‘Warned me?’ Imogen’s stomach lurched, twisting like a fish caught on a line.
‘Don’t look so stricken. I didn’t mean to startle you. Though I’m sure Angelstone did, dreadful, provoking, beast that he is.’
‘Angelstone. So he is English? I thought perhaps—’
‘That some foreign devil had leapt from the pages of a horrid novel and invaded my garden?’ The countess laughed, shoulders curling inward with pure amusement. ‘His father was Edymion Angelstone, diplomat, world traveller, and in the end, one of the great scandals of his day.’
Imogen took a bite of her muffin and nodded, wanting the countess to continue. ‘What did he do?’
‘Nothing so very terrible, unless you’re English and anything foreign threatens to shake the foundation of your world.’ George set her cup down, and tossed the crumbs of her muffin into the fire. ‘He married the daughter of a Turkish Pasha in the name of diplomacy and lived happily with her in the shadow of Galata Tower for more than a decade by all accounts. When she died he brought his eight-year-old son home to England.’
‘Ah, a great misalliance as my grandmother would say.’
‘As she probably did say. Mine certainly did. It’s one thing for poor Englishmen in India to take a native wife. Something else entirely when the wealthy grandson of a duke does the same. Don’t mind him, though. He’ll do everything in his power to make you blush—especially considering you do so so prettily—but he’s not a danger to you.’
‘He’s already succeeded in making me blush.’ Imogen tried to keep the amusement from her voice. Her response was yet another symptom of what her father referred to as ‘her fatal flaw.’ Humour was not, in his opinion, a trait one looked for in females; let alone a healthy sense of the ridiculous.
‘Really?’ The countess sipped her tea, eyes dancing. The silence stretched, making Imogen’s throat tighten. Her pulse raced with the slightest beginnings of panic, heart fluttering like a caged song bird.
‘I think he thought I was you, and he-he-he grabbed me from behind.’ Laughter, totally inappropriate laughter, bubbled up, nearly choking her.
‘And that’s when you stomped on his foot?’
‘Not exactly.’ Imogen bit her lip, trying to hold the laughter back. George quirked a brow and waited for her to continue. ‘He started quoting Shakespeare, and trying to be…flirtatious,’ she considered her words, ‘seductive. It was really quite funny.’
George smiled, nodding her head. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard any woman who’s been the object of that particular Angelstone’s attentions laugh at him. They’re usually too busy fainting or fawning.’
‘Oh?’ Imogen replied, doing her best to present a picture of casual interest. It was easy to imagine either response, she’d swung between them both before anger had burnt them away. ‘He clearly thinks himself quite something, but really, Shakespeare?’
‘Too cliché?’
‘Well, not the way he employed it, but—’
‘So it was the Shakespeare that got his foot stomped on?’
Imogen shook her head. ‘He kissed me. More to shut me up than anything else, I think. That’s what got his boot scuffed.’
‘He got less than he deserved, then.’ George said with an edge to her voice that Imogen was hard put to interpret. The countess rose from her chair and shook out her skirts. ‘Shall we get underway? Some of the guests are due later today, and I want to be back in time to greet them.’
Their return to the house coincided with the arrival of the Earl and Countess of Morpeth, along with their three boys. The middle boy, who looked to be ten or eleven threw himself upon the countess, cries of ‘Aunt George! Aunt George!’ echoing in the great hall.
Imogen stood quietly to one side as the family swirled about. The eldest boy bowed credibly before George laughed and hugged him, neatly disposing of his bid for manhood. The commotion drew Mr Angelstone and Somercote out of the billiard room, boot heels ringing sharply on the marble floor.
He looked even more out of place—more foreign—here than he had in the garden. Golden skinned with dark eyes that tipped up at the outward corners: a Sultan masquerading as an English Gentleman.
‘Torrie.’ He grinned widely at Lady Morpeth as he scooped up her youngest son. He slung the rambunctious child over his shoulder as the boy erupting into squeals and giggles. ‘Morpeth,’ he added, nodding at her husband. He caught her eye and smiled. It was a very intimate smile. A lover’s smile. She twisted her crop in her hands and raised her chin. He was not going to fluster her, no matter how hard he tried.
George broke the moment, waving Imogen over to her. ‘Victoria, you remember Miss Mowbray? You met her at Helen Perripoint’s last spring. Imogen, I’m sure you remember the Countess of Morpeth, and this is her husband.’
Imogen dropped a curtsy. She had been too young to mingle freely with their circle when she’d been married, and she sincerely hoped they didn’t recognize her. Please? Just this once, let her scandal go unremarked upon?
Lady Morpeth gave her a friendly smile, without a hint of scorn or condensation. ‘Of course I remember Miss Mowbray. Morpeth, you remember my mentioning her, don’t you?’ The earl chuckled and assured her that he remembered both his wife and George mentioning their delightful new friend.
‘And this,’ George said, indicating the man who’d kissed her the day before, ‘is Mr Gabriel Angelstone, the countess’s cousin, and a very old friend of mine. Gabe, Miss Mowbray. I think the two of you have already had the pleasure?’
‘The pleasure was entirely mine,’ he said, somehow managing to sound disreputable and seductive even while being climbed upon by a small boy.
Imogen nodded, then excused herself to go and change. His
