Or so it seemed. She was his mother’s great-aunt, and he would swear she was a hundred years old.
“An injury to my leg, my lady,” he said, giving her his most respectful bow.
She thumped her weapon （others might call it a cane, but he knew better） against the floor. “Fell off your horse?”
“No, I—”
“Tripped down the stairs? Dropped a bottle on your foot?” Her expression grew sly. “Or does it involve a woman?”
He fought the urge to cross his arms. She was looking up at him with a bit of a smirk. She liked poking fun at her companions; she’d once told him that the best part of growing old was that she could say anything she wanted with impunity.
He leaned down and said with great gravity, “Actually, I was stabbed by my valet.”
It was, perhaps, the only time in his life he’d managed to stun her into silence.
Her mouth fell open, her eyes grew wide, and he would have liked to have thought that she even went pale, but her skin had such an odd tone to begin with that it was hard to say. Then, after a moment of shock, she let out a bark of laughter and said, “No, really. What happened?”
“Exactly as I said. I was stabbed.” He waited a moment, then added, “If we weren’t in the middle of a ballroom, I’d show you.”
“You don’t say?” Now she was really interested. She leaned in, eyes alight with macabre curiosity. “Is it gruesome?”
“It was,” he confirmed.
She pressed her lips together, and her eyes narrowed as she asked, “And where is your valet now?”
“At Chatteris House, likely nicking a glass of my best brandy.”
She let out another one of her staccato barks of laughter. “You have always amused me,” she pronounced. “I do believe you are my second favorite nephew.”
He could think of no reply other than “Really?”
“You know that most people find you humorless, don’t you?”
“You do like to be blunt,” he murmured.
She shrugged. “You’re my great-great-nephew. I can be as blunt as I wish.”
“Consanguinity has never seemed to be one of your prerequisites for plain speaking.”
“Touché,” she returned, giving him a single nod of approval. “I was merely pointing out that you are quite stealthy in your good humor. This I applaud wholeheartedly.”
“I am aquiver with glee.”
She wagged a finger at him. “This is precisely what I am talking about. You’re really quite amusing, not that you let anyone see it.”
He thought about Honoria. He could make her laugh. It was the loveliest sound he knew.
“Well,” Lady Danbury declared, thumping her cane, “enough of that. Why are you here?”
“I believe I was invited.”
“Oh, pish. You hate these things.”
He gave her a little shrug.
“Watching out for that Smythe-Smith girl, I imagine,” she said.
He’d been looking over her shoulder, trying to locate the éclairs, but at that, he turned sharply back.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said with a dismissive roll of her eyes. “I’m not going to set it about that you’re interested in her. She’s one of the ones with a violin, isn’t she? Good heavens, you’d go deaf in a week.”
He opened his mouth to defend Honoria, to say that she was very much in on the joke, except it occurred to him that it wasn’t a joke to her. She knew perfectly well that the quartet was awful, but she carried on because it was important to her family. That she could take her place on the stage and pretend that she thought she was a virtuoso violinist—it took tremendous courage.
And love.
She loved so deeply, and all he could think was—I want that.
“You’ve always been close with that family,” Lady Danbury said, breaking into his thoughts.
He blinked, needing a moment to return to the present conversation. “Yes,” he finally said. “I went to school with her brother.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, sighing. “What a farce that was. That boy should never have been chased out of the country. I’ve always said Ramsgate was an ass.”
He stared at her in shock.
“As you said,” she said pertly, “consanguinity has never been a prerequisite for blunt speaking.”
“Apparently not.”
“Oh, look, there she is,” Lady Danbury commented. She tipped her head to the right, and Marcus followed her gaze to Honoria, who was chatting with two other young ladies he could not identify from a distance. She didn’t see him yet, and he took advantage of the moment to drink in the sight of her. Her hair looked different; he could not pinpoint what she’d done to it—he never had understood the finer points of female coiffure—but he thought it was lovely. Everything about her was lovely. Maybe he should have thought of some other, more poetic way to describe her, but sometimes the most simple words were the most heartfelt.