“Just some ice cream and grapes, thank you.” She couldn’t resist ice cream, and the frosted grapes, dipped in beaten eggwhite and coated with finely pounded sugar—she’d watched them being made in the kitchen—looked cool and delicious.
He filled a bowl for her, then served himself. She watched with reluctant amusement as he filled his own plate. He’d eaten sparingly from the earlier dishes—that hadn’t surprised her; he was very lean and hard looking—but it seemed the duke had a sweet tooth. It almost made him seem human.
Almost.
“I noticed the other day on the heath that you are a very fine rider, Lady Georgiana.”
George tensed. Here it came, the purpose behind all this attention—his next offer to buy Sultan. Would the dratted man never give up?
She clenched her jaw and waited, but instead he said, “I presume you enjoy hunting.”
“You presume wrong,” she said curtly and turned her attention to the last of her ice cream.
He raised a brow. “You don’t ride to hounds? Then you’re missing—”
“Foxhunting is despicable. It’s cruel and uncivilized and—”
“Nonsense! It’s a fine sport.”
“Sport?” Her temper rose and she put down her spoon with a clatter. “You think it’ssporting? Dozens of men on horseback and a baying pack of hounds, all chasing one small fox?” Despite her vehemence, she managed somehow to keep her voice low. “And when the poor little thing is finally exhausted and cornered, you watch as the hounds rip it apart! It’s utterly barbaric!”
“Foxes are vermin and their numbers need to be kept down.” His voice was cold.
“They are God’s creatures and have as much right as any of us to exist. As for controlling their numbers, how does that explain why when someone attends their first hunt—their first kill—and most of the time it’s a child—you cut off the fox’s brush and wipe its blood on the child’s cheekand call it anhonor! Blooding achild! If that’s not barbaric, I don’t know what is.”
There was a short silence. She bit off a grape and crunched through the hard, sugary coating, then added in case he didn’t get the point, “I despise foxhunting and all who participate in it.”
His face was carved from granite, his expression unreadable, his eyes cold and flinty. She turned her face away and became aware that people were leaving the supper room. Thank goodness. This ordeal was over. She set her napkin aside.
He immediately rose and politely moved her chair out of her way. “A moment more of your time, if I may, Lady Georgiana.”
He’d taken up quite enough of her evening. “I’m sorry, I have an engagement for the next dance.”
“Your partner won’t mind. This won’t take a moment.”
“He won’t mind? I suppose you’ve fixed it so that he has relinquished his dance, too? How many more of my partners have you suborned?”
“Don’t be melodramatic. A quiet word in his ear was all that was required. The fellow went quite willingly.” He gave an infinitesimal shrug. “To the victor go the spoils.”
“I am not anyone’sspoils.”
His gaze moved over her in a leisurely sweep. “No, you’re not, are you?”
What did he mean by that? She didn’t know but she didn’t like his tone, or the way he looked at her, like a cat surveying his next dish of cream.
“How splendid to be you and have everyone fall in with your wishes,” she said sarcastically.
“It is, rather,” he agreed. “Now, show me where the library is.”
What did he want with the library? she wondered. But if that was what it took to get rid of him... “It’s along there.” She pointed.
He took her elbow in a light grip. “Show me.”
She glanced across at her family. Cal was helping Emmup from her chair, so tender and solicitous of his wife it caused a lump to rise in her throat. Rose was smiling up at Thomas, who looked stunned and a little preoccupied. Lily was already leaving the room, arm in arm with her Edward, oblivious of the fashion that husbands and wives should not live in each other’s pockets. Aunt Dottie was still happily eating and talking animatedly to her escort, a handsome, elderly gentleman.
Aunt Agatha was eyeing George through her lorgnette. She indicated with a jerk of her head that she should go with the duke. So she was in on this, whatever “this” was. All for the duke, was Aunt Agatha.
For a second it occurred to her that perhaps Aunt Agatha had lied the other day when she said the duke had rejected George as a possible bride. However he wasn’t acting the slightest bit suitorlike. And he must know from his friends that she had no interest in marriage. No, he probably only intended to make her another offer for Sultan.
