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“Goddamn them,” Sebastian muttered, his anger on her behalf shamefully satisfying. “Let’s make them all choke on their narrow-mindedness.”
“I’d like nothing better,” she said appreciatively.
He cleared his throat softly before saying in a voice loud enough to be heard by adjacent onlookers, “My thanks, Lady Grace, for favoring me by accepting my suggestion to go for a drive.”
“Of course, Mr. Holloway.” It felt highly artificial to speak with the intent of being overheard, but it had to be done.
Already, the women in the carriage were leaning in their direction, trying to catch every word.
“I realize,” he continued, “that your time is prized, but I’m especially grateful that you chose to spend your rare leisure hours with me.”
“Good afternoon, Lady Grace,” a passing female rider called. “Mr. Holloway.”
Grace gave the woman a nod, recognizing her as a baroness who had only curtly acknowledged her at various galas.
More greetings were lobbed at Grace and Sebastian, and she smiled and nodded at them—though that sense of unreality continued, as if she was watching everything from above. These people, who’d scorned her, suddenly found her worthwhile. Because she was with Sebastian.
How . . . unsettling. And infuriating. Why should her merit be determined by how a man viewed her?
Sebastian spoke in an undertone. “Excellent. You’re the belle of Rotten Row.”
“Today,” she grumbled.
“We’ll beat them at their own game,” he said, and she appreciated that he understood her conflicting feelings. “There’s a book I have about the mentality of societies, and I remember reading that in order to make something valuable, it needed to be scarce in number.”
“Stands to reason that a person and their time operate in a similar capacity.” When she spoke, it was loud enough to be heard by people passing near their curricle. “As it happens, I do have to be somewhere in an hour.”
He gave her a small nod, understanding what it was she attempted to do. “You’ve my word that I’ll have you home before then,” he said gallantly. “But in the interim, let us enjoy our time together. There are so few people of substance in London. You, however, are the exception.”
He sent her a look of toe-curling intensity, fraught with heat and awareness. Her body went liquid.
He’s just playing a part.
But it felt real—especially after the talk they’d had on the way here. She’d divulged things about herself that no one before had ever desired to know. But Sebastian had. He wanted to know her better.
He saw her. And it felt so wondrous, as if she’d emerged from hibernation to warm herself in the sun.
“Good afternoon, Lady Grace.”
She turned to give the newcomer a polite but distant greeting, yet the words fluttered away like autumn leaves when Mason approached. In his crisp riding clothes, sitting atop a glossy gray horse, she’d never seen him so dashing.
Beside her, Sebastian tensed.
“Mr. Fredericks,” she said, and was pleased she sounded effortlessly polite.
“Holloway, isn’t it?” Mason looked at Sebastian in the way that all males within breeding age did when meeting one another—assessing whether or not the other male was a threat, or could be dominated. “We’ve met a time or two at the Benezra Library.”
“Fredericks,” Sebastian said. The word itself was genial enough, but the stony look in Sebastian’s eye told another tale.
Both men wore smiles, but the glints in their eyes—as well as the way they both sat up straighter and broadened their chests—spoke of animosity.
She bit back a laugh. How very typical they were being. Even men who were scholarly and progressive couldn’t seem to stop themselves from reverting to such primal behavior when competing for the attention of a viable female.
Dear God, they’re vying for me. It wasn’t as flattering as novels and poems seemed to think it was. No wonder she read so few novels and poems.
“Lady Grace,” Mason said, “I’m glad to see you here, but Hyde Park isn’t the best location for observing wildlife.”
