Page 14 of Better Than a Duke
“Really, Beckett. Youarebecoming stodgy. All I’ve done is honor your wishes.” She paused, reaching over to brush an invisible crumb from his sleeve. “You liked her, though. Pauline.”
Beckett sighed, disliking those few occasions when his mother acted like someone with feelings. “She seemed polite and poised. Competent, and with a sense of humor. She comes from a good family, and I suppose if Rebecca likes her, I should find her suitable. Lord knows she needs a guide who can teach her how to manage Society.”
“It’s about time you realized what’s necessary in a spouse.”
“I saidifRebecca likes her. I’ve spoken to Lady Pauline one time, for less than a quarter of an hour. I require at least a full hour to decide anything matrimonial.”
“Oh, be as sarcastic as you wish.” His mother didn’t bother to conceal her smile. “I knew she was the one. Everything you require in a wife, and none of the nonsense. But for heaven’s sake, Rebecca is nine. She knows nothing about consequential matches and marriage or a wife’s duty to her spouse. Or even having another woman in the household. You cannot mean to hang your entire future on a child’s approval.”
He pulled his arm free of her grip. “That child’s life, happiness, and future is the only reason I would consider remarrying. Yes, I will hang my future on her approval. That is the point. Soleave off. And don’t you dare as much as hint to anyone that an announcement is forthcoming. Good evening.” With that he turned his back and strolled away.
Yes, he had a temper. He preferred using humor to ward off his enemies, but his mother managed to set him off with fair frequency. He generally dealt with her by pretending agreement and then ignoring whatever she’d said, but that didn’t always suffice. And while he’d accepted her abject lack of interest in helping him raise an infant girl on his own—as he’d discovered early in his own youth, she didn’t care for children at all—he wasn’t going to forget it, either. He’d been left to manage a baby himself, and it had been Rebecca and him since the evening she’d been set into his arms, still red-faced and wrinkly and yowling like a box of cats.
“Lord Hentrose.”
Oh, good God. Not more debutantes. He stifled a scowl as he turned around, ready to fend off another flotilla of silk and lace, but lowered his shoulders as Lady Pauline Grenedy sank into an elegant curtsy in front of him. “Lady Pauline. Good evening.”
Rising again, she smiled. “Good evening. I’d hoped to see you here tonight.”
“Hoped, or expected? We’ve both met my mother, and encountered her ability to manipulate coincidence.”
“She wants you to be happy.”
“We can debate later whose happiness most concerns her.”
“As for myself,” she went on, ignoring his comment, “I won’t be seen in the company of a man who can’t dance.” With a smile she held out her hand to him. “You do, I hope? Dance?”
If he’d changed his mind about pursuing her, she’d just left him a perfect escape route—and she’d no doubt done it intentionally. Perhaps she knew he disliked being forced into anything. “I do dance. How well, I couldn’t say.”
Lady Pauline chuckled. “It’s the effort that counts.”
“I’m thankful for that. My daughter says I make for a very robust reel partner.”
“Ah, yes. Rebecca, who’s mad for horses.”
“Yes. Rebecca.” And if at the end of the evening he still found Pauline acceptable, he would suggest that she join Rebecca and him for luncheon tomorrow. “Which dances do you have free?”
“All of them. I’ve been evading the horde, waiting for you to have first choice.”
“That’s both kind and optimistic of you,” he noted, taking her dance card from her hand.
She leaned a breath closer, over the heavy card. “Please take a waltz. It’s the only decent opportunity for chatting on evenings this loud.”
With a nod he wrote his initials beside the second waltz of the evening, then handed back her card and pencil. “Done.”
“Good. And now I’m going to wander off and chat with some friends before anyone can begin gossiping about us. I detest when the wags begin drooling over a connection that hasn’t yet been made. Not officially, anyway.”
With that she strolled off to be absorbed into the crowd.Hmm. Lady Pauline continued to impress, and she seemed to understand that this would be a partnership for mutual benefit. And that was good, because he had no time for nonsense.
“That is utter nonsense!”
Beckett turned around at the strident statement, as did a good number of the other guests in attendance. Lord Felix Hestry, the third son of the Marquis of Danvers, stood red-faced, one finger jabbed toward the petite, slender female who’d made the comment, her hands on her hips and her chin jutted forward. Beckett recognized her angry stance immediately.Iris Silbern.
“I suggest you not attempt to argue with a man when youclearly lack the capacity to understand any of what I’ve said,” Lord Felix sneered.
His brother, Lord Danvers’s second son, Gregory, stood beside him, laughing. The family resemblance between the two men was obvious, except that when the angels had gotten around to Felix they’d clearly been drunk. “I told you, Felix,” Gregory said, “females can’t fathom logic. That doesn’t change the facts, though. Once a female’s been bred and borne a calf, she’s useless to anyone but her husband. Minus a husband, she’s just useless. Pointless. No man is addle-pated enough to want her after someone else has already got a boy on her.”
“By your argument, then,” Iris retorted, her fists clenching, “a female, a woman, exists solely for the purpose of being bred.” Snapping shut her fan and thumping Felix on the chest with it hard enough to break the delicate thing, she took a step closer to the brothers. “I’m certain every single female in attendance tonight will be supremely interested to know that you two nodcocks have no respect for women and are hunting not for wives, but for brood mares. I don’t know about anyone else, but all I see are two fat-headed bulls badly in need of castration.”
