to this. You are all and more what I thought you were: a resourceful adventuress on the make. One thing is also certain: cousin Adrian will be no match for such a determined creature as you are proving to be.
Later he was to ask himself why he felt such hostility to the mere idea that Athene Filmer would trap his cousin into marriage, but at the time he was not yet able to consider her, or her apparent wiles, dispassionately.
The dance passed without further conversation, leaving Nick to discover that Miss Filmer’s body, beneath her disfiguring grey gown, was as he had already supposed, as classically lovely as her face. He could not be surprised when, on the way home, his cousin Adrian spent the whole journey talking enthusiastically of Miss Filmer’s beauty and charm.
“A stunner,” he kept exclaiming. “A very stunner—don’t you agree, Nick?”
Yes, Nick did agree, but although he also distrusted Athene’s motives in pursuing his cousin, he didn’t think that it was yet politic to be critical of her. Like many not over-bright young men, Adrian could be extraordinarily obstinate, and Nick knew from experience that to oppose him at this point would make him even more determined to admire this new beauty to grace the London scene.
All he said was, mildly, “I wonder who her people are? Listening to Mrs Tenison I gained the impression that she would not have approved of a total nobody being her daughter’s friend and companion.”
Adrian snorted. “She’s a poor little creep-mouse, the daughter, isn’t she? Not a bit like my Athene.”
My Athene! Goodness, thought Nick, amused, one dance and an hour of her company and he’s really taken the bait to the degree that he thinks of her as his.
“I can’t remember you having been so besotted with a female before on such a short acquaintance,” he ventured. “We really know nothing of her.”
“Only that she’s in good society, is beautiful and says jolly things,” riposted Adrian. “I noticed that you were chattering away with her before the dance started. What in the world did you find to talk about if you weren’t impressed by her looks and address?”
“Owls,” said Nick gravely. “Owls. Apparently they are rather scarce in the wilds of Northampton.”
“Owls!” exclaimed Adrian. “That’s not what pretty girls like to talk about. If that’s all you could think of to interest her, it’s no wonder she didn’t impress, or charm you.”
Nick refrained from telling him that he didn’t think that Miss Athene Filmer was trying very hard to charm him, and that he, far from charming Miss Filmer himself, had been rather short with her.
Yes, the less said the better. Perhaps Adrian would grow bored with having to keep up mentally with the clever creature which he judged Miss Filmer to be. He would be far better off with the creep-mouse who would make no intellectual demands on him and who had spent the rest of the evening staring adoringly at him, but was unhappily aware that Lord Kinloch only had eyes and ears for her beautiful companion.
In the meantime he would keep careful watch over them both, for he felt certain that the besotted Adrian would be chasing as hard as he could the beauty who he hoped would rescue him from his mother’s reproaches by consenting to marry him and thus give Kinloch lands an heir.
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