Page 50 of My Own True Duchess
The buffet was lavish—Lady Westhaven was married to a ducal heir and entertained accordingly—and yet, no Theo appeared amid the throng circling the tables in his lordship’s library. No Lady Canmore either, though Casriel was standing guard over a table of sweets and looking like a lonely mastiff.
“Are we not socializing at this very moment, my lady?”
“You can be a brother when the task requires sarcasm, but not when it requires acknowledging me.”
“I’ve given you the letters.” Jonathan kept his voice down, but he sensed Della was on the verge of making a scene. Perhaps she was always on the verge of making a scene. She put him in mind of Sycamore Dorning, prepared to engage in rash measures if necessary to achieve her ends.
Reckless, like Jonathan’s father.
But then, his father was her father.
“Are you well?” Lady Della asked, for Jonathan had come to a halt in the middle of the library.
“Of course. What are you hungry for?”
“An honest argument, such as I have with my other siblings on any given day. We snap and snarl, sometimes we sulk and pout, then we make up. We even laugh together and cry friends. The concept isn’t complicated, and you are rumored to be a well-educated man.”
Rumored. She was listening to rumors about him. Annoyance laced with panic threatened to spoil Jonathan’s evening. “I attended Cambridge and managed reasonably well.”
Lady Della wore a paisley silk shawl that brought out the blue of her eyes. She was a small woman and not yet twenty, but she carried herself like a veteran of many Seasons. Her confidence was subtle. She might not even describe herself as confident, but she enjoyed an ease in polite surrounds that Jonathan did not.
“You were top wrangler,” she said. “Why wouldn’t you admit as much to me?”
“Because our sainted father ridiculed that accomplishment, ridiculed my choice of university, and most of all, ridiculed me for being intrigued by numbers when my birthright was to be intrigued by loose women and cheap drink.”
“My mother was not a loose woman.”
They are all Dora Louise. Theo’s words came to Jonathan, and the retort he would have made died unspoken: If you insist on being difficult, this will be our last conversation. Papa had likely said as much to Mama, and she’d replied in kind, until half of Mayfair had been an audience to their farces.
“I apologize,” Jonathan said. “I intended to state a fact about my late father and nobody else.”
Della shoved a plate at him. “You need to work on your apologies. My other brothers have the knack, but then, they are married, all but Adolphus. You put me in mind of him.”
“He also attended Cambridge?”
“After you graduated. He’s a chemist. He likes to blow things up. I get on with him wonderfully.”
I’m sure you do. Jonathan kept that observation to himself as well, because Della’s recitation implied not only a protectiveness toward her lone bachelor brother—her other bachelor brother—but pride in his explosions.
She was not proud of Jonathan, as his father had not been proud of him.
Not that a half-sister’s regard was a very great matter. “Of what dishes shall you partake?”
Della picked up a second plate. “I’d like a small serving of social interaction, perhaps a morning call with a short drive in the park. An accepted dinner invitation would make a nice side dish, and for dessert, you could sit with me at this evening’s entertainment. Failing that, an occasional dance—I see you dancing nearly every set, Jonathan—or a pleasant exchange during the carriage parade.”
Don’t call me Jonathan. Any familiarity would be remarked by the gossips.
Lady Della was troubling over her food choices, picking up the spoon from a savory curry, then setting it back into the bowl without taking a portion. At the side of the room, the oldest of her enormous brothers—her Haddonfield brothers—made polite conversation with Lord Westhaven.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Lady Della asked.
Jonathan put a pastry of some sort on his plate. “I am in search of a bride.” He spoke very quietly, praying that this confession would meet with some sororal tact.
“More to the point, the brides are in search of you. I could help with that, you know.” She chose a spoonful of some mushroom-laden sauce.
“Please don’t help. Please, I beg you, don’t help. They accost me in libraries. They run me down in the park. They press their… persons upon me on the dance floor. If you laugh, I will cut you right here.”
This threat pleased her. “Now you sound like a brother. Avoid the soufflé, unless you don’t mind having a bad case of wind tomorrow.”
