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“I danced with him because he asked me.” Lucasta folded her hands in exaggerated patience. “A very handsome Viscount askedmeto dance. I have only a dowry of £2000 and a family no one has ever heard of. Do not try to tell me that I shouldn’t have danced with a lord. Not all of us have your advantages.”
“You don’t understand what a poisonous snake he is,” Sophie burst out.
“What Sophie is trying to say is that we do not believe Lord Blackstone has your best interests at heart, given his mother’s opinions about Sophie’s parentage.” Gina tried to smooth the boiling waters.
“Speaking of best interests.” Sophie rounded on her. “What did you say about a fiancé?”
Lucasta gaped. “You’re going tomarry?”
“No, not at all.” Gina explained the incident in an undertone. Sophie kept on saying, “He’s a scoundrel,” and Lucasta, “Are you quite certain he doesn’t want to marry you?”
“Gina.” Duke walked up to the three of them with her name on his lips but his gaze firmly on Sophie, who was oblivious, having returned to haranguing an exasperated-looking Lucasta about Lord Blackstone. “Mother has decided she would like to leave. I think she believes the evening has already reached its zenith with your engagement. And we need to discuss thissituationyou’ve got yourself into.”
“She’s probably right.” And Gina would never say no to getting away from a ball. “I’ll see you next week for embroidery,” she said as she embraced Sophie and Lucasta.
“Lady Sophie,” Duke said, seeming more apprehensive than usual. “I regret I will not be able to claim the second dance I requested. But I hope you will grant me another chance soon.”
“The season is at an end, Mr. Bains. Our dance will have to wait quite some time.”
“I toldyou there was a perfect husband for you,” her mother crowed on the way home. “He was entranced by your dancing, that’s what he told me. So you’re not to say that accomplishments are pointless, or have any more talk of those scandalous travel plans.”
Duke was quiet and speculative, gaze flicking between her and their mother.
“Duke, what are we going to do?” she asked desperately as their mother disappeared upstairs when they arrived home.
“Keep your voice down, the servants will hear,” Duke hissed and dragged her into the morning room. “Now, tell me what happened.”
Gina told the story as best her frankly confused brain could, then waited nervously.
Duke shook his head. “I’d kill him if it weren’t so in line with what I’d expect Emmett to do. He had a problem—needing to marry. You had a problem—needing to marry. He has solved it in the most efficient way possible and all but forced you to agree.”
Oh. It was good to know this was normal behavior for Mr. Stanton. Wasn’t it? Though a part of her was a little disappointed. She’d thought maybe she was special. Obviously not.
“He does rather have a point. This will keep mother quiet until Christmas. I can break off the engagement and be in Siam or France or America before the gossip begins.”
“Though you running off to France won’t help Audrey’s chances of a good match,” Duke pointed out.
“But at least I will have previously been engaged to an earl? Or if you really think it’s such a problem I’ll wait until the end of her first season. With luck she’ll find someone quickly. She’s prettier than I am, and isn’t such a shrew.”
“And yet you’ve had suitors aplenty if you had just not stepped on their toes.”
“Maybe Mr. Stanton will marry her instead.” That didn’t sit well with Gina, but she couldn’t articulate why.
“No. Absolutely not,” Duke snapped. “None of my relatives are going to marry Emmett, even if he’ll be an Earl. He’s a rake, a rogue, a scoundrel. And he’s in trade.”
“So are you, Duke.” That last one, for sure. She wasn’t certain about the others, but if he was best friends with a rake, didn’t that make him rake adjacent, at very least?
“Yes, but I’m your brother, not your future husband. And I’m telling you, it’s bad enough to have a sham of an engagement. I won’t have you getting silly romantic ideas in your head and thinking Emmett is a good catch. He’s not.”
That smarted for a variety of reasons Gina didn’t wish to examine. “I do not intend to marry a man who practically blackmailed me into an engagement,” she said hotly. “You have nothing to fear on that count. I’m hardly the sort of Miss to have their head turned by a handsome man.”
“You think he’s handsome?” Duke looked even more alarmed and grasped her by the shoulders. “No kissing. No mooning. No nothing, you hear me? You can’t travel the world if you end up in a delicate condition and I’d rather not have to call him out.”
This protective big-brother act was as irritating as it was unnecessary. “I promise you. I am not going to kiss Mr. Stanton.”
She was going to ensure Mr. Stanton had regrets.
CHAPTER5
