Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (Scandalous Seasons Book 3) by Christi Caldwell

Author:Christi Caldwell [Caldwell, Christi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Christi Caldwell
Published: 2014-07-04T14:00:00+00:00

A gentleman should speak in calming, modulated tones when dealing with a distressed female.

4th Viscount Redbrooke

~16~

“Are you mad? Utterly mad? The kind of mad to rival King George himself?”

Mother’s high-pitched screech pierced Geoffrey’s ears and he shifted in his seat. Leaning back, he studied her as she frantically paced the Aubusson carpet at the center of his office. She occasionally paused, glanced up, and then shook her head, as she continued her pacing.

“You are handling this remarkably well,” he said dryly.

She glowered at him. “You dare to make a jest of this? You, Geoffrey? You do not make jests.”

He had at one time.

He attempted to placate her. “Mother,” he began.

She held a hand up. “Not a word,” she muttered, more to herself. “Marriage to that, to that…American. Your sister, why she scandalized Society with…with…” She colored. “I needn’t repeat what happened. But she had the decency to capture the Earl of Waxham. This…” she slashed the air with her hand, “why, this is unpardonable. You’d wed that…that…”

“American,” he supplied sardonically.

“Exactly!” she agreed, and punched the air with her fist. Apparently her fury over Geoffrey’s aims to wed Abigail Stone prevented her from detecting his intended sarcasm.

Geoffrey sat back in his chair, and folded his arms across his chest. “That American as you refer to her, is in fact the Duke of Somerset’s niece.”

“The Duke of Somerset’s niece,” she muttered under her breath, shaking her head. She stopped in front of him and threw her arms open wide. “You had assured me of your intentions to court Lady Beatrice Dennington.”

Yes, he’d intended to wed the demure and perfectly proper Lady Beatrice. He’d believed she’d suited him.

Until Abigail.

“Things have changed, Mother,” he said patiently, as though speaking to a skittish colt.

“Things have changed? Things have changed, Geoffrey?” Her voice steadily increased in volume and pitch. “Days change, Geoffrey. Minutes on the clock change. One does not simply change ones selection for a marital partner.”

Geoffrey steepled his fingers and rested his chin upon them. “It was never my intention to…to…come to care for Abigail.”

She resumed her frantic pacing, muttering under her breath in a most undignified manner. “She is wholly inappropriate.”

“Her father is a wealthy shipping magnate in America.”

She cringed. “Her father is nothing more than a servant.” His mother’s scathing tone cut into his defense. “Come Geoffrey, the scandal which precipitated her mother and father’s rapid departure to America is not an old one, and it is well-known.” Mother stopped pacing. Her rapid breathing indicated the thin level of control the normally composed viscountess had on her emotions.

It occurred to him that he’d been just as pompous as Mother in his viewpoints. He shook his head. What a bloody ass he’d been.

“You’ve so admirably maintained a cool, reserved manner these past years. I had imagined,” she shook her head sadly, “or hoped, rather, after that scandalous woman, you’d put such heady passions aside.”

His mouth went dry as she dredged Emma’s betrayal to the surface. He looked away from her accusatory stare, too much a coward to confront the disapproval teeming in her gaze.

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