Page 15 of Oddity of the Ton
Thorpe set his glass aside. “It’s time I left also.”
The two men rose and inclined their heads in a bow. Then they exited the clubroom.
“Something we said?” Sawbridge asked.
Monty glanced after his friends. “Perhaps they’re in love.”
“I hopeInever succumb,” Sawbridge said as a footman appeared and tipped another measure of brandy into his glass. “Fill it to the brim this time,” he added. “And don’t forget my friend here.”
“Not for me,” Monty said, placing his hand over his glass. “Liquor—and love—are man’s greatest enemies. I intend to be ruled by neither.”
Sawbridge grunted and drained his glass—which was Monty’s cue to leave. He had no wish to spend his afternoon with a drunkard. He’d rather be with Thorpe and Marlow—who looked decidedly content with their lives.
No, not content—fulfilled.
Perhaps there was some advantage to being in love, if it was with the right woman.
But the right woman forhim? He was yet to encounter one who could even remotely satisfy him for more than a few minutes at a time.
Chapter Five
“More tea, Eleanor?”
Eleanor nodded, and her friend poured tea into a cup, followed by a spoon of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon.
There was something different about Lavinia today—a shift in her demeanor…
Then the pattern slid into place—the dilated pupils, the bloom on her cheeks. And if that were not enough—the attention she paid her midriff as her gaze settled on her belly a heartbeat longer than expected.
Lavinia had never looked more beautiful. Eleanor glanced toward her sketchbook as the familiar sensation swelled within her—the urge to draw. She only need lean a little to the right to reach her pencil…
“I’ve something to tell you, Elle,” Lavinia said. “I wanted—Peregrine and I wanted—you to be among the first to know. I’m—”
“Congratulations,” Eleanor said. “When do you expect the happy arrival?”
Lavinia’s smile disappeared. “How did you know? Has Lady Betty been gossiping again?”
Eleanor’s cheeks burned with shame. “I-I’m sorry, Lavinia—it’s just, you looked more…” She gesticulated in the air, in an attempt to articulate her observation.
Why could she never think of the appropriate word to use?
“Fulfilled, I suppose,” she said, “though that seems an inadequate description.”
Lavinia’s expression softened. “Forgive me, Elle. I sometimes forget you possess an extraordinary insight.”
“Hardly,” Eleanor replied. “I never know the right thing to say—or eventhink, most times.”
“When it comes to important matters, you knowexactlythe right thing.” Lavinia gestured around the parlor, toward the tea things that a maidservant had carefully placed on the table earlier, the teapot in exactly the appropriate place. “All this—elegant traditions orchestrated to maintain the situation exactly as it has been for hundreds of years—do you think anyone of worth cares about that?”
“Almost everyone I encounter does.”
“Which says more aboutthemthan you, dearest,” Lavinia said. “But I didn’t invite you here to discuss Society. I wanted to ask if you’d be godmother to my child.”
Godmother—a position that carried responsibility for another. Not to mention the need to stand up in church and make a declaration before a crowd of people.
“I-I couldn’t,” Eleanor said. “What would peoplethink?”
“As if I care what people think!” Lavinia laughed.
