The Duke Is Mine - Eloisa James [67]
“Turdy-fancy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogue.”
“Exactly! Turdy? Fartical? How could you, Olivia? Don’t you care for me in the slightest?”
“Of course I care for you! I didn’t label you, nor the duke, turdy. Nor even the supercilious author of The Mirror of Compliments. We were just funning!”
“You’re always funning,” Georgiana snapped, picking up her teacup again with such a sharp, angry movement that tea slopped onto her saucer. “I can’t manage this with you carrying on!”
“Can’t manage what?” Olivia asked. Part of her wanted to snap back that she had avoided adult conversation in an effort to convince the duke that she was so uninterested in him that she’d rather converse with Justin.
But another part of her, the sisterly part, took a good look at Georgiana and saw the pinched, miserable look that her sister often had after a long night of sitting with the dowagers. She knelt next to her chair. “What’s the matter, Georgie? I see I’ve been unbearably gauche. If I promise to make nothing but distinguished and righteously tedious comments for the rest of our visit, will you be happier?”
“It’s not working,” Georgiana replied, her voice catching.
“What isn’t? You don’t think you could care for Sconce?”
“I could,” her sister whispered. “I really could. He’s thoughtful and sober and everything I honor in a gentleman.”
Olivia slid her hand over her sister’s, which was clenched around the fragile bone china. “You’re going to break the cup.”
Georgiana looked down numbly and then put it away from her.
“Tell me what isn’t working? I wasn’t jesting with Justin the entire time, you know. I kept an eye on you and Sconce, and you seemed to be having an involved discussion about science. The nature of light, wasn’t it?”
Georgiana looked up. “It was fascinating.” But then she stopped.
“Well, that’s a wonderful point of concurrence between you,” Olivia prompted. “The sort of shared interest that will make a marriage long and vital. Just look at our parents.”
“What about them?”
“They have always had one shared passion: the duchification of their two daughters. I wouldn’t say they’ve been particularly successful at it in my case, but they certainly managed to turn you into a model of good breeding. After you marry Sconce, they’ll have two duchesses for daughters. I expect any sacrifices they made will be thought worth it.”
Georgiana nodded. “I think that, too. That is, I believe I would always be interested in what His Grace was investigating, whether scientific or mathematical. And he seemed interested in my ideas about chemistry as well. I don’t think he was merely being polite.”
“It’s my distinct impression that Sconce is virtually incapable of prevarication,” Olivia put in.
“Well, then, so he is interested in my potions. He even said that if I could give him the recipe for arthritis liniment, he’d like to have it made up for his head gardener. I gather the man is terribly bothered by years of being out in the damp.”
“That’s wonderful,” Olivia said, wondering if her tone sounded hollow. “Splendid! And no one deserves it as much as you do, Georgie. So why aren’t you simply ignoring your silly twit of a sister and chatting away with the handsome duke?”
“Do you think he’s handsome?”
Olivia blinked. “There’s no question. I think he’s—” She snatched back the words. The last thing she wanted to do was tell her sister that she’d never seen, even imagined, a man as beautiful as Quin. “His aspect is more than tolerable.”
“Don’t you think his hair is rather odd?”
“No,” Olivia said, thinking of the way it slid through her hands like silk, black and white together like the dual sides of life, darkness and light, good and evil, temptation and temperance. Mostly temptation.
“Well, I do. Do you suppose that if I mixed a dye myself he would allow it to be colored? Do you remember the zebra that came through in that travelling fair, Olivia? Sconce reminds me of that creature.”
“Yes, I do, and the duke doesn’t look in the