Still, he did his best.Lady Caroline. He didn’t wish to marry, but he also didn’t want to embarrass his mother by failing to learn the names of everyone she wanted him to meet. There would be more parties this season, and he would be expected to greet these ladies the next time he saw them.
So he smiled as his mother made the introductions. “Good evening, Lady Caroline,” he said. “I trust you’re enjoying yourself tonight.”
“Oh,verymuch,” Lady Caroline said. “And it’s such a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace. I admit that I’d very much hoped I would have the opportunity.”
He smiled at her. He understood what she was saying—she’d heard the Duke of Westcourt would be in attendance, and she had wanted an introduction.Opportunitywas precisely the right word. It had nothing to do with him as a person. She couldn’t have cared less about that.
That was fine with Thomas, though. It made it easier for him to reconcile the fact that he had no personal interest in her either.
“Lady Caroline is the daughter of the Earl of Canton,” his mother said. “The Earl was a dear friend of your father’s, Thomas.”
Which either means that Father owed him money or that he was a profligate gambler. There were no other options when it came to his father’s associates. Still, Thomas smiled. “It’s always nice to get to know a friend of Father’s.”
“And I know my father will be pleased to hear that I met you, too,” Lady Caroline said.
This told Thomas nothing. Even if his father had owed a fortune to the Earl of Canton, the Earl would still have wanted his daughter to meet and make a good impression on the Duke tonight. Part of the problem with this title he now bore was that you couldn’t trust anything anyone said to you.
“Perhaps we might share a dance later,” Thomas said because he knew that it would please his mother and knew Lady Caroline would say yes. Her fingers were already twitching toward her dance card as if hoping he would ask.
She nodded eagerly and held it out to him. “I’d like nothing better.”
He put his name down and gave the card back. “I’ll look forward to it,” he said, though the only thing he was looking forward to was this night being over.
Lady Caroline beamed at him and wandered off. She would be looking for someone else to dance with before her promised dance with Thomas—he’d indicated he wanted one of the places near the very end of the night.
Thomas turned to his mother. “I’m going to take a walk in the garden.”
“You can’t go yet. You have to meet some more people.”
“I’ll meet people later. I’ve already met plenty of them, and I’m not interested in debating this,” Thomas said. “I need a break. I’m going to go for a walk in the garden. I need some fresh air and to clear my head.”
“Very well, I’ll accompany you.”
But Thomas didn’t want that. If his mother came along, she would stop their walk whenever someone crossed their path. She would expect Thomas to be social, and he was going outside for a break from being social.
“You wait here,” he said. “Why don’t you go speak to Lady Garrington? I’m sure she’s wondering why you haven’t come over yet.”
His mother made a face. “You know how tiresome I find Lady Garrington. If I start talking to her, I’m likely to be stuck for the next half an hour.”
Thomas was unsympathetic. She was the one who had longed to be social tonight. She was the one who continued to insist that they should talk to everyone who came their way. Let her go on doing that while he took a break if it was so important to her.
“I won’t be long,” he said. “A quarter hour at the most, and then I’ll come back and rescue you from Lady Garrington’s clutches, I promise.”
“Very well, but see that it is only that long,” his mother said. “I don’t want to have to questions about where my son has wandered off to.”
Thomas nodded and hurried away before his mother could find some reason to call him back.
Outside, the air was just as cool and refreshing as he had hoped, and as soon as he had come far enough from the house that he couldn’t hear the sound of voices anymore, Thomas stopped and took a deep breath. It felt good to be away from the pressures of the party and to know that, for the next fifteen minutes, at least, nobody would try to talk to him.
He heard the sound of a trickle of water and moved toward it. A few yards along, around a corner, he came upon a fountain and sat on the edge, hoping to clear his head for a while.
Then a voice broke through the tranquility of the evening. “How dare you stand there and look at us like that? How can you make us look at that awful scar?”
His head lifted. The voice had belonged to a woman…but why would a woman be out here shouting like that? Was everything all right?
He got to his feet. If someone was in danger, he needed to intervene. He moved toward the noise, trying to find it.
“We should leave, Cecily,” another voice said. “This isn’t safe.”
