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“I’m so sorry.”
Lily’s gaze fell to the floor. “Yes, we all were, but they tended to Uncle Pem, and we tended to Papa here at home. The two brothers were somewhat estranged, which is quite sad. I know Papa always wanted to make things up between them, but with Pem being in the Americas…” She looked out the stained-glass window onto the manicured courtyard. “They just never had the chance, and now they’re both gone.”
“When did Jonathan return?” Tricia asked.
Lily blinked and then returned her focus to Tricia. “Only recently. He was dealing with his own father’s estate abroad. Pem didn’t have any estate here, of course, being the younger son, though Papa did give him a small allowance, I believe. He was in the gemstone business—rubies and sapphires, mostly.”
“I see. I’m so sorry for the loss of your uncle as well.”
“Yes, well, as I said. We hadn’t seen any of them in quite some time.” She reached into her reticule, removed a cream-colored lace handkerchief, and dabbed at her eye. “I do wish Papa could have made peace with his brother, though, before they both passed.”
Tricia simply nodded.
“But tell me,” Lily said. “Did either of the gentlemen strike your fancy?”
Tricia feigned thoughtfulness for a moment. “They were both very handsome. But I have my eye on another.”
Lily smiled. “Do I know him?”
“You do,” Tricia said.
Her cheeks immediately began burning. She’d spoken too soon. What if Lily asked his name?
Lily narrowed her gaze at Tricia, her nose wrinkling slightly. “Whoever it is, I think you should pursue him. You’re the belle of the ball, Tricia. No one here compares to you. You could easily be the most beautiful woman in Britain.”
Tricia’s cheeks warmed. She was thankful Lily hadn’t asked for the name of her object of affection, but she was also taken aback. Lily had always been the most beautiful woman in Britain as far as Tricia was concerned. She was Thomas in female form. What could be more beautiful than that?
While Rose was also beautiful, she was delicate as porcelain, whereas Lily was strong and fierce with a wild beauty that Tricia always found much more pleasing.
“Off with you now,” Lily said. “Go join Sarah in the ballroom. Bat your eyes and hold your fan to emphasize that lovely bosom. The gentleman you’re interested in will have no choice but to notice you.”
5
“Thomas, darling, please ask a young lady to dance,” Flora Jameson, the dowager Countess of Ashford, said to her son. “You’re two-and-thirty years old. It’s high time to take a wife.”
Thomas forced the stony countenance he had adopted for the evening to remain unchanged. “Mummy, please. I’m the host this evening. I can’t spend my time gallivanting around with young ladies.”
A year ago, before Papa died so suddenly, Thomas would have been dancing with a string of lovelies and possibly leading one of them up to his favorite parapet for a clandestine tryst. Those days were gone, and as much as Thomas hated to admit it, his mother was in the right.
He was the earl now, and he must do his duty and produce an heir. He could easily marry any debutante in attendance this evening. Who or what she was didn’t matter. Every young lady here was from impeccable lineage and would make a fine breeder for Thomas’s seed.
His lip twitched slightly upward. His sister Lily would choke the life out of him if she could hear the thought he’d just had.
But only one woman in this ballroom came close to striking his fancy, and she was far too young.
Lady Patricia Price-Adams, nineteen years old and sister to Cameron Price-Adams, Earl of Thornton, Rose’s husband.
Patricia’s beauty wasn’t even slightly subtle. It had hit Thomas between the eyes the first time he saw her, with her hair black as onyx and her eyes the dark sapphire color of the summer sky before the moon rises.
Her skin was creamy with a rosy blush that made her high cheeks glow, and her lips so full and red. And oh, how silky they had been under his own during that one forbidden kiss.
How he wished to kiss her again.
Had anyone witnessed his indiscretion the day of his father’s burial, he’d most likely be wed to her by now. Even one kiss was enough to ruin a young lady in the eyes of the ton.
He should have offered for her then. It would have been the honorable thing to do.
But he’d been distraught. Fraught with grief.
