“I am sorry to deprive you of the company of the lovely Miss Bridgerton,” Lord Arbuthnot said after a moment, “but I am sure there was more purpose to your time in town than a dance.”

There was no one else in their small circle of conversation now that Billie had trotted off with Freddie Coventry, but Arbuthnot clearly wished for circumspection, so George said, “This and that. Family business.”

“Isn’t that always the case?” He tilted his head toward George. “It’s damned exhausting, it is, being the head of the family.”

George thought of his father. “I am most fortunate that this particular privilege is not yet mine.”

“True, true.” Arbuthnot took a large swallow of the drink he was holding, a drink that looked considerably more substantial than the ridiculous punch George had been served earlier that evening. “But you will be soon enough, and we can’t pick our families, can we?”

George wondered if Arbuthnot was employing double-speak. If so, it was another indication that he was not cut out for a life of mysterious messages and secret meetings. He decided to take Arbuthnot’s words at face value and said, “If we could, I daresay I would have picked my own.”

“Well, that’s a lucky man for you.”

“I think so.”

“And how fares your evening? Successful?”

“I suppose it depends on how one measures success.”

“Is that so?” Arbuthnot said, sounding slightly irritated.

George felt no sympathy. He was the one who had started this layered conversation. He could damn well let George have a little fun with it, too. He looked Arbuthnot in the eye and said, “Alas, we come to these events in search of something, do we not?”

“You are rather philosophical for a Tuesday.”

“Normally I save my great thinking for Monday nights and Thursday afternoons,” George snapped.

Lord Arbuthnot looked at him with sharp surprise.

“I haven’t found what I’m looking for,” George said. Good God, the double-speak was giving him vertigo.

Arbuthnot’s eyes narrowed. “Are you certain?”

“As I can be. It’s rather a crush in here.”

“That is most disappointing.”

“Indeed.”

“Perhaps you should dance with Lady Weatherby,” Lord Arbuthnot said softly.

George turned sharply. “I beg your pardon?”

“Have you been introduced? I assure you she is a woman without equal.”

“We have met,” George confirmed. He’d known Sally Weatherby back when she was Sally Sandwick, the older sister of one of his friends. She had married and buried a husband in the intervening years and only recently had moved from full mourning to half. Luckily for her, she wore lavender quite well.

“Weatherby was a good man,” Arbuthnot said.

“I did not know him,” George said. He’d been quite a bit older, and Sally was his second wife.

“I worked with him from time to time,” Arbuthnot said. “A good man. A very good man.”

“It has been years since I spoke with Lady Weatherby,” George said. “I don’t know if I’ll have anything to say to her.”