Free What Happens in London by Julia Quinn Page A

everyone else in the room. And maybe she was, lucky girl.
    What must it be like, to live in one’s own world? Tosee things as they ought to be, and not as they were? Certainly the violin player ought to be good. She had the passion, and if what the Smythe-Smith matrons had said earlier in the evening was true, she practiced every day.
    What ought his life be?
    He ought not have had a father who drank more than he breathed.
    He ought not have a brother who was determined to follow the same path.
    He ought…
    He grit his teeth. He ought not fall into fits of self-pity. He was a better man than that. A stronger man, and—
    A sudden shiver of awareness tingled through him, and, as was his habit whenever something did not feel right, he looked to the door.
    Lady Olivia Bevelstoke. She was standing alone, watching the Smythe-Smith girl with an inscrutably blank expression. Except…
    Harry’s eyes narrowed. He couldn’t be positive, but from this angle, it almost looked as if she were staring at the Grecian urn behind the Smythe-Smith girl.
    What was she doing ?
    “You’re staring,” came Sebastian’s ever-grating voice in his ear.
    Harry ignored him.
    “She is beautiful.”
    Harry ignored him.
    “Engaging, as well. But not engaged.”
    Harry ignored him.
    “It’s not for a lack of trying on the part of the good bachelors of Great Britain,” Sebastian continued,unperturbed as always by Harry’s lack of response. “They keep asking. Alas, she keeps refusing. I heard that the elder Winterhoe even—”
    “She’s cold,” Harry cut in, with a bit more bite to his voice than he’d intended.
    Sebastian’s voice was filled with delighted amusement as he said, “I beg your pardon?”
    “She’s cold,” Harry repeated, recalling their brief exchange. She’d held herself like a bloody queen. Every word had crackled with frost, and now she did not even deign to look at the poor girl playing the violin.
    He was surprised she’d come tonight, to be honest. It did not seem the most likely venue for icy diamonds of the first water. Someone had most likely forced her to attend.
    “And here I had such high hopes for your future together,” Sebastian murmured.
    Harry turned to offer a scathing retort, or at least one with all the sarcasm he could muster, but the music took a turn, and the violinist once again reached a crescendo. This time it had to be the end, but the crowd was taking no chances, and a rousing round of applause erupted before she’d even completed the final note.
    Harry walked alongside Sebastian as he made his way toward his grandmother. She’d come in her own carriage, Sebastian had told him, and therefore they need not wait until she was ready to depart. Still, he did need to say good-bye, and although Harry was no direct relation, he ought to make his greeting as well.
    But before they could make it across the room, theywere accosted by one of the Smythe-Smith mothers, calling, “Mr. Grey! Mr. Grey!”
    From the intensity in her voice, Harry judged, the Earl of Newbury must be meeting with difficulties in his quest for a fertile wife.
    Sebastian, to his credit, showed none of his haste to depart as he turned and said, “Mrs. Smythe-Smith, it has been such a delightful evening.”
    “I am so pleased you were able to attend,” she gushed.
    Sebastian smiled in return, the sort that said he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. And then he did what he always did when he wanted to get out of a conversation. He said:
    “May I present my cousin, Sir Harry Valentine.”
    Harry nodded politely, murmuring her name. That Mrs. Smythe-Smith thought Sebastian the bigger prize was evident; she looked directly at him as she asked, “What did you think of my Viola? Wasn’t she just splendid?”
    Harry was not quite able to mask his surprise. Her daughter was named Viola?
    “She plays the violin,” Mrs. Smythe-Smith explained.
    “What is the violist called?” Harry could not help asking.
    Mrs.