She curled her toes into the soles of her slippers. Then, that had been before he’d known the truth of her past. After she’d shared it with him, she could be assured he’d fall into the pitying category or the scandalized category. Odd, she couldn’t seem to place a powerfully confident man like Weston in either category.
Jonathan groaned.
Patrina started. “What?” she said with a frown.
“You’re wool-gathering.”
Her frown deepened. “And?”
“And I recognize all the implications of wool-gathering,” he muttered more to himself. “I wool-gathered when I fell in love with Juliet.” How very odd to hear her once-scoundrel brother speak so freely of his love for his wife.
She crossed a hand over her heart and schooled her features. “You may be rest assured I’ve no intentions of falling in love.” No, it would be the height of foolhardiness to go and do something so irresponsible. Patrina stood. She reached for her glass.
“Stop,” Jonathan instructed, the tone belonging more to commanding earl than affable brother.
She froze mid-motion.
“Ices in winter?” Of course he’d recognize the patent glasses given out at Gunter’s. The crystal pieces were usually carried back and forth from Gunter’s to waiting carriages across the street during warmer weather. Weston, however, had purchased the glass for her. And for his children, of course. “Please, don’t make me ask you again, Patrina. Who is he?”
It was the please that did it. She directed her gaze to the delicate glass in her hands. “The Marquess of Beaufort.” Maybe Jonathan didn’t know him. She’d not heard mention of Weston in any of her Seasons.
“Beaufort.”
She nodded.
“Beaufort.”
Well, this repeating business from her brother certainly didn’t bode well.
“Beaufort.”
She wet her lips nervously. “Er…do you know him?”
“I do.”
She bit down hard on her tongue to keep the questions from tumbling forth. “How do you know him?” What was the harm in asking one question?
“We moved in the same social circles at one point,” he said curtly.
“What happened?” Why did you stop? And more…what if he’d continued his friendship with Weston? Perhaps, just perhaps he might have then been properly introduced to Patrina and there would have never been an Albert Marshville or a scandal or a—
“He fell in love.”
Patrina flinched. That she’d not been prepared for. “With who?”
Jonathan seemed to be searching his mind. “A Lady Cordelia Something-or-Another,” he supplied. “It was a love match.”
She considered Weston’s harsh coldness when speaking of his now-deceased wife. What had happened to the loving couple? “Did—?”
“You do realize for a young lady who’s not at all interested in the marquess beyond returning the gentleman’s son—”
“Daughter,” she amended.
“—to him, you have a good deal of questions.”
She screwed her mouth up tight. Yes, she could certainly see how it would appear that way. “I just—”
“Be careful, Patrina. I just want you to be happy.” A muscle ticked at the corner of his eye. “I couldn’t forgive myself if I failed you.” Again. The word danced in the air between them, unspoken yet somehow still real.
“And you don’t believe Wes…” Her brother’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. “Er, the marquess,” she corrected, “could make me happy?”
“No,” he said flatly. “He can’t. He’s a dark, serious, somber, withdrawn fellow—now. You deserve better than that.”
Patrina gave a tight nod and stood. She dropped a curtsy. “You have nothing to worry over, Jonathan,” she assured him.
“I certainly hope not,” he said under his breath.
As she took her leave she considered Jonathan’s words. He seemed so confident in saying she deserved better than Weston. She staggered to a slow stop. Her pulse drummed a steady beat inside her ears. Only, what if she didn’t want anything more than the Marquess of Beaufort?
CHAPTER 9
Weston passed a brandy back and forth between his fingers and stared down into the hearth. A roaring fire blazed within the grates, and warmed him. He braced for the not unexpected question.
“Your children need a mother, Weston.” Ah, there it was. His sister, Amanda Callaway, the Viscountess Merewether usually wasted little time with her needling. Her visits usually began with the same six-word utterance.
Not, how are you doing? Never, it is a delight seeing the children. Rather… Your children need a mother, Weston.
He turned and held his glass up in salute, and then raised it to his lips. He took a much needed sip, welcoming the warm trail the fine French liquor blazed down his throat. “I thought you and Oliver intended to leave for your country seat for the holiday.”
She slipped neatly down his path of distraction. “Do you intend to join us? I’ve asked you for the past three years since…since…” she waved a hand. The words needn’t even be spoken. “But you’ve never accepted and so, of course you’d be welcome.”
“We’ll remain in London,” he politely declined.
His sister frowned. “Very well, then.” Alas, his reprieve was short-lived. “Do not try and change the subject. Your children need a mother, Weston. They’re growing more and more incorrigible every time I see them.”
He said nothing. In large part because his sister was loquacious enough to carry on this whole discussion by herself. In larger part because she was right. Charlotte and Daniel were becoming more and more truculent each day.
“You overindulge them. And they—”
“Do you know a Lady Patrina Tidemore?”
Silence met his question. His sister sat at the edge of the leathered sofa, unblinking. “Lady Patrina Tidemore? Lady Patrina Tidemore?” The slight emphasis she placed on that last Patrina suggested there was certainly more here.
He said nothing, knowing Amanda enough to know she’d fill enough of the silence for the both of them, and with answers to the questions he’d had about Patrina since they’d first met.
“Quite the scandal. Quite the scandal, indeed,” she said with a flounce of her blonde curls. He thought of Patrina’s earlier admission and usually one who loathed gossip; he hung onto his sister’s words. “Rumors were circulated by…by…” She wrinkled her brow and seemed to search her mind for the name of the circulator of those rumors. “Some servant or another,” she said with a flick of her hand. “A maid or a footman or—”
“Amanda,” he said impatiently.
“Er, right. Well, this servant, whoever it may have been, claimed Lady Patrina had run off to elope, but beyond that, the details escape me. All rather scandalous.”
Weston considered Patrina as she’d been at their first meeting. Somber, alone, staring out at that frozen lake. Her brown eyes, a kind of window into her private thoughts had alluded to heartache. You speak with such absolute certainty, Weston. You speak as though you know how I live and of my experiences based on nothing more than my age and your perception of what a young lady is. She’d been hurt more than any young lady ever should. Weston tightened his fingers around his glass, filled with the sudden desire to bury his fist into the face of that nameless bounder who’d ruined her and the faithless servant who’d sullied her name.