Page 31 of A Sinful Viscount's Mistletoe Affair
She flushed. He was on first name terms with her parents, after all, and it was clear to her now that he was expecting them to start courting officially with a view to marriage. She could not dispute any of that here, at the dinner table. Instead, she simply tried to look surprised and replied in a whisper, “I am not sure that it would be quite proper, Your Grace.”
He chuckled softly. “Well, I am sure you are quite right, Lady Isabella. For the moment, at least.”
He began to tell her about a new mill he proposed opening up on another site in Somerset. It seemed there was a problem with the land and getting permission from some authority or other to build on it. Isabella tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but her mind kept wandering.
She pictured herself as Henry’s wife, sitting alone at a dinner table with him, with no one else for company, and having to listen to him talking on and on about business endlessly for the rest of her days. The thought made her almost feel like crying.
She took a spoonful of soup and swallowed it down, barely tasting it, then glanced across the table at Sebastian.
He was not engaged in conversation with either of his neighbours and instead was staring into his soup bowl. It was almost as if he was aware of her eyes on him, though, as he looked up immediately at her. He glanced quickly at the duke, then back at Isabella, and quirked an eyebrow.
Isabella resisted the urge to giggle. Clearly Sebastian could tell she was not finding the duke’s company especially scintillating.
A little further down the table, she could hear Daphne and Mr Sterling’s lively conversation. Daphne was expanding on the views she had previously expressed to Isabella aboutRomeo and Julietand how the whole thing was based far too much on stories that had come before it. Mr Sterling was agreeing with her very enthusiastically while nodding and smiling.
Sebastian, too, was looking in their direction, and as they both returned their attention to their soup, their eyes met again. Isabella felt a surge of warmth coursing through her at the look in his eyes.
He was clearly happy to see his friend’s attachment to Daphne growing, but his eyes showed a hint of regret as he looked at Isabella. She felt it too, that same pang of envy she had felt earlier in the day, that things seemed to be progressing for Daphne in a much less complicated way than they were for her.
“Tell me, Lady Isabella, what do you think? I am very interested to know.” Henry’s voice cut through her thoughts, and she turned to him, desperately trying to remember what he had just been talking about. But her mind was blank.
“I – I am sure that you are perfectly right, Your Grace,” she murmured, hoping against hope that this was an appropriate response to whatever he had just said.
She heard the tiniest chuckle from opposite her and glanced again at Sebastian, who was covering his mouth with his napkin. She tried not to smile in response to his amusement and forced herself to return her attention to the duke.
She must not appear rude, after all since he was an esteemed guest of her parents. But as she tried to focus on what he was saying, her eyes fell on Felicity, sitting on the other side of Henry, almost opposite Sebastian. She looked first at Sebastian, then at Isabella, and her face crinkled into a frown.
Isabella tried to ignore her glares. She was beginning to find Felicity’s odd behaviour most tedious.
Things continued in the same vein for the remainder of the first course. Henry continued to drone on about his mills and various other business interests, and Isabella tried as hard as she could to concentrate on what he was saying but became increasingly distracted by the frequent, profound glances she was exchanging with Sebastian.
It was almost as if they were conversing without saying anything, and the sensation was becoming increasingly intimate as if they were establishing an unspoken bond.
Suddenly, though, there was a loud crash from a little way down the table. The room fell silent, and everyone began to look around to see where the noise had come from.
Felicity let out a gasp. “Oh, silly me!” she cried. “I am so clumsy!” In front of her was a broken wine glass that she had somehow knocked over, and a crimson stain was creeping across the tablecloth in front of her.
Sebastian leapt to his feet and reached across the table to give her his handkerchief. “Here, Miss Harrow, use this to mop up the wine. But do be careful not to cut yourself on the shards of glass.”
She looked up at him, fluttering her eyelashes in that infuriating way she had done during the charades game. “Oh, My Lord, I could not possibly use your handkerchief, it would be quite ruined!”
“Not at all,” Sebastian replied. “It does not matter in the least.”
Before Felicity could make any real progress in mopping up the spill, a footman appeared and took over, clearing away the shards of glass and applying a cloth to the wine stain as unobtrusively as possible.
But the spell was broken. Sebastian did not look at Isabella again; his attention had now been captured by Felicity, and Isabella could not help noticing the smug, self-satisfied smile on her cousin’s face as she directed her smiles and flirtatious looks across the table towards the viscount.
***
Much later in the evening, after dinner and while the ladies were gathered in the drawing room waiting for the gentlemen to join them again, a small group of men gathered in George’s study. He had invited Lord Thomas Sterling and Edmund, the Duke of Wexington to join him to consider potential sites for their collaborative business enterprise. And now, the three men were crowding around a map of Bath, spread out on George’s desk.
“I almost wonder if this part of Bath is not a little overcrowded already,” Thomas murmured, motioning with his hand towards the area of the town where the Royal Crescent was situated. “I have a feeling that if we were to try and set up a new establishment here, there would not be quite enough demand to make it profitable.
George glanced at Thomas and smiled. He had known almost as soon as he had met him that their connection would be a fruitful one. He was well-renowned in George’s circle for his business acumen and his almost ruthless determination to succeed.
Although his own status was modest, Thomas had established himself in the most illustrious sections of society. Everybody respected him and everybody liked him, and George could see why.
As Edmund leaned over the map and the two men tried to work out the best sites for potential new hotels in Bath, the plan seemed foolproof. They would use Thomas’s extensive knowledge of the hotel trade, that he was already well-established in, and Edmund and George’s considerable reserves of money, and the venture was sure to be a success.
