And it was unstoppable. No matter how she tried to be her usual sensible self she couldn’t seem to find her way back to the person she’d been before she met Valentine.
Now, remembering their conversation of the night before, she couldn’t help but smile. Valentine had seemed so shocked when she spoke of her grandmother’s Bohemian outlook on life, and so angry with her plain speaking, but she had a sense he was using his shock and anger to disguise his other feelings for her. He was a gentleman and the idea of compromising her was anathema to him, but worse than that was the fear of being trapped into a marriage he didn’t want.
Marissa wondered what his wife had been like and why things had gone so very wrong between them. Perhaps Lady Bethany could ask Jasper…
“Mr. George came home and—”
The maid had been chattering away in the background and until now Marissa hadn’t been paying attention.
“I beg your pardon?” She blinked, propping herself up against the pillows.
“Mr. George came home late last night,” the maid said.
“George? You mean the Honorable George Kent?”
“Yes, miss, that’s right. He’s been off with some of his friends. Lord Kent took him into the library and tore strips off him…at least that’s what Mrs. Beaumaris is saying below stairs.”
George was here! What a relief. Now, finally, she could begin her husband hunting in earnest.
But, oddly, it wasn’t relief she was feeling, only more agitation. George and Valentine under the one roof was going to be difficult for her to handle. How was she going to concentrate on George when Valentine was clouding her senses?
Marissa sipped her tea, holding the cup in both hands.
But this was what she wanted, wasn’t it? For George to come? Of course there was the question of where he’d been all this time and what he’d been up to, but she supposed she couldn’t be too cross with him, in the circumstances. George, as she well knew, lived for the moment and conveniently forgot engagements that interfered with his current pleasure. She told herself she accepted his idiosyncrasies, just as he did hers.
Then why did she feel so out of sorts?
Eventually Marissa gave up trying to come up with an answer and went to find her grandmother. She found Lady Bethany propped up on her pillows, a frilly nightcap on her head and a woolen shawl about her shoulders.
“Did you hear the rumpus in the night?” she said before Marissa could get a word out. “Evidently George arrived and he and his brother had a tiff. I could hear voices but I couldn’t understand what they were saying, and I am too old to go creeping downstairs to listen at doors.”
“I should think not!”
Lady Bethany smiled. “I would have done so when I was your age, my dear. Especially if I knew the argument intimately concerned me, and one of the parties arguing was the sort of man who made my pulse race and my—”
“Grandmamma, stop it.”
“But, my dear, I thought George was your particular beau?”
“He’s my friend,” Marissa replied, her cheeks beginning to feel hot under her grandmother’s penetrating gaze.
“Have you found someone who’s more to your taste?” Lady Bethany gave a wicked chuckle. “You can tell me, Marissa. I’m the soul of discretion.”
Marissa ignored that. “Are you coming down to breakfast, Grandmamma?”
“I think I will lie in this morning—I feel quite weary from all the excitement yesterday.”
She didn’t look weary, her eyes were far too bright, but Marissa tried to be charitable, reminding herself that Lady Bethany was an old lady of sixty. Besides, she was very fond of her wicked grandmother. She leaned forward to kiss her cheek and her grandmother reached to clasp her hand, holding her close so that she could look searchingly into Marissa’s eyes.
“I know you have your secrets, my dear, and I wouldn’t ask you to divulge them. But do take care. For the sake of one who loves you dearly?”
“Grandmamma—”
“I gave up on giving advice when my daughter married your father, Marissa. He was the last person I would have expected to make her happy, and yet they have been very happy. I know it is important to follow your heart’s desires—I have done so myself, numerous times—but it is possible to mistake desire for love—I have done that, too.”
“What are you saying, Grandmamma?”
Lady Bethany smiled. “I am saying that sometimes it is better to try on a new hat and see if you like it, rather than taking it home and finding it isn’t what you really wanted.”