The Heiress - Lynsay Sands [19]
“It’s good to see both you and Richard out and about. It’s been too long.”
Daniel mumbled a polite, but somewhat distracted response to Lord Jamieson’s words. Nathaniel, Baron Jamieson had been a comrade in school, one of the group of young men who had kept company with him and Richard in those days. Daniel had been glad to spot the man among the crowd as he’d escorted Suzette back indoors, and once he’d seen her safely to Lisa’s side, he’d approached him in the hopes of gaining some gossip on what had been occurring this last year while he and Richard had been absent. It had seemed a good idea to find out all he could. The more they knew, the better prepared Richard would be to make decisions on how to move forward.
Unfortunately, Daniel had barely joined and greeted Jamieson when he’d noted Lord Garrison approaching Suzette to claim her for a dance. The sight hadn’t pleased him. Garrison was a bachelor who Daniel happened to know was in dire need of coin if he wished to avoid debtor’s prison. He was also handsome, charming and had deflowered more naïve young girls their first year out than most of the other bounders put together. A pure hedonist, the man was known to overindulge in wine, women and gambling in copious amounts. It was what had seen him in the position he was now in.
“In fact, I haven’t seen either of you for nearly a year now,” Jamieson commented. “Of course, Richard was in mourning and not attending many social functions from what I understand. Word is this is the first ball he’s been to since his brother’s death.”
Daniel grunted in the positive, his gaze following Suzette and Garrison on the dance floor and then—noting that she was peering questioningly back toward her sister— he glanced that way to see the young blonde making several hand signals he didn’t understand. Lisa seemed to be telling her something, and also seemed pleased to be able to do so. Judging by Suzette’s suddenly happy smile it was obvious she too was pleased. He himself was less pleased when she turned that wide beaming smile on Garrison and began to laugh and chatter with him gaily as they danced.
The little hussy was flirting with the man, Daniel thought with dismay. It seemed that while Suzette had promised not to approach anyone else with her proposal until the next day, she intended to still seek out men who would suit her purpose. While it was probably the sensible thing for her to do, it still annoyed him. Daniel had no intention of marrying her himself. However, he felt sure that Richard would be willing to pay off their father’s gambling debts to spare the girl sacrificing herself on the marriage mart to do so. And if he wasn’t willing, Daniel had half a mind to do it himself.
Not that he thought much of gambling away a fortune in gaming hells. Having been without for so long, Daniel had a healthy respect for money and didn’t think much of people who didn’t. But he suspected George, as the much loathed Dicky, had somehow brought that about. It just didn’t make sense to him that a man like Lord Madison, who had lived a very respectable and sedate life in the country and never gambled would suddenly do so, possibly at the goading of George as Dicky if what Suzette had overheard could be believed. And then doing so, it was hard to believe Lord Madison would have been so irresponsible as to get himself in so deep that he had been in danger of losing everything if George, again as Dicky, hadn’t stepped in to pay the debt and marry his daughter.
On top of that, once a man experienced something like that on his first outing gambling, he was usually more likely to forever after avoid such places, and yet the man had been lured there again, and this time definitely by George as Dicky. Daniel was pretty sure George had instigated both events for some reason known only to him. Though Daniel hadn’t a clue why.
Whatever the case, he’d rather