“Not at all,” Georgiana answered. “I must confess that I was finding the season slightly tedious.”
“You have been out a number of years, haven’t you?” Lady Althea asked. Then she added with a charmingly flustered air, “I do hope that I haven’t embarrassed you with that observation, Miss Georgiana. You look so young that one quite forgets how time passes.”
Quin glanced down at the pretty bundle of femininity clinging to his left arm. Althea had apparently realized that she was falling behind in the ducal sweeps, and was making a stab at cutting her opposition out of the pack.
“I did indeed make my debut a number of years ago,” Georgiana said, smiling at Althea as she sat down. Quin handed Althea into a chair beside her mother. Georgiana didn’t seem to have turned a hair over Althea’s jab.
“I have never thought that youth was a particularly good indicator of marriageability,” Olivia remarked, as Justin ushered her into a seat to Quin’s left. “There are so many more important factors.”
Having been schooled by his mother in the fine points of etiquette, Quin noted that Miss Lytton should not have intervened in a conversation to which she was not a part. But obviously the rule was malleable: the dowager was likewise unable to resist.
“A lady’s virtues,” she pronounced, “are her dearest possession.” She then added, “I consider age to be a negligible consideration.”
“I quite agree,” Olivia agreed, “though I would add that it depends on the virtues in question. All too often young ladies have all the virtues I most dislike, and none of the vices I rather admire.”
“No one could dislike virtue!” Althea exclaimed.
“But I gather that you believe inexperience is a virtue, at least on the marriage market?”
“I suppose,” Althea said, rather uncertainly. She had lost control of the exchange, and she knew it.
“And yet it can be so crushingly boring.” With a brilliant smile, Olivia turned to Justin and asked him what the grouse season was like around Littlebourne Manor.
Althea opened her mouth and shut it again.
“Lady Althea,” Georgiana said, “I remember hearing that you are a great lover of languages. I’m sure we would all like to know about your prowess in that area. I think that such skill is quite important if one is to entertain beyond one’s local village, as I am sure you will.”
It took a moment or two, but she soon had Althea babbling—in English—of her skills in Italian, German, and French.
Quin watched silently, thinking about Georgiana. Apparently she had not “taken,” whatever that meant. Evangeline had taken, of course. He had had to fight off any number of suitors, although in reality the moment Evangeline’s father got wind of a duke, the other suitors hadn’t a prayer.
He’d always thought that her success on the market could be put down to the fact that Evangeline glowed when she was happy.
What a suitor could not know was that Evangeline did not glow when unhappy, which was a good deal of the time, as he remembered it.
Miss Georgiana was not the type to glow. She had very fair skin, almost as clear and pale as her sister’s. Her nose was quite lovely too, though again, he would probably give the advantage to Olivia, by just a shade.
The only possibly unattractive note about her was that she was rather thin, more resembling a lean boy than a grown woman. Her gown had a décolleté neckline, but it could only do so much to accentuate the diminutive features that lay beneath.
Not that it mattered, he told himself quickly. A duchess is far more than her bosom. He was not a shallow man to be brought to his knees by a twist of violet silk and a pair of luscious breasts.
“I find it very interesting that you occupy yourself with the study of mathematics,” Georgiana said, turning to him as the conversation about languages wound down. She was to his right, and Olivia on his left, since Althea had been placed beside her mother. Quin was trying not to look too often in Olivia’s direction.
A gentleman does not ogle the fiancée of a man serving his country. Especially if that man is a nobleman, who could have taken the easy route, as Quin had done.
Not for the first time he felt a pang of acute guilt. It wasn’t easy to stay a moth of peace, as Shakespeare had it. When he was a boy, he had dreamed of wearing scarlet and heading up a battalion.
“The study of mathematics,” he said at length. “Yes, I am very interested in the mathematical arts.”
“I have read about Leonhard Euler’s work on mathematical functions,” Miss Georgiana said, rather shyly. “I think it fascinating.”
“You—you read about Euler?”
A slight frown creased her brow. “As far as I know, Your Grace, there is no law that says women may not read the London Gazette. Euler’s work was rather extensively surveyed there a few months ago.”
“Of course,” Quin said hastily. “I apologize for sounding so skeptical.”
Miss Georgiana had beautiful manners. She gave him a clear-eyed glance and a sweet smile. “Do you work on mathematical functions as well?”
“Yes, I do,” he said, hesitating. But she smiled again, so he launched into a description of the Babylonian method of calculating square roots.
He emerged from his discourse some ten minutes later to discover that the table had gone absolutely silent, and they were all staring at him.
He looked to Georgiana to see whether she displayed the same thinly held level of disbelief. She did not: her eyes were alert and interested. “If I understand you correctly,” she said, “you are trying to emphasize that this process will not work using a negative number.”
“That is my understanding as well,” his mother said.
Even a dimwit could have interpreted his mother’s voice. Miss Georgiana had just passed the first test. Without being a bluestocking, she was clearly intelligent and interested in matters outside the household.
Olivia, on the other hand, was looking at him with distinct amusement rather than admiration, let alone awe. She was not enthralled by his mathematical lecture.
“Tedious, I know,” he said, a bit sheepishly.
“Not at all!” Georgiana breathed.
“Yes, it certainly was,” Olivia said at precisely the same moment. “Perhaps next time you could sell tickets beforehand.”
“Tickets, Miss Lytton?” the dowager asked.
“Exactly,” Olivia replied, giving her a serene smile. “I know it’s a great fault, but I find I’m so much happier if I have paid for a lecture, even if I fall asleep during it. Education should be expensive, don’t you think?”
“That is absurd,” the dowager pronounced.
“As you yourself have written, Your Grace, ‘A lady should always be aware of the weaknesses in her character.’ ” Then she added, “It hardly needs saying that my mother is a great admirer of The Mirror of Compliments.”
“I am aware of that,” the dowager said, thawing a trifle. “I have met your mother on several occasions, and she always struck me as remarkably sagacious for one of her rank.”
Anger flashed through Olivia’s eyes, and then her smile deepened. No dimple appeared. Quin mentally took a step back. Anyone who thought that smile indicated appreciation was completely deluded.