Page 11 of Fit for a Duke
And possibly be a little less circumspect about her lover.
Ezra suppressed a chuckle. He wasn’t supposed to know about her ongoing affair with Lord Brennan, a man only a decade older than Ezra, but Ezra had his spies and made it his business to know about everything that happened in his family. That way, there was an outside possibility that he would remain alive. His mother, if she had bothered to confide in him, would have discovered that she had her son’s blessing. He would not, however, pay Brennan’s debts, which he happened to know were substantial, and the debts in question made him wonder if that was why he had attached himself to an older, well-connected woman. Even so, everyone deserved a chance for happiness, including his emotionally barren mother. He did wonder though where it would leave the insufferable Silas if they were to put their affair on an official footing.
Three was most definitely a crowd.
The butler announced that dinner was served. Ezra did what he knew was expected of him and escorted an ecstatic Lady Beth to table. He winked at Clio, who was on the arm of an audacious cove whose name he couldn’t recall but who seemed to be paying far more attention than was seemly to the enticing Miss Benton. He nodded to Henry, who had taken Adele Fletcher in and seemed totally engrossed in whatever she had to say to him. Ezra smiled as he held Lady Beth’s chair for her. Something told him that Miss Hardwick, for whose favours Henry had fought a duel and risked being killed only a few days before, had already been supplanted in Henry’s affections.
The meal was excellent but dragged on interminably. Ezra struggled to find anything to say to Lady Beth that didn’t result in monosyllabic responses that were totally in accord with Ezra’s expressed views. He glanced frequently down the table to the position where Miss Benton and her neighbour appeared to find a great deal to talk and laugh about. Ezra would wager his fortune that she didn’t automatically concur with her dinner partner’s opinions, damned his impudent eyes!
Finally, the meal came to an end. Lady Fletcher glanced down the table to ensure that everyone had finished, put her napkin aside and stood. All the ladies followed suit and Ezra was on his feet in seconds, reversing the process with Lady Beth’s chair. He resumed his own as she walked sedately away, hips swaying provocatively, and pretended not to notice when she kept sending wistful glances in his direction over her shoulder. Miss Benton, by contrast, linked arms with Lady Adele and didn’t once look back.
‘Thank God that’s out the way,’ Ezra muttered, pouring a healthy measure of port and passing the decanter to Henry, who had moved to occupy Beth’s vacated seat.
‘You didn’t find the delicious Lady Beth to your liking?’ he asked. ‘No, don’t tell me. Of course you did not.’ Henry expelled a long suffering sigh and rolled his eyes. ‘I personally think that all the ladies here this evening are perfectly charming, and I dare say talented too. But you find fault with everyone you see. I tell you true, Ezra, I wouldn’t be you, not for all your wealth and consequence.’
‘You appeared to enjoy Lady Adele’s company,’ Ezra remarked in a low voice while the rest of the gentlemen chatted amongst themselves.
‘I say, isn’t she a vision! I think she may be the one.’
‘What of Miss Hardwick?’
‘Oh her.’ Henry flapped a dismissive hand. ‘She’s charming, but I don’t think she truly likes me so I shall not pursue her. Wouldn’t be gentlemanly. I will leave the field clear for Carstairs.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Ezra replied, chuckling. ‘What did Lady Adele have to say about her cousin?’
‘Oh, the quiet little thing in turquoise.’ Quiet? Ezra smiled to himself. ‘They are the greatest of friends, it seems. She came to live here quite recently.’ Ezra hadn’t known that the move had been recent and wondered where she had lived before that. ‘We are acquainted with her father, of course, or were. He was our major general.’
‘I thought that might be the case.’
‘Well anyway, she and Lady Adele will come out together next year, unless one or the other of them finds a husband before then, of course.’ Henry grinned. ‘Stranger things have been known to happen.’
‘Take it slowly,’ Ezra cautioned, aware that his words would be ignored. It was several weeks since Henry had fallen undyingly in love with Miss Hardwick. It was beyond time that cupid’s arrow struck again.
The gentlemen had only just returned to the drawing room and Ezra had prepared himself to withstand a barrage of indifferent performances on the pianoforte designed to impress him when a commotion in the doorway heralded a late arrival.
‘Captain Salford!’ Lady Fletcher cried, rushing forward. ‘I am so very glad that you could be excused from your duties.’
‘How could I resist your invitation,’ a man whom Ezra despised asked, oozing insincere charm. ‘Especially when it gives me the opportunity to spend time with Miss Benton.’
‘That is the major general’s adjutant, Captain Salford, unless I mistake the matter,’ Henry said, drifting up to Ezra’s side. ‘The man you wanted to have cashiered.’
‘I am told,’ Silas said with malicious glee as he too joined Ezra, ‘that he is also Miss Benton’s intended.’
Chapter Four
Clio glanced towards Captain Salford and her heart sank. She had not been aware that he’d been invited. Her aunt had promised her a surprise and she had assumed it would be an agreeable one. Not that she had anything against Captain Salford precisely. Indeed, her father had thought very highly of him and he had been a frequent visitor to Benton House on the less frequent occasions when Papa had been in occupation of it.
During her younger years the captain had treated Clio with distracted condescension. He had actually patted her on the head on several occasions when she had been eleven or twelve, as though she was a lap dog. He tended to pass asinine remarks that as a child it hadn’t occurred to her to challenge. He was Papa’s righthand man, and Clio craved her father’s approval, so as she grew from child to woman she tolerated the captain’s increasingly more extravagant compliments. She didn’t take them seriously, but she hadn’t discouraged him either. Perhaps she had given him the wrong impression, she now accepted, and he had mistaken her reticence for maidenly modesty.
Did he seriously believe that she would welcome his advances?
She could not have said what it was about Captain Salford that offended her, other than the fact that he wasn’t nearly as intelligent as he pretended to be, and lacked a sense of humour. Clio could not abide stupidity and delighted in laughing at life’s absurdities. Her mind drifted to her earlier lively exchange with the duke, but she chased the recollection away. Now was not the time.
There most likely never would be an appropriate time to untangle her jumbled emotions regarding that particular gentleman. Besides, he was way beyond her reach and Clio would not waste her life pining after the unattainable.
‘Clio,’ he said, approaching her with both arms outstretched, as though intent upon embracing her in front of a roomful of people. She would not permit him to do so in private and had no intention of setting a precedent in public.
‘Captain Salford,’ she said at the same time, adroitly avoiding his arms and leaving him foolishly clutching fresh air.
