Spinster Ever After (The Spinster Chronicles #7) - Rebecca Connolly Page 0,23

all. Why does everyone seem to think my goal is to marry?”

Lord Sterling reared back, though his mouth pulled in amusement. “You have opted to reinvent yourself because Charlotte has decided to marry. Why wouldn’t that imply that you’re determined to marry also?”

Was that what he’d said? That wasn’t what he’d meant; for pity’s sake, he only wanted distance from Charlotte to spare his own feelings while she pursued marriage. He hadn’t even considered pursuing the thing himself.

“That isn’t what I want,” he muttered, averting his eyes from the Sterling brothers to take in the dancing.

“No? Well, better not throw that sort of mood around when you enter a ballroom more crowded than mine. The topic is bound to come up,” Lord Sterling warned, his words lacking all sympathy. “I’ve asked around, and your prospects are quite good. Not only will the eager mamas be thinking marriage, they will be naming your firstborn the moment you dance with their daughter.”

Michael closed his eyes again, shaking his head. “And people wonder why I hate Society and social occasions.”

“Nobody wonders that,” Lord Sterling laughed as he patted Michael’s shoulder. “Most of us hate it. If you truly want to avoid all this, take yourself out of London and marry a sweet country girl at your own pace. Since you’re avoiding Charlotte and all.”

“I am not…” Michael began, turning to argue, only to find that Lord Sterling had left them to greet some of his other guests.

How was one supposed to retort anything when the subject departed prematurely? Clearly, Lord Sterling wanted the final word, and had to prove a point.

“I’m not altogether certain I’m particularly fond of your brother,” Michael told Hugh as he glowered after their host.

“Yes, well.” Hugh shrugged a shoulder. “He tends to have that effect on people. Ah, good. The dance is ending, and Tyrone will deliver my wife to me.”

Michael scoffed very softly. “And have you missed her terribly?”

Hugh gave him a sidelong look. “You’re not exactly in a position to mock my attentiveness to my wife, Sandford, and we both know it. I need only say the word lapdog, I think.”

The word drew in Michael’s breath almost at once, his chest seizing with the truth and pain of it. He was right; more than that, Michael could never mock any lovesick man or woman again. Years of only circling Charlotte, lingering at the edges of her attention, praying that she might call on him for a dance to separate herself from the pack. He had been the definition of a desperate man, made pathetic by love, and now that he saw it for what it was, he felt only embarrassment.

“Kindly look less nauseated at the sight of my approaching wife, thank you.”

Michael blinked and looked up, forcing his lips to curve upwards, though he wasn’t sure how much of a smile it was. Mrs. Sterling, fair-haired beauty she was, grinned brightly on the arm of the darker Mr. Demaris, her eyes fixed on her husband with a single-mindedness that felt too intimate to witness.

Still, Michael nodded in greeting. “Mrs. Sterling, you look remarkably well this evening.”

She glanced at him, her smile not wavering. “And as you have remarked, it proves your statement true. Thank you, Mr. Sandford.” She tilted her head as she slid her arm from Tyrone’s. “And please, call me Elinor. Were we in another setting, you know you would. You’ve done so before.”

Michael smiled, exhaling carefully. “That was before your marriage, Mrs. Sterling, and under far different circumstances.”

Elinor chuckled with more warmth than he had ever heard from her. “Michael, you’ve known me since I was twelve, at least. That’s longer than your youngest sister, and you’ve been calling me Elinor for most of them. Surely you’re not going to let a little thing like my marriage create a barrier between us.”

He continued to smile, though he blanched mentally. Elinor was thick as thieves with Charlotte and the rest. How could he continue familiarity with her when he was stretching himself further away from Charlotte? Then again, he had all but bound himself to Elinor’s husband in pursuit of his new aims, and he could hardly expect Hugh to keep secrets from his wife.

“Of course not, Elinor,” Michael eventually assured her, dipping his chin. “So long as your husband doesn’t get insanely jealous that I do.”

Hugh chortled and took his wife’s hand, kissing her glove. “I will fight the impulse to rage and roar and take solace in the knowledge that my wife