Chapter 11

Inside the rooms containing Roman artifacts, Vander was bored out of his skull.

It wasn't that Miss Seymour was a poor conversationalist. She was miles better than Priscilla Peabody.

But if a topic existed in which they shared a mutual interest, Vander had yet to discover it.

Miss Seymour had seemed promising at first. As they made their way to the Roman rooms, she explained, "The Ribchester Hoard was discovered a few years before I was born. A little boy, a clog maker's son, was digging in the mud by a river and happened upon it." She gestured to a glass case. "Can you even imagine stumbling upon something so magnificent?"

It was an intriguing vignette, and Vander felt a keen sense of anticipation as he leaned forward and peered into the case. Most of it was badly rusted bits and bobs, but there was a helmet that was still impressive after more than a thousand years. It looked more like a statue than a helmet, with a finely sculpted face with tiny slits for the eyes, nose, and mouth. A hole had rusted through where the forehead used to be, but otherwise, it was in remarkably fine condition.

At this point, Vander was feeling positively optimistic about Mathilda Seymour. He'd asked Letty for a woman who was both clever and beautiful, and she certainly fit the bill. If it came down to it, he could stand to be married to her.

He admired the helmet for a couple of minutes, then glanced at Miss Seymour to see if she was ready to move on.

She was not.

Mathilda Seymour was just getting started.

She oohed over the metal guards that had once protected a horse's eyes from stray spears. Those looked like colanders. She aahed over a rusty old frying pan. Which looked like… every frying pan Vander had ever seen. And she cooed over every corroding scrap of metal inside the glass-topped display cabinet the way most women cooed over the jewelry case at Rundell and Bridge.

It wasn't that Vander disliked the Ribchester Hoard. But he was ready to move on after five minutes, while Miss Seymour seemed prepared to stand there for the next five hours.

She noticed his waning enthusiasm and immediately suggested they go and see something else. An awkward dance ensued, in which he insisted she stay and examine the artifacts, as days like this, when visitors were permitted to take their time, were few and far between, and she insisted they move on, as she could tell he was bored. In the end, they spent ten minutes debating the point in painfully polite tones before Vander finally yielded to her insistence that they see something else, and neither of them was happy.

They passed the sculpture of the discus thrower, the same one Vander had teased Letty about earlier. He pressed Miss Seymour's arm and made his voice suggestive. "What do you think about this one?"

Her cheeks turned scarlet, and she dropped her gaze to the floor. "It is… er… in very fine condition for its age."

That sealed it. Any woman who was going to spend a lifetime with him needed to possess a high tolerance—no, an enjoyment—of ribald jokes. If such a mild insinuation sent Miss Seymour blushing and stammering, there was no possibility that they would rub on well together.

Still, he had to pass another hour in her company, so Vander tried to make the best of it. Miss Seymour tried, too. At one point, she eagerly asked about his time at Cambridge, and if he had truly been third wrangler. This, of course, was the last thing Vander wanted to discuss, but she seemed to be laboring under the misapprehension that he had been a diligent student. He supposed most third wranglers were the types of men who would relish the chance to relive their glory days in academia, and Miss Seymour seemed to misinterpret his eagerness to change the subject as a becoming modesty.

When they came to the Egyptian artifacts, he spied Letty at the far end of the room. She was on Strickleton's arm, and his head was bent low, whispering in her ear.

Vander felt his stomach boil. Strickleton was clearly all wrong for her. He wasn't even good-looking unless one liked the boyish, blue-eyed, golden-haired type.

All right. In the interest of honesty, Vander had to acknowledge that Strickleton was considered to be a beau. Even if he didn't find it very manly to walk around looking like a bloody cherubim. But more importantly, Strickleton couldn't provide properly for Letty. Why, the fortune he was set to inherit from his uncle was rumored to only produce around five thousand a year!

Although… for just about everyone other than Vander, that was considered to be a fine income that could support a perfectly respectable lifestyle.

But surely Letty didn't like the man. What was there to like?

Across the gallery, Letty smiled up at her companion. Strickleton beamed at her in return. She squeezed his arm, and they wandered over toward a black stone sarcophagus.

Vander's shoulders sagged. In truth, Strickleton was a good sort of fellow and would probably make Letty a fine husband. She would be a thousand times better off being married to Bertie Strickleton than to the likes of him.

Good God—where had that thought come from? Vander wasn't considering marrying Letty. The very notion was absurd!

Although… he'd wanted someone clever, and Letty was clever. And he'd asked for someone beautiful. And… he couldn't believe he was thinking this, but now that it had come to his attention that she was no longer ten years old, he could not help but observe that she was in possession of some very fine, very delicate curves, and that when she smiled—not the serene smile she was giving Strickleton right now, but the impish grin she wore when she was ribbing Vander—her brown eyes sparkled, and she was as dazzling as any woman in London.

Dear Lord—what was wrong with him? He couldn't marry Letty! David would murder him if he so much as looked at her. And Letty deserved better than a cad like him, a man who was so dissolute he'd been featured in the Rake Review, for God's sake.

Letty deserved a prince on a white horse. She deserved—

A rich chuckle echoed down the gallery. Vander saw that Letty and Strickleton had their heads bent together, laughing at some jest.

She deserved someone like Bertie Strickleton.

"Mr. Beauclerk? Mr. Beauclerk?"

Vander shook himself, realizing he had been ignoring Miss Seymour for an inexcusable duration.

She gave him a tight smile. "Shall we take a look at the statue across the way? I believe it is of Rameses the Second…"

Vander spent another hour struggling to focus on Miss Seymour and the exhibits, then the two couples gathered at the entrance to take their leave.

Strickleton pressed a lingering kiss against the back of Letty's glove. The urge to punch him in his upturned nose grew overwhelming, so Vander clasped his hands behind his back.

"Will I see you tonight?" Strickleton asked, his eyes fixed upon Letty.

"I don't know," she said, looking flustered. "Will you be attending Lady Waldegrave's ball?"

Strickleton's face fell. "I won't. Mrs. Heathecote is hosting a dinner, and I promised Mama I would attend."

"Oh, that's too bad." It might have been Vander's imagination, but Letty didn't look too put out by this news. In fact, if he didn't know better, he would've said that she perked up a bit.

"We'll be going to Vauxhall tomorrow night," Letty offered. "Perhaps I'll see you there."

Strickleton pressed another wet kiss to the back of Letty's glove. "You may count upon it, Letty."

They handed the ladies into their respective carriages. Strickleton wished Vander a cheerful, "Good afternoon."

All Vander could manage was a grunt in return before he turned on heel and climbed into a hackney of his own.

So, Letty would be at Lady Waldegrave's ball. Not that this information mattered a whit, because Vander would not be in attendance. He needed to head over to Boodle's to continue his gambling experiment, and then his father was expecting him at Beauclerk Marine Casualty bright and early the next morning.

He would have to send Letty a note conveying his impression of Miss Seymour and describing what he would like to see in his next prospective bride because he was not going to be seeing her tonight at Lady Waldegrave's ball.

Of course, he wasn't.