“Oh, you can surely convince your father of anything. That’s what daughters do. Speaking of fathers—there’s mine with the viscount. Daddy!”
Mr. Wight acknowledged his daughter with an easy smile and a glass lifted in salute. And he apparently knew what it was she wanted, because he and the man at his side were soon coming their way.
Perhaps the events of the evening had already numbed her, because Libby’s stomach couldn’t muster so much as a single cramp at the approach of the viscount, even when his gaze swept over her before landing on her face and a smile graced his lips.
He looked vaguely familiar, the kind that came of seeing someone across a crowded ballroom but never being introduced. No doubt they had scores of common acquaintances, and Bram probably knew him well enough to say hello on the street. He may have been a bit older than her brother—or else just looked it due to his receding hairline.
He wasn’t a bad-looking man though, not that Libby made a study of the specimens on display each Season, like Lottie did. He was of average height, wore a well-cut jacket that she suspected hid a waist that was thicker than he wanted it to be, and had eyes that, at least, gleamed with intelligence. That was a nice change of pace.
“Lady Elizabeth, so glad you made it!” Mr. Wight boomed. A newcomer might assume it was in order to be heard over the instruments, but she’d met the man before. He boomed everything. Perhaps in order to be heard over his daughter’s incessant chatter. “Allow me to make introductions! Lady Elizabeth Sinclair, sister of the Earl of Telford! Viscount Willsworth!”
She held out her hand, not regretting having worn the satin gloves that stretched over her wrist and then her elbow, all the way to her bicep. They gave her a bit of insulation between her hand and the stranger’s as he took her fingers and bowed over them.
“How do you do, my lady?”
“Very well, my lord. Thank you. And you?”
He straightened again with a warm smile. “My evening just brightened considerably. You’re the friend Miss Wight mentioned who is interested in botany? And biology?”
She nodded.
“I suspected as much.” His hand inexplicably lifted, hovered, and his brows raised to match. “Excuse me, you’ve . . .” He reached forward and plucked something off her arm.
A jasmine flower, snagged in the lacework of her shawl. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. She couldn’t exactly say she’d been shoved into the plant’s embrace, could she? “I saw a Cestrum nocturnum on my walk here and stopped to investigate.”
He didn’t seem to find anything amiss in her explanation. He smiled and motioned to her head. Or her hair, specifically. “If I may?”
Libby’s lack of reply was covered by Lottie’s next burst of giggles, even as Willsworth tucked the bloom into her hair and then quickly retreated.
It probably should have brought heat crowding her cheeks, as Oliver’s nearness had. But it didn’t. It just left her feeling awkward and ready to go home.
He proffered an elbow. “I believe we’ve been paired for the meal. If I may lead you to our table?”
Others, she saw now, were meandering toward the cloth-covered tables. Four small ones were set up around the edges of the clear space.
She rested her fingers lightly on his arm. “Yes. Thank you.” They walked a few steps before she realized she should probably say something to start an actual conversation. “Lottie mentioned you’re interested in science? She didn’t know what branch has garnered your interest.”
“Paleontology, primarily.” He beamed down at her, perhaps as happy as she to be able to talk about something other than who was seen flirting with whom at a dinner party. “My family seat is in Oxfordshire, and I stumbled upon a fossilized bone when I was just a boy. It’s since been identified as a Megalosaurus. I’ve been intrigued with dinosaurs ever since and have led many an excavation throughout the area.”
“Fascinating.” Prehistoric animals had never really interested her as much as living ones did. She preferred being able to observe them in their natural habitats than simply guessing at their musculature and skin and patterns of movement. But she would have been intrigued to discover ancient remains in her own garden, without question. “I had the opportunity to view the skeleton of the Scelidosaurus once.”
“I’ve seen it several times. And I was just talking with Lord Scofield about the fossils on display in the British Museum. Isn’t that right, my lord?”
Libby looked up to see to whom he was talking and offered a small smile to the older man approaching the same table they were, a woman on his arm who, given the scarlet hair that matched Lady Emily Scofield’s, must be his wife. And they her parents.
“We’ve some of the most remarkable examples in the empire there.” Lord Scofield smiled, pride in his eyes.
“Lord Scofield has the honor of presiding over the board of trustees for the museum.” A bit of his awe at this seeped into the viscount’s voice. “Lord and Lady Scofield, please allow me to introduce my companion for the evening. Lady Elizabeth Sinclair.”
To her utter amazement, Lord Scofield’s eyes lit with recognition. “Lord Telford’s sister?”
“Yes, my lord.” Because Lord Willsworth held her chair for her, she sat, a second behind Lady Scofield, who deserved the first honor. “Do you know him?”
He laughed, a jolly rumble in his stomach. “I saw him just last week. Had an energetic conversation with him when we dined together at Sheridan House.”
Of course, that explained it. Lord Sheridan, with his love of anything old and encrusted with dirt, would naturally have befriended anyone he could find at the British Museum. He probably was jockeying for a place on the board of trustees himself.
“They mentioned that you and he would be sharing a special announcement soon.” Lord Scofield gave her a fatherly wink. “Needed a bit of holiday before all the bustle of wedding preparations, did you?”
Now her face flushed, far hotter than it had with Oliver. And it only got worse when she saw how stiff Lord Willsworth went as he lowered himself to the chair beside her. Not that she cared whether or not he thought her attached, per se. But Scofield had just said she was engaged when Charlotte Wight was within a mile, which meant all of England would hear about it before two seconds were out. And then what would she do?
Her fingers curled into her palm, tucked safely away in her lap, under the tablecloth. “I believe my brother may have overstated it, my lord. He may wish for such a match, but—”
“It wasn’t your brother who said it, my lady. It was Sheridan himself.”
She’d always known she didn’t like him. Why didn’t he have the gumption to stand up to Bram from the start? He couldn’t want the arrangement. He didn’t like her any better than she liked him—she was certain of it. And while she was confident he’d come to the same conclusion given enough time, that was with the assumption that he wouldn’t have bound them both with the fetters of society’s expectations in the meantime. Blast him. “Well, there is certainly nothing official, regardless. I haven’t even seen Lord Sheridan recently.”
Lucky for him. When next she did, she might just borrow a bit of Mabena’s salt-inspired surliness and kick him in the shin.