Chapter Eight #3
“I suggest you dress for dinner” was her mother’s reply.
“I will,” Miss Susanne said, already starting down the hall with Sir James.
The lawyer threw over his shoulder, “I shall see that she returns with plenty of time to dress for dinner.”
“Well.” Mrs. Pomfrey’s exclamation seemed to hover in the air, but only Thea and Lyon heard it.
Mr. Pomfrey had caught wind of Lord Corkindale’s interest in a good dram or bottle of wine.
The two were already walking toward the sitting room, where Osgood promised to bring them two glasses and a sampling from the late Lord Palmer’s highly respectable liquor cabinet.
Mrs. Pomfrey stood puzzled a moment and then retreated. “I believe I’ll dress for dinner,” she announced. “If you will excuse me?” She didn’t wait for permission from Thea or Lyon but went up the stairs as fast as she could.
Thea turned to Neal. “It appears Mrs. Pomfrey has found a match for her daughter.”
“And she can’t ask for anyone better than James. He’s one of the finest men I know and is besotted. I’ve never seen him this way around a woman. It was a marvel to watch romance bloom. The rest of us could have just as well not been there for all the attention they paid us.”
“And you have been close with Lady Lila.”
Thea had not meant to say anything. Certainly she hadn’t meant to sound slightly caustic.
He frowned, looking tired. “This morning you informed me I was paying too much attention to Lady Sophie and needed to spread my attention around. You can see James has captured Miss Pomfrey’s attention. What should I do? Ignore Lady Lila?”
“You appeared very obliging to her,” Thea had to say in the face of his reasonable explanation.
He took a step back, as if he needed a hard look at her. His voice dropped. “What do you want, Thea?”
She crossed her arms, suddenly needing a barrier between them. “I don’t want anything.”
“Then why do you care which woman I favor?”
“Because,” she said dragging the word out while thinking of a reason. “I never thought of you as a womanizer.”
“A womanizer?” he repeated as if not believing his hearing.
It did sound preposterous, yet Thea felt she had good cause to call him such. “Lady Sophie feels she has captured your affections. She believes you are very interested.”
“You know how aggressive Lady Lila is. Yesterday, I used Lady Sophie to keep her at bay. This morning, you didn’t like that. So, today, I let Lady Lila have her lead and, yes, she plastered herself to my side. But what can I do without being rude? She is a very forceful young woman.”
“So you are leading both of them on?” Here was a fault to support her accusation, although, yes, she knew she was being slightly unreasonable.
“I’m not leading anyone anywhere, Thea. You know what I’m looking for. I don’t understand why you are being so crotchety.”
“Crotchety?” She couldn’t believe he’d accused her of such a thing.
“Difficult,” he amended.
“Oh, no, you said crotchety.” She wasn’t letting him off on this one, and it felt good to have something firm and reasonable to explain her feelings.
“I meant difficult,” he reiterated, punctuating the word with one finger aimed at her. “As in, not knowing your own mind, as in fussy, as in hot and cold. I haven’t known what to expect from you since we arrived here.”
Thea took a step forward. “I’ve been very clear in what I’ve been trying to do. Marrying someone you do not like is the ridiculous notion. It’s not natural.”
“Do I have to explain myself again—”
“No, I don’t think I could stand to hear it again.” And that was true, but she wasn’t certain why. It was his life. He could do what he would. Still . . . “It’s not natural, my lord. It’s not sane.”
“It’s what it is,” he replied bleakly, the anger leaving him. “It’s what it is.”
They stood in the foyer, the door still open, the evening sun filling the room with light—and Thea wanted to grab him and shake him for all he was worth. He was too good a man to marry someone like Lady Lila or into the Carpsley family. He deserved better. Much better.
He was a man of substance, a man who had values and was respected. A noble man.
And yet he was so obstinate, so convinced he was right in his actions, that he’d throw himself into marriage with some ninny-headed, selfish chit—
“I don’t want to see you trapped in marriage,” she whispered. “I know what it is like, Neal. I was trapped. And marriage is more than having children. It has to be.”
“I don’t expect you to approve of my decisions, Thea.”
“It’s not a matter of approving or disapproving,” she said. She raised a hand as if to take hold of his arm, to urge him to heed her warning, but then drew it back. “I just don’t want—”
She broke off, suddenly uncertain of what she didn’t want. She didn’t want him in a loveless marriage . . . but did that mean she didn’t want him in a marriage at all? With any woman?
For the past five minutes they had been circling each other. Either could have walked away at any moment, and yet they hadn’t. Worse, she’d been going on like a jealous fishwife—
This could not be.
They were friends, nothing more. Nothing more.
He frowned, concerned. “Thea, is something the matter?”
She was so aware of him, from the cowlick that gave his hair a little lift above his brow, to the shape of his earlobes, from the weave of the material of his jacket to the dust on his boots—and yet he was here to marry another. He didn’t hear the jealousy in her words.
And he’d already walked away from her before.
Neal wasn’t like her. He didn’t have to care.
“Everything is as it should be,” she said, choosing her words carefully. She took a step away from him, and then another. “You are right. You are handling this whole situation well—”
“Thea—”
She held up her hand to block any more words between them. “I shall see you at supper.” She took off up the stairs, running from him as fast as she could.
At the top of the stairs, she looked back. He was on the first step, as if he’d started to follow and then had thought differently of it.
For a long moment, their gazes held. She understood. They could not be. He would not change his path.
And then he turned away, walking toward the sitting room, where the other men were enjoying a drink.
Thea waited until he was out of sight, and she felt defeated. This was not right, but it wasn’t her place to tell him. She had overstepped her carefully erected boundaries.
She started toward her room and almost walked into Mirabel, who had come up behind Thea without her knowledge.
Mirabel reached out and caught Thea before she ran into her. “I’m so sorry,” Thea said. “I didn’t see you.”
“I am hard to notice,” Mirabel answered. “Are you feeling quite the thing? You look pale.”