Hart didn’t care. His friends were mostly businessmen and Cits who knew the value of money and did something to earn it. He preferred gaming hells to social clubs; he had no interest in putting himself up on the Marriage Mart, no need to beget an heir since the baronetcy could descend to his sister’s son, and no family who took it upon themselves to interfere. In fact, at the age of thirty-two, Hart was very satisfied by his industrious country life, and increasingly uninterested in the goings-on of the Upper Ten Thousand.
But Edwina had demanded he assess the young man who was interested in Alice, and that cast him in the role of guardian, for which he had little inclination and no actual authority.
“Who are these people?” he demanded.
“The Loxleighs? Just people, Hart. Not encroaching or offensive. Modest, and very pretty-mannered.”
“So everyone keeps telling me. What do they have other than manners?”
“Charm,” Giles said. “Something you could do with cultivating. Loxleigh’s a decent fellow from what I can see. Plays, but not too high. Never quarrels, knows how to hold his drink.”
“That sounds like faint praise.”
“Does it? Perhaps. I couldn’t claim to know him.”
“You don’t like him.” Hart spoke with the certainty of a lifetime’s friendship.
Giles gave him a look. “You’re too severe, Hart. I don’t dislike him. I just... Well, if you will have it, there’s something a little...I don’t know. ‘Calculating’ is too harsh. As if he’s watching the room rather than being in it.”
“Acting a part?”
“You say that with such disapproval. Most of us act a part in society, you know, for everyone’s benefit. It’s polite to make the effort.”
Hart snorted. Giles went on, “Anyway, I wouldn’t even go that far. He’s probably self-conscious, and one can’t blame the fellow. They’re provincials who came on holiday to London and now Miss Loxleigh is being courted by a marquess. I’d watch my words too, in his position. In fact, considering all that, I’d say he’s remarkably unaffected.”
“You have talked yourself round to the very opposite of your first statement.”
“It’s amazing how a little empathy can change one’s mind about someone,” Giles retorted. “Again, you should try it. The only conclusion I can offer is that I don’t know him. But I have met Miss Loxleigh several times and she’s wonderfully open. Delightful. Unaffected. She has such a frank enjoyment of everything, so unlike the tedious cynicism of all the world-weary folk in this room.”
“Am I to take that remark personally?” Hart enquired.
“Yes. Whereas unlike you, Miss Loxleigh is full of joy. Thoughtful, amusing but not frivolous. She lifts one’s heart.”
Hart lifted his brow instead. Giles gave him an embarrassed smile. “Am I raving?”
“You are, yes.”
“She has that effect. I could only secure one dance with her tonight. There’s a host of admirers, Tachbrook at their head.”
“Are you in the running?”
“Don’t be absurd.”
Giles was a third son—admittedly of an archbishop, of excellent family and holding a good post at the Foreign Office, but still a mere salaried man. Miss Loxleigh might be a wonder among women, but Hart would still put ten pounds that she’d plump for wealth and title, given the choice. She wasn’t fresh from the schoolroom and could clearly have her pick of men; she had doubtless come to London to secure a prize. Good luck to her. Hart just hoped Giles’s enthusiasm wasn’t too serious.
“Has she a portion?” he asked.
“I’ve no idea.”
“Do they have any estate back in Nottinghamshire?”
“I really don’t know. Why don’t you ask the brother?” Giles nodded to the door. Hart turned and saw that young Loxleigh had come into the gaming room.
He took a moment to assess the man closer up. He might be perhaps twenty-five, a little older than he’d looked from a distance, a year or two his sister’s senior. There was no fault to be found with his tailoring, or his cravat, or his demeanour as he accepted a seat at the whist table, waved there by a man named Kinnard who was hail-fellow-well-met with anyone who’d play with him.
Loxleigh’s eyes were hazel. Hart had rather expected them to be blue, like his own, and found himself oddly put out by that.
He leaned back against the wall to watch. Loxleigh smiled and chatted to the people around him, and his expression remained relaxed and pleasant as he took up his cards, but Hart thought his eyes sharpened slightly.
They played a few hands. Hart watched, ignoring Giles’s efforts to make conversation until his friend muttered a rude remark and went off to find someone more entertaining. He watched the young man’s face, and the casual set of his shoulders. He watched the ebb and flow of the game. He watched Loxleigh’s hands—well-used ones, not as smooth and pale as a gentleman’s hands were supposed to be, a little older-looking than his face—and then he pushed himself upright and sloped out of the room. He wanted to think.
When he returned to the ballroom, Alice was sitting by the wall. He went to sit with her. “Enjoying the evening?”
“Not really.”
“Nor am I,” he assured her. “I loathe this sort of thing.”
“I can’t decide if everyone is noticing me and I hate it, or nobody is noticing me and I hate it.”
Hart threw back his head and laughed. “You’ve my entire sympathy.”
“Well, thank you.” She made a face. “It’s not terrible. I have danced twice.”
“I hope the gentleman was suitably appreciative.”
“He was very pleasant.” Hart couldn’t tell if Alice was blushing: her colour was high anyway, given the oppressive heat of the crowded room. “A gentleman up from the country. I’ve made friends with his sister—”
“The beautiful Miss Loxleigh? I met her.”
“She is beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Outstanding.”
“And she’s lovely, too,” Alice said earnestly. “In character, I mean. We met in the park, and started chatting—they hardly knew anyone in London either—and we get on delightfully. So many people aren’t interested unless one is pretty or wealthy or well-born, and many of the belles are simply too busy to be kind. Marianne is always kind, and the best-looking woman of the Season, which just goes to show.”
Hart nodded. There was quite a lot underpinning that speech, none of which made him happy. “And the brother is a gentleman?”
“Oh yes. He has escorted us—Marianne and me—several times now. I know she is older than me but she doesn’t assume I’m a silly girl because of it. And Mr. Loxleigh is very respectful and pleasant.”
“That is flattering attention.”
Alice scuffed her shoe on the floor, the little movement making her seem terribly young. “I know he’s just being polite, but he does seem interested in what I say. It’s quite unusual to have someone interested in what I say.”
Hart felt a stab of guilt. “I’m interested.”
“Well, you aren’t really,” Alice pointed out without reproach. “We have different concerns in life. And I wasn’t complaining. It’s just—well, do you know when someone is truly listening to you, properly, not just exchanging remarks? And it feels like you’re talking to a friend, even if you haven’t known the person long at all?”