Unforgivable(3)

They walked up several steps to the very grand front door of Stanhope House, and Papa rapped on the glossy black door with his cane. It was opened by a butler of short stature and haughty mien who showed them into the drawing room. As he withdrew he advised them, in lofty accents, that the earl would be with them presently.

Scant minutes later, a man who had to be the earl entered the room. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but he had a slight stoop and walked with a limp, leaning heavily on a cane. His expression was grim, etched with pain and anger.

“Davenport,” the man barked in Papa’s general direction, but his eyes were on Rose, and he walked straight over to her. He came to a halt in front of her and stared, eyebrows bristling.

“Good afternoon, Lord Stanhope,” Papa replied with an amiable smile. “May I present my daughter, Rose?”

The earl nodded, but his expression did not alter. He continued to stare, and while he did so, Rose curtsied. When she straightened, she offered him a small smile which died on her lips in the face of his frowning demeanour.

Papa looked much younger than this man. Of course, her father was only thirty-eight, while the earl looked to be somewhere in his fifties with iron-grey hair and deep grooves bracketing his mouth and creasing his brow. He did not look impressed with her, but she could not blame him for that. She knew she did not present a particularly impressive picture. He continued staring at her for long moments, and she had to fight the urge to look away.

To her relief, the earl’s gaze finally lifted, his attention drawn by the doors of the drawing room opening again.

“Ah, there you are.” He grunted at the two young men who entered the room. “Come in here and meet Mr. Davenport and his daughter.” Rose wondered if he always spoke to his sons like that, in that dictatorial voice.

She turned her attention to the young men. Although they were brothers, they couldn’t have been more different. The first man to enter was breath-stoppingly handsome, like one of those classical heroes in paintings. Or a warrior angel. He had hair the colour of sunlight and a face of compelling symmetry. And like an angel, he looked aloof. Indifferent.

“This is Lord James,” the earl said shortly, adding brutally, “the spare.”

The angel didn’t so much as flinch, merely bowed over Rose’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Davenport,” he murmured. His indifferent gaze absorbed the unpretty picture she presented. Rose wanted to curl up and die under that merciless blue gaze, but somehow she withstood his scrutiny and finally he moved aside.

If Lord James was the spare, that meant the second man was the heir. And he couldn’t have been more different from his beautiful brother. Gilbert Truman, Viscount Waite, was large, half a head taller than his younger brother and considerably broader through the shoulders, though he had the leanness of youth. His thick, almost black hair was cut fashionably short. His face was arresting rather than handsome. Sharp cheekbones gave him a haughty look, and his nose was marred by a slight kink.

Like his brother, Waite looked her over as he murmured his pleasure at making her acquaintance. But unlike Lord James, he did not appear bored and indifferent. In fact, she wondered if she detected something that might be kind in his hazel gaze before he turned away to greet her father.

She accepted Lord James’s invitation to sit, perching on the edge of a delicate-looking chair. She was relieved she would not have to marry someone as perfectly beautiful as he. The contrast between them would be too cruel, a peacock and his dowdy little mate. But were she and Waite any more suited? He was so big, so masculine. He made Rose feel even younger, slighter and more insignificant than usual. Entirely lacking as a woman.

And yet, somewhat to her surprise, over the next half hour, Waite—and Waite alone—set about putting Rose at her ease. While Lord James and the earl sat, stiff and silent, Waite was all amiability. He talked in an easy, light-hearted fashion about this and that, drawing Rose out despite herself.

Although he looked forbidding, he had a pleasant manner and a surprisingly infectious smile. Like the rest of him, there was something not quite perfect about his smile. It was an off-centre thing, with a quirk to the left that made him appear to always be laughing at himself. It was…charming.

Rose found herself helplessly warming to him. After a while, she forgot about the marks on her face—even that scab on her eyelid—and stopped dipping her chin to hide beneath the brim of her bonnet. She wouldn’t have believed it possible in the carriage on the way over, but she even found herself returning Waite’s oddly charming smile with a shy half smile of her own. And it was impossible not to giggle at some of the sillier stories he told her.