“I have been busy, Mama.”
“Oh, yes,” nodded Lady Rutlidge, her copper curls bobbing. “Busy avoiding dinners and routs and musical evenings.”
“I will have you know, ma'am, that I entered Almack's hallowed halls only last night.”
“Yes?” grinned his mama, her cheeks dimpling. “And then I have no doubt you exited them again immediately.”
“I did no such thing,” said Talbot rather stiffly.
“You did not, Tony? Really? You stayed?”
“I stayed for a bit,” he answered, his slow smile climbing to his eyes. “I danced with Northampton's cousin. Then I left.”
“Will wonders never cease!” declared Lady Rutlidge in an awed tone that brought her younger son to laughter.
“No, but, Mama, really, I detest Almack's. I thought you would be proud I had lasted so long.”
“And I am, Anthony. Which cousin of Robert's'?”
“Amelia Mapleton.”
“Oh, Catherine's girl. Is she pretty, Tony?”
“Not nearly as beautiful as you, ma'am.”
Lady Rutlidge's laughter floated like wind chimes on the air. “Doing it too brown, darling. What is it you want from me?”
“Why, only to see you grin and hear you laugh, Mama. What else should I want? But that Miss Mapleton is a fetching girl.”
“Does Geordan know you are here?” his mother asked suddenly. “I have not seen him since breakfast. He will be crushed to have missed your arrival.”
“Oh, but he didn't miss it, ma'am. In fact the jackanapes about ran me down in the drive with that beast of his.”
“I do wish,” the countess sighed, “that Geordan would not insist on stabling that monster at Westerley. Ought to be sent off to one of the farms. Breeding, that's what your father bought the beast for, not for Geordan to ride. It frightens me to see him charging down the hills, neck-or-nothing, on that animal's back. And even Martin cannot keep up with them. I will not allow the poor man to attempt to do so any longer. 'Just follow as best you can,' I have told him. for it will not do to have you break your neck. You will be no help at all to Geordan then.”
“I can ship the beast off to Sheffield, Mama.”
Lady Rutlidge gazed pensively into the dark, brooding eyes that reminded her so very much of her late husband's. “No, I don't think so, Tony,” she said at last. “It would make me feel a great deal better, but…”
“But Geordie would be devastated?”
“Yes, and no matter what we say, he will think that he has done something very wrong and is being punished. And I could not bear to have him think that. I cannot conceive of how it can be, Tony, but Geordan and that wild thing are devoted to one another and it would be cruel to separate them now.”
“And you, dear madam, can never be cruel,” drawled Mr. Talbot, taking her small delicate fingers into his hand and raising them to his lips.
“Why are you k-kissing Mama's hand, T-Tony?” the earl asked with a lopsided grin as he burst in upon them. “Are you practicing for when you m-meet the young l-ladies?”
“I will have you know, scoundrel, that I have no need of practice,” declared his brother haughtily, raising his quizzing glass to his eye and sending the earl and his mama into gales of laughter. “I, sir, am an old hand at impressing the young ladies.”
“Y-Yes,” giggled the earl, “b-but what sort of an impress-sion do you m-make?”
“I'd hate to tell you, Geord,” Talbot laughed.
AT that moment, in London, Viscount Eliot turned his matched greys through the gate and into Hyde Park to join the afternoon promenade. “Well, I think it is very mysterious,” declared Miss Mapleton sitting primly beside him. “And Mr. Talbot makes it seem even more mysterious by acting as he does.”
“You don't much like him, do you, Miss Mapleton?” the viscount asked with a small smile.
“No, I do not. That is to say, I suppose I liked him a bit more this morning than I did when we first met, but there is something very sinister about him. Do you not think so, Lord Eliot?”
Eliot shook his head, glancing sideways at her as he manoeuvred his horses expertly between Frederick Hurley's curricle and a barouche belonging to the Duchess of Avon. “I should like to agree with you, Miss Mapleton. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to assure myself that one less suitor stood in line for your attentions. But I do not think Talbot at all sinister. I wonder, though, if he ain't playing some deep game. The Rutlidge men, you know, have been involved in strange happenings since the time of the Conqueror.”
“No, have they?” Amelia asked. “How do you know?”
He laughed and shrugged at her. “You will find me very dull, Miss Mapleton. ’Tis through my Uncle Miles again. Perhaps,” he grinned, his eyes aglow, “you and my uncle ought to get together. He could tell you most all you'd like to know, and you could tell him your suspicions, and off you would go together like two Bow Street Runners on the trail of some criminal.”
Amelia had the good grace to blush becomingly at the thought. Whereupon she dismissed the sinister Mr. Talbot from her mind and turned her attention to the personable young man who drove her in the height of fashion through Hyde Park.
At the path just above the gardens, Lord Northampton, strolling along with a very pretty young lady on his arm, looked up to see his cousin in Eliot's company and waved. With a bow he introduced his cousin and Viscount Eliot to Madamoiselle Angelique Obregon, who curtsied prettily and smiled up at them. “She is just arrived from Paris with her mama,” Northampton informed them.
“Oh, Robert,” Miss Mapleton smiled, “is this your Angel, then? How wonderful, Miss Obregon, to meet you at last. I vow we all thought Robert had invented you.”
”Pardonnez-moi?” Miss Obregon asked, her frank brown eyes staring up into Miss Mapleton’s dazzling green ones. “How does this mean, Robert, he has invent me”
“She means, m’dear, that I made you up in my mind. That you were not real, but my imagination only.”
“I see,” smiled Miss Obregon sweetly, “but ’tis untrue, for here am I all alive and walking, ne-c’est-pas? And most happy to be in this wonderful London.”
“Enough for now, vixen,” Northampton interrupted, pulling Miss Oregon's hand back through his arm. “Eliot cannot keep his greys standing forever, you know.” He nodded to Eliot, winked at Amelia, and turned his companion down the path into the gardens.
“So,” Eliot grinned, pulling his phaeton back out into the steadily increasing traffic, “I, too, had thought Robert made the girl up. She is rather young for your cousin, no?”
“I am not sure,” mused Miss Mapleton, turning to watch the two as they walked off followed by Miss Obregon's maid. “But she seems very sweet, and I do believe Robert is in love with her.”
“Well, he is definitely besotted “ Viscount Eliot agreed. “She is his main topic of conversation at the club.”
“Is she really?”
“Oh, yes, Miss Mapleton,” replied the viscount huskily, with a twinkle in his eyes, “as you are mine.”
BOTH Mr. Talbot and his Uncle James were surprised when, having finished their after-dinner brandy, they entered the drawing room to find Lady Rutlidge alone.
“What? No Geordan?” her brother asked with a slight frown.
“I have sent him off to find something for me,” the countess answered, dropping the fringe she had been knitting into her lap and clashing her hands together on top of it. “He will not be back for at least ten minutes, for he will never think to look for my locket where I have set it down.”
“What is this, Mama? Subterfuge'?” asked Talbot.
Ignoring the question, she gazed at him with a disturbing hesitancy. “Did you think Geord looked well tonight, Tony?”
“Yes, of course. He is in fine fettle, ma'am.”
“No,” she said with a shake of her head, “that is not at all what I mean. I mean, did you think he looked like an earl?”
“Well, but, he is an e
arl, Mama, Therefore, however he looks, he looks like one.”
“Don't do that, Tony. I do not wish to play word games, I wish to know if your brother were to go into society, for only a little while, would he be accepted or not?”
“Go into what society, ma'am?”
“So that's what is on your mind,” sighed James. “Well, do not ask it of Tony, Cecily, because it ain't fair. Not to him or not to Geordan neither.”
Tony looked from one to the other of them with some apprehension. It was seldom his mother and his Uncle James disagreed over anything involving Geordan. “What is not fair, Uncle James?” he asked finally.
It was his mother who answered before his uncle could speak. “Geordan wishes to visit Rutlidge House. He wishes to see what London is like for himself.”
“It is all my fault,” James interrupted her. “I have been reading to him from the Gazette and some of the magazines, If I had only stopped to think, but I did not, you know.”
“And he does not want me or his Uncle James to go with him, Tony. He wants to be with you,” sighed Lady Rutlidge. “I have told him over and over that it is not a very good idea; that you do not have time to watch over him every second; that London can be a very dangerous place; but he does not care.”
“Are you afraid people will laugh at him and I will be embarrassed, ma'am?” Talbot asked with a frown, “I assure you, ’twill not happen. He can never embarrass me.”
“No, Tony, but I fear if they do laugh, he will be hurt. He has already said he will dress however you tell him and not speak to anyone because he does not want you to be ashamed of him.”
“Well, an' I am not ashamed of him,” declared Talbot rather hotly. “No, an' I ain't embarrassed to be his brother neither. Why did he never tell me he wanted to go to London?”
“He did not want to go to London until I read to him about the animals at the Tower and the steam locomotive and the balloon ascensions,” his uncle sighed. “It is just that I forget he is no longer a child, and he is curious as the devil besides.”
“I will say he may go, but only if his Uncle James and I accompany him,” the countess declared suddenly. “I will explain to him that he is not capable of doing this on his own and that he is not your responsibility. He will understand.”
“You will say no such thing,” Talbot replied curtly.
“I have f-found it, Mama,” the gentleman being discussed announced as he entered the drawing room and placed a small silver locket into his mother's hands. “It was on the t-table at the end of the l-long hall.”
“Come over here, heathen,” Talbot said taking his brother by the arm and steering him to the far side of the room. “Sit down and tell me what you have learned since I've been gone.”
“Well,” said the earl, a definite twinkle in his eyes as he settled beside Tony on the couch “Uncle James has t-taught me to p-play p-piquet!”
“Are you any good at it?”
“Yes, but I c-cannot add up the p-points.”
“I can add up the points,” Tony said, grinning at the hopeful face beside him. “Will you play piquet with me?”
“Yes, b-but I am very g-good at it and you will lose,” laughed the earl.
“We will see about that, my lord,” Mr. Talbot said with mock bravado. “I am no slouch at piquet myself, I'll have you know.”
“P-perhaps not,” replied the earl with his engagingly lopsided grin, “b-but I shall win regardless, T-Tony.”
In the end, Talbot quit the game down by ten thousand points. “Perhaps I ought to get Uncle James to give me some lessons,” he mumbled in amazement. “I must be tired from the ride. That has to be it.”
“No, it ain't,” his Uncle James offered, looking up from behind the pages of the Gazette. “Never seen the like of it myself. He's a genius at piquet. I won't play him anymore, I'll tell you that. Unless he promises to let me win once or twice.”
“All right, I w-will,” Geordie agreed with a nod. “B-but you m-must tell me when or I w-won't know, Uncle James.”
“Geordan,” Tony said, leaning both elbows on the card table and resting his chin on his fists, “is it true that you want to go to London?”
“Who t-told you?”
“Why, Mama and Uncle James. Is it true?”
The wide blue eyes studied him from beneath the curling dark lashes; then the earl nodded. “I w-want to see the animals in the T-Tower,” he said very slowly and seriously. “And the s-steam locomotive, and the b-balloons, and, and, everything. But I d-don't want to go with Mama, nor Uncle James n-neither.”
“You don't?”
“N-no. I w-want to be a r-regular gentleman. I am g-grown-up, T-Tony, and I d-do not always w-want to be holding Mama's hand. I know I am very s-slow to l-learn things, b-but I will d-do whatever you say. And, and I will wear what you say, t-too. And I will not t-talk if you d-don't want me t-to. I p-promise.”
Talbot's darkling eyes shimmered with firelight as he stared into his elder brother's hopeful blue ones. “I know you are grown-up, scoundrel. You needn't try to convince me of it. And I would be pleased to have you with me in London, but…”
The earl sighed. “But it is impossible, I s-suppose.”
“No, that is not what I was about to say,” Talbot declared with a rather stern gaze at his brother. “Do not put words into my mouth, Geord. What I was about to say was that if you are to come and stay at Rutlidge House, then you must bring Tyler and Martin with you. It will never do, you know, for you to be without a valet or a groom. Parsons is much too busy looking after me, and I am very sure there is not a man in my stables who could look after that animal of yours.”
“Do you mean I may c-come, Tony?”
“Yes.”
“And, and M-Mouse may c-come as well?”
Talbot’s stern gaze crumpled into laughter. “Yes, Mouse may come as well. Though you will be the one to explain why such a monster bears that name should anyone ask. I am certainly not going to do so.”
“When?” asked the earl, his gaze pinned on Talbot's face.
“Do not look so worried, Geord. Do you think I will put you off'? Not a bit of it. Tomorrow we will inform Tyler that he must pack your clothes and his as well, and we will tell Martin he must drive the curricle, and you and I will ride off to London.”
“Tomorrow?” Lady Rutlidge gasped from across the room. “Oh, Tony, that is so soon.”
“Perhaps next week, Tony,” Uncle James suggested, “Tyler and Martin and I can bring him up.”
“No, p-please,” the earl said, standing. “I should very much like to ride b-beside T-Tony. P-please, Uncle James'? It, it would be like being bear-led if you t-took me.”
“Exactly so,” agreed Talbot, standing as well and putting an arm around his brother's shoulders. “There is no need to worry, Mama. We shall make out famously, Rutlidge and I. And perhaps later, you and Uncle James may come for a visit. You have missed being in town for the Season these past few years, and we will not begrudge you the chance to make an appearance, will we, Geordan?”
“No,” said the earl with a shake of his raggedy curls. “But T-Tony and I will go first.”
CHAPTER FOUR
MISS Mapleton stepped from the door of her modiste's shop in Piccadilly, followed immediately by her mother, and came to a standstill. “Amelia, whatever is the matter?” Lady Mapleton asked, trapped between her daughter's form and the closed door of the shop. “Do move ahead. I am squashed here.”
“Oh, sorry, Mama,” Miss Mapleton exclaimed, stepping quickly aside. “I had not thought. But only look, coming down the street, is that not Mr. Talbot?”
“Where, Amelia? Oh,” said Lady Mapleton with a soft sigh.
“Who is it rides with him?” Expecting an answer, Miss Mapleton was much surprised to receive none. Instead, Lady Mapleton moved hastily to the curb and signalled the two riders to approach her. Talbot brought his mount up beside the flagway.
“Good afternoon, Lady Mapleton,” he said with a sligh
t bow. “Is there something you wish of me?”
“Indeed, Anthony. I wish to be properly introduced to the gentleman beside you,” answered that lady with a forwardness so unlike herself that her daughter gasped.
Talbot's eyes alighted on Amelia. Then he returned his a gaze to Lady Mapleton and nodded. “Lady Mapleton, may I present my brother, Lord Rutlidge. Geordan, Lady Mapleton and Miss Amelia Mapleton.”
The smaller gentleman, his gloved hands with little effort holding a nervously dancing beast in tight check, grinned.
“You will not remember me, my lord,” Lady Mapleton said, staring up into the laughing blue eyes with a smile of her own. “It has been a good many years since last we met.”
“I b-broke your V-Venetian glass c-clown,” the earl said in a quiet voice. “I n-never did beg your p-pardon.”
Lady Mapleton laughed. “No, you never did,” she said with a shake of her head. “And please do not do so now. It was an ugly old thing. Do you stay in London long, my lord?”
“For as long as he pleases,” offered Talbot. “Though think already he regrets having come.”
“Well,” said the earl with a shrug, “the streets are crowded and d-dirty and noisy, and M-Mouse does n-not like it much, b-but I do think it is int'resting.”
“Then I hope you will stay for a long while,” smiled Lady Mapleton. “You have just ridden from Westerley, I expect, so we will not keep you. Mr. Talbot, I hope you and your brother will not be strangers at Brook Street.”
“No, ma'am,” answered Mr. Talbot with a quick glance at Miss Mapleton, “I do not think we will be that. Y'r servant, ladies,” he added, taking his leave of them and moving off down the street, his brother close beside him.
“Well if this does not stir things up, I cannot imagine what will,” grinned Lady Mapleton, taking her daughter's arm and starting toward their waiting carriage. “Geordie come to London as pretty a boy as ever there was. I wonder that Cecily should have let him. Make no mistake, my dear, we shall have Lady Rutlidge among us before long.”
Amelia's Intrigue (Regency Idyll Book 1) Page 3
