Chapter Two #2
Every eligible lady in London seemed to be there tonight, fluttering fans, whispering behind gloves, and sneaking glances at him like he was a particularly sullen prize at auction.
Sebastian nudged him with his elbow. “Let’s play a game. I’ll name candidates. You object unreasonably. Ready?”
“No.”
“Too late. There’s Lady Poppy Willingham. Just turned eighteen. Rich as sin. Skin like milk.”
Nicholas followed his gaze.
Lady Poppy stood near the refreshment table, surrounded by a half-moon of admirers and fluttering like a well-bred bird.
Her gown was a confection of pale pink tulle and pearls, her cheeks flushed to an artificial bloom that matched the ribbons in her coiffed blond curls.
She was the very image of youthful innocence, posed and perfect, as if she’d been assembled by committee for maximum matrimonial value.
She turned slightly, and Nicholas noted her expression: a soft, empty smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, like she’d been taught to emote on cue but never meant it.
“Come on,” Sebastian pressed. “She’s pretty.”
“She’s an airhead,” Nicholas snapped. “The one time we spoke, all she could talk about was her Pomeranian named Horace.”
“Hmm, alright,” Sebastian said. “Well, how about Miss Eugenia Mott? Tall, quiet, good teeth.”
Nicholas scanned the room, spotting her near the pianoforte, seated primly with her hands folded just so atop her lap.
Miss Mott was, indeed, tall—statuesque, really—with pale blonde hair arranged in a mathematically precise chignon.
Her gown was an impeccable shade of lilac, modest to the point of mourning, and she wore it with the stiff elegance of someone who had been trained from birth not to exhale too loudly.
Her chin was slightly elevated, her posture faultless, her smile fixed in a tight little crescent as though she were permanently prepared to sit for a portrait.
“Have you ever heard her laugh?” Nicholas challenged. “It sounds like a goat being strangled.”
Sebastian laughed into his glass. “You’re impossible. Ah—there! Lady Beatrice Langford. The Marquess of Sedgewick’s niece. Comes with a dowry that could re-roof Hawthorne House twice.”
“She once tried to feed me strawberries with her fingers. In public.”
Sebastian waggled his brows. “How scandalous.”
Nicholas shot him a withering look. “She was twelve.”
“Ah. Less so.”
They moved through the crowd slowly, nodding to acquaintances, avoiding the more ambitious mamas. The walls shimmered with candlelight reflecting off gilt-framed portraits of dead ancestors. A string quartet played a lilting waltz that no one seemed interested in dancing to yet.
Nicholas felt as out of place as a wolf at a tea party.
“Fine,” Sebastian said. “Let’s get serious. You need a dowry. A respectable bride. Someone with money, no opinions, and a fondness for drafty estates. Which means, sadly, most of the women in this room.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You’re not allowed the luxury of disinterest. Dukes don’t starve quietly in corners.”
Nicholas exhaled, long and slow. “There has to be another way.”
“You’ve tried every other way. Farming, leasing, selling off the good horses. What’s left? The family silver? The greenhouse?” Sebastian narrowed his eyes. “Or are you still thinking about that letter?”
Nicholas didn’t answer.
Sebastian snorted. “You are.”
“I said I wasn’t replying.”
“Not replying doesn’t mean not thinking. You’ve worn that same grim expression since this morning. It’s halfway between offended and constipated.”
Nicholas’s jaw twitched. “I’m simply trying to survive this evening.”
“And that is Lady Florence Edgecomb,” Sebastian said dramatically, gesturing with his glass, “who would very much like to help you survive. She’s been glancing over her shoulder at you for the last quarter hour. Just turned twenty-two. Father owns shipping interests. Likes Greek poetry and—”
“—believes a wife’s most important role is to ‘support her husband’s opinions by having none of her own.’” Nicholas took a sip of wine. “She told me that over a fish course last Season.”
Sebastian blinked. “Well, in that case, it seems Lady Florence would be perfect for you.”
Nicholas threw him a withering look, but said nothing.
They paused near a velvet chaise where an older dowager was loudly arguing with a clergyman about the decline of bonnet craftsmanship. A nearby footman nearly tripped over a sleeping pug.
“I’m doomed,” Nicholas said quietly.
“No,” Sebastian said with a sigh, “you’re proud. Which is worse.”
The music changed to something livelier, hinting that dancing would soon begin. Already, couples were being nudged toward the floor.
“I suppose you could always marry for love,” Sebastian added with a smirk. “How romantic. Starving in each other’s arms while the roof caves in.”
Nicholas didn't smile.
Marriage. Dowries. Ballrooms full of blank stares and brittle laughs. None of it appealed. Not even in theory.
He wasn’t built for love stories. Not anymore. If ever.
And yet, his mind, traitorously, wandered back to the letter. The unsigned one. The letter from a dead man. Despite his best efforts to ignore it, he could not help but feel intrigued by it. Had the dead man’s daughter written it? What did she want with him?
“You alright?” Sebastian asked, pulling him from his thoughts.
Nicholas straightened his cuffs. “I’m going to need another drink.”
Sebastian clapped him on the shoulder. “So says every man about to fall in love.”
Nicholas narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe in love.”
“You don’t have to,” Sebastian said breezily. “Love believes in you.”
Nicholas gave him a look so deadpan it could have soured cream.
The dance floor glittered with hopeful smiles, whispered ambitions, and carefully plotted futures.
He felt none of it. Only the heavy thrum of obligation and the cold certainty that every woman in the room saw only his title and perhaps the remnants of his jawline.
What he needed wasn’t a wife.
It was an escape.
And that, unfortunately, was growing harder to find.