That nonchalant reaction confirmed his worst fears about her view of theft and thieves, but oddly enough, he couldn’t seem to work up any indignation over it, and he feared perhaps he, like everyone else at the Savoy, had fallen under Delia Stratham’s charming spell. But then—
His gaze slid to her lips. There were, as she had just pointed out, worse things.
“You know, Simon,” she said, breaking the silence and forcing him to veer away from the naughty direction his mind was taking, “if you’re afraid people in my set will judge Cassandra for what your father did, you can rest easy. Some will; most won’t. We all have thieves and suicides in our family history. So, I’m not taking back my offer. Unless,” she paused, studying him, “that’s not the reason for your reluctance?”
He was in a cleft stick now, damn it all. “I’m not ungrateful for the offer, Delia,” he began.
“But…?”
“I’m just not sure Cassandra’s ready to do the season,” he parried.
“Being the protective older brother, are you?”
“I am that, I admit it. As I said, I’m all she’s got. And we haven’t been in society long enough for her to know the ropes. What if out of ignorance, she makes some ghastly mistake?”
“A few weeks with me, and she’ll be right as rain. I know all about the rules. How to obey them. How to bend them. And—” She paused to give him that dazzling, dimpled smile. “How to break them.”
“That’s rather what I’m afraid of,” he admitted, only half in jest.
She sobered at once. “I would never do anything to hurt your sister’s reputation. And though I was a bit wild myself as a girl, any of my peccadilloes were forgiven long ago.”
“Let me think on it.” He paused long enough for the footman to take his plate, then he went on, “Don’t misunderstand me, Delia. As little as I know about the aristocracy, I can well imagine what a responsibility it must be to help bring a girl into society, and I appreciate your offer very much. But as you said, I need to pave the way first. Let me do that, see how she gets on, and go forward from there.”
“Very well, but know that I’m happy to help. That is, if you truly want me.”
Want her?
He froze, his wineglass halfway to his lips, staring at her across the table as heat once again curled in his abdomen. He did want her. Of course he did. How could he not?
Almost since the moment they met, he’d wanted her. He’d tried to deny it, then he’d tried to ignore it, but the past three days had proved his efforts were in vain. He also knew that lusting after her was like playing with fire, and as Hardwicke returned with their dessert, he decided it might be best to once again divert the conversation.
“I didn’t realize,” he said as the butler placed a crystal dish of syllabub in front of him, “that you had ever lived in Berkshire.”
She nodded. “My first husband’s family comes from there. His father was the Marquess of Forley.”
“Your husband didn’t inherit the title? Was there an older brother?”
“No, and my husband would have taken the title, but he died before his father, so his younger brother became the marquess when the old man died. That was probably a blessing for the estate.”
He was watching her face as she spoke, and he did not miss the pensiveness in her expression. “How so?”
“When I met Roger, I was seventeen and he was twenty,” she said, and it didn’t escape his notice that she hadn’t answered his question. “When he proposed, my parents were delighted. He had the right pedigree and plenty of money, you see.”
“And what about you? Were you delighted?”
“Me? I was over the moon. I thought he was the handsomest man I’d ever seen. He was also a poet and a tortured soul. Girls are romantic and terribly naïve at that age. I fell in love with him the first time he wrote me a poem.”
“That’s not love, then. It’s infatuation.”
“You’re right, of course, but at the time, it felt like love. At least, until I found out he had another love besides me.”
“Another woman? That bastard.”
“Not a woman,” she corrected, shaking her head. “Cocaine.”
“Your first husband was a cocaine addict?”
“Yes. He developed the habit when he took his Grand Tour. It’s terribly fashionable, you know.”
