Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

“ I didn’t expect to see you here, Seth,” his friend Allan confided. Allan was the Duke of Harbeck and the host of this house party, but he was also one of Seth’s oldest friends. The two gentlemen had attended university together, and Seth often felt that Allan knew him better than anyone else in the world outside his own family.

Certainly he had enough knowledge of him to realize how unlikely it was for Seth to attend an event like this one. Even though Seth knew his friend was criticizing him gently, it also felt good to be understood. “I wasn’t going to come,” he confessed. “My mother persuaded me.”

“Well, you can’t stay in the house all the time,” Priscilla said. “Allan, it’s such a pleasure to see you again. This is a lovely party.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Your Grace.” Allan was always a model of manners and etiquette, even though he had known Seth’s mother from the time the two gentlemen had been children. “And I’m very glad to have you here as well.”

“At least one of us is enjoying themselves,” Priscilla said rather sniffily. “I would have thought Seth would do a better job of socializing, but I haven’t seen him make a single social connection yet. Perhaps you might persuade him to come out of his shell a bit, Allan.”

“Mother, you don’t see everything I do,” Seth said. “You must know that.”

“Tell me who you’ve spoken to since we’ve been here, then,” she challenged.

Seth hesitated. The best answer he could give would be Lady Lavinia. He was strangely taken with her, given the circumstances under which they had met—not to mention the bizarre, almost aggressive tone in which she spoke to him. It was clear that she didn’t like him, and he shouldn’t have liked her, but he couldn’t help it.

But there was something about all of that he wanted to keep private. He simply didn’t want to give it away to his mother yet, to allow her to make whatever she would of the fact that he had actually met a lady who intrigued him. Either she would disapprove and spend the rest of the party criticizing Lady Lavinia, or she would approve, and that would make matters even worse. What if he had to spend the remainder of this party with his mother trying to force him and Lady Lavinia together? He liked her well enough, but he didn’t need his mother trying to turn it into something it wasn’t.

So he offered a different answer. “I spoke to Lady Genevieve at dinner last night,” he said.

“Ah, the Earl of Dorbury’s daughter?” his mother said quickly. “I saw that you were seated beside their family at dinner. You liked her, did you?”

“I thought I liked her,” Seth said. “But by the end of the evening, I had changed my mind.”

“Of course you had,” his mother sighed. “I don’t suppose any lady will ever be good enough for you, Seth.”

“Well, it was probably for the best,” Seth said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“She’s not an appropriate sort.”

“What on earth would make you say such a thing? After all, I know her family, and they’re perfectly lovely.”

“Perhaps they are. I don’t know. I hardly spoke to her mother, and I haven’t spoken to her father at all. But as for Lady Genevieve herself…well, she couldn’t have been any more inappropriate,” Seth said. “She cornered me in the garden and wouldn’t permit me to walk away from her. It’s obvious to me that she was trying to trap me.”

“You mean to say that she wanted to be caught in a scandalous situation with you?” his mother asked.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Seth said. “I saw the way her mother encouraged conversation between the two of us at dinner. At the time I thought she was simply being friendly and making introductions, and Lady Genevieve seemed nice enough. But when we met in the garden later, my opinion changed. When I tried to walk away from her, she took me by the arm and held me back. That could easily have caused a scandal.”

“Well—my goodness,” his mother said. “It seems I was mistaken. You judged that situation rightly after all, Seth. And thank goodness you did. It might have caused all sorts of trouble for our family, and for our dukedom, if you had been trapped in such a situation by a lady like that. The last thing we want is a scandal.”

“I’m glad you realize that,” Seth said.

“How did you get away?”

Seth hesitated. “I just told her that I wouldn’t be manipulated so easily, and I walked away from her.” There was no reason to bring Lady Lavinia into this tale at all, he decided. No one needed to know about what had happened between the two of them.

“I’m very glad you did,” his mother said heartily. “Forgive me, Seth. I misjudged the situation. You were quite right to handle it the way you did. I only hope you won’t encounter her again during the next two weeks!”

“No, I don’t think you will,” Allan said. “I happen to know that the earl and the countess left this morning, taking their family with them. Lady Genevieve will be home by now.”

“Home!” Seth could hardly believe what he was hearing. “It’s only the second day of the party. Why did they leave so soon?”

“You haven’t guessed? I don’t know for sure, but having heard your story, I’m guessing they did it to save themselves from humiliation and disgrace,” Allan said. “My guess is that Lady Genevieve understood, once she was no longer with you, that you knew what she had been doing, and she couldn’t bring herself to face you for the rest of the party. She probably either told her parents the truth about what happened or she made up a story that would convince them to take her home.”

“If that’s the case, it’s the first noble thing I’ve heard of her doing,” Priscilla said.

Seth looked at his mother with a smile on his face. “You’ve changed your opinion of her completely, I see.”

“Well, my opinion of her was based entirely on who I believed her parents to be, and now I think I was quite wrong in my opinion of them. Either they encouraged her to be the kind of lady who would set such a trap for a gentleman or, at the very least, they never taught her not to behave that way. No, it’s for the best that she’s left, and that you won’t be spending any more time in her company during this party, Seth. You’ll find someone more appropriate, I’m sure of that.”

Seth nodded. “I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that you’re thinking of my finding someone else so quickly,” he said.

“Well, no, of course not,” his mother said. “I had no particular attachment to the idea of Lady Genevieve in particular, and as you know, the purpose of all this is to find you a wife so that you can produce an heir for the dukedom. That’s why you’re here.”

“I’m here because Allan invited me and I couldn’t bring myself to turn down an invitation from my friend,” Seth said. “I knew how important this party was to Allan. That’s why I chose to attend. It has nothing to do with your insistence that I marry, Mother. I’ve already told you how I feel about that, and I don’t want to hear any more of it.”

“Well, of course you came to spend time with your friend,” Seth’s mother said. “That doesn’t mean you don’t have responsibilities.”

“That’s not for you to say,” Seth told her. “It’s not your place to tell me what my duties are.”

“Perhaps it isn’t, but you know what your father would say if he were here. The most important thing you can do is uphold this family, and the only way to do that is by finding yourself a wife and producing an heir to this dukedom. That is what I hope to see you do. Do you really mean to tell me that I’m no longer allowed to express that hope? I only want your happiness, Seth.”

“You’ve just finished saying that my happiness is not what’s most important to you,” Seth said. “I understand—you want to make sure the dukedom is preserved. I also understand that this is my choice to make, and I’m not going to indulge this discussion.”

“Seth, if you would only listen…”

“All right,” Seth said. “That’s enough, Mother. You’ve had your say, and I’ve indulged it. You know that I’ve always valued your opinion and wanted to hear what you had to say. But as the Duke of Loxburgh, this will be my decision to make in the end. I will determine whether or not I wish to marry, and when, and to whom, and there’s nothing you can say to me that will alter my decision. And now I’ll ask you to leave the subject so that we can enjoy the party.”

He cast a meaningful look at Allan as he turned away. A moment later, Allan came hurrying up alongside him.

“I wondered if you were going to say anything to her,” he said. “She’s pushing quite hard for you to marry, isn’t she?”

“I think she’s begun to realize that I don’t have any interest in marriage,” Seth admitted. “And she finds that difficult to accept. But how could I possibly want to marry after seeing how unhappy she and my father were with one another all my life?”

“Not all marriages are unhappy,” Allan pointed out. “My parents were happy while they were alive.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Seth said. “But it seems too big a gamble to me when there’s no way to be sure. I know that I’m perfectly happy on my own, so that’s the life I choose to live.”

“And what of the idea of an heir?” Allan asked. “Personally, I’d like someone to inherit my land and my title someday. I would like to have a son. Do you mean to tell me that it’s not important to you?”

“I don’t think so,” Seth said dismissively. “Someone will take over the dukedom someday, and by that time I will be far beyond worrying about it. No, what matters is that I have a good life while this life is mine to live. And that means I need to set aside my mother’s ideas about the importance of marriage, because I’m sure that marriage will only make me unhappy.”

“Well, the young ladies of the ton would certainly save themselves some time if they knew that,” Allan said with a little laugh. “I very much doubt Lady Genevieve will be the last to seek the pleasure of your company during this party.”

“I have no objection to spending my time with them,” Seth said, and he couldn’t help thinking of Lady Lavinia. It was strange. What she had done last night was so close to being the same thing Lady Genevieve had done, and yet his opinion of it—and of her—was completely different. He found himself thinking that if she had been the one to go home early from the party, he would have been disappointed. She was certainly odd, and her manners left much to be desired, but he didn’t think she was conniving in the way Lady Genevieve had been. Rather than feeling anger toward her, he felt pity.

He wondered whether she intended to accept his offer of help in finding herself a suitor. She was unusually awkward. That was something he thought he could help her with. He supposed he would have his answer when he saw her tonight.

If she wore a green dress, as he’d asked her to, that would mean she was listening to his advice. That would mean she had decided to accept his help.

If she wore anything else, it would be a rejection.

Seth knew he shouldn’t care as much as he did about what choice she would make, especially since he had no intention of forming any sort of long term relationship with her, but he found he couldn’t help it. He had taken an interest in her, and it seemed as if there was no going back now.