by Gaelen Foley
“Perfection itself, as always, thank you, sir.”
“Bring him to see me sometime soon. It’s been months!”
“I will,” she answered firmly.
“Now then, I see you’ve brought me something.” He glanced past her with a curious glint in his eyes.
“And someone,” she added, and she turned to Jordan, beaming.
For his part, when he saw how perfectly enchanted the Regent looked with Mara, he was rather touched, especially since it wasn’t a look of lust.
With all his excesses, royal George was an easy target for mockery, but few men had the refinement truly to be just friends with a woman, and yet the prince’s warmth toward her was obviously genuine.
This was a good man, Jordan thought, or at least a decent one, for all his foibles.
Privately, Jordan was relieved by this conclusion, considering the oath of loyalty he and his brother warriors had sworn to the Crown years ago as part of his induction ceremony into the Order.
Back then, it had been King George in power, and though His Majesty had already started losing his marbles, no one had ever doubted that the old king’s heart was in the right place.
“Your Royal Highness,” Mara said with a warm smile that belied the formality of her words, “will you permit me to present my particular friend, Jordan Lennox, the Earl of Falconridge.”
“Aha, particular friend, eh? Interesting.” Prinny furrowed his brow, studying him. “Falconridge. I know that name.”
“Your Royal Highness.” Jordan bowed low to him.
“Come closer.” He beckoned with a chubby jeweled hand. “Your face is familiar, too. Foreign Office, what?”
“Yes, sir.” Surprised that he remembered, Jordan raised his gaze to the Regent’s and sent him a meaningful look, enough of a subtle warning, he hoped, for his current sovereign not to blow the cover of one of his own spies.
“Right! Well, then. Excellent.” He returned his attention to Mara, eyeing her curiously about her bringing him along as her companion.
Actually, Jordan had met the Regent in at least one reception line at court and at Society events over the years, but he had always stayed in the background, never one to put himself forward with the royals. He had always feared he might give in to the temptation of an ill-advised witticism on the prince’s spendthrift ways. Instead, he had opted to bite his tongue and mind his manners, and had thereby no doubt convinced the pleasure-loving prince that he was a very dull fellow, indeed.
Now that he had been ordered to join the Carlton House set to monitor the Duke of Holyfield, Jordan was prepared to exert himself more to come across as a convivial chap.
Indeed, Max had warned him that he would have to act like an insolent prick to be accepted into the Regent’s haughty set. Prinny liked his male friends rich, handsome, well dressed, and decidedly eccentric. Most were highborn; but there were a few colorful commoners, as well, dashing military types and the occasional artist on hand for variety’s sake. Jordan bided his time, studying the situation.
“So, now, my dear girl, what’s that you’ve got there?” the Regent inquired, nodding at the present with a barely concealed excitement like a child’s.
“For you!” she answered cheerfully.
“No! You shouldn’t have,” he exclaimed.
“Of course I should! In honor of Princess Charlotte’s engagement.”
He bent and kissed her cheek. “You are too good to me.” Then he gestured toward some nearby chairs. “Sit, please, both of you.”
“Will you open it now? I can’t wait for you to see it!”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he jested, taking a seat across from them. He moved with considerable elegance for so large a man.
Jordan brought the present to him, then backed away again respectfully. “You really are too thoughtful, Mara,” he murmured as he untied the bow.
“You know how much you mean to me and to Thomas.”
Brushing aside the blue silk, he lifted the painting reverently out of his swaddling with a wordless exclamation of delight. He turned to her with childlike amazement. “A treasure! Mara! A Gerrit Dou! It is astounding.”
“Oh, do you really like it?”
“I adore it!” He held the painting up, examining it. “Glorious! Look at the shading here. The way he has the light hitting her at an angle. Such a mood he evokes! She looks like she could step right out of the painting and sit down with us here, she’s so alive.”
“I daresay we might find her a trifle grouchy if she did that,” Jordan commented, unasked.
The Regent looked askance at him. “But at least the expression in her eyes is real.” He gazed again at the painting. “One grows so sick of artificial smiles.”
Mara cast her royal friend a tender glance of knowing sympathy, but the look the prince sent Jordan was a veiled warning. You might be on our side, but you watch your step with her.
Jordan absorbed this, slightly startled. Perhaps the portly fellow was a bit cleverer than he was rumored to be. It seemed His Royal Highness had already realized there was more to Jordan’s accompanying Mara here than was apparent to the eye.
Fortunately, just as Max had predicted, the Regent asked no questions but turned his attention back to this newest prize for his collection. “I must have this hung at once where I can see it constantly. And it will always remind me of you, darling creature.” He kissed her on the cheek.
“I am so glad you are pleased.”
“Entirely. Is it not a fine painting, Falconridge?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“So.” The Regent’s attention now focused in on him. “What is your business with this lady, anyway?” he asked, blunt and breezy.
“Lady Pierson and I were first introduced many years ago, sir. Now that I am back from my post on the Continent, we have been enjoying…renewing our acquaintance.”
Mara smiled at him, blushing slightly.
“I see,” the Regent murmured, narrowing his eyes slightly. “Is he treating you well, my dear?”
“Very.”
“Good. Take care that you do not cause this precious lady any unhappiness, my lord, or you may find yourself appointed the ambassador to some very remote and unpleasant location. You mark me, Falconridge?”
“Yes, sir, perfectly,” Jordan answered, joining them in mild laughter though he got the feeling the Regent spoke not entirely in jest.
“You are very gallant, I’m sure,” Mara teased the Regent, “but don’t worry. I can take care of myself when it comes to him.”
“You let me know if he gives you any trouble.”
Jordan managed a taut smile. “I’m beginning to sympathize with Prince Leopold.”
“At least you don’t have to answer fifty questions from the Cabinet,” Prinny said dryly.
“For Lady Pierson, I would be honored to endure the trial by fire.”
“Ah, a good answer.” The Regent nodded in approval.
“I daresay!” Mara took Jordan’s arm.
Just then, the door burst open; they turned to see another renowned dandy striding in eagerly.
“Yarmouth!” Mara greeted him in surprise.
“Lady Pierson! Has he opened it?”
“I have,” the Regent answered with a chuckle.
“Were you dumbfounded? I’m the one who helped her pick it out! Give credit where credit is due!”
“He does make a very skilled art agent, our Lord Yarmouth.” Mara chuckled.
“Always happy to help, my dear. Especially when it gives me an excuse to pursue one of my many passions.” The new arrival eyed Mara in a way that made Jordan bristle slightly. Lud, does this one have designs on her as well?
Jordan knew from his title that Lord Yarmouth was the heir to the Hertford marquisate, and he had heard that he was probably Prinny’s closest confidante. About age forty, the balding Yarmouth had a sly, lascivious air about him, perhaps a hint of decadence that he deliberately played up.
But apparentl
y, this man, too, had an eye for beauty.
He regarded Jordan a tad suspiciously. “Who have you brought with you today, my dear?”
“This is the Earl of Falconridge. Jordan, Lord Yarmouth. The Marquess of Hertford’s heir.”
Jordan sketched a bow. “A pleasure, sir.”
“Falconridge.” Yarmouth furrowed his brow and tilted his head upward, scrutinizing him as only a dandy of the Regent’s set could do. “Friend of Rotherstone’s, aren’t you?”
“We are club mates at Dante House, yes.”
“Right.” His sly smile grew approvingly. “The Inferno Club.”
“Right,” Jordan answered in kind.
“Oh, George, I meant to tell you—” Yarmouth said with a sudden snap of his fingers. “Rotherstone won’t be playing cards with us next week. I’m not sure he’ll be back.”
“What, did we scare him away?”
“His new bride won’t allow it. Play’s too deep.”
“Damn me!” The Regent slapped his thigh in astonishment.
Mara lifted her eyebrows.
“Forgive my language, Lady Pierson. It’s just we’re down a player now. Lud, I never would’ve taken Rotherstone for the henpecked sort. Falconridge,” he ordered abruptly, sending him a keen look, “you will take his place at Watier’s this week.”
“Sir?”
“Watier’s Club. The upper room. Wednesday night. We start at nine o’clock. You are free?”
It was not really a question. Jordan bowed. “Of course, sir. It would be an honor.”
“Now, wait a moment,” Mara protested. “Lord Falconridge is not the gambling sort!”
“Perfect!” Yarmouth grinned from ear to ear. “All the more reason to invite him, then. No head for cards, eh? Pity. No matter, you’ll learn as you go on.”
Mara huffed, holding on to him as she might have done to Thomas, but Jordan laughed at her attempt to shield him from the card sharps. “I can hold my own, Lady Pierson.”
“But will you still be solvent by the time they’re through with you? Oh, bother! Come along, my lord. I’m getting Lord Falconridge out of here before he begins to suspect I only lured him here to become your prey at the gaming tables.”
The Regent and his boon companion laughed, but Mara and Jordan soon made their farewells and withdrew. She slipped her wrist into the crook of his elbow as they left the palace, returning to her coach.
Damn, he thought, that went better than expected.
The Regent apparently had a brain in his head after all.
As Jordan handed Mara up, he savored the light grace of her motion, stepping up into the coach and settling into the seat, all lace and pale muslin flounces.
He followed her in, taking the seat across from her; her groom closed the door, and immediately, Mara grinned at him, her dark eyes sparkling merrily. “So? What did you think of our Prinny? I’m dying to know.”
He laughed softly as the carriage pulled away from Carlton House. “I think he liked the painting very much.”
“Oh, come, you know that’s not what I’m asking!”
“You want gossip out of me, is that it?”
“Of course!” she cried.
“But I don’t approve of gossip, Lady Pierson.”
“Hang your righteous airs, my lord Inferno Club! Now you must tell me what was going through your mind when you met him. I saw your face and would have given anything to know what you were thinking.”
“Very well,” he answered, laughing. “I was thinking that…well, how shall I say? Anyone who believes that you are sleeping with that man is a fool.”
“Why, because he’s portly?”
“No! Because he’s not your type at all.”
She grinned. “Pray, what is my type?”
“I am, of course.” He stared straight into her eyes with a flirtatious smile that left her to interpret his reply as she preferred, either in jest or in earnest. But then he shook his head. “The Regent looks on you with a merely paternal eye. Which is fitting, since he is old enough to be your father.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“But I can see why you enjoy his company. He seems a capital fellow,” Jordan concluded. Much to my surprise.
Quicker-witted than he had expected, to be sure.
Mara raised an eyebrow. “I can’t believe they asked you to play cards with them. Please be careful. They play for ruinous stakes at Watier’s.”
“I’ve heard. Ah, don’t worry. Once in a while such sport cannot be too damaging to a man’s fortune—or his character.”
“I suppose. But if it becomes a habit, our masquerade as lovers is through. A lady has her standards, after all!”
“No, anything but that! I will obey you, on my honor.”
She smiled back at him.
At length, she glanced out the window and watched the streets rolling by. “I can see why you wanted to do something useful with your life,” she mused aloud. “So many of them squander their best years in gaming hells and hideous bordellos. But that is how they seek excitement.” She shrugged. “They brag about gambling themselves to the brink of total ruin and fighting their way back to solvency, as if they’d done something heroic. It will not end well for some of them, I fear. My late husband fit right in with them, and look at what happened to him.”
“What did happen to him, exactly? If you don’t mind my asking.”
She shrugged and lowered her gaze, her expression darkening. “He was out late one night getting up to his usual antics with ‘the lads.’ On his way home in the wee hours of the morning, something spooked his horse and he was thrown. His neck was broken. He died in the street like a dog hit by a carriage…Alone, in the middle of the night. Probably too foxed to comprehend what had just happened to him, in those final moments.”
Her blunt retelling of her husband’s ghastly end rather chilled him—such a grim tale from such lovely lips.
“I am sorry. Truly. For both you and Thomas.”
She gave him a dubious look. “Thank you.”
“Do you ever miss him?” he asked softly.
Mara sighed, staring straight ahead in silence.
He took that for a no.
She sent him a guarded look askance that seemed to ask, Does that makes me awful?
Jordan gave her a gentle smile of regret, hating himself for whatever she had suffered being married to Pierson.
When Jack angled her carriage into the mews behind the terraced crescent, Mara turned to him. “Would you like to come in?”
“Unless you’re bored of me.”
“Don’t be silly, I can’t get enough of you.”
He lifted an eyebrow, delighted by this flash of the coquette he had once known, tucked deep down inside the respectable viscountess, but still there. A playful smile curved her plump, tempting lips. “Come along,” she ordered, then flounced prettily out of the coach.
As soon as they went in, Thomas came running, and the elegant court lady instantly turned back into the doting mama. She threw her arms open and bent down to catch her child up in her embrace. The boy was perched on her hip before she had even taken off her gloves. “Come, gentlemen, let us repair to the parlor. Mrs. Busby, would you go and tell Cook to fix us some refreshments?”
“Aye, ma’am.” The old woman smiled at Jordan and bobbed a curtsy before hurrying off to her task.
“Ah, what are you building today, my little architect?” Mara asked as she set Thomas down amid his toy blocks scattered across the Persian carpet.
Jordan spoke several languages, but he could not decipher the tot’s chirpy reply. As Thomas plopped himself down on the floor and began building again, Mara drew off her gloves, then gestured to Jordan to sit and make himself comfortable. “I’ll be right back.”
Taking off her bonnet, she went into the adjoining foyer to put away her hat and gloves, wrap and reticule. In the brief moment that she disappeared from view, Thomas turned and stared at Jordan; he raised an inquiring eyebrow and sm
iled at the tot, in turn.
The boy suddenly held up one of his blocks and babbled again, asking another not-quite-coherent question.
Jordan furrowed his brow as he searched the child’s big, brown eyes, then he suddenly got it. “Oh! Right! I’d be honored to join you, Lord Pierson. I was a pretty fair builder of blocks in my day, I’ll have you know.” He took off his dress coat and settled onto the floor beside the urchin. “Now, then. Let’s see what we’ve got here…”
Thomas stared at him in wonder and uncertainty as Jordan proceeded to build a small tower of blocks. When it was complete, he gave Thomas a smile and pointed to it. “Now comes the best part. Do you want to knock it over?”
Thomas toddled closer to the little tower, then leaned down and swatted it with a tiny hand. The blocks went flying, and the boy laughed uproariously.
Jordan laughed with him. “Your turn, now! Let’s see how high you can build it.” He pointed to the blocks, and Thomas got right to work with a serious air of industry.
Jordan was tickled by the boy’s great focus on the task, when he suddenly noticed Mara standing in the doorway, watching them both with a dewy-eyed look.
She came in with a slight blush after having been caught staring. He held her gaze warmly as she fluffed her skirts and joined them on the floor.
Jordan found his own feelings in that moment curious. He savored an unexpected sense of home. But it was fleeting, interrupted by a loud knock at the front door, audible from the adjoining foyer.
Her butler, Reese, strode to answer, but the moment he opened the door, Delilah burst in with an anguished air of drama.
“Mara—darling!” she said with a theatrical sob, peering anxiously toward the staircase where the drawing room was situated.
Mara blanched, meeting Jordan’s gaze as he arched a brow, but she quickly rose to her feet, hurrying out to meet her crying friend.
“I’m here! Delilah, sweeting, whatever is wrong?”
“Oh, Mara—it’s Cole! I despise him!”
Jordan looked ruefully at Thomas. “Women,” he whispered, man-to-man.
