Chapter Fifteen
The three siblings passed some time in the drawing room after dinner that night. Georgina practiced the pianoforte, with an exuberance that Eleanor was certain any piano instructor would frown upon. Robert was leaning against the mantel, staring at her worriedly.
“Why are you watching me?” she asked, closing the book in her lap with a soft thud.
“You have been looking at the same page for nearly twenty minutes,” he said.
“Have I?” The more ebullient effects of Smith’s punch had faded, leaving her with nothing but a pounding head and a dry, rancid mouth. The more she knew of men, the less she understood them.
And she was doing her best not to remember a certain kiss…or a certain several kisses…with James MacGregor.
After another few minutes of staring at the same page, it was impossible.
If only she hadn’t been the one to initiate the kiss. That kiss, that soft, tentative press, had been a question…and she’d thought…well, she’d thought his energetic response had been an answer, of sorts.
Until he’d turned as cold and unyielding as the frozen Thames. Until he’d reminded her of their agreement with all the subtlety of a rampaging bull.
“Robert,” she said slowly, and more than a little hopefully. “Is it possible to drink so much that one can’t remember their actions?”
She’d have to face James MacGregor again, and it would be much easier for everyone involved if she could feign ignorance.
There was a silence so profound that Eleanor jerked her head up.
“Is this a hypothetical question?” he asked. He muttered something that sounded like “please” and “God.”
“Of course,” she said quickly.
The tension left his shoulders, but he still peered at her suspiciously. “It’s possible, but you’d have to drink an unsafe amount. Why do you wish to know, Eleanor?”
She shrugged. “Science?”
Robert’s forehead wrinkled. “You’ve been acting strangely. Does this have something to do with MacGregor?”
“No.” She sighed, running her hand along the leather binding of her book. “Perhaps. Do you think he even has a chance with Lady Sarah?” she finally asked.
“I doubt her family would be overjoyed, but I’ve seen stranger things. Manners and good taste can go just as far as breeding, in some cases, if he’s truly serious about it.”
“But that’s the thing…he doesn’t have manners and good taste. He’s only pretending. Is he going to pretend his entire life?”
“Some people do,” Robert answered, a hint of weariness in his voice. “Some people do it all the time. Why does it matter? These are his problems, not yours.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
But in some odd way, it did. And not only because he’d told her about growing up in the Old Town and she’d told him about her father, and she’d kissed him and he’d kissed her back, and she’d assumed all of those things meant something. It mattered because if a man as uncontainable as James MacGregor felt like he needed to change who he was to be accepted, what hope did a socially awkward, science-minded almost spinster have?
…
“Do you know much about the Townsends?” James found himself asking Stephen the next day.
“The Townsends,” Stephen repeated. “Well, the Arden title is an old one, and a powerful one. That’s enough to make them accepted. In the strictest sense of the word. But they’re a bit on the fringe.”
“The fringe?”
“They didn’t know they were going to inherit an earldom. I hear their father was a physician…worked his entire life.”
James ignored the tightening in his chest. “But a physician is still a gentleman.”
“True. But again, in the strictest sense of the word.”
James was getting annoyed by that phrase—the strictest sense of the word. “And what about the Townsend children. What’s said of them?”
“What isn’t said? The earl is a recluse. There are so many rumors swirling around about him that it’s not even possible to begin sorting fact from fiction. The rest are…varied. Mr. Townsend and Miss Georgina Townsend have become quite popular for their charm and amiability, and Miss Georgina is a bit of a favorite, even among the stodgiest of matrons. They say she’s beautiful despite the unfortunate scarring. She had small pox when she was young,” he said in explanation.
There was something about that phrasing James didn’t like—beautiful despite the scars, as though one had to separate her from the scars before she could be beautiful. As though she couldn’t be beautiful with them? But Stephen had no idea James knew Georgina Townsend, so he kept his mouth shut.
“But there’s another sister, isn’t there?” His voice sounded too tight.
“No one thinks that one is worth discussing,” Stephen said, with a laugh that made James want to give into his more violent urges and throttle him.
“Why?”
“Shy and plain. Born a wallflower and she’ll die a wallflower. Probably move into one of her brothers’ homes and look after his children. But that’s the destiny of women like that…wilting.”
His cruel, mocking dismissal made James’s hands clench. If Stephen knew her…if he truly knew her…he wouldn’t use the term shy with such derision. Maybe she didn’t open up to people quickly, maybe there were some people she would never open up to, but if Stephen was one of the ones she spoke to about her love of entomology, about her love of her father, and her family, and her vehement distaste for Smith’s punch…he would know he couldn’t simply dismiss her with one careless word.
And if he’d ever seen her eyes spark with intelligence, with indignation, with desire…he would never call her plain.
“But why all these questions, MacGregor? I thought your interests lay with the fair Lady Sarah.”
“They do,” he said quickly. And then he was ashamed he’d said anything at all when he saw Stephen’s knowing smirk.
“She’s still the jewel in the crown of Edinburgh Society, even if Miss Georgina brings her some competition.”
He didn’t need Stephen to tell him that. He knew. He already knew.
Just as he knew this restless, shifting hole inside of him wouldn’t be filled until he’d won her.