Page 24 of Miss Kimble Bites Back

Cordelia edged a little closer. “It’s kind of Esme to help her cousin. Gabby seemed nice when she was here.”

“I thought so too once.”

“Once?” Her brow furrowed. “Don’t you think so anymore?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t seen her lately.”

“Why not?” Cordelia sat down across from him, a look of concern on her face. “Do you not want to see her again?”

“I never said I didn’t,” he said quickly.

She sighed. “Is she why you’re always in a bad mood now?”

He smiled quickly. “I am not in a bad mood.”

Cordelia nodded. “Yes, you are. You’re also bored. I can always tell.”

“I’m never bored when you’re around,” he promised, giving her a reassuring smile he hoped hid his preoccupation with the very idea of other men courting Gabby Kimble. Of Gabby flirting with other men…or her tongue anywhere upon them.

“Yes, you are,” she claimed, but with a smile on her face. “You always were. You’ve too much energy to sit around the town house with me like this. You should go out, little brother. See people you like and who like you. Maybe you could dance with Miss Kimble at tonight’s ball? I know you enjoyed it the last time.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “How do you know we danced together when I never mentioned doing so?”

“Because you told me you did just now.” Cordelia smiled impishly, and a little giggle even escaped her lips. “You never could keep a secret from me when you were a lad. It’s in what you don’t say about the women you meet that gives you away. She made an impression, didn’t she?”

“That she did,” he admitted reluctantly. “But not always in a good way.”

“You argued?”

“Perhaps we did,” he said, watching Cordelia frown in response to that admission.

Cordelia nodded firmly. “Then you need to talk it out with her.”

“We talked.” And then he’d almost kissed her. Even now he could still remember the expectation on her upturned face, the gentle scent of her perfume teasing his nostrils, and the certainty that he couldn’t pursue the woman for a wife until Cordelia improved.

She had not won over Cordelia that day, but clearly the woman had not been forgotten. He’d not realized how much he’d hoped for that. But his sister had fled from Gabby and that was the end of it. At least, he’d thought so until now.

“You’re not happy with the result of your last conversation with her, are you?”

He smiled. He had been pleased that Gabby did not think him a monster, or Cordelia’s gaoler either. “I honestly don’t know what I feel.”

“Ah, then that explains everything,” Cordelia replied, folding her hands in her lap. “You do like her, and not just a little bit, I suspect.”

He’d not seen Gabby in weeks. Weeks where he’d prowled the house like an angry bear, wondering if he’d made a mistake by not kissing her. “I like her,” he admitted.

“I thought I would hear her name again, but you’ve not spoken of Gabby since the morning she came.”

Sebastian grunted. Although hiding herself away upstairs, lost in her own world, Cordelia had paid attention to what went on in his life. “There is a problem with Gabby Kimble.”

“What could that possibly be?”

“She has set her heart on catching herself a fool to marry this season.”

“A particular fool, or any fool who thinks to have her?”

“Brookes. Viscount Brookes.”

Cordelia made a face. “She is far too smart for that man.”