ON SATURDAY evening, Griffin watched Juliana scan the Teddingtons' ballroom. "Where's Lord Stafford?" she asked.
"Shouldn't you be looking for Castleton?"
"He's in the card room, gambling away his fortune."
Griffin wondered why she sounded so disapproving. "Castleton isn't an inveterate gambler. He plays only to amuse himself."
She shrugged. "He only ever does anything to amuse himself."
"And you find this objectionable?" He narrowed his gaze. "Since when?" She was supposed to be in love with the man. Good God, had she changed her mind? "Do you not want to marry him anymore?"
She looked away. "He needs me."
"I should hope you'd want to marry a man because you need him."
She cocked her head at him. "Rachael says people should marry because they want each other, not need each other."
If men married all the women they wanted, he thought, polygamy would be the norm. "Has Castleton kissed you yet?"
"Would you want to hear about it if he did?"
He supposed he didn't; there was little more uncomfortable than thinking about one's sister in a romantic embrace. However, he knew Juliana well enough to know she wouldn't hesitate to give him the details in all their embarrassing glory, so he had to figure her answering his question with another question meant the prig hadn't kissed her yet.
He'd meant to have a talk with Castleton in his stables the next time the man paid Juliana a call, but he hadn't run into him lately. "I think I'll go play cards," he told his sister.
"Just don't lose thirty guineas."
Wherever had that caustic comment come from? he wondered as he made his way to the card room. He very rarely gambled, and never for ridiculous stakes.
Castleton was playing whist. "Yes?" he asked when Griffin walked up.
"I heard from my stableman yesterday. Velocity has been running well. You still want him, don't you?"
He shifted, tossing a card on the table without meeting Griffin's gaze. "Very much."
"Excellent. You might try kissing my sister."
Griffin turned around to see Rachael standing there, wearing a dress the same sky blue color as her eyes. It was very low-cut. She looked like she had a slight cold—her nose was a little red, her eyes a bit glassy—but that didn't make her any less alluring.
It was a good thing he didn't make a habit of marrying all the women he wanted, because he would have married her seventeen times.
"What are you doing in here?" he asked through clenched teeth.
"My sisters dragged me here tonight. And then I saw you walk into the card room." She glanced around at all the people uneasily. "I have something I'd like to ask you. In private."
"Let's find Lord Teddington's library."
"All right." She walked beside him from the room. "What does Velocity have to do with the Duke of Castleton kissing your sister?"
He hadn't realized she'd overheard that conversation. "I promised him Velocity if he married her."
"You promised him a horse for marrying Juliana?" Her glassy eyes looked incredulous. "How could you do that, Griffin?"
He looked away from her, turning down a corridor he hoped would lead to the library. "She wants to marry him. I want to see her happy."
"How happy do you expect she'll be when she finds out her husband married her for a horse?"
He peeked in an open door to find a music room. "Whyever would she find that out?"
"Maybe because I told her?"
"You wouldn't." He turned to her. "Tell me you wouldn't."
"I'm not sure I shouldn't."
"Rachael, tell me you won't tell her. It would only hurt her feelings."
"You should have thought of that before you made the offer." She stared at him for a moment while he shifted uncomfortably. "All right. I won't tell her. Unless she ends up engaged to the man, at which point I think it will be in her best interests to know, whether it hurts her feelings or not."
"Thank you," he said, not sure what he was thanking her for, since in all likelihood Castleton would ask for Juliana's hand and then Rachael would go running to her. But maybe not. And at least she wasn't running to her now.
They walked to the next room, but it turned out to be a small family dining chamber. "Whatever made you think of offering a horse for your sister?" she asked, continuing down the corridor.
He shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. I think I was a little foxed."
"Well, it's a good thing you're not a heavy drinker." She stopped before another open door. "Ah, the library." Taking a deep breath, she entered and walked over to a long leather sofa. She turned and sat carefully, folding her hands in her lap. "A few weeks ago you asked if I wanted you to help me find my father. I was wondering how you'd propose to do that. Seeing as he's dead, I mean."
Although he was relieved to be on a different subject, he hated to see her so apprehensive. Leaving the door open, he joined her on the sofa. "He might not be dead," he suggested.
"In the letter I found, Mama referred to herself as a widow."
"The letter could have been deliberately misleading," Griffin pointed out, and then, seeing hope leap into her eyes, hurriedly added, "although it probably wasn't. But in either case, I may be able to help you discover his identity."
"How?" She coughed, then sniffled. "Mama left no other letters that mentioned anything about an earlier marriage. Her parents died young, and after her sister died when I was but a child, she had no family left. She never even had any close friends other than your folks—Mama always kept to herself, do you remember? I wouldn't know where to start."
"Her things? Did she keep nothing to remind her of her previous husband?"
"Nothing at all. I went through everything when I cleaned out her rooms to ready them for Noah."
Noah, Rachael's younger brother, had recently come of age and taken responsibility for the earldom—a responsibility Rachael had borne on her own since the tender age of fifteen. Rachael was intelligent and competent. If she'd found nothing, there was likely nothing to find.
But now that she was willing to pursue the subject, Griffin didn't want to give up so easily. "Perhaps you missed something. Or saw something but didn't recognize it as a clue."
She looked dubious. "There was nothing, Griffin."
"Would it hurt to look again?" If he could judge by her expression, it very well might. "I'll go through your mother's things with you," he offered. "I might notice something you missed."
She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her nose. "All of Mama's things are at Greystone," she said on a sigh, referring to her family's country estate. "Perhaps we can go through them at Christmas."
As much as Rachael clearly wished to put this off, he couldn't bear to see her unhappiness last until Christmas. It was so against her nature. "Christmas is six months away—"
"I'll think about it," she said, standing suddenly. "I'm not feeling well. I'm going home."