Chapter 3 #2
Ollie gave a half-smile. “I suppose I ought. Come on.” He set off across the drawing room, leaving George to follow in his wake, coming to a halt on the other side of the drawing room, in front of two ladies who were sitting together.
One of them was a notable beauty, with rich golden hair and strikingly dark blue eyes, though her pink gown was rather bright and fussy.
The other lady was younger and no match for her companion in beauty.
She was dressed more tastefully, though, in a shimmering silver-and-white evening gown, and her grey eyes were intelligent.
This, George deduced, was Miss Cecily Hewitt.
Ollie addressed the beauty first. "Mrs. Hewitt,” he said smoothly, gesturing at George. “May I introduce my friend, Lord Sherrington, heir to the Duke of Avesbury?”
George bent over Mrs. Hewitt’s hand. She must be Miss Hewitt’s stepmother, since this woman could not be above thirty.
“Good evening, ma’am,” he murmured as he straightened. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Mrs. Hewitt flushed nearly as pink as her dress and mumbled something that George couldn’t quite make out. Despite her beauty, she appeared very shy.
“And this is Miss Cecily Hewitt,” Ollie continued, gesturing at the younger woman. “My betrothed.”
“Miss Hewitt,” George murmured, bowing in her direction. “It is an honour.”
Miss Hewitt’s smile was demure. “The honour is all mine, my lord.”
George inclined his head, then turned back to Mrs. Hewitt. “You have a lovely home, ma’am.”
She managed a wavery smile at the compliment and a nod but made no comment in return.
Miss Hewitt appeared embarrassed by her stepmother’s silence. Brightly, she said, “I’m so glad you came this evening, my lord. Fletcher speaks of you all the time!”
“Not all the time, my dear!” Ollie said repressively, his colour heightening. It did not suit him to blush, the pink clashing rather badly with his reddish-gold hair.
The girl flushed and bit her lip. “I only meant that I know you are great friends,” she said, her gaze begging Ollie’s approval.
In that moment, George felt a strange sort of comradeship with her. He was trying to think of something to say to lighten the moment when Ollie suddenly glared, his attention captured by something behind George. “What on earth is he doing here?”
George glanced over his shoulder, and when he saw who stood in the doorway, his heart began to slug in his chest.
Theo Caldwell.
The last time George had seen him was the day Theo had discovered George and Ollie kissing behind the stables at Dinsford Park.
Theo’s obvious shock at the sight of them had been bad enough, but neither George nor Ollie had imagined he would actually tell anyone what he'd seen. Yet he’d done just that.
When Ollie’s father had returned to the estate from town a few days later, he’d ambushed them in exactly the same place, apoplectic with rage.
George had been sent home, and Ollie had received a vicious thrashing.
After that, everything had been different. Ollie himself most of all.
And now Theo had the gall to turn up at Ollie's wedding celebration? As though he wasn't the reason Ollie had been beaten so badly he’d been confined to his bed for days after?
George tried not to look at Theo Caldwell, but the man drew his gaze like a magnet. It had been a decade, but he didn’t look so very different from their school days. Older, yes. He was a man full grown now. But he still had that wide, infectious smile, and that mischievous glint in his eye.
The worst of it was, Theo had always been one of the nicer older boys at school.
He’d teased George and was always telling him to be more manly and less fussy, but he wasn’t nasty about it.
Just, well, exasperated. For a few years, George had been secretly quite infatuated with Theo.
Which was probably why his betrayal had been so painful.
“Who is that?” Miss Hewitt asked Ollie.
“Theobald Caldwell,” Ollie said through gritted teeth. “Younger son of Sir Peter Caldwell. He’s my cousin Piers’s friend from school.”
“Your cousin who grew up with you?”
“Yes—Piers and Caldwell are two years older than Sherry and I,” Ollie said. “We were all four of us at St. Dominic’s.”
Miss Hewitt sighed. “You’re very fortunate. I used long for a brother or sister to play with when I was small.” She glanced at her stepmother, adding with a slightly forced smile, “Of course, I have the little ones now.” Mrs. Hewitt smiled politely.
“Piers was awfully good fun when we were boys,” Ollie said, a corner of his mouth hitching up, almost reluctantly. “Wasn’t he, Sherry?”
George nodded. “Yes, summers at Dinsford Park were always tremendous.”
Glancing at Miss Hewitt, Ollie said, “Over the summers, Piers and I were allowed to have a school friend each to visit for a few weeks. Piers would always have Caldwell, and I’d have Sherry.”
“That sounds nice,” Miss Hewitt said, a little wistfully.
“Oh, yes,” Ollie said. “Endless japes, wasn’t it, Sherry?”
It really had been.
Not that George said as much. He just smiled and murmured, “Oh, yes, endless.”
Those early summers had been particularly memorable, when Piers and Theo used to spend the long days with him and Ollie.
Back then, George had cherished almost any attention he got from the older boy he secretly hero-worshipped.
But once Piers and Theo reached the grand old age of sixteen, they’d decided that Ollie and George were too young to be allowed to hang on their coattails.
They’d begun sneaking off to drink cider and flirt with the village girls, sending George and Ollie away whenever they tried to follow.
And then Ollie had begun to look at George differently, and everything had changed.
Just then, George noticed a familiar figure—Piers Fletcher—striding across the drawing room towards Theo.
“Caldwell!” he called, having evidently just caught sight of his old friend.
“Good to see you, man!” George watched the two men greet one another, but, as always, it was Theo rather than Piers to whom George's gaze was drawn.
Piers was a perfectly pleasant-looking gentleman, but Theo was handsome, tall and broad with thick chestnut hair and a wide, glinting smile like a gentleman pirate.
Watching him now, George felt all of fifteen years old again.
How mortifying.
Theo and Piers spoke for a few moments, then, much to George’s dismay, Piers gestured in George and Ollie’s direction, and Theo turned towards them.
Alarmingly, his gaze went straight to George, and for a long, airless moment, their gazes tangled before Theo inclined his head briefly in acknowledgement. George swallowed, hard. His heart was racing, and his stomach twisted with an unfamiliar excitement he had not felt for a long, long time.
Several beats passed before he realised, quite suddenly, that he'd forgotten to keep his expression under control.
Panic gripped him at the realisation, and he looked sharply away, schooling his features into impassivity as he wondered whether any of his thoughts had shown on his face.
Christ, he hoped not. He mustn't let himself lapse like that.
He was not a giddy schoolboy any more, overwhelmed by his forbidden attraction to an older, and decidedly uninterested, boy.
He must make sure that when he spoke to Caldwell—as he must surely do at some point this evening—there was no trace of that overeager boy.
Only the composed, polite gentleman he had striven to become.