He frowned, feeling a bit uncomfortable under her stare. “I mean, she’s a delightful girl. I want the best for her.”
“And what about you?” Cordie asked. “Don’t you deserve the best, as well?”
Certainly, she wasn’t trying to play matchmaker. “I’m doing this as a favor for you.”
Cordie agreed with a nod of her head. “It started out that way, but it could always be more, couldn’t it?”
“Cordie…”
“Your eyes light up when you’re with her, Greg. You’re almost—” she heaved a sigh “—well, you’re almost like your old self.”
And in a lot of ways he almost felt like his old self. Bella was…
Well, at the moment she was standing right in the corridor. Blast it all. Had she heard any of that?
Greg pushed to his feet and nodded in her direction. “There you are.”
That familiar blush of hers pinkened her cheeks, and Greg was afraid she might very well have heard more than he would have liked. “Sorry I’m late.”
“No need to apologize,” he said.
Cordie started toward the doorway, jostling her son in her arms. “Someone is in desperate need of a nap.” She pressed a kiss to Bella’s cheek. “I hope you won’t leave today without us having a chance to chat.”
To chat about what? Greg frowned at his interfering sister’s backside.
“Of course not,” Bella said just before Cordie and her tiny baron disappeared down the corridor. Then his lovely, raven-haired, temporary fiancée stepped into the sitting room and immediately took his breath away as she was wont to do. But at the moment, something wasn’t quite right. Greg could tell by her slightly furrowed brow and the lack of luster in her silvery eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Greg’s gut tightened as he started toward her, almost as though he was drawn to her by an invisible force.
“Greg.” Bella blinked up at him. “Have you been following my brother around Town?”
Gillingham’s accusation from the previous night echoed in Greg’s ears. “I followed him once to…” Well, he’d really rather not say where, not to her.
“A bawdy house?” she guessed, her cheeks more than red.
So much for not wanting to admit as much to her. “He told you?” He doubted she would have ever come up with that on her own. She was too sweet, too innocent. Why the devil would her imbecilic brother tell her such a foolish thing?
She swallowed a bit uncomfortably. “So you didn’t stumble upon him? You…followed him? Truly?”
Well, it certainly wasn’t the sort of establishment Greg frequented. The last thing he needed was to contract the pox, for God’s sake. “The night he made that scene at Kelfield’s. I wanted to…talk to him.” Actually, he’d wanted to crash his fist in the man’s face, but he hadn’t and there was no point in admitting as much.
Bella shook her head as though that didn’t make any sense at all. And perhaps it didn’t, but Greg hadn’t been able to help himself. There was something about her that had called to him, and had ever since he’d first glimpsed her at the Astwicks’. If there was some way, any way, he could assist her, he would do it. Even if it involved dealing with her wastrel of a brother.
“Why, Greg? What did you want to say to him…there?”
Was it the location she objected to? Or the fact that Greg had overreached his bounds in seeking Gillingham out? “I tried to press upon him how his actions were hurting you, but—”
“You went there for me?”
“I simply followed him there.”
“For me?”
“Well, of course, I—”
She threw her arms around his neck before he could say anything else and held onto him tightly. “You are the most wonderful man,” she said against his cheek, and for a moment, he felt like he might be the luckiest man, having her arms around him.
Dear God, her breasts pressed against his chest and all of his careful, rational thoughts quickly fled his mind. If he could only hold her, keep her lithe form pressed against him as though she belonged there, he’d never want for anything else. Damn it all, her nearness brought every part of Greg to life, and a part of him he’d long forgotten seemed to wake anew as he held her close.