He dragged his hand through his hair. He had a bad habit of mussing his hair, and she hated that she found it so endearing. “The thing is,” he said, “I can’t tell you why I’m not free to marry, beyond saying I’m drowning in responsibilities at present. Between learning the rules for ducal behavior, settling the properties of my late predecessor, trying to manage Stockdon and Sons and my current projects, and making sure Rosy and my mother end up in a good situation, I am at my wit’s end.”
“I have a similar set of weighty responsibilities,” she said. “Yet I did not imply I was ‘not free to marry.’ Indeed, have I once said anything about marriage to you at all?”
“No,” he said gruffly. “But most women—”
“Even you will agree I am not most women,” she said before he could say anything to make her even angrier at him than she already was. She would be sorely tempted to brain him with her bag if he did.
Not that it would do any good. He had much too thick a skull for anything to penetrate.
“And to think,” she said, as she walked past him toward the door, “I actually considered having you tutor me in the ways of passion, so I could decide whether Ididwish to marry someday. Obviously, that would have been a huge mistake.” She opened the door and paused to look back at him. “I suppose I’ll have to find some other man to tutor me. Do let me know if you have anyone to recommend for the post.”
She had the enormous satisfaction of seeing his jaw drop before she marched off down the hall. So he’d thought to mislead her, had he? Well, he would never do that again. She would make sure of it.
Chapter Eleven
Geoffrey walked out the door to stare after Diana as she hurried away. Had she really said what he’d thought? Or had his fevered imaginings of her in his bed finally taken charge of his mind?
“What sort of post is she looking to fill?”
Geoffrey turned so fast he nearly knocked over his friend Foxstead and the glass of champagne the man was clutching. Good God, how much had the fellow overheard? “I beg your pardon?”
Foxstead nodded at Diana’s disappearing figure. “Sorry for eavesdropping, old boy, but I heard Lady Diana ask you for recommendations. I’m merely wondering what post she’s trying to fill. If it’s anything I can help with—”
“It isn’t,” Geoffrey snapped. Friend or no, if Foxstead thought for one minute he could bed Diana—
“All right,” the earl said. “No need to be testy. I merely thought I’d offer.”
That was when Geoffrey noticed the confusion on his friend’s face. Then the light dawned. Foxstead thought Geoffrey and Diana had been talking about a post for a servant or a tradesman or something equally innocuous.
Damn. He’d better watch himself or the whole world would figure out that the woman was starting to rattle him. “Forgive me, Foxstead. I’m just a bit short-tempered right now. I’m not used to being the host of anything. Hell, I’m not used to any of this.”
“Well, you chose the right people to arrange it.”
Geoffrey wasn’t so sure. He would have preferred having “people”—one in particular—who didn’t tempt him quite so much. “Speaking of Elegant Occasions, I am curious about one thing. You move in the upper echelons of society a great deal. What do you think of Lady Diana and her sisters? For that matter, what is your opinion about three women of rank running a business?”
Foxstead drank deeply of his champagne. “I think that through no fault of their own, they found themselves at the mercy of the gossipmongers four years ago. So they chose to build a business for themselves that put them entirely outside high society, rather than sit around waiting for society to accept them . . . or waiting for their parents to behave like adults.” He shook his head. “Which, from what I understand, was never going to happen.”
“Yes, but the two ladies who were unmarried could have taken husbands instead.”
Foxstead gave a harsh laugh. “First of all, Lady Verity already had a serious suitor, a scoundrel who diverted his attentions to some other lady once news of the parents’ divorce broke.”
“That’s unconscionable!”
“I agree. But that’s London society. All it takes is a whiff of scandal to send everyone running. When the sisters started their business, the divorce had just begun to be litigated. No mother or father wanted their sons anywhere near the taint of something so scandalous. So even if Lady Diana and Lady Verity could have found men to ignore all that, they would undoubtedly have had to marry far beneath them. Society was pretty rigid then concerning how it felt about divorce. Still is, come to think of it.”
That seemed enormously unfair. No wonder Diana was angry at him. She believed him to be accusing her of luring him into a situation where he had to marry her. Geoffrey knew she would never do such a thing. So why had he even hinted that she might?
Because he was too busy hiding his own secrets to think about how the act of hiding them could affect her. Next time—assuming there was one—he would do better. “So how is she . . . how aretheyregarded in society these days? Their business does seem to be successful.”
“Given that they turn away more clients than they accept, I would say they’reverysuccessful. The high sticklers who disapprove of them are still around, but Elegant Occasions has enough supporters and people clamoring for their aid to keep them busy. Because they don’t themselves appear at the events, they’re able to walk a fine line between providing a service and being nominally in society.”
“Nominally? Surely by now the divorce business has been forgotten. They’re the daughters of an earl, for God’s sake!”
“And the daughters of an adulterous mother who ran off with her lover. That would give any prospective suitor pause.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Geoffrey muttered. “It’s not as if bad character is inherited.”
“I agree with you, but you and I are men of science. The average members of high society are creatures of superstition, with a flagrant disregard for facts and evidence. I’d take Lady Diana over half the chits in London any day, but the fact remains that you and I aren’t typical.”
