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He’d been thinking about laughing green eyes and lush lips since the moment he awoke.
But now... “My man of business informed me that Westbury Abbey, the family estate near Watford, is literally crumbling into the earth. The estate is in such disrepair that most of the tenants have been forced to relocate. I thought that my father’s brother, my uncle, was living there and seeing to the repairs, but he’s been traveling abroad for years and I never even knew about it. I’ve been a terrible landlord, Jax. I have to do something about it. I have to sell myself to another heiress forthwith. And that’s easier said than done. No respectable lady wants anything to do with me.”
“Ah.” Jax sipped some gin. “Hence the reform campaign.”
West nodded. “Hey ho, lads. Here’s a new drinking game for you,” he called out. The men sitting at the bar who drank most days away perked up their grizzled faces. “Every time I say ‘past due,’ you drink.”
The men lifted their mugs and glasses.
“Bill for a new roof on Westbury Abbey. Past due!” He drank half his ale in one swallow and the men around him joined in.
“Bills for bonnets for five sisters. Past due.” Another slug of ale. He held up another one. “Bill for”—he squinted at the piece of paper—“sundry saddlery items including six best hogskin seated footmen’s saddles and—”
“Past due! Past due!” the men shouted.
“Best of luck finding a new heiress that’s willing to marry the likes of you,” Jax said with a smirk.
“Thanks,” West replied. “I can use all the luck I can get.” He gathered the bills. “Have to go now, mates.”
The men at the bar raised their glasses to him.
“Off so soon?”
“I’m escorting my sisters to the opera tonight. And I have to go round up some of my less disreputable friends and recruit them for various social outings. Viola’s orders.”
“Viola?” Jax raised his eyebrows.
“Er, Miss Beaton.”
Jax chuckled. “Are you certain you’re not smitten with her?”
“Absolutely not.” West hurried away before he had to endure more scrutiny from his friend’s all-seeing gaze.
Chapter Seventeen
The next few weeks passed in a blur of parties, dances, and outings to art galleries and operas. Viola attended some and stayed home for others, receiving a detailed report from Blanche the next day.
West had been true to his word.
He’d stopped drinking, was early to bed and early to rise, and escorted his sisters everywhere. He was attentive, sober, and outwardly respectable. Society was beginning to thaw, the invitations poured in, and proper young ladies were no longer frightened to be seen talking to him.
The duke might chafe against the curtailment of his hedonistic vices, but Viola was beginning to thoroughly enjoy herself. It was fun to be out in the world, to be caught up in the social whirlwind and dissect the latest gossip with the girls afterward. And West wasn’t only attentive to his sisters. Several times over the past weeks she’d caught him staring at her, sometimes with a bemused smile on his face, other times with unmistakable longing, and sometimes she swore he looked at her with something like... tenderness.
She told herself that she was imagining things.
Today, he and Viola were accompanying Blanche and Belinda to a fabric warehouse to choose fabric for new ball gowns.
“A whole day for shopping. It’s heaven!” Belinda enthused. “We’ll visit several linen drapers, then the haberdashers for trimmings, and then we’ll select our designs at our modiste’s establishment. Won’t it be blissful?”
Viola nearly burst out laughing at the pained look on West’s face.
“You know I wouldn’t have been caught dead anywhere near these places a few weeks ago, right?” he whispered to her through gritted teeth.
“I’m well aware of that fact, Your Grace. It’s only what you deserve.”
“And then Vauxhall Gardens,” Belinda said. “I’m so excited!”
“Hush, Belinda,” said Blanche as they entered the silk warehouse. “People are staring.”
