Page 51 of My Own True Duchess
He suspected that was a sisterly thing to say, and he put the serving spoon back into the pan. “I choose my entertainments carefully, so if our paths aren’t crossing, it’s because I’m avoiding the great majority of eligible young women.”
She speared several slices of cold roast beef. “I am eligible. Do you know Mr. Ash Dorning?”
“I know a number of Dornings, though I consider only Lord Casriel a close associate.”
Three slices of roast beef were added to Jonathan’s plate. “Do you call anybody a friend, Jonathan? Anybody at all?”
Theodosia Haviland was his friend, though that wasn’t all he’d like to call her. “What sort of question is that?”
“A concerned question. I have a list of theories regarding you. The simplest hypothesis that explains the facts is that you are a boor who tramples over my feelings out of overweening conceit.”
She’d wandered to the dessert table and, to all appearances, was absorbed in a choice of sweet.
Jonathan added concocting theories to his list of her transgressions, though heeding rumors about him was bad enough.
“Is there a second theory?” He hoped so, because she made him sound very much like his father.
Their father.
“And a third and a fourth. The most likely alternative, which Nicholas espouses whenever I raise the topic of Jonathan Tresham, is that you have never had siblings, have never had a loving family. You are like a feral cat. You have a vague sense that sustenance can be had from some humans, but figuring out which ones and at what cost overtaxes your abilities. You look very pretty napping on a garden wall, and you might steal a few laps of milk from the bowl set out for you, but you are fundamentally ignorant of and unsuited to a domestic life.”
Her words, delivered with the dispassion of a senior lecturer on the topic of feckless felines, carried an impact.
“So you will leave me in peace on my sunny garden wall?”
“Of course not,” she said, cutting a fat slice of some orange-glazed torte. “I will set out as many bowls of milk as it takes, because you are my brother.”
Don’t say that. Don’t say that.
The Earl of Bellefonte was watching this interaction, despite being in conversation with the gathering’s host. Westhaven could blather about his parliamentary bills through the night, and thus he made a good decoy for an overprotective brother.
Lady Della was determined to forge a connection based on an accident of birth, for Jonathan’s father had been that feral cat.
“I never read the letters.” He’d given Della her mother’s letters, and Della had offered to lend him his father’s letters.
“You should. My parents were very much in love, very troubled. He let her go because he loved her.”
Very likely, Papa had let the lady go because he’d moved on to another affair, and another and another, and the lady had seen what sort of bargain Papa offered any who cared for him.
“Perhaps family matters should be discussed at another time. Shall I escort you to Bellefonte’s side, my lady?”
“Would you like to wear this delicious torte on your cravat?”
Bellefonte smiled and lifted his drink in Jonathan’s direction, a great golden lion of an earl promising his prey a lively chase before the kill, because that was only sporting.
Jonathan smiled right back.
“Stop it,” Lady Della murmured. “You only get to act like a brother if you intend to be a brother. Call on me.”
Half of polite society had already seen Jonathan in conversation with the lady. The other half would note him calling upon her.
“If I’m to call on you, I want to call on you. I will not subject myself to the interminable inspection that will result if I show up at one of Lady Bellefonte’s at homes.”
“I’m an early riser. A hack in the park—”
Where all and sundry noted which lady rode with which gentleman. “I’ll make a morning call in the next week or so.”
Lady Della studied him. “A sweet plastered all over your evening attire would be such an improvement. I might call on you. Did you ever think of that? Would you be home to me?”
