Page 33 of Loving a Beast of a Marquess
“You flatter me too much.”Perhaps, he did. Heavens, he could hardly think straight. This was why he rarely danced.
“Who was the gentleman who danced the first two with you?” he asked to take his mind off his aching calf.
“Mr. Trimly? Oh, he is the son of Viscount Weston.”
Zachary had some distant knowledge of Viscount Weston; a rather portly man in middle age who preferred hunting to all other activities. By the look of it, his son had inherited nothing but his name. “He seems a pleasant young man.”
Emily’s face glowed. “He is the most pleasant of young men.” Her expression faltered, and she glanced down. “That is to say—I should not wish to—present company excluded, My Lord, of course.”
There could be no hope for him. And in a strange way, he was almost relieved. Forcing himself into this, and attempting to find common ground between him and a lady whose interests were so very different from his, was impossible.
“Fear not,” he said gently. “I had hoped we might make a match of it as a gesture of goodwill to your father, but your affections are engaged elsewhere, and I have no intention of standing in your way.”
Emily blinked up at him. “That is… extremely kind of you, My Lord.”
“I am not noted for being kind,” he said, a grim smile playing around his mouth, “but you are kind, and I should not want to cause you harm.”
“You should say as much to my sister,” she said, a dimple appearing in one cheek as she considered this turn of events. “I am convinced she would change her mind about you if you just told her that she could make her own choices about her suitors.”
“I have never told her otherwise.”
“No,” Emily said, the dimple deepening, “but you have chased away a great many. They were almost all hers, you know. Very few gentlemen come to call on me.”
“Then that is their loss,” Zachary said. Emily would never attract him the way Evangeline, heaven help him, did, but she had both humor and sweetness in pleasing combination. When she did marry, the man who earned her affection would be a lucky one indeed.
“Speak with Evangeline,” Emily urged. “Show her your goodness. Showing me is not enough to recommend yourself to her.”
He frowned. “Perhaps that was not my intention.”
“Oh, but if you and Evangeline could just be friends, think how happy we should all be.”
What Zachary really needed was the Duke to arrive back home, so he had someone he might confer with—whose advice, moreover, would help him shape his future. Right now, he did not know what his future held except more of the same: battling against rumors that refused to die.
“She will come around if you are kind to her,” Emily said, secure in her knowledge of her sister—and utterly ignorant, Zachary was certain, of what had truly transpired between him and Evangeline. “I just know it.”
“Thank you for your advice,” Zachary said as their dance came to an end. She curtsied, pleased with the progress they had made, and almost immediately walked back across to Mr. Trimly.
When Zachary was in France, he had not struggled for female attention. He had left his notoriety in London, and that had allowed him the freedom with which to talk and flirt as much as he liked. It wasn’t necessarily refined—but he did not excel at refined. He never had. That was one of the reasons he had never seen eye to eye with his father.
Now, however, he was expected to be refined. Society wanted the same graceful charm that Percy exuded, but no matter how he tried, he could not find that ease.
“My Lord,” Evangeline said from behind him, “what, exactly, were you doing with my sister?”
ChapterFourteen
Evangeline had not expected her stomach to drop quite so much when the Marquess turned to face her, his face utterly inscrutable. That was not the face he had shown her sister; he had offered her smiles and a certain gentleness that he had never once shown Evangeline.
No. He had shown her that gentleness once in a matter she had no intention of repeating.
“I asked you a question,” she said, putting as much bite into her words as she could muster. “I want to know—”
“I am fully aware of what you want to know,” he said coolly. “You wish to know what my intentions are with your sister when I have already told you.”
“I have seen you make no such effort with any other lady.”
“Why should I when I have no intention of marrying any other lady?”
Evangeline caught her breath. It was just shock, she told herself. Not disappointment—she could not be disappointed in anything save the fact he had turned his wandering eye on her sister at all.“I understand you have an interest in marrying my sister,” she said tightly, “but I would take this moment to remind you that I have no intention of letting that happen.”
