He rolled a shoulder. When he’d entered the ballroom half an hour ago, he’d not even had time to greet his mother and sisters before Bella had waylaid him with her naughty suggestion. Had he known her husband was attending the ball as well, he’d never have let himself be drawn into such a dangerous tryst.
Griffin sighed. But it was too late now for self-recriminations. Better to simply file the embarrassing episode under Things Best Forgotten as Soon as Possible and move on. Megs and Caroline probably didn’t care one way or the other that he’d disappeared, but Mater would no doubt be keeping an eagle eye out for him. No use in putting it off. With a last tug at his neckcloth to make sure it was straight, Griffin entered the ballroom.
Lights blazed from crystal chandeliers high overhead, illuminating a veritable crush. This would be the event of the season, and no member of London society wanted to miss it. Griffin began to weave his way through the mass of colorfully dressed bodies, his progress made slower by the frequent need to greet old friends and curious acquaintances.
“How kind of you to attend, darling,” a dry voice said at his elbow.
Griffin turned from a duet of simpering young matrons blocking his way and leaned down to kiss his mother on the cheek. “Ma’am. It’s good to see you.”
The words were rote, but not the sudden emotion behind them. He hadn’t been to London in almost a year, and it had been over eight months since his mother had visited him at the family estate in Lancashire. He tilted his head, studying her. Her fine hair, knotted elegantly under a lace cap, might have a few more gray threads, but otherwise her dear face was unchanged. Her brown eyes, bracketed with crinkled laugh lines, were far too intelligent, the soft-bowed mouth pursed to hide a fond smile, and the straight eyebrows were faintly arched in a perpetual amusement that matched his own.
“You’re as brown as a nut,” she murmured, reaching up to touch one finger to his cheek. “I suppose you’ve been out riding the lands.”
“Perceptive as always, my dear mater,” he said, offering his arm.
She linked her elbow with his. “And how is the harvest?”
A point of pain throbbed in his temple, but Griffin answered cheerfully, “Well enough.”
He felt her worried look. “Truly?”
“It was a dry summer, so the harvest was smaller than anticipated.” A pretty gloss on what in fact had been an abysmal harvest. Their land was not particularly fertile to begin with—something his mother already knew—but there was no point in making her fret. “We’ll do well with the grain, never fear.”
He was deliberately vague about what exactly he’d be doing with the grain. That was his burden to bear for his mother and the rest of the family.
His answer seemed to reassure her. “Good. Lord Bollinger is showing interest in Margaret, and she’ll need new gowns this season. I don’t want to overstretch our funds.”
“That’s not a problem,” he replied, even as he swiftly calculated in his head. It would be a near thing as always, but he should be able to get the monies—providing he suffered no further losses. The pain in his temple intensified. “Buy Megs all the fripperies she wants. The family purse can stand it.”
The line of worry between her brows eased. “And, of course, there’s Thomas.”
He was braced for the subject of his brother, but somehow he wasn’t able to prevent the slight stiffening of his muscles.
Naturally Mater sensed it. “I’m so glad you came, Griffin. Now is the time to put that little contretemps behind you two.”
Griffin snorted. He hardly thought his brother considered the matter a “little contretemps.” Thomas acted with propriety in all things, and he’d not have argued with Griffin over anything trivial. To have done so would be to let emotion rule him, which for someone as proper as Thomas was anathema. For a moment, Lady Perfect’s wide gray eyes came to mind. She, no doubt, would’ve gotten on famously with his priggishly correct brother.
Griffin made an attempt to appear pleased at the prospect of seeing Thomas again. “Of course. It’ll be wonderful to talk to Thomas.”
Mater frowned. Obviously he needed to work on his pleased expression. “He misses you, you know.”
He shot her an incredulous look.
“Truly, he does,” she insisted, though he noticed two spots of color had flown into her cheeks—even Mater had doubts about Thomas’s reception of him. “This estrangement must end. It’s not good for the family, it’s not good for you both, and it’s not good for me. Why it ever dragged on this long, I’ll never know.”
Griffin caught a flash of moss green out of the corner of his eye, and he turned, his pulse picking up. But the lady wearing the dress had already disappeared into the crowd.
“Griffin, pay attention,” his mother hissed.
He smiled down at her. “Sorry, thought I saw someone I wanted to avoid.”
She huffed. “I’m sure there are any number of disreputable ladies you wish to avoid.”
“Actually, this one is rather too reputable,” he said easily. His hand had drifted to his coat pocket, and he fingered the little diamond earring. He ought to return it to her, he supposed.
“Really?” For a moment, he thought his mother might be diverted from her harangue. Then she shook her head. “Don’t try to change the subject. It’s been three years since you and Thomas began this wretched argument, and my nerves are terribly frayed. I don’t think I can take one more freezing letter between the two of you or dinner watching my every word for fear I’ll raise the wrong topic of conversation.”
“Pax, Mater.” Griffin chuckled and bent to kiss her outraged cheek. “Thomas and I shall shake hands and make up like good little boys, and you shall dine with the both of us while I’m in London.”
“Promise?”
“On my honor.” He held his palm to his chest. “I’m going to be so pleasant and thoroughly nice that Thomas won’t be able to stop himself from falling on me with protestations of fraternal love.”
“Humph,” she said. “Well, I certainly hope so.”
“Nothing in the world,” he assured her blithely, “can possibly stop me.”
“HAPPY?”
Hero turned at the deep male voice and saw her dear elder brother, Maximus Batten, the Duke of Wakefield. For a moment, her mind blanked at the question. In the two months it had taken to arrange her engagement to the Marquess of Mandeville, Maximus had asked her several times if she was content with the match, but he had never asked her if she was happy.