Daniel groaned. “You aren’t listening to her, Papa, are you?”
He downed the contents of his brandy. “Do you know, Daniel, I just might be.”
CHAPTER 10
Patrina pounded away at the keys of the pianoforte. Her discordant version of “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” filled the room. Sweet Poppy, ever faithful, her sister struggled to keep pace with Patrina’s playing and belted out the lyrics in her flat voice.
“Fear not said he…” Patrina glanced up from the keys.
“For mighty dread had seized their mind.”
“Their troubled mind,” Penelope called from her spot over on the windowseat that overlooked the grounds below. “Their troubled mind.”
Poppy stopped singing. “That is what I said.”
“No,” Prudence pointed out. “You said their mind, not their troubled mind.”
“I believe I’m the only one with a troubled mind just now,” Jonathan muttered.
Juliet, shot him a reproachful glance. Her hands fell to her waist, and Patrina’s gaze traveled down to the swollen belly that carried their first child. Where most families of the haute ton retreated to their country estates for the Christmastide season, Jonathan had insisted on remaining in London close to the best doctors for Juliet’s period of confinement.
Patrina’s fingers stumbled over the keys, and she returned her attention to playing. Better to focus on the chords, and the keys, and the clumsy playing instead of the bitter envy twisting in her heart for all she’d never have. “Glad tidings of great joy I bring,” she sang softly. Her throat seized. There was no great joy. The beauty of the Christmastide season, the absolute peace was nothing more than a grand illusion that acted as temporary veneer of goodness in an otherwise ugly world.
She jumped up so quickly, her knees knocked the edge of the bench. The delicate mahogany seat scraped the hard wood floor. Patrina’s breath came hard and fast, and she rocked forward on the balls of her feet, filled with a desperate desire to flee.
“Patrina?” Poppy whispered into the absolute stillness of the room.
All at once, Patrina registered the five sets of eyes trained on her. She forced her gaze up, and then wished she hadn’t. Ah, yes. Of course. The looks. These were the pitying kind. She detested the pitying kind above all others.
A knock sounded at the door and a sigh escaped her at the blessed intervention. Smith cleared his throat. “There is a visitor for Lady Patrina.”
A roomful of suspicious gazes swung to Patrina.
She cocked her head, imagining she appeared as bemused as the gape-mouthed Tidemore siblings scattered throughout the room. A towering, golden god of a man entered the room. Her heart thumped a funny rhythm, and she reached a hand up to slow the rapidly beating organ, but then remembered herself. She let her fingers fall back to her side. “W…My lord…”
“The Marquess of Beaufort to see Lady Patrina.” Smith scratched his shock of white hair. “I believe I asked the gentleman to wait in the foyer until I ascertained whether the young lady was receiving visitors,” the deaf butler thundered.
Jonathan surged to his feet. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “That will be all, Smith.”
“I am ever so sorry for your fall, my lord,” Smith shouted back. “Is there anything you—?”
Her brother scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “I didn’t fall. I, oh never mind,” Jonathan said more to himself and waved off the servant.
Through the whole absurd exchange Patrina remained rooted to her spot alongside the pianoforte, her gaze trained on the perfect lines of Weston’s inscrutable face. He was more beautiful than any man had a right to be. And she’d never been a lady to pay any attention to a beautiful face. Then, she’d not had the sense to pay attention to the lack of a heart in a certain gentleman, either. “My lord,” Patrina repeated, detesting the fairly breathless quality of her words.
Jonathan’s eyebrows dipped. A frown darkened his face.
And because he could command the King’s Army with his aura of power, the marquess advanced deeper into the room as comfortable as if he himself were the owner of the Ivory Parlor.
Juliet rose unsteadily to her feet. Even with the cumbersome weight of her belly, she managed to drop an elegant curtsy. “My lord,” she greeted. She looked to the Tidemore sisters, who shook their heads as if clearing away their earlier shock, and they all dropped curtsies as well.
Weston issued another bow. Through it all, he never looked away from Patrina. He somehow possessed an unholy ability of making a lady feel like she was the only woman in the world. “My lady,” the greeting was issued to Juliet, yet by the heated intensity in his eyes, she knew he spoke to her.
Juliet motioned the wide-eyed Tidemore sisters over to the door. “We’ll leave you to your visit.” She glowered at Jonathan. “Won’t we?”
Her brother hesitated, a frown on his lips, issued a short bow for the marquess, and then walked toward the door. He paused at the entrance to the room and by the concern in his hard stare, she knew he feared leaving her alone with Weston.
When they were alone, Weston clasped his hands behind his back and strolled over to her. “Patrina.”
She’d thought never to see him again. Had imagined after she revealed her scandalous past, he’d give her the cut-direct just like the rest of the haute ton. Her mouth went dry, and because she never had known what to say in the presence of a gentleman, she said, “My lord.”
Mild amusement lit his eyes. “I thought you’d agreed to call me Weston.”
She had. Foolishly. Imprudently. “Weston, then,” she said, as foolish and imprudent as she’d ever been.
“I…”
“You…” Her cheeks warmed as their words tumbled over one another’s. “Forgive me. You were saying?”
He closed the distance between them. “I’ve thought of you often since you took your leave yesterday.”
She dug the toes of her slippers into the floor to keep from retreating. “Have you?” Gentlemen didn’t think of her. Or, they hadn’t in the two Seasons she’d had. Now whatever thoughts they might have of her were surely not the proper kind.
He brushed his knuckles along her jaw. “Did you expect I should avoid you after you shared your past?”
Her breath caught at the delicious shivers that radiated out from the point of his touch. Her past. A past in which she’d been fool enough to elope and give up all hope of a proper match. She turned her palms up. “I rather expected you might, my lord. Avoid me, that is.”
“Because you have a low opinion of Society?”
She managed a tight nod. “Because I have a low opinion of Society.” The ton had given her little reason to trust the sincerity, concern, or regard of any of its noble members.
“Who was he?” he commanded.
She took a step away from him and wandered back over to her pianoforte. She thought she should feel some level of outrage at his bold inquiry. She didn’t speak of Albert. Not to her sisters. Her mother. Certainly not Jonathan. Not even to Albert’s own sister, Juliet. It was as though her family expected if she buried thoughts and memories of Albert it could somehow miraculously undo everything that had been done. “His name was… is Albert. Sir Albert Marshville,” she amended.