The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,30
at me suspiciously until I reveal my name and then he will fall all over himself. So will those matrons over there, who will eavesdrop until they are able to insert themselves into the conversation.”
It happened exactly as she predicted. When Seraphina drew her into the conversation, the shopkeeper and ladies barely glanced at her stained gown before fawning over her too.
She enjoyed it far too much, she suspected. The captain, however, shared only a few charming remarks with the matrons. When Seraphina asked him to cross the street to perform an errand for her, he went without a word.
“What have you done to my brother, Elle?” Seraphina asked a quarter of an hour later as he came through traffic toward them again. “I have rarely seen him so subdued.”
“I have done nothing.” The notion that she could do something to disturb his equanimity was ludicrous. Yet the night before, after their kiss, he had obviously been shaken. “Is he subdued?”
“Most assuredly.”
“It’s done,” he said as he met them on the footpath. “Where to next, ladies?”
Seraphina’s attention shifted past his shoulder to a man and a woman nearing. They were dressed expensively if somewhat severely, and their faces were grave.
“Good day, Mrs. Starling,” the man said, making a shallow bow to Seraphina. He sniffed. “Anthony.”
“How d’you do, George? Alice.” The captain’s smile did not reach his eyes.
“We are well,” Alice said. Ignoring Seraphina, her gaze briefly alighted upon Elle then returned to him. “Will you attend Sir Benton’s birthday celebration a fortnight hence, Anthony?”
“Both me and Seraphina, of course. Wouldn’t miss it. Looking forward to seeing all the little ones. By the by, how’s James taken to university? Making top marks?”
“Of course,” George replied. “But we expect that, naturally.”
Seraphina said, “George, Alice, may I present to—”
“Must be moving on then,” the captain cut in. “Elsewhere we’ve got to be. George, Alice, always a pleasure.” He turned to her and Seraphina. “Ladies?” With a decisive nod, he gestured them toward another shop.
When they were inside, Seraphina turned upon him.
“Why didn’t you introduce Gabrielle?” she whispered.
He glanced out the window, impatience stamped on his features.
“Couldn’t stand the idea of it, if you must know,” he said, then faced Elle. “Terribly sorry. Absolutely beastly of me,” he said, but it was as though he were reciting an apology rather than giving it freely. It was the first time she had ever heard him speak without sincerity, and it made her feel ill.
“Well, then,” he said quickly, his voice a strange, discomposed growl, “I’m sure you don’t need me here.” He gestured to the cases displaying ladies’ gloves and reticules. “And, great guns, there’s Nik Acton on the street. Haven’t seen him in an age. Ladies.” Sketching a quick bow, he went out of the shop.
“Elle, I beg your pardon,” Seraphina said. “He is not himself. Something preys upon him, more than George and Alice.”
“You needn’t apologize.” Perhaps he truly was unhappy that she had never spoken to him of her grandmother. But that was preposterous. Why would such a man care about that? “I am not insulted. I understand that socializing at the ball was to a purpose. I do not expect you and the captain to introduce me to all of your friends now.”
“But of course we will! Dear Elle, you have it the wrong way around. I suspect that Anthony hurried us away because he wished to spare you from knowing them.”
Her eyes popped wide. “But, who were they?”
Seraphina’s generous lips twisted. “Our eldest brother and his wife.”
Elle had no siblings of her own, but Minnie and Adela were fond of theirs. Even Jo Junior and Charlie, for all that they were different sorts of men, shared a bond.
“They were so . . .”
“Cold? Snobbish? Rude?” Seraphina supplied.
“Why did he—George—call you Mrs. Starling?”
“It is my married name.”
“Ah.” Étoile meant star, of course. “How wonderful that you have a pseudonym.”
“Just as your friend Lady Justice.” Seraphina smiled and took her arm companionably to leave the shop.
But Elle’s pleasure in the outing would not return so easily. “Alice ignored you.”
“Alice always snubs me in public,” Seraphina said lightly. “She is practicing for when George succeeds to the baronetcy and she will cut me entirely. Their sense of superiority is enormous. All of them, not only George and Alice.”
“On what grounds? Your father’s title?”
“Oh, no.” She paused before a shop window full of trinkets. “Upon the grounds of their own intellectual eminence.”
“Intellectual eminence?”
“My half-siblings include a mathematician, two physicists, a master of ancient history,