Chapter 2 #2
“Naturally, George has to come. He would be heartbroken to miss it. And you, Sir Prig—that is—you must be George’s brother, aren’t you, confound it?
I should have recognised you earlier but you look nothing like George, nothing at all—” she said in a rushed sotto voce, then she smiled at him cheekily, and two dimples appeared in her cheeks, which was so unexpected that it left him flummoxed.
Then she turned to Nana and raised her voice again. “But I know just what to do to get out of this dilemma. How about we do this: we move the ball sometime later to give George enough time to return?”
“How long did you have in mind?” Bastian asked in a low voice.
“End of summer,” she shot back quietly. “When George has his leave. If he has his leave. It isn’t guaranteed. It’s either that or not at all. Delaying is the only thing we can do now.”
He gave a curt nod. At least the creature had come up with a sensible solution.
“We can’t wait too long,” Nana said.
“We won’t,” Viola said in a soothing voice. “It will happen soon enough. And now you will have some tea, and some biscuits, and then I will read to you from our favourite novel. What do you say, Nana? Is that a good plan?”
Nana’s face brightened.
Viola turned to him. “I didn’t know you’d be here, so I brought only two teacups.
” She waved an ink-stained hand. It also appeared red, as if it had blisters.
From the nettles, no doubt. He shifted in his seat.
“You may pour anyhow,” she was saying. “Since you are closer to the tray. And pass me the plate with the biscuits. No, not those. The other one with the chocolate-covered ones.”
She certainly knew her way about commanding him around. Bastian refrained from commenting anything at all as he silently passed her a teacup and the plate with biscuits.
His brother, he decided for the tenth time, must have lost his mind. There was no other explanation.
“I also brought you some blackberries.” Viola chatted away happily. “They’re growing by the ruins. They’re wonderfully sweet. Here, try one.” She held the bowl with blackberries to Nana, who devoted herself to happily devouring them.
Viola herself bit into a biscuit and promptly left a trail of crumbs down her front, in addition to getting crumbs stuck all over her lips and between her teeth. Not to mention the chocolate stain in the left corner of her mouth. Really, any child had neater eating habits.
“You have an, err...” His finger wandered to the corner of his own lips, then he shrugged and dropped his hands in defeat.
She bent forward, reaching into the sugar pot to fish out a lump of rock sugar.
There were dainty little silver tongs specifically for this purpose lying on the tray next to her, but she appeared to find her fingers more suitable to accomplish this task.
But instead of popping the sugar lump into her tea, she popped it straight into her mouth and sucked on it.
Only afterwards did she lift her teacup to drink.
“What?” She raised her eyebrow at him.
“It’s just that one commonly puts the sugar into the tea, stirs, and waits until it is dissolved.” He gestured with his hand, showing the motion of stirring. “And then one drinks it. That is how it is done. Normally.”
“Yes. As I am certain you have ascertained, I am anything but normal.”
That, Sebastian concluded, was the understatement of the century.
“You should try it yourself. The tea tastes better if the sugar is already in the mouth, as opposed to being dissolved in the tea.” She reached for another lump of sugar and held it out to him. “It’s an entirely different phenomenon.”
He stared at the cracked fingernail of her index finger, which, to boot, was covered by an ink stain. “Try it.”
He shook his head.
She shrugged and stuck it into her own mouth instead.
She proceeded to slurp noisily from her teacup and promptly spilled some onto her dress. She rubbed at it with her blistered hand.
He handed her a napkin wordlessly.
She waved him away.
The girl was a walking catastrophe. Truly, she was the most clumsy, untidy, mishap-prone creature he’d ever had the misfortune to encounter.
His Nana, however, appeared to adore her.
Goddaughter, she’d said. Lady Viola’s mother had been her close friend. Bastian mused on the nature of their relationship with a frown on his face.
“If you keep on frowning like that, the frown will get stuck,” Viola informed him with a full mouth, between two bites of biscuits.
“He disapproves terribly of me, Nana,” she told his grandmother.
“He is thinking at this very moment that he has never met such a vexatious person as me.” A low chuckle emerged from her throat.
It might have sounded adorable had it come from any other female.
He was about to deny it vehemently when he held himself back. For it was true, wasn’t it? He did find her vexatious.
“Bastian? Nonsense. Don’t let him intimidate you. His bark is worse than his bite, but underneath the hard facade, he has the kindest heart. He just needs to keep the world a bit at a distance. It is merely self-preservation, you see. He is also shy.”
He felt a wave of heat crawl up his neck. “What nonsense you talk, Nana.”
Viola snorted, though it may have been because she was drinking too fast from her teacup.
“And Viola here, she is the darlingest girl in this universe.” Nana’s face softened. “My personal sunshine. I wouldn’t know what to do without my Lola. And now, read to me from the novel.”
Viola’s face brightened. “Gladly.”
It was never still for a moment; he realised.
Her face. It was constantly animated. When her mouth didn’t move, speak or eat, her eyes did.
Wandering all over him, making him annoyingly self-conscious as she studied him, and apparently filing pieces of information about him away in that chaotic brain of hers.
He shifted uncomfortably and wondered for one moment what it was she saw, what it was she filed away.
She certainly had been quick to judge him and his character.
Not that he cared. Certainly not him.
Now her dark eyes lit up.
She jumped up, over setting the tray so that tea sloshed out of the cup. He steadied it with a sigh.
“Yes! Of course. I have brought the book.” Which, no doubt, was now bearing tea stains.
“Let me guess,” he drawled, “it can only be a romance by that Mrs—”
“Radcliffe!” she beamed. “How did you know? It is The Mysteries of Udolpho. I believe we stopped at the part where the heroine arrives at the castle. I can’t help but think the castle must be very much like Westwood Hall.” She licked her fingers and flipped through the pages.
Sebastian got up. “That is my cue to leave. I am very sorry, Nana, but nothing in the world will induce me to listen to gothic romance.” He pressed a kiss on his grandmother’s papery cheek and gave Viola a stiff bow.
She gave him a brief smile before turning back to her book. Then she crossed her legs so that her skirt hitched up halfway up her lower thigh, revealing stockinged ankles, trim and fetching.
Not that it mattered, for he had already seen them earlier.
Naked.
He looked away hastily and left as her voice rang out in the room, reading from the book.
He fled.
Striding down the wide staircase, he tugged at his necktie, which was tied blastedly tight.
She was the most impossible, vexing, aggravating, and bothersome creature he’d ever had the misfortune to encounter. But he was repeating himself. He’d already thought that earlier, and in the same order.
He preferred the clean, crisp, sophisticated look in a woman. Tidy and orderly. Neat and trim. Combed and washed and not smelling bewitchedly of—lavender?
But she? When she smiled, she had dimples; he thought with proper outrage, revealing a set of small, white, crooked teeth.
She’d even cocked him a cheeky smile, as though they shared a delicious secret, which certainly they did not!
He had no business thinking about her smile.
No business at all.
He made a mental list of all her defects. For that list was certainly long, oh yes, it was!
Everything about her was crooked. From the shawl on her shoulder, the brooch affixed on her chest, her ill-fitting dress.
Her upturned snub nose with her uncoordinated freckles.
He wondered how many there were and how long it would take to count them.
And her eyebrows were too dark and too thick.
None of the fine, elegantly arched brows the ladies of the ton had.
Not that he had ever noticed nor cared about ladies’ eyebrows before he’d met Lady Viola, so it was entirely unreasonable of him to suddenly disapprove so emphatically about the lack of finesse of Lady Viola’s eyebrows.
But that was not the point.
The point was…
What was the point?
His brother’s bride was not attractive.
Most definitely not.
He strode into the library, for the first time craving a strong drink.
Normally, he abhorred alcohol and never drank.
He stalked over to the sideboard and poured himself a glass from the decanter.
The drink did absolutely nothing at all other than burn its way down his throat and churn in his stomach, leaving an unpleasant aftertaste in his mouth.
Standing in front of the chimney, he stared into the roaring fire.
Pest and pestilence.
He was in serious trouble.