Chapter Eight
“Well, darling, what is on the agenda for the evening?” Lady Keswick asked the following night as Griffin sat down on the bed beside her. “Lady Chavel’s ball, isn’t it?”
“I believe so, yes.” He sighed and leaned his elbows on his knees, trying not to grimace.
Truth be told, he wasn’t entirely certain whose home he was going to tonight. He only knew it wasn’t his own.
Three balls in as many nights. A man could only stomach so much ratafia.
“I do appreciate your willingness to escort Emmy and Olivia around,” Lady Keswick said, patting his hand sympathetically. “You know I would do it if I could.”
Griffin smiled at her. “I know.” Guilt speared his gut. He was being a churl. Here his mother sat, bedridden with an injured ankle, and he was feeling sorry for himself. “It isn’t so terrible,” he said. “I’m just a little envious because you get to spend the evening at home with Artemis.”
The kitten was rolling around on the bed with a ball of red yarn clutched in her paws, trying to choke the life out of it. The prey was nearly double the size of the predator, but Artemis showed no fear. Or mercy.
“She has certainly helped to keep me entertained these last few days,” Lady Keswick said, a smile in her voice. “She’s a sweet little thing.”
Griffin nodded. “She is.”
It surprised him how quickly he’d grown accustomed to having a kitten around. He had no experience with keeping a cat for a pet, but he found he liked having a little companion close by to keep him company. He kept her in his study with him while he worked, and at night she slept in his bedchamber. He’d set up a pile of blankets for her at the foot of his bed, but the last two mornings he’d awakened to find her sleeping on him instead, curled up on his chest with her nose nestled in her tail.
He knew he should probably discourage that, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Truth be told, he rather liked starting his day that way.
“I do not believe I’ve seen this coat before,” Lady Keswick said, eyeing Griffin’s dark green dress coat. “Is it new?”
“It is,” he said, smoothing his hands down the lapels. “Do you like it?”
“I do. You’ll have the ladies throwing themselves at your feet all evening.” She touched his sleeve, testing the feel of the wool between her fingers before giving it a tug. “I only wish you would pick one of them up and marry her already.”
He stifled a groan. “Mother, please…”
“I’m sorry, darling, but I cannot help it,” she said with an unapologetic shrug. “It is past time you were married. I hoped seeing how happy James is with Sophie might make you realize what you’re missing out on, but since it hasn’t, I have no choice but to badger you.”
Griff huffed out an exasperated chuckle. They’d had this conversation a hundred times before, and he suspected they would have it a hundred times more. James’s unexpected love match with Emmy’s friend, Sophie, had surprised them all, and made Lady Keswick even more desperate to see her own children meet the same fate.
“James is a lucky man,” Griffin said. “Sophie is good for him, and he deserves to be happy.”
He met James nearly twenty years ago at Eton, when they were just boys of ten or eleven, and the two became fast friends. He’d seen everything James had gone through over the years: His father’s death when he was barely nineteen, his wife’s death only a few years later. If anyone deserved to be happy, it was James.
“You deserve to be happy, too, Griffin,” Lady Keswick said, her voice soft.
Artemis mewled and Griff turned, smiling as she trotted across the bed toward him, her teeth clamped around a strand of yarn, the ball dancing and flopping as it unspooled behind her.
“I am happy,” he said, scratching Artemis behind the ear.
Even with the fire crackling in the hearth, his mother’s silence rang so loudly he could practically hear her objection in it.
In the end, she only heaved another sigh and said, “Well, you would make me very happy if you would give me grandchildren. I’m beginning to think Artemis here is as close as I’m going to get.”
She couldn’t suppress her smile, though, as the kitten embarked on a wobbly ascent up her shin, a diminutive, whiskered tightrope walker.
Griffin smiled. “You could do worse.”
Lady Keswick kissed Artemis on the top of her head before setting her on the mattress. “Honestly, two grown children and neither of them with an ounce of interest in marriage.” She clucked her tongue. “If I’d known you and your sister would torment me like this, I would have had a dozen more children.”
Griffin had often wondered why she and his father hadn’t produced more offspring. With eight years between him and Emmy, he suspected his mother had struggled with infertility, or perhaps even lost a child or two, though he’d never asked her about it. She’d been through so much, and he hated to think his curiosity might bring her pain.
“Why didn’t you?” he asked. “You were still a young woman when Father died. You might have remarried.”
It was a strange thought, imagining his mother with another husband, another man, but as beautiful and charming as she was, she would have had no trouble capturing another man’s heart. Many would say she should have.
“I thought about it, of course,” Lady Keswick said, smoothing her hands down the coverlet. Artemis tracked the motion with wide, interested eyes. “But I never could find a man who intrigued me like your father did. And if I was going to marry a second time, I was not going to settle for mere companionship or status. I wanted to love my husband, and I simply could not imagine how I could love another man like I loved your father.”
Griffin nodded his understanding. He remembered how his parents had been together, the obvious love and affection between them. It was hard to imagine his mother like that with another man. Not that he thought it would have been wrong, it was only that he couldn’t fathom another man deserving his mother’s love and devotion.
“And as much as I love you and your sister…” Her gaze drifted to the small portrait of Griffin’s father which hung on the wall beside the bed, and she smiled. “After your father died, I wasn’t really interested in trying for more children. Certainly not enough to marry again.”
Her gaze found Griffin’s again, and she gave his hand a squeeze. “It’s what I want for you, darling. It’s why I push so hard. I want you to be as happy as I was with your father.”
Griffin nodded, though he wasn’t sure it was possible. Their love had always seemed an unattainable standard. “I know, Mother. And I will be. When the time is right.”
Her brow crooked. “And when will that be, pray? Before or after I’m dead?”
Griff’s lips twitched at her peevish tone. “After I’ve met the right woman.”
“And what sort of woman is the right woman?”
Unbidden and wholly unwelcome, Olivia’s face appeared in his mind. He nearly choked on the curse that caught in his throat. Olivia Blakely was not right. She was all wrong. Shallow, spoiled, attention-seeking, title-grasping. Everything he did not want in a wife.
But she’s everything you want in your bed, isn’t she?
The thought had him raking a hand through his hair, discomfort settling in his chest like a boulder. How could he want a woman he didn’t even like?
He shoved the uncomfortable question—and Olivia—to the back of his mind where they belonged and gave his mother a smile. “The right sort of woman is beautiful, gracious, kind. Patient to a fault.” He winked at her. “She’s exactly like you, Mother.”
Lady Keswick shook her head, clearly battling a smile, and reached up to pat his cheek. “Impudent boy,” she murmured. “You do make it impossible for me to stay angry with you.”
“Good,” he said, leaning down to kiss her cheek before rising to his feet. “I’d best be off now. I’ll collect Artemis when I return.”
“Right, and do give your cat a kiss before you leave. She misses you terribly when you’re gone.”
Griffin blew out a breath. “She isn’t my—oh, never mind.” He scooped Artemis up and kissed her on the top of her head, ignoring his mother’s amused gaze.
She knew as well as he did that he was deluding himself. For some reason, Artemis had chosen him, and there was no sense in trying to resist her. They were stuck with each other now.
He left his mother’s chambers with a smile on his face.