Page 15 of One Night of Surrender
Grandmama let out a soft, nearly inelegant sound.“Your friends are strange.”
Viola wasn’t the least bit offended by their grandmother’s statement.If she and Val took umbrage every time the dowager spoke her mind, they’d spend their lives in a perpetual state of irritation.“One would argue thatI’mstrange, but I know you don’t want to hear that.”
“You are correct.I do not.”She rose, and Val jumped up to help her.“Let us depart.I’ve correspondence to see to since the weather will not support a jaunt to the park.”
When they reached the coach, the footman helped the dowager step up.Val couldn’t resist asking his sister, “You found Mrs.Cortland clever?”
“Exceedingly.I wish I’d been educated like she was.”There was a wistful quality to her tone.Viola was obsessed with the written word, and had been writing since she’d been old enough to grasp a quill.
“You’ve done all right, despite Father’s insistence that you didn’t need to know anything more than needlepoint, dancing, and simpering.”
“Simpering was not actually a focus.”
He offered her his hand to help her into the coach.“That must be why you’re so bad at it.”
She gave him a sly, pert smile.“Indeed.”
“Would you get in the coach?”Grandmama demanded.“It’s freezing.”
Inside the coach, Val braced himself for what must come next.He couldn’t expect to see his grandmother and not endure an interrogation followed by a lecture.
“What are your marriage prospects, Eastleigh?”
“The same they were last time I saw you, what, four days ago?”
“Don’t be saucy with me,” she scolded from across the coach as they circled to the other side of the square.“You’ll be thirty this year.I understand your reluctance to marry again after that disaster of a first wife, but you’re older and wiser now, and you’ll choose better.If you’d allowed me to choose the first time—”
Viola put her hand on the dowager’s.“If you’ll recall, I let you choosemyhusband, and you saw how that turned out.”
Grandmama did not appear persuaded by this argument, not that Val expected her to be.They were revisiting old debates.“I still say there was nothing really wrong with him.Even if there was, you would have whipped him into shape—you are my granddaughter, after all.”
Val suppressed a smile.When it came to debate, or anything else, for that matter, Grandmama would never admit defeat.
“What about Lady Penelope?”Grandmama suggested.“She’s well-mannered, beautiful, and her lineage is impeccable.She also looks as though you could frighten her with a stare, so I highly doubt you’d encounter any of the same problems you had with That Woman.”Grandmama never said Val’s wife’s name, which was fine with him.
“Grandmama, you frighteneveryonewith your stare, so that’s hardly notable,” Viola said.
The dowager’s lips twitched but she didnotsmile.That would be garish in her opinion.“This is true.”
“I’m not even sure I know who Lady Penelope is,” Val said.He did, of course, because Cole knew everyone, and as Cole’s best friend, Val inevitably ended up knowing everyone too.Not that heknewLady Penelope.He vaguely recalled a fast introduction a week or so ago.But he couldn’t be sure.
Grandmama turned the full weight of her disapproval on Val.“If you went to Almack’s, you’d know her and many other suitable young ladies.It’s Wednesday.We’ll go tonight.”
He didn’t want to go to Almack’s tonight or any other night, for that matter.He gave her an apologetic wince.“I already have plans.”
“You always have plans.”
“I’m an important member of the House of Lords.I chair a committee and—”
She waved her hand, cutting him off.“Next week, then, and I shan’t brook a refusal.”
Val gritted his teeth but knew better than to argue with her.He’d just ensure something very critical that required his attendance came up.Perhaps he could convince Cole to move up his wedding.To next Wednesday evening.
They’d arrived in front of Grandmama’s house several minutes ago, and he was now quite ready to escape further lecture.“I can walk home.”
“Don’t be silly,” Grandmama said.“The coachman will drive you.It’s about to rain again.”
The footman opened the door, and Val bid his grandmother and sister farewell.The ride to Grosvenor Square took only a few minutes, then he sent the coach right back to Berkley Square.
