The Duke Is Mine - Eloisa James [70]
“Your Grace?”
She looked up to find the Miss Barrys curtsying before her. “Yes?”
“Your Grace,” one of them said, rather breathlessly, “would you be so kind as to allow Lord Justin to sing something for the assembled company?”
The other one dropped another curtsy. “Everyone would love it, we are sure.”
The dowager allowed one eyebrow to arch. Yes, she had made the right decision when she dismissed the Barrys from her list of possible duchesses. “If Lord Justin would agree, I’m sure I have no objection,” she said rather frostily.
Naturally, her nephew didn’t take a hint from her tone, but leapt up in an unbecoming manner to sit at the pianoforte. It wasn’t proper, to her mind. Ladies sang and played musical instruments. The only men who sang, let alone played, were of the professional sort, with whom one did not associate.
In fact, Justin was unsatisfactory in more than one way. This evening, for example, he was wearing purple. To her mind, wearing purple was like singing: gentlemen one knew simply didn’t do it. But there was her own nephew (if by marriage), wearing the color of lilacs, with dove-gray lace at the cuffs, which made it worse. Vulgar was the word for it. The late duke would turn in his grave if he could see such a garment on a family member, half-French or not.
And why on earth were all those girls clustering around the pianoforte as if they were minnows nibbling on a crust of bread?
She shushed Lady Voltore, who was rambling on about a new type of rose, and turned her attention back to her nephew and his flock of admirers.
“What’s that he’s singing?” Mary bellowed. She was more than a little deaf. “It doesn’t sound like ‘Greensleeves.’ I like it when they sing ‘Greensleeves.’ Tell him to play it, will you, Amaryllis?”
The dowager tolerated being on a first-name basis with Lady Voltore only because they had known each other since they were two years of age. “I cannot simply tell him to sing that,” she said now. “I can request it, if you wish.”
“Don’t be absurd, Amaryllis. You paid for the fellow; you might as well get your money out of him.” Mary had always been a touch crass, to put it charitably.
“I didn’t pay for him,” she said reluctantly. “He’s a relative.”
“Decorative? Yes, I’d say so. Does he work for the circus? I don’t think I’d invite the circus into my house if I were you.”
The dowager contented herself with giving Mary a look.
“I don’t know where you hired that boy, but I have to say, I rather like him. Nice song. Nice face.” Mary had a quite ribald chuckle. “Not so old but that I can appreciate a face. Why, he almost looks like a gentleman, barring that coat, of course. Makes him look like an organ-grinder’s monkey.”
Justin was surrounded by a positive flowerbed of young girls. One Barry hovered at each elbow, and Lady Althea was hanging over his shoulder.
The dowager duchess cocked her ear and listened for a moment. “She was his sun,” Justin crooned. “She was his earth.” Well, that sounded foolishly innocuous enough. But given that Lady Althea had been granted the incalculable honor of even being considered for the title of Duchess of Sconce, the least she could do was to behave in a dignified manner. The truth was that Althea was dizzy as a doorknocker, and she’d never make Tarquin happy.
Justin had started a new song, something about love. Love! Love was a destructive, disagreeable thing, to her mind. Just look what it had done to Tarquin: almost torn the poor boy to pieces.
She turned away, noting with approval that Miss Georgiana was sitting beside an elderly aunt on the late duke’s side, engaging in a quiet conversation.