Belatedly, he realized he’d insulted her. He hadn’t meant to. He rarely got the chance to use that joke, and hadn’t thought beyond that. “A civil engineer uses his knowledge of the natural world to harness the power of nature for the benefit of mankind. For example, the founder of the Society whose dinner I’m attending was a man named Smeaton. He improved water wheels, designed lighthouses, and engineered viaducts, bridges, canals, and, yes, locks. Thanks to him, we can better train nature to do our bidding instead of being at its mercy.”
Her soft, gratified smile pleased him more than any beautifully crafted tunnel. It made him realize he should answer her other question, too, before they went any further.
“As for my thinking you a shallow female,” he said, “that’s not true. You deal in a world of subtleties I can’t grasp.”
“Or prefer not to.”
He conceded the point with a nod. “Your business is navigating human rivers. I must confess that Rosy’s self-confidence seems to have already improved—I just wasn’t paying attention to that after she said what she did about Lord Winston. You clearly have a better way of reaching my sister than I do. I honestly don’t know what to do to help her.”
“You mean, beyond what you’re already doing?”
“Yes. I want to see her married well, but I don’t know what that would mean for her. Should I let her choose the man she wants and risk her repeating my parents’ mistake?”
“Eliza said that according to her and your mother, your parents were happily married.”
A happily married couple didn’t keep secrets from each other. “Mother and Rosy . . . have only a part of the picture, I’m afraid.” When interest flickered in her eyes, he cursed himself for saying even that much. “Which is why I’m afraid to trust Rosy to make the right decision. Marriage is—or should be—for life, after all. I’ve set aside funds for a substantial dowry for my sister, but beyond that, how do I keep her from ending up with the likes of Lord Winston?”
“You don’t. You mustn’t. All you can do is advise her and give her opportunities to meet other gentlemen, which you’re already planning on doing. In the end, she’s the one who has to live with whatever man she chooses.”
“That’s sensible advice coming from a ‘shallow female who does nothing important in the world.’” When she lifted her eyes heavenward, he laughed. “I mean it, though. You have a way with young ladies. It probably comes from having practiced on two sisters. Rosy has only me to practice on, and I don’t look nearly as fetching as you in a gown.” The minute he realized he’d come right out and called her “fetching,” he groaned. “What I meant was—”
“I know what you meant,” she said, her gaze enigmatic. “But sadly, my sisters don’t let me practice on them any more than you let Rosy practice on you. And honestly, Eliza—who’s the oldest—is no trouble at all. She keeps the books for us and takes care of the music for various events, and she’s generally very good at both.”
She sighed. “Verity, on the other hand . . . Please don’t misunderstand me. She does her part, too—she’s excellent at dealing with cooks of all sorts in preparing the menus for our various balls, parties, what have you. And she’s also excellent at arranging decorations that are stunning without being expensive. But like most artists, she thinks only of her creations, which means she’s often up in the middle of the night painting backdrops or fashioning decorative items out of papier-mâché. At least your sister keeps regular hours.”
“True.” Geoffrey gave in to temptation and opened her sketchbook.
“By all means, be my guest,” she said archly.
He ignored her, intent on taking in the excellently rendered drawings of a woman’s gowns, along with each feminine thing to accompany it. “Your own designs, I take it?”
She nodded.
“Clearly Lady Verity isn’t the only artist in the family.” He paged through a few more. “These are very well done.”
“For a shallow female,” she said.
“I should hope we can dispense with that term for good now. It doesn’t suit you.” He paused in his perusal of her sketches. “Why do you choose to run a business instead of spending your time with your charcoals and pencils and watercolors? Aren’t gently bred ladies such as yourself not supposed to work for pay?”
“That’s true. But here and there you find a few who break the rules, writing novels or designing Wedgwood china patterns or what have you, for money. Like me and my sisters. We didn’t fancy becoming governesses or paid companions, and living under Papa’s roof became intolerable, so this is what we chose. I’m quite content with my choice.”
“But surely you could have found a husband to appreciate your talents and enjoy watching you exercise them.”
Lady Diana leveled a decidedly frosty stare on him. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” She shook her head. “By now you must be aware of what happened between my parents during the time of my come out.”
Should he admit it? He couldn’t see why not. “Mother and Rosy told me a bit.” But he wasn’t about to reveal that he remembered the gossip about it in the papers. No point in rubbing salt in the wound. “They said the divorce spawned a great deal of scandal.”
“‘Spawned’ is an excellent word for it,” she said grimly. “Every gossip rag wrote about it for months, we were shunned at every social occasion—if we were even invited—and no one called on us, afraid of being ostracized by association.”
Outrage seized him by the throat. “And this is the society you want me and my family to be part of?”
“No,” she said firmly. “This is the society you said you aspired to for your sister. If you simply want a good husband for her, I’m sure you could find a very respectable one among your engineer friends, assuming she found any of them attractive.”
He cast her a rueful smile. “I doubt she would—most of them are my mother’s age.” Then he sobered. He could hardly tell her he wanted Rosy’s husband to be a titled fellow. Because then he’d have to tell her why. “In any case, this is what she wants. Or rather, it’s what she wants now.”
“I understand.”
Did she? Perhaps he should get her off the subject of Rosy’s future husband. “But we weren’t talking about Rosy. We were talking about you. And I still can’t imagine that a woman of your fine qualities would be ostracized for long. There must really be something wrong with titled gentlemen if they can’t look past a bit of scandal to see your marriageability.”