“You will like him, he is a genial fellow.”
“By the by, Lord Harveston, have you been following the scientific discoveries regarding volcanoes?”
That caught Percival entirely off guard. “No, I have not. Haveyou?”
“Indeed, it is all very interesting. Gracious, I do worry about the people who live next to them. They must be terrified for their children.”
Percival smiled to himself. His intellectual cronies would be throwing facts at him just about now, none of which would include the slightest interest in the people within range of an active volcano beyond figures and amounts.
It was very like Lady Cordelia to worry about them.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cordelia was well-pleasedwith the evening so far. Really, it could not have gone better. Lord Harveston had met her on the stairs, almost as if he’d been waiting for her. She’d taken that opportunity to casually mention her interest in the current work being done about volcanoes.
All her hard work was showing—he’d seemed mightily impressed by it.
And, just as Lord Harveston had said, their host was a genial fellow and had at once pressed her to address him as duke. He was not at all as prepossessing as Conbatten could be when he had a mind.
Now, at dinner, she was not, as she had hoped, sat next to lord Harveston. However, they were a small party and he was just across from her.
He did keep looking at her when he thought she did not see. It was very marked, she thought.
“Lady Cordelia,” the duke said, “do you enjoy a regatta?”
“I have never had the pleasure of witnessing one, Duke,” Cordelia said. “Though it sounds rather thrilling.”
“There now,” the duke said jovially, “you’ve hit the thing on the head. It is sure to be a nailbiter. The men will be pulling in the sheets and sailing close to the wind to round the buoys and make a mad dash to the finish.”
“Lady Cordelia,” Lord Hamill said, “you are to know that Harveston has picked the thing up in record time. You’d think he’d served in the navy.”
“That is more than a step too far,” Lord Harveston said.
Cordelia was rather surprised that he’d just learned the skill.
“Nonsense, Harveston,” Hamill said. “It’s been just like the boxing ring. Jackson said he’d never witnessed a fellow come so natural to the sport.”
Now Lord Harveston was boxing? Lord Harveston?
Cordelia was entirely perplexed. About the last thing she would imagine Lord Harveston doing was boxing.
Lord Harveston looked embarrassed to be noted so. Goodness, he was a natural at boxing, and modest about it too.
“Ah well,” Lord Hamill said, “Harveston does not like to be singled out about his various skills. I suppose he’s told nobody that we raced our phaetons on the way here and I was beaten handily.”
Now Lord Harveston was racing a phaeton? She would not have imagined the lord even owned a phaeton.
“I certainly did not tell anybody such a story,” Lord Harveston said, staring at Hamill.
“Modest as the day is long,” Hamill said, looking very satisfied with himself.
It occurred to Cordelia that Lord Hamill had noted all of this for her benefit. Yes, of course that must be it—Lady Theodora had said that it was Hamill who had suggested she come early. He was attempting to play the matchmaker.
It was a very nice thing for him to do. Though, she was still trying to reconcile the Lord Harveston she thought she understood to the Lord Harveston that had just been described. Who was this person who was boxing and racing and sailing?
“If we might change the subject,” Lord Harveston said, “Lady Cordelia has informed me that she is looking into the current work being done regarding predicting volcanic eruptions.”
“Thank heavens we do not have them here,” the duchess said. “I should be frightened out of my wits.”
