A Marquess for Christmas (Scandalous Seasons Book 5) by Christi Caldwell Page B

him. After all, once ruined, forever ruined. The risk she danced with every time she met Weston further jeopardized her sisters’ future hopes of a respectable match. That in itself should compel her to stay well-clear of the marquess.
    It appeared she was the same selfish ninny she’d been nine months ago. Logic should keep her from the marquess, yet a desire to know more of him kept drawing her back to him.
    Jonathan drummed his fingers on his desk. “I’m going to ask you the question I should have asked you more than nine months ago. The question that would have saved you from yourself.” That she appreciated. His assigning her responsibility for her own actions. “Who is he?” he asked with a bluntness that made her wince.
    “It doesn’t matter. I’ll not see him again.” Sadness pulled at her heart. Foolishly, she wished to see him again. She enjoyed his company. Welcomed that he was the only one to speak freely with her and didn’t look on her with pity or scorn as the rest of Society did, family included.
    She curled her toes into the soles of her slippers. Then, that had been before he’d known the truth of her past. After she’d shared it with him, she could be assured he’d fall into the pitying category or the scandalized category. Odd, she couldn’t seem to place a powerfully confident man like Weston in either category.
    Jonathan groaned.
    Patrina started. “What?” she said with a frown.
    “You’re wool-gathering.”
    Her frown deepened. “And?”
    “And I recognize all the implications of wool-gathering,” he muttered more to himself. “I wool-gathered when I fell in love with Juliet.” How very odd to hear her once-scoundrel brother speak so freely of his love for his wife.
    She crossed a hand over her heart and schooled her features. “You may be rest assured I’ve no intentions of falling in love.” No, it would be the height of foolhardiness to go and do something so irresponsible. Patrina stood. She reached for her glass.
    “Stop,” Jonathan instructed, the tone belonging more to commanding earl than affable brother.
    She froze mid-motion.
    “Ices in winter?” Of course he’d recognize the patent glasses given out at Gunter’s. The crystal pieces were usually carried back and forth from Gunter’s to waiting carriages across the street during warmer weather. Weston, however, had purchased the glass for her. And for his children, of course. “Please, don’t make me ask you again, Patrina. Who is he?”
    It was the please that did it. She directed her gaze to the delicate glass in her hands. “The Marquess of Beaufort.” Maybe Jonathan didn’t know him. She’d not heard mention of Weston in any of her Seasons.
    “Beaufort.”
    She nodded.
    “Beaufort.”
    Well, this repeating business from her brother certainly didn’t bode well.
    “Beaufort.”
    She wet her lips nervously. “Er…do you know him?”
    “I do.”
    She bit down hard on her tongue to keep the questions from tumbling forth. “How do you know him?” What was the harm in asking one question?
    “We moved in the same social circles at one point,” he said curtly.
    “What happened?” Why did you stop? And more…what if he’d continued his friendship with Weston? Perhaps, just perhaps he might have then been properly introduced to Patrina and there would have never been an Albert Marshville or a scandal or a—
    “He fell in love.”
    Patrina flinched. That she’d not been prepared for. “With who?”
    Jonathan seemed to be searching his mind. “A Lady Cordelia Something-or-Another,” he supplied. “It was a love match.”
    She considered Weston’s harsh coldness when speaking of his now-deceased wife. What had happened to the loving couple? “Did—?”
    “You do realize for a young lady who’s not at all interested in the marquess beyond returning the gentleman’s son—”
    “Daughter,” she amended.
    “—to him, you have a good deal of questions.”
    She screwed her mouth up