangers to each other.
She’d always heard that jealousy was an ugly emotion. It wasn’t until this moment that Gwendolyn understood what people meant. She had never been jealous in her life, but now a mixture of anger, inadequacy, and alarm took hold of her.
She watched as the couple stopped in front of an arrogant-looking man with a beak of a nose. He was almost as tall as Mr. Steele. The three ofthem spoke. It appeared the woman was introducing Mr. Steele to the other man.
There was a stiffness in Mr. Steele’s movements, as if he was forcing himself to beaffable? It was a strange word to attach to him. Perhaps that is how he believed his new persona Nicholas Curran would behave... except instinctively she knew this was more than just discomfort. She wondered why.
She tried to catch his eye. Should she rescue him? Did he need her help?
When she couldn’t make Mr. Steele notice her efforts, she did something that she wouldn’t have done in other circumstances—she began walking toward the trio, intent on discovering what was going on.
Mr. Steele seemed to sense her approach since his back was to her. He half turned and motioned her forward.
“Lord and Lady Rabron,” he said, “may I introduce you to Miss Lanscarr. She is Lady Orpington’s whist partner.”
Lord and lady.The redhead was married. Gwendolyn could have collapsed with relief.
“How interesting,” Lord Rabron said, without sounding interested. His gaze barely touched her. Instead, he seemed to search the room for something that was “interesting.” Or someone more worthy of his time.
Lady Rabron was not so haughty. She gave Gwendolyn a warm smile. “You must be very good at whist. I’ve heard tales of Lady Orpington’s play.” Her lashes might have been blond, but they were the longest Gwendolyn had everseen on a woman and made her cornflower-blue eyes stand out all the more in her pale face. The effect gave her a feminine, otherworldly air that most certainly would draw men to her. Well, that and the ample bosom she proudly displayed.
“Do you play, my lady?” Gwendolyn asked politely.
Lady Rabron started to shake her head, but her husband deigned to join their conversation and answer for her. “She has no head for strategy. She wouldn’t survive. I can’t even teach her chess.”
An urge to stomp on his arrogant foot almost overtook Gwendolyn. Lady Rabron merely smiled and gave a helpless shrug of perfect shoulders, her blue eyes searching out Mr. Steele as if she needed him to defend her.
Gwendolyn’s jealousy came roaring back because she couldn’t have acted defenseless if her life had depended upon it. She also had little patience for women who became fluttery and silly in the face of rude men. Especially those to whom they were married. It seemed to her that marriage should give a woman some agency over telling her husband when he was disrespectful. Or behaving like an ass.
“Are you enjoying your first visit to Colemore?” Lady Rabron asked Gwendolyn, who decided to take the high road and spare the woman’s husband the sharp side of her tongue.
“I’m overwhelmed,” she confided. “How many guests will be with us?”
“I’m not certain,” Lady Rabron said. “This is our first year as well. Reginald is looking forward to the hunt—”
“Do you hunt, Curran?” Lord Rabron asked Mr. Steele, interrupting his wife.
He deserved to havebotharrogant feet stomped on.
“Not if I can help it,” was Mr. Steele’s reply.
“Pity.”
Gwendolyn edged herself between Lady Rabron and her husband, wanting to give him a taste of what it meant to be cut off. It was a kinder action than the foot stomping. “You were saying?”
Lady Rabron almost gasped. She knew what Gwendolyn was doing. Or perhaps she was surprised someone wished to hear her out. With a nervous smile, she said, “I was saying there are thirty-five bedrooms, and I am told they are all full. But then the table only sits sixty in the main hall, so I imagine Lady Middlebury must limit the number somehow.”
