of marriage-minded young ladies: he had enough of that on his rare appearances during the season. ‘I am very sorry to disrupt you, under the circumstances,’ he told Rafe. ‘I would not have intruded.’
Now that he was closer, Rafe didn’t look precisely the same as usual. For one thing, he appeared to be sober, rather than jug-bitten. And for another, there was a faint but distinct look of panic in his eye. The man would never escape without marrying one of these women, although the poor old duffer was so slow on the uptake when it came to women that he had probably only just discovered that fact.
‘I’m extremely pleased to see you,’ Rafe said. There was no doubt he was sincere: of course, drowning men always hoped a friend would throw them a rope. Or, in this case, Lucius had to suppose a wedding ring would offer the desired salvation.
Rafe turned to the young woman seated to his left. ‘Miss Essex, may I present an old friend of mine, Mr Felton?’
Miss Essex was presumably the eldest of Rafe’s four new wards. Lucius hadn’t seen her at first. She was not in the least like that sensual, glowing sister down the table, nor like the black-haired passionate one. Oh, she was beautiful: brandy-brown hair, cheekbones that the harshest sunlight couldn’t diminish. But it was her eyes, tip-tilted at the edges, serious, intelligent, clear blue, and sweet in her gaze …
She was smiling at him, and he was standing like a lummox without speaking. He bowed. ‘Miss Essex.’
‘How very nice to meet you,’ she said, holding out a hand. The ruffle at her wrist had been darned; at least Derwent’s information about the girls’ lack of dowries was correct, even if his assessment of their marketability certainly was not.
‘I am truly sorry to hear of your father’s death,’ Lucius said. ‘I met Lord Brydone a time or two and found him a gallant and merry-hearted gentleman.’
To his horror, Miss Essex’s eyes took on a little glimmer. ‘We are — ‘ She paused. ‘Papa was an excellent rider.’
‘Lucius, do have a seat. Brinkley has laid a place next to Miss Essex,’ Rafe said. ‘I shall introduce you to everyone else after the meal.’
‘I shall take it quite amiss if you do not personally greet me before seating yourself,’ Lady Clarice trilled from the other side of the table. ‘Dear Mr Felton, how are you?’ She held out her hand with a positive smirk of greeting.
Lucius gritted his teeth and walked around the table, kissing a hand that was thrust in his face with arch command.
Sure enough, Lady Clarice launched into her favourite topic without waiting for breath. ‘I met your dearest mother at the Temple Stairs just the other evening,’ she said, watching him like a hawk from behind her fluttering eyelashes. ‘We were both on our way to that production of All for Love everyone has been talking about. It was utterly lacklustre, not that it signifies. But the poor woman, how Mrs Felton has aged – so thin, so melancholy, so pale! Perhaps you have visited her recently?’ Her voice trailed off suggestively, even though she knew perfectly well that hell would freeze over before he darkened his parents’ door.
Lucius bowed again, saying nothing. If his mother was pale, it must have been from an attack of distemper.
But the loathed Lady Clarice wasn’t done yet. She grabbed his hand and clung to it. ‘From what I hear, Mrs Felton hardly leaves her bed. If only I could impress upon you the grief that assails a mother’s heart when her child strays from her side … the anguish is like no other!’
Lucius sharply withdrew his hand and bowed again, to make up for it. As he straightened, he caught Miss Essex’s eyes, across the table. She looked faintly surprised. Even though he’d long ago stopped caring much for his reputation amongst the ton, he felt a pulse of rage. Damned old hag, airing her ridiculous ideas about his family to the whole table.
‘Lucius is rather old to be tied to his mother’s apron strings,’ Rafe said, his normally lazy tones carrying a sting. If anything, Rafe loathed Lady Clarice more than Lucius did, since in the past year she had demonstrated a fixed determination to become the next Duchess of Holbrook, and nothing short of assault had dissuaded her of the notion.
‘Tied to one’s apron strings – well, I should hope not! My own darling son is a man grown, and wouldn’t countenance my interference. But’ — Lady Clarice reached for Lucius’s hand again, but he nimbly avoided her – ‘a mother needs to see her son occasionally, if only to revivify the wellsprings of her heart and being!’
Lucius opened his mouth to utter some commonplace, but Rafe nipped in. ‘Why, Maitland,’ he said, looking down the table at Lady Clarice’s hell-raker of a son, ‘I had no idea that you were such a useful chap. Here you’ve been running about resuscitating your mother’s wellsprings when we all thought you were doing little more than following the races!’
Rafe’s comment was intolerably rude. It was intolerably drunken. It also gave Lucius time to retreat back around the other side of the table and sit down beside Miss Essex, revising his initial assessment of Rafe as sober: in fact, the man was utterly cast-away. Awkward, what with his wards at the table, but not unexpected.
One of Maitland’s qualities, however, was that he didn’t take offence quickly — a trait that had probably kept him alive during a lifetime crammed with well-earned insult. He merely laughed at Rafe’s jibe and returned to regaling the bottom of the table with a story about the horse called Blue Peter, whom he’d just won in a wager. ‘His hocks are just right, squarely set, beautiful knee, facing square. He’s young still, but he’ll take a good fifty starts for me, and win a number of those!’ His eyes were shining. He leaned toward the black-haired sister, the only one showing any real interest in his tale, and said, ‘For tuppence, I’d race him this year, though he is a yearling. He never puts a foot wrong, flies along as sweet as a flea on a duck’s back.’
‘What a charming analogy,’ the blonde sister put in. The sharp irony in her voice made Lucius raise an eyebrow: all that honeyed lushness hid an intelligent mind.
Maitland didn’t even spare her a glance, just kept his eyes on the passionate black-haired sister. ‘A yearling beat a three-year-old at Newmarket Houghton last spring.’
‘At what weight?’ the blonde sister asked sceptically.
‘Five stone,’ Maitland said, finally turning to her.
The passionate black-haired missionary was nodding as if stars were circling Maitland’s head. In fact, it seemed to Lucius even after only a few seconds’ observation that Lord Maitland was the likely object of that sister’s particular religion. An odd choice at best, and one that would cause Rafe considerable trouble, if it went beyond calf-love.
‘Charming,’ the blonde sister said. ‘I suppose I have never considered you in the role of an innovator, Lord Maitland. I was under the impression that racing yearlings was not an accepted practice.’
Lucius swallowed a grin and turned back to Miss Essex, who was talking to Rafe. She was wearing one of the most awful garments he’d ever seen, a shapeless black thing that made her appear to have a gorgeous bosom – and a stomach exactly the same size. The dress went out below the collarbone and just forgot to go in again.
She had a slender white neck, though … and slender shoulders too: he could just see their outline through the dull fabric. And from what he could see, her bosom appeared to be real, although the stomach was just an illusion. Under that black cape of a dress, she was —
