Page 43 of A Brilliant Match
A silence fell among the party, and he strove to fill it.
“How have you been?” He could not be near her without wishing to learn what she was thinking, to see her grow animated.
“Well. I—” She looked at her mother and sisters for assistance. “We are all well.”
Lady Poole remained silent, and Lady Sophia was not meeting anyone’s gaze, seeming to keep her eyes permanently fixed on her hands. Evo cleared his throat.
“Dorothea isparticularlywell, you might say, for she has received an offer of marriage from Lord Hastings.” Evo leaned back and lifted his arm to lay it along the sofa, grinning up at her.
So that was why her brother had come to take part in the conversation. To cause trouble.
“We are every day in expectation of the announcement appearing in theGazette.”
Miles felt like he had been run through and he perceived Mary’s sharp glance at him from the side. He gripped the armrests of his chair as his eyes went from Evo to her. Dorothea blushed a more fiery red than he had ever seen on her.
“Evo, that is a most inappropriate subject of conversation.” Her words came out strangled. “I have neither given my acceptance, nor have I given you leave to talk about it.”
“Well, it is nothing short of the truth. I heard you telling Mama,” he retorted, his grin just as wide. “It’s going to be public knowledge soon enough.”
“That is enough, Poole.” Miles couldn’t bear her discomfort any more than he could bear the news he had just heard. His tone was pleasant but firm.
Dorothea looked at him in surprise. She didn’t know her brother had given him leave to address him intimately, he supposed. Or perhaps she was shocked that he had reprimanded her brother as though he were a family relation. But honestly, the boy would have to learn to have better manners or someone in thetonwould teach him. And that time it might be pistols at dawn.
“Why should it matter if I do say it?” Evo insisted. “It is not as though I am telling a perfect stranger. Miles has been to our house frequently enough.” Dorothea’s wide eyes went from her brother to Miles. He saw the embarrassment, the desperation there.
“We are going to have a conversation, gentleman to gentleman,” Miles said, standing and waiting for Evo to rise. “Come.”
Evo folded his arms on his chest and looked up at Miles with an air of belligerence. He was most definitely testing every one of them to see who would bring him to brook, if anyone. His sisters, his mother. Miles himself.
“And if I should not wish to?” he asked, a challenging tilt to his chin.
“I think you would prefer to hear what I have to say to you in private,” Miles said in just as pleasant a tone, “but I will not hesitate to say it here in front of everyone.”
Evo stood and followed him over to the part of the drawing room near the bookcase and tall windows. There were no guests sitting on this end of the room, and Miles made as though he wished to show Evo one of the books on the shelf. He would spare the boy any discomfiture if he could.
“It is not gentlemanly to torture your sister, and I think you know that.” Miles dropped his pleasant tone and held the boy’s gaze firmly. “Therefore, there must be a reason you have decided to do so.”
Evo flushed and looked around, and Miles saw a slight tremor in his arms. It gave him hope. The boy was troubled. Angry, perhaps. But he was not completely lost to them. Evo glanced at his sisters and mother, who had resumed the conversation with Mary.
“Dorry does not cease to ring a peal over my head every time she thinks I am not acting quite as she believes an earl should. It’s intolerable.Sheis not the head of the family—Iam. But I have no space to breathe in that house of females, no liberty.”
He brought his eyes up to Miles, a hint of his stubbornness returned. “I am only giving Dorry her own so that she will leave me be.”
Miles turned his eyes toward Dorothea, who had sent them a discreet glance. She immediately withdrew her regard and focused on Mary, and now Miss Kensington, who had returned.
“I think you already know your sister wants what is best for you, so I won’t belabor the point.” Miles paused, struck by his desire to protect Dorothea. To care for her.
He loved her. It sat like a heavy weight in his heart knowing he could not marry her. But he would do all he could to ease her life. He set a hand on the bookshelf and looked down at Evo.
“However, allow me to remind you that a gentleman does not seek to embarrass a lady. He must be above reproach, and avoid anything that hints of vulgarity. A gentleman doesn’t provoke or display ill manners, no matter how irritated he might feel. If anything, he will become even more rigidly polite when irritated. A peer even more so.”
Miles studied the expressions that flitted across Evo’s face, hoping that something he’d said had reached him.
“My father, the earl, was not that way. He cared not a snap of his fingers for the ladies of the house. Why should I be any different?” Although Evo’s tone was still surly, something in his question led Miles to think he was trying to sort out the answer himself.
“Do you wish to be like him?” Miles asked softly. Evo shrugged, and when he gave no answer, Miles said, “Think about that, for it has far-reaching consequences. You have your whole life ahead of you, and how you treat others will have an impact on how pleasant your life is. And how long,” he added in a wry tone. “In the meantime, if I hear of you embarrassing Lady Dorothea in public again, I am afraid I shall have to teach you a lesson you will not soon forget.”
Evo darted interested eyes up at him, arrested by his words, and his face considerably brightened. “Will you? Can you teach me to box?”
