Evening Star (Star Quartet 1)

That’s right, Giana. He is all English and inordinately impressed with this culinary display. He will likely run to fat before he is thirty-five. But by then he hopes to have a comfortable wife and a fortune at his disposal.

“I was admiring your waistcoat, Mr. Bennett. The design is very elegant.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I designed it myself.”

“I trust you paid your tailor, Mr. Dicks, an ample amount for his excellent skills.”

Giana glanced at her mother warily, wondering at her odd conversation. “How do you know who his tailor is, Mama?”

Aurora cursed silently at Giana’s untimely interruption, for the color had faded from Randall Bennett’s cheeks.

She said lightly, “My business partner, Thomas Hardesty, enjoys Mr. Dicks’s fine services. I am used to seeing his artful craftsmanship.”

The bite of roast saddle of lamb tasted like ashes in Randall’s mouth. Bitch, he wanted to shout at her. He knew now that he had underestimated her and that she had learned everything about him. She had but toyed with him earlier, forcing him to tell Giana that his father was a drunken sot. Ah, but he had handled that well, much to the dismay of the wily Mrs. Van Cleve. Now her thrusts were becoming direct, only slightly honeyed, barely enough that her daughter not yet understand. She had told him quite clearly that she knew him to be in debt and that Mr. Dicks was but one of the tradesmen to whom he owed money.

“You see how much you have in common with Randall, Mama,” Giana said. “You even approve his attire.”

“Of course, my dear child. More wine, Mr. Bennett? It is rather a heavy wine, but a fine vintage, I think you’ll find.

“Where do you reside, Mr. Bennett?” Aurora asked, allowing no uncomfortable pauses.

“On Delmain Street.”

Aurora parted her lips in an incredulous smile.

“I know it is not an elegant address, Mrs. Van Cleve, but I am alone—at least for the moment,” he said with a caressing look toward Giana, “and have no need to squander money on myself.”

“Randall is concerned for the future,” Giana said.

“That certainly appears to be true,” Aurora said easily. “He has, after all, spent a great deal of energy and time preparing himself.”

Giana looked at her mother uncertainly, but Aurora merely smiled at her and motioned for Lanson to bring the dessert.

“I love cabinet pudding,” Giana said.

“And I prefer the blancmange and cream myself. I trust one of the two please you, Mr. Bennett?”

“I

ndeed, ma’am,” he said. He was thinking that his only hope lay in convincing Giana to elope with him. He remembered her trembling when he kissed her. She was of a very different cut from her elegant, cold bitch of a mother.

They drank their coffee in the drawing room. Giana, fluttering between her mother and Randall with offers of sugar and cream, begged Randall to talk of his travels in Europe. This he did with great circumspection until the hour of ten.

“It has been a great pleasure spending this time in your charming company, Mrs. Van Cleve,” he said, not meeting her eyes.

“It has been most enlightening, Mr. Bennett,” Aurora said, “for both my daughter and myself.”

Aurora waited in stiff silence while Giana escorted Randall Bennett from the mansion.

“Well, Mother?” Giana asked the moment she entered the drawing room.

“Mr. Bennett,” Aurora said, choosing her words carefully, “is a talented man. When his words are taken at face value, he is very charming.”

“I saw no other way to take his conversation, Mama. He is always charming.”

“Giana, my love, come sit beside me for a little while.” After her daughter had obliged her, Aurora lightly clasped Giana’s hand in hers.

“You appear to know a great deal about Randall, Mother.”