Sheri Cobb South Read Online Free Page B

Mr. Brundy felt obliged to add.
    Like most young men who had yet to reach their twentieth year, the viscount had a fatal tendency to levity, and the thought of his haughty sister wed to this badly dressed Cit struck him as supremely funny. He offered his right hand to his prospective brother and raised his left to his mouth, hiding the grin he could not quite suppress.
    If the duke was aware of the effect of his pronouncement upon his son and heir, he chose to ignore it. “Theodore will shortly be returning to Oxford, but you may rely upon both of us to do all we can to ease your entry into Society,” he said.  “I shall, of course, put you up for membership at White’s—”
    “Begging your pardon, sir, but I should find Brooks’s more to me liking,” put in the bridegroom.
    The duke was less than pleased by this show of independence on the part of his future son-in-law. “A Whig, eh? Well, don’t think your money gives you the right to dictate politics to me, or you shall soon learn your mistake!”
    “Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Brundy meekly.
    He was spared the necessity of further reply by the appearance of Lady Helen in the doorway. She was dressed for the occasion in a high-waisted gown of palest blue satin, with pearls at her ears and throat. At the sight of her unwanted suitor, her chin rose and she looked down her patrician nose at him in much the same way one might regard a particularly repugnant species of insect.
    “Mr. Brundy,” she said with a nod, making the most perfunctory of curtsies to her father’s guest.
    He made no move to take her hand, but merely bowed and responded in kind. “Lady ‘elen.”
    “My name is Helen, Mr. Brundy,” she said coldly.
    “Very well—’elen,” said Mr. Brundy, surprised and gratified at being given permission, and on such short acquaintance, to dispense with the use of her courtesy title.
    Lady Helen would have acquainted him with his error in no uncertain terms but for the dinner gong which sounded at that moment. Biting back the retort which trembled on the tip of her tongue, she took her father’s arm and led the procession to the dining room, where the foursome assumed their places at the table. His Grace, of course, was seated at the head, and Lady Helen as his hostess occupied the foot, some twenty feet away. Midway between the two sat the hapless Mr. Brundy at the duke’s right, and directly across the table from him (and by far his nearest neighbor) was the viscount, although Mr. Brundy’s view of this young man was blocked by a large floral arrangement. Behind each chair, a footman in full livery and powdered hair stood ready to refill glasses and remove dishes.   Mr. Brundy’s only visible sign of discomfiture might have been observed in the dubious glance he cast over his shoulder at this attendant, as if he suspected the man of having designs on his dinner.
    The meal began with a curry soup, which was removed by a salmon in shrimp sauce, and Lady Helen noticed with no small sense of relief that Mr. Brundy neither slurped his soup nor ate with his knife. Conversation, such as it was, was desultory. Neither the duke nor his offspring were in the habit of fraternizing with tradesmen, and Mr. Brundy showed no tendency toward loquacity. Lady Helen, remembering his accent, could not feel the frequent lengthy silences to be entirely a bad thing.
    The second course had hardly begun when young Tisdale, feeling it incumbent upon him to contribute something to the foundering conversation, leaned to his left and addressed Mr. Brundy around the formidable barrier of the centerpiece.
    “If you will forgive my saying so, Mr. Brundy,” began the viscount, “you seem rather young to have amassed a—that is, to have acquired a textile mill.”
    “I am turned twenty-eight,” confessed Mr. Brundy, “and as to ‘ow I came by the mill, well, that’s a story in itself.”
    “Pray, indulge us,” beseeched the duke, ignoring his daughter’s pained