She turned suddenly. “You do?”
“Why are you so surprised?”
“I—I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I suppose you don’t seem the sort.”
“To think?” Well, really.
“Of course not,” she said, giving him a peevish look. “I meant the sort who needed to get away to do so.”
“Pardon my presumptuousness, but you don’t seem the sort, either.”
She thought about that for a moment. “I’m not.”
He chuckled at that. “You must have had quite a conversation with your brother.”
She blinked in surprise. But she didn’t elaborate. Which again didn’t seem like her. “What are you here to think about?” she asked.
He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could utter a word, she said, “Hermione, I suppose.”
There seemed little point in denying it. “Your brother is in love with her.”
That seemed to snap her out of her fog. “Richard? Don’t be daft.”
Gregory looked at her in disbelief. “I can’t believe you haven’t seen it.”
“I can’t believe you have. For heaven’s sake, she thinks of him as a brother.”
“That may well be true, but he does not return the sentiment.”
“Mr. Br—”
But he halted her with a lifted hand. “Now, now, Lady Lucinda, I daresay I have been witness to more fools in love than you have—”
The laughter quite literally exploded from her mouth. “Mr. Bridgerton,” she said, once she was able, “I have been constant companion these last three years to Hermione Watson. Hermione Watson,” she added, just in case he hadn’t understood her meaning. “Trust me when I tell you there is no one who has been witness to more lovesick fools than I.”
For a moment Gregory did not know how to respond. She did have a point.
“Richard is not in love with Hermione,” she said with a dismissive shake of her head. And a snort. A ladylike one, but still. She snorted at him.
“I beg to differ,” he said, because he had seven siblings, and he certainly did not know how to gracefully bow out of an argument.
“He can’t be in love with her,” she said, sounding quite certain of her statement. “There is someone else.”
“Oh, really?” Gregory didn’t even bother to get his hopes up.
“Really. He’s always nattering on about a girl he met through one of his friends,” she said. “I think it was someone’s sister. I can’t recall her name. Mary, perhaps.”
Mary. Hmmph. He knew that Fennsworth had no imagination.
“Ergo,” Lady Lucinda continued, “he is not in love with Hermione.”
At least she seemed rather more like herself. The world seemed a bit steadier with Lucy Abernathy yipping along like a terrier. He’d felt almost off-balance when she’d been staring morosely at the trees.
“Believe what you will,” Gregory said with a lofty sigh. “But know this: your brother will be nursing a broken heart ere long.”
“Oh, really?” she scoffed. “Because you are so convinced of your own success?”
“Because I’m convinced of his lack of it.”