Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(28)
He stifled a yawn as he followed the butler up the stairs to the dining room. The few hours of sleep he’d been able to catch between leaving Lady Hero in her carriage and waking belatedly to dress for dinner didn’t seem nearly enough.
“Lord Griffin Reading,” the butler announced as if everyone in the room didn’t know him already.
“You’re late,” Caroline, the elder of his two sisters, said. Caro had always enjoyed stating the obvious. She was considered a beauty by most, but Griffin privately thought that ill humor overrode any amount of glossy dark locks and large brown eyes. “Where have you been?”
“In bed,” Griffin said succinctly as he made his way down the room to his mother. He stopped to touch the cheek of Margaret, his younger sister. “Been well, Megs?”
“Oh, Griffin!” she said. “I have missed you.”
She smiled up at him, her round cheeks rosy. Megs was the youngest of the family at two and twenty and Griffin’s personal favorite.
He grinned and continued to the foot of the table. There were seven at the long table: Thomas at one end with Lady Hero to his right and Caro on his left; Mater was at the other end with Wakefield on one side and Lord Huff, Caro’s husband, on the other. Megs was between Caro and Wakefield. Which left the last empty chair standing between Huff and Lady Hero. She was wearing a sort of misty green tonight that made her red hair blaze like flame in the candlelight.
Griffin bent and kissed his mother’s cheek. “Good evening, Mater.”
“You needn’t boast of your debauchery,” Caro sniffed.
Griffin raised his eyebrows. “It’s only boasting if I tell who was abed with me.”
“Please refrain for all our sakes,” Caro said.
Griffin met Mater’s gaze, which was part amused, part exasperated.
“You shouldn’t tease your sister,” she murmured.
“But it’s so easy,” he whispered back before straightening and moving to take his seat.
“You’ve missed the fish,” Huff said.
His brother-in-law was a short, burly man. Caro had inherited the Mandeville height and stood several inches taller than her husband—a fact that mortified her to no end but that Huff didn’t seem to notice at all. Actually, Huff didn’t seem to notice much of what his wife did. Nevertheless, he was fond of Caro in an absentminded sort of way, and Caro was quite happy with her match since Huff was one of the richest men in England.
“Was it any good?” Griffin murmured back.
“Cod,” Huff said somewhat obscurely.
“Ah.” Griffin took a sip of the red wine that had just been placed before him. The social niceties out of the way with his brother-in-law, he really had no choice but to turn to Lady Hero. “I hope you are well, my lady?”
He’d seen her only hours before, but the clarity of her gray eyes was something of a shock nevertheless. He remembered her stubborn insistence that she help her home for orphan children, even if her brother disapproved of her endeavor. Then there was that moment after they’d visited Jonathan when they’d seemed to find a strange accord. His offer of a loan had been on pure impulse; he’d never done such a thing before in his life.
And it had felt right. He’d wanted to help her, share her burden with her. He didn’t care one whit about the foundling home, but her…
What was it about her? He found himself staring into those diamond-clear eyes, watching as the dark pupils at their center grew larger as she looked at him. He leaned closer as if to catch the exhalation of her breath in his own nostrils.
Oh, this was not good.
Beyond her, Thomas cleared his throat.
Lady Hero blinked. “I’m quite well, thank you, my lord.”
Griffin nodded and let his gaze slide past her. “And you, Thomas?”
“Fine,” Thomas clipped. “I’m quite fine.”
“Oh, good.” Griffin smiled briefly and took another sip of the wine. Maybe if he drank enough, this dinner would be bearable.
“I heard a terrible story yesterday,” Caro said as she took a prim little sip of wine. “An entire family found starved in one of those wretched hovels in the East End.”
“How horrible,” Meg said softly, “to starve for want of a bit of bread.”
Caro snorted. “Bread would’ve done them no good. It seems the entire family, including a suckling babe, supped upon gin and nothing else until they quite withered away.”
Griffin noticed that Lady Hero had set down her fork.
The Duke of Wakefield stirred. “I’m not surprised—I only wish I were. We hear these types of tragedies almost daily, and I fear we will continue to do so until gin is eradicated once and for all from London.”