On the Way to the Wedding (29 page)

“Oh, Gregory,” she said with a sigh. “I am not bothered at all. I wish you nothing but good things. You know that.”

He wasn’t quite sure what the proper response might be to this, so he held silent, merely lifting his brows in question.

“I’ve made a muddle of this, haven’t I?” Violet said with a frown. “All I am trying to say is that you have never had to expend much of an effort to achieve your goals. Whether that is a result of your abilities or your goals, I am not certain.”

He did not speak. His eyes found a particularly intricate spot in the patterned fabric covering the walls, and he was riveted, unable to focus on anything else as his mind churned.

And yearned.

And then, before he even realized what he was thinking, he asked, “What has this to do with my brothers?”

She blinked uncomprehendingly, and then fi nally murmured, “Oh, you mean about your feeling the need to prove yourself?”

He nodded.

She pursed her lips. Thought. And then said, “I’m not sure.”

He opened his mouth. That was not the answer he had been expecting.

“I don’t know everything,” she said, and he suspected it was the first time that particular collection of words had ever crossed her lips.

“I suppose,” she said, slowly and thoughtfully, “that you . . . Well, it’s an odd combination, I should think. Or perhaps not so odd, when one has so many older brothers and sisters.”

Gregory waited as she collected her thoughts. The room was quiet, the air utterly still, and yet it felt as if something 2

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were bearing down on him, pressing at him from all sides.

He did not know what she was going to say, but somehow . . .

He knew . . .

It mattered.

Maybe more than anything else he’d ever heard.

“You don’t wish to ask for help,” his mother said, “because it is so important to you that your brothers see you as a man grown. And yet at the same time . . . Well, life has come easily to you, and so I think sometimes you don’t try.”

His lips parted.

“It is not that you refuse to try,” she hastened to add. “Just that most of the time you don’t have to. And when something is going to require too much effort . . . If it is something you cannot manage yourself, you decide that it is not worth the bother.”

Gregory found his eyes pulling back toward that spot on the wall, the one where the vine twisted so curiously. “I know what it means to work for something,” he said in a quiet voice.

He turned to her then, looking her full in the face. “To want it desperately and to know that it might not be yours.”

“Do you? I’m glad.” She reached for her tea, then apparently changed her mind and looked up. “Did you get it?”

“No.”

Her eyes turned a little bit sad. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he said stiffly. “Not any longer.”

“Oh. Well.” She shifted in her seat. “Then I am not sorry.

I imagine you are a better man for it now.”

Gregory’s initial impulse leaned toward offense, but to his great surprise, he found himself saying, “I believe you are correct.”

To his even greater surprise, he meant it.

His mother smiled wisely. “I am so glad you are able to see it in that light. Most men cannot.” She glanced up at the clock and let out a chirp of surprise. “Oh dear, the On the Way to the Wedding

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time. I promised Portia Featherington that I would call upon her this afternoon.”

Gregory stood as his mother rose to her feet.

“Do not worry about Lady Lucinda,” she said, hurrying to the door. “I shall take care of everything. And please, fi nish your tea. I do worry about you, living all by yourself with no woman to care for you. Another year of this, and you will waste away to skin and bones.”

He walked her to the door. “As nudges toward matrimony go, that was particularly unsubtle.”

“Was it?” She gave him an arch look. “How nice for me that I no longer even try for subtlety. I have found that most men do not notice anything that is not clearly spelled out, anyway.”

“Even your sons.”

“Especially my sons.”

He smiled wryly. “I asked for that, didn’t I?”

“You practically wrote me an invitation.”

He tried to accompany her to the main hall, but she shooed him away. “No, no, that’s not necessary. Go and fi nish your tea. I asked the kitchen to bring up sandwiches when you were announced. They should arrive at any moment and will surely go to waste if you don’t eat them.”

Gregory’s stomach grumbled at that exact moment, so he bowed and said, “You are a superb mother, did you know that?”

“Because I feed you?”

“Well, yes, but perhaps for a few other things as well.”

She stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “You are no longer my darling boy, are you?”

Gregory smiled. It had been her endearment for him for as long as he remembered. “I am for as long as you wish it, Mother. As long as you wish it.”

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Sixteen

In which Our Hero falls in love. Again.

When it came to social machinations, Violet Bridgerton was every bit as accomplished as she claimed, and indeed, when Gregory arrived at Hastings House the following evening, his sister Daphne, the current Duchess of Hastings, informed him that Lady Lucinda Abernathy would indeed be attending the ball.

He found himself rather unaccountably pleased at the outcome. Lucy had looked so disappointed when she’d told him that she would not be able to go, and really, shouldn’t the girl enjoy one last night of revelry before she married Haselby?

Haselby.

Gregory still couldn’t quite believe it. How could he have not known that she was marrying Haselby? There was nothing he could do to stop it, and really, it wasn’t his place, but dear God, it was Haselby.

Shouldn’t Lucy be told?

Haselby was a perfectly amiable fellow, and, Gregory had On the Way to the Wedding

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to allow, in possession of a more than acceptable wit. He wouldn’t beat her, and he wouldn’t be unkind, but he didn’t . . . he couldn’t . . .

He would not be a husband to her.

Just the thought of it left him grim. Lucy wasn’t going to have a regular marriage, because Haselby didn’t like women.

Not the way a man was meant to.

Haselby would be kind to her, and he’d probably provide her with an exceedingly generous allowance, which was more than many women had in their marriages, regardless of their husbands’ proclivities.

But it did not seem fair that, of all people, Lucy was destined for such a life. She deserved so much more. A house full of children. And dogs. Perhaps a cat or two. She seemed the sort who’d want a menagerie.

And flowers. In Lucy’s home there would be fl owers everywhere, he was certain of it. Pink peonies, yellow roses, and that stalky blue thing she liked so well.

Delphinium. That was it.

He paused. Remembered. Delphinium.

Lucy might claim that her brother was the horticulturalist of the family, but Gregory could not imagine her living in a home without color.

There would be laughter and noise and splendid disarray—

despite her attempts to keep every corner of her life neat and tidy. He could see her easily in his mind’s eye, fussing and organizing, trying to keep everyone on a proper schedule.

It almost made him laugh aloud, just to think of it. It wouldn’t matter if there was a fleet of servants dusting and straightening and shining and sweeping. With children nothing was ever quite where one put it.

Lucy was a manager. It was what made her happy, and she ought to have a household to manage.

Children. Lots of them.

Maybe eight.

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He glanced around the ballroom, which was slowly beginning to fill. He didn’t see Lucy, and it wasn’t so crowded yet that he might miss her. He did, however, see his mother.

She was heading his way.

“Gregory,” she said, reaching out to him with both hands when she reached him, “you look especially handsome this evening.”

He took her hands and raised them to his lips. “Said with all the honesty and impartiality of a mother,” he murmured.

“Nonsense,” she said with a smile. “It is a fact that all of my children are exceedingly intelligent and good-looking. If it were merely my opinion, don’t you think someone would have corrected me by now?”

“As if any would dare.”

“Well, yes, I suppose,” she replied, maintaining an impressively impassive face. “But I shall be stubborn and insist that the point is moot.”

“As you wish, Mother,” he said with perfect solemnity.

“As you wish.”

“Has Lady Lucinda arrived?”

Gregory shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Isn’t it odd that I haven’t met her,” she mused. “One would think, if she has been in town a fortnight already . . .

Ah well, it matters not. I am certain I will find her delightful if you made such an effort to secure her attendance this evening.”

Gregory gave her a look. He knew this tone. It was a perfect blend of nonchalance and utter precision, usually uti-lized whilst digging for information. His mother was a master at it.

And sure enough, she was discreetly patting her hair and not quite looking at him as she said, “You said you were introduced while you were visiting Anthony, did you not?”

He saw no reason to pretend he did not know what she was about.

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“She is engaged to be married, Mother,” he said with great emphasis. And then for good measure he added, “In one week.”

“Yes, yes, I know. To Lord Davenport’s son. It is a long-standing match, I understand.”

Gregory nodded. He couldn’t imagine that his mother knew the truth about Haselby. It was not a well-known fact. There were whispers, of course. There were always whispers. But none would dare repeat them in the presence of ladies.

“I received an invitation to the wedding,” Violet said.

“Did you?”

“It’s to be a very large affair, I understand.”

Gregory clenched his teeth a bit. “She is to be a countess.”

“Yes, I suppose. It’s not the sort of thing one can do up small.”

“No.”

Violet sighed. “I adore weddings.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” She sighed again, with even more drama, not that Gregory would have imagined it possible. “It is all so romantic,” she added. “The bride, the groom . . .”

“Both are considered standard in the ceremony, I understand.”

His mother shot him a peevish look. “How could I have raised a son who is so unromantic?”

Gregory decided there could not possibly be an answer to that.

“Fie on you, then,” Violet said, “I plan to attend. I almost never refuse an invitation to a wedding.”

And then came the voice. “Who is getting married?”

Gregory turned. It was his younger sister, Hyacinth.

Dressed in blue and poking her nose into everyone else’s business as usual.

“Lord Haselby and Lady Lucinda Abernathy,” Violet answered.

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“Oh yes.” Hyacinth frowned. “I received an invitation. At St. George’s, is it not?”

Violet nodded. “Followed by a reception at Fennsworth House.”

Hyacinth glanced around the room. She did that quite frequently, even when she was not searching for anyone in particular. “Isn’t it odd that I haven’t met her? She is sister to the Earl of Fennsworth, is she not?” She shrugged. “Odd that I have not met him, either.”

“I don’t believe Lady Lucinda is ‘out,’ ” Gregory said.

“Not formally, at least.”

“Then tonight will be her debut,” his mother said. “How exciting for us all.”

Hyacinth turned to her brother with razor-sharp eyes.

“And how is it that you are acquainted with Lady Lucinda, Gregory?”

He opened his mouth, but she was already saying, “And do not say that you are not, because Daphne has already told me everything.”

“Then why are you asking?”

Hyacinth scowled. “She did not tell me how you met. ”

“You might wish to revisit your understanding of the word everything. ” Gregory turned to his mother. “Vocabulary and comprehension were never her strong suits.”

Violet rolled her eyes. “Every day I marvel that the two of you managed to reach adulthood.”

“Afraid we’d kill each other?” Gregory quipped.