Amelia's Intrigue (Regency Idyll Book 1)

by Judith A. Lansdowne

  “Tony? Mr. Talbot, I mean? Why, I thought him gone back to his ledgers, or whatever it is he does when he hides away from the rest of us.”

  “No, m’dear. He had been far from hiding away of late. I have seen him at White’s and Watier’s and Brooks’s. Sometimes until two or three in the morning.”

  “Now that is intriguing in and of itself,” offered Eliot, with a quick glance at his lovely companion. “He don’t play, you know, Miss Mapleton. What would keep him milling about the clubs at such an hour, I wonder?”

  “Perhaps we ought to ask him,” Northampton grinned, looking past the viscount to two approaching figures on horseback.

  Amelia turned to follow his gaze and gave a little gasp. “Geordie,” she said with a wide smile as that gentleman drew Mouse up beside the phaeton, “you look so elegant, sir. You put every fashionable buck in the Park to shame.”

  “So I told him, Miss Mapleton,” Mr. Talbot drawled, bringing his mare to a halt between his brother and Northampton, “but he will not take me seriously.”

  The earl grinned lopsidedly at her. “My mama m-made me wear this c-coat,” he said, his eyes laughing. “She says it is all the c-crack. Tony has one l-like it, b-but he spilled w-wine on his so he w-would not have to w-wear it.”

  “I did no such thing, scoundrel,” exclaimed Talbot with a certain twitching of the lips for which Amelia had developed a distinct fondness. “It was merely an accident.”

  “Y-Yes,” said the earl. “And, and you w-would n-not allow me to h-have a simi-similar one.”

  “Of course not. Mama would have been suspicious then.”

  Miss Mapleton’s eyes caught the twinkle in Talbot’s, and both of them grinned. The earl’s riding coat was indeed all the crack. Made of a deep blue kerseymere, it was supremely cut and displayed to elegant perfection the trim, lithe form beneath it. Double-breasted, with a high waist and six shining brass buttons, it showed glimpses of a nattily embroidered waistcoat. His neckcloth was snow white and tied to perfection in a Napoleon, and his breeches were of white leather. His beloved Hessians glowed brilliantly black in the sunlight.

  “I’d give my teeth for that coat,” Viscount Eliot said seriously. “Who made it, my lord?”

  “S-Someone named Weston,” Geordie answered with a nonchalance that would have made Brummell proud. “I would g-give it to you, but I do n-not think it would f-fit.”

  “You may not give it to him, Geord, even if it does fit,” drawled Talbot. “I have promised Mama to take you down Rotten Row looking like an earl and not a ragamuffin, and I shall do so.”

  “But why did you spill wine on yours, Talbot?” Northampton grinned, eyeing his friend’s riding apparel, which was topped by the same coat he had worn for the last year. “Set in your ways?”

  “Comfort, Robert, comfort. I am not the least concerned with looking like a dandy if it proves the least bit uncomfortable.”

  “Obviously,” murmured Miss Mapleton impishly, and Viscount Eliot laughed.

  Talbot was about to make a scathing reply when a scream ripped the air, followed by several more. All of them turned to see what the commotion could be about, and the sight of a prime bit of blood bolting across the grass at full-tilt with a young lady clinging panic-stricken to the saddle bow met their eyes. Amelia gasped and turned toward the three riders beside the viscount’s phaeton in time to see the earl’s eyes glance quickly a his brother, and Talbot’s head nod curtly.

  In a heartbeat the earl and Mouse were flying toward the runaway. Northampton, who had made a move to set out in pursuit, drew rein again and sat watching as Mouse thundered across the verge. Two gentlemen who had started from the Row in pursuit of the petrified damsel drew their mounts to a standstill as well. Amelia heard Talbot draw a quick, rasping breath and then gasped herself as Mouse’s thundering hooves brought the earl up beside the wildly running nag and Geordan, kicking his boot free of the stirrup and leaning out into space, made a heart-stopping snatch at the dangling reins.

  For a moment he seemed poised in mid-air, about to soar out from Mouse’s back and slam heavily to the ground, and then he was righting himself, the runaway’s reins tight in his grip. He swung both horses to the left, then swung them to the right again, bringing them in gradual stages to an uneventful halt. No sooner had both mounts stopped than Geordan stepped to the ground. Reaching up, he put one gloved hand on each side of the young lady’s waist an helped her to dismount. She flung herself against his chest, weeping prodigiously.

  “Well done,” whispered the viscount, his eyes still fastened on the verge. “Well done, indeed.”

  “Yes,” Amelia heard Talbot agree dryly, “but now what’s he going to do with the chit?”

  The earl was pondering that exact problem as the young lady clung to him, turning his neckcloth into little more than creased, soggy muslin. Her sunny blonde curls, freed from the elegantly plumed hat which had fallen somewhere along the way, were tickling enticingly beneath his chin, and the earl brushed one gloved hand across them gently. “If I p-put you on my horse with m-me, I c-could carry you b-back to your f-friends,” the earl said into one shell-like ear. The young lady’s moist, doe-like eyes looked up into his face for only a moment, and then she buried herself again against his chest.

  “N-No, please,” she sobbed. “I do not ever want to ride another horse as long as I live.”

  Geordan thought some more, then forcibly prying her from him, he went to grab her horse’s reins. Returning with the animal in tow, he placed an arm about her slim waist. Allowing her to lean her head against his shoulder, he escorted her slowly toward the stunned and admiring crowd. As they approached within a yard or two of the Row, a smartly dressed young woman on a startlingly big bay dismounted and came running to them. “Lydia,” she said, taking the blonde beauty in her arms, “are you all right, darling?”

  The young lady shook her head and her tears began again.

  “She is a-f-fraid to ride,” the earl said quietly.

  “But Lydia, darling, you must,” urged the smartly dressed young woman. “How will you get home if you do not ride? It is much too far to walk, my dear. I cannot thank you enough, sir, for rescuing her,” the lady added, with a bright smile at Geordan. “You were magnificent. I am Miss Pamela Clinton, and this silly watering pot is my sister, Lydia.”

  The earl nodded vaguely, his eyes riveted on the lovely watering pot. “My n-name is Geordie,” he mumbled distractedly. “I will t-tell you w-what, Lydie,” he added after a long pause. “I will ask my mama to t-take you home in her c-carriage. You would n-not be afraid to ride b-behind some horses, w-would you? It is a l-landau, and it is v-very s-safe.”

  The sweet doe eyes uncovered themselves to is view and blinked at him through thick, dark lashes. “W-will you go with me?” she asked, her sobs lessening.

  “Y-Yes,” the earl agreed, “and your s-sister will ride b-beside us, w-will you not, Miss Clinton?”

  “Certainly,” replied that lady with a frown line between her brows. She was as dark as her sister was fair, and very tall and slender. “Are you sure your mother will not mind, sir?”

  “C-Course not,” Geordan declared. “We m-must just wait by the c-carriage p-path. She will b-be around again s-soon. I will j-just tell my b-brother and be right b-back.” So saying, the earl whistled shrilly and Mouse, who had remained where Geordan had dropped his reins, came charging fiercely across the grass toward the trio. Thinking nothing odd in he manner of his mounting since it was what he and Mouse usually did if the beast was running free, the earl loped toward the oncoming monster, stepped up into the stirrup, and they turned in Tony’s direction without either of them missing a beat. The crowd which still thronged the rails of Rotten Row and the edges of the grass verge were as awed by this nonchalant and harrowing manner of mounting as by the rescue.

  “Well?” Talbot asked, as Geordan brought Mouse cantering up to the viscount’s phaeton. “What have you consigned us to this time, rapscallion?”

&n
bsp; “N-Nothing, Tony. Only I am g-going to wait with them for Mama to c-come back around. L-Lydie is af-fraid to ride. Mama will t-take her home in the l-landau.”

  “Yes, I suspect if you ask politely, Mama will,” nodded Tony. “But you had best not introduce the damsel as Lydie, Geord. Do you know her last name?”

  “Y-Yes,” mused the earl, trying to recall. “C-Clinton.”

  “Then you must introduce her to Mama as Miss Clinton, or you will definitely be on Mama’s black list.”

  “Clinton?” murmured Miss Mapleton quietly, the mere whisper from her lips causing Mr. Talbot’s eyes to turn in her direction. “Lydia Clinton? Geordie, are you certain?”

  “Well, that is what her s-sister s-said.”

  “Pamela?” Miss Mapleton asked breathlessly.

  The earl nodded, a questioning look on his angelic face.

  “Oh, the devil,” groaned Northampton, “the Clintons have come to town. Now there will be blood spilt.”

  “Robert, do be quiet,” Amelia ordered, frowning at him severely. “That is nonsense and you well know it. I shall be pleased to see them again.”

  “Yes m’dear, as pleased as Napoleon at the possibility of a rematch with Wellington.”

  “I have heard this name before,” Talbot drawled, “now you remind me of it. Is this not the chit Bristol calls the reigning beauty of Wybridge?”

  “Exactly so,” Northampton laughed. “Amelia’s nemesis.”

  “No,” grinned Viscount Eliot. “I do not credit it for a moment. There is no lady in the world outshines Miss Mapleton and therefore none to approach her in battle.”

  “Oh, do be quiet, all of you,” ordered Amelia. “Geordie, you have done everything quite wonderfully, and I am very proud of you. Now hurry back so you do not miss your mama’s carriage.”

  The earl nodded and, turning Mouse, sped off toward the sisters who waited farther down the green.

  “I am ashamed of all three of you,” Miss Mapleton announced as soon as Geordan was out of earshot. “I should think you would all have more sensitivity, especially you, Mr. Talbot, than to speak such drivel in front of Lord Rutlidge. He has rescued her, after all, and much more adroitly than any of you could have done. And then to speak of her in front of him as though the young lady were, were, some sort of enemy of mine! Well, it is the outside of enough! When anyone may see that he is quite taken with her.”

  “Pardon me?” Talbot asked. “Anyone may see what?”

  “That he is taken with her, Mr. Talbot, as any young gentleman might be, especially when meeting Lydia under such romantic circumstances as a rescue on horseback at full-tilt.”

  “You are mistaken, Miss Mapleton,” Talbot said. “Geordan cannot possibly be…”

  “And what makes you think he cannot, Mr. Talbot? And do not tell me it is because he is slow, for you know as well as I that love has very little to do with the quickness of a gentleman’s mind. Besides which, I am sure Geordie has matured a great deal since he has come to London. Have you not noticed it at all?”

  “Well, yes, but he is still very much a child, Amelia. He will always be.”

  “And you do not think a young man of twelve or thirteen or fourteen may develop a tendre for an exceptionally pretty young lady of his acquaintance?”

  “Oh, da—dash it!” Northampton groaned. “Amy’s in the right of it, Talbot. Do you remember Eliza Barrington when we were up at Eton? She turned both of us into sapskulls. We came to blows, you and I, whenever she wiggled her little finger at us.”

  Miss Mapleton watched, impressed, as the blood rushed to Mr. Talbot’s face, providing him with a crimson blush. “Perhaps I, I, ought to, to meet this, ah, belle,” he said in a rather strangled voice. “You will excuse me Miss Mapleton, Eliot, Robert.”

  Tony brought the little Welsh mare racing up to his mother’s carriage just as Miss Lydia Clinton had been safely settled inside. “If you do not mind,” he offered, after his mother had introduced him to the young ladies, “I think I shall accompany you. You do not mind, do you, Mama?”

  “Not at all, my dear. Geordan? Did you not promise to join Miss Lydia in my carriage?”

  The earl nodded and, handing Mouse’s reins to Tony, climbed into the landau beside what Talbot’s extremely fine eyesight told him was one of the most beautiful young women he had ever seen. She was no more than seventeen, he guessed, and her small stature made her seem even younger. Her heart-shaped face, perfect bow lips, and great doe-like eyes, set off as they were by the mass of golden blonde curls that had been blown about her face during her wild ride, gave her the appearance of a delicate porcelain doll painted by the hand of a master. Her gaze, still moist with unshed tears, lay adoringly on his brother, and she took Geordan’s hand tenderly in her own, thanking him once again.

  “Oh, dash it!” Tony muttered under his breath, and he and the elder Miss Clinton, each leading a sibling’s horse, rode along behind the open carriage.

  “You needn’t be upset, Mr. Talbot, if it is the fondness you see rising between them that bothers you,” said Miss Pamela Clinton in a husky voice, “I doubt Lydia’s adoration of your brother will last longer than a fortnight.”

  “I was not thinking about anything of the sort,” protested Talbot, his eyes wandering to the elder sister.

  “Indeed? I am sorry then that I misunderstood your exclamation.” Her dark eyes bubbled with laughter at the chagrined look upon his face, but she said nothing further, only smiled becomingly and looked about with great interest at the perfectly uninteresting street up which they travelled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  MR. TALBOT, hoping to take the earl’s mind off Miss Lydia Clinton and send it into more acceptable areas, had whisked that gentleman off to the study the moment they returned home and offered to read to him from their father’s journals. The sixth Earl of Rutlidge had been a prolific writer. The collection of his journals lined three entire shelves of the grand glass-fronted bookcase that occupied one-half of the entire wall.

  The earl, realizing that somehow he had acquired a certain amount of power over his brother, though he had no idea how he had done so, insisted that Tony read to him from the journal that spoke of the man Justice. Talbot tried for a good five minutes to convince the earl that other, earlier journals would be much more to his liking. But when he found himself unable to sway Geordie’s determination, he gave way at last and pulled the most recent of the unbound volumes from its place. He sat in he chair behind the desk that had been their father’s and their grandfather’s and, leaning back, put both booted feet up on the glistening desktop. Geordan moved the wing chair in which he had settled closer to the desk and put his feet up as well, his imitative action making Tony smile.

  In a voice that sounded exceedingly like his father’s, Mr. Talbot began the first-person narrative, checking from time to time to discover whether Geordan was finding it at all interesting. He did not need to inquire. The rapt look on his brother’s face gave him all the assurance he needed. Their father, never having been a dull man, had filled the volume with brilliant and intriguing accounts of life among the ton, and especially of life at Westerley and Rutlidge House. People vaguely remembered by Geordan and Tony took on new life and amazingly animated character. Fitted in throughout the journal were little notes their father had written to himself. Some of them set both gentlemen to laughing, like the one where he had interrupted a particularly scathing review of a play he had attended to write: “I must not forget Cecily’s birthday next Monday. She will skin me alive do I not produce those diamond earrings suitably wrapped.” Other notes mentioned only dates and places of meetings with particular personages. When the fist note concerning Justice appeared, Tony noticed that the earl moved restlessly in his seat. “Are you getting tired of this, Geord?” he asked. “Would you rather I read from the novel?”

  The earl shook his auburn curls vehemently, and so Tony continued to read. At the end of an hour, Geordan’s voice interrupted him with some hesitancy.
“T-Tony?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Is the man c-called Justice in the other j-journals?”

  “I don’t know. I have not read them all, Geord. Why?”

  “C-Could you l-look, or is it too hard to d-do?”

  Talbot set down the journal on the desk top and stared at the earl questioningly. He knew that to Geordan, reading was an exceptional accomplishment and to ask his brother to page through a number of volumes looking for one name must have seemed like asking for the impossible. “Well, I could, Geord. But why?”

  “It does n-not matter if it is t-too hard. B-But I know you wish to f-find this p-person, and p-perhaps Papa wrote about him, about J-Justice, earlier and t-told who he w-was. L-Like in the b-book about the g-ghost in the f-forest.”

  “Oh, I see what you mean, Geord. I had not thought of that.” Tony stood and crossed to the bookcase. He pulled out an armful of the journals and carried them back to the desk. “You will not be bored while I look, will you? I can wait and do so later.”

  “N-No. W-Will you read it to me if you f-find his n-name?”

  “Indeed, Geord.”

  Talbot, who thought it unlikely that the name Justice should appear in any but the most recent of the journals, mainly because he could not conceive that his father had been acquainted with a murderer for any length of time, began to glance quickly through the volumes he had set before him. “What the deuce!” he exclaimed upon finding the first of the unexpected entries. “Listen to this Geord. ‘Justice sends word. Must meet him in town on 25th. Must think of an excuse to satisfy Cecily, or she will wish to accompany me.’ This journal was written a year before last.”

  “D-Do they all t-tell the years? You d-did not s-say that.”

  “Well, yes, Geord. I did not think to tell you, but each journal is for a certain year.”