Friend? Georgette did not feel friendly toward him exactly. She felt…jittery inside toward him.
How did one categorize that?
Nathaniel made an attempt to engage her father in conversation about whether the Prince of Wales could be kept from mucking up the foreign policy the prime minister espoused, and the ensuing discussion carried them through the next three courses. Georgette was beginning to feel her family was almost normal.
“Oh, Georgette, did I mention I’ve sent word to your dancing master? Mr. Gooch will be here tomorrow at ten,” her mother announced as the treacle arrived for dessert.
“I hardly think that’s necessary,” Georgette said. “I’ve been dancing for years.”
“Yes, but you’ll want to put your best foot forward for the royal duke,” her mother said. “We certainly wouldn’t want a repeat of the debacle last Season at Almack’s.”
“That was not my fault.”
Georgette’s ears burned with embarrassment. There was every chance that Nathaniel hadn’t heard about the incident. How like her mother to make sure he did.
“Then whose fault was it, dear?” Lady Yorkingham asked with deceptive sweetness.
“Lady Bracegirdle’s, of course,” Georgette said through clenched teeth. “If she hadn’t worn that ridiculous turban with the ostrich plume, none of it would have happened.”
Georgette had watched in horrified fascination as the offending headdress came near to annihilation each time Lady Bracegirdle passed one of the lit candles in the wall sconces.
“I’ll concede that Lady Bracegirdle provided a distraction, but no one forced you not to attend to your dance partner,” her mother reminded her.
“If I was distracted, it was with good reason.” Georgette pushed the treacle aside. She couldn’t bear another bite of its cloying sugariness. “What if Lady Bracegirdle’s turban had suddenly gone up in flames? We’d have had only seconds to save her, though I warrant her silly turban would have been a total loss.”
“But that never happened, dear. There was no fire.” Lady Yorkingham turned her attention to Nathaniel. “Here’s what really happened instead. Georgette took a disastrously wrong turn, stumbled into Sir Isaac Kiddick, who I’m sorry to say had imbibed a bit too much before arriving but had somehow made it past the guard. After Sir Isaac lost his footing, the entire line in the country dance went down like dominoes.” Her mother pressed her napkin to her forehead. “It was most embarrassing for me.”
For her? “Let me assure you, it was no lark in the woods for me either, Mother.”
“Georgette, show some respect,” came her father’s voice from the shadowy end of the table. “Your mother is only trying to help.”
“She’s trying to help me into Bedlam.” Georgette narrowly resisted the urge to bang her forehead on the snowy linen.
“My one consolation is that because Sir Isaac had a distinct whiff of spirits about him, he was blamed for the mishap,” her mother said. “But I saw what actually happened and so did half a dozen other matrons. You have no idea the interminable favors that have been called in to insure they keep that little secret.”
Georgette was quietly livid over the rehashing of the disaster. At the same time, her chest ached at her mother’s disappointment in her. If she became royal, would all the times she let her mother down be forgotten?
It might make the match with the Duke of Cambridge worth the effort.
“At any rate, we can’t allow a reprise,” Lady Yorkingham said. “I simply will not endure another humiliation like that. You’ll practice with Mr. Gooch until you can dance a cotillion in your sleep.”
Something wilted inside Georgette at her mother’s words. This match meant the world to Lady Yorkingham. She’d been throwing all her resources, all her hopes behind making Georgette a prime candidate for the royal duke.
Perhaps if Georgette wed Cambridge, her mother would finally forgive her for living when Anne did not.
Suddenly the dining room seemed to have run out of air.
“May I be excused?” Georgette murmured. Then she rose and fled from the room without waiting for an answer.
***
“Her ladyship’s on a proper tear and no mistake,” Reuben Darling announced to the staff who’d gathered in the servants’ common room below stairs in Yorkingham House.
The Family’s supper had all been cleared away and his time was finally his own till breakfast. He settled into a shabby Sheraton chair that at one time had graced the very proper parlor on the ground floor. The stuffing in the seat was a little lumpy, but it was positioned so he could look his fill at Mercy, who had claimed the rocker in the corner.
“What’s the marchioness done now?” Mercy barely looked up from the stocking she was darning by the light of a beef tallow candle.
“Her ladyship has called Mr. Gooch to come back. He’ll be here on the morrow.”
“No!” Cook said. “The man’s insufferable. Thinks he’s master of everything, not just dancing. Do you know he actually had the gall to suggest what he called ‘improvements’ to my mince pie receipt?”
There were gasps throughout the room. Not even Mr. Rigsby, the butler who was still quietly feuding with Cook over the bust of Purcell incident, could defend Mr. Gooch over that.
“Lady Georgette left the supper table in tears, I tell you,” Reuben reported.
“I didn’t see that,” Mr. Rigsby said.
“You was in the pantry seeing to the after-dinner coffee when it happened,” Reuben explained to the man who was nominally his superior.
Of course, they all bowed to Mr. Humphrey, the house steward. He ruled as lord in all but name of the below-stairs folk.
Mr. Humphrey laid aside his paper and leaned forward in his chair. “Where is Lady Georgette now? If she’s left the supper table, Miss Atwood, ought you not to check on her?”
“If she needs me, I expect she’ll ring,” Mercy said with a shrug. “My lady isn’t so much a dainty doily as ye might think. There’s a bit of toughness about her a body would never suspect.”
Reuben was sure there was a bit of softness about Mercy too, but she hid it exceedingly well. He still wanted the chance to find it.
He’d certainly enjoy the search.
“It’s terrible that Gooch is coming back and all,” Mr. Rigsby said. “But I can’t see that there’s anything we can do about it.”
Reuben settled back into the Sheraton chair, leaned back, and laced his fingers behind his head. “I’m thinking we won’t have to. Lord Nathaniel will likely do something about it for us. You should have seen the way he hotfooted it out of the dining room after Lady Georgette.”
Mercy’s brows arched at that. “Did he now?”
“That he did, and once they was outside the door in the main hall, I happened to overhear—not that I was trying to, mind”—Reuben directed this aside to Mr. Humphrey, who was adamant that the help not eavesdrop on the Family they served—“that the pair of them was off to the ballroom so’s as Lady Georgette could practice with a partner a bit afore His Nibs Mr. Gooch returned on the morrow.”
Mr. Humphrey frowned at this news. “The two of them? Alone?”
“Likely,” Reuben said. “Lord and Lady Yorkingham both retired to their own chambers after that.”
The steward cleared his throat loudly. “Miss Atwood, take Mr. Darling and make for the ballroom to see that Lady Georgette is all right.”
“Why, Mr. Humphrey,” Mercy said, casting him a sly smile. She reminded Reuben of a tabby toying with a mouse she fully intended to have for dinner. “Are you suggesting we spy on a member of the Family?”
“No, of course not.” His jowls shook like an indignant bulldog. “I’m suggesting you protect a member of the Family. I don’t need to remind all of you how important the match between the daughter of the House and the Duke of Cambridge is to Lord Yorkingham. Indeed, to us all. Nothing may be allowed to jeopardize that.”
“But Lord Nathaniel don’t mean her no ha
rm. Didn’t he drag her out of that Covent Garden mess? All Lord Nathaniel’s doing is helping her with her dancing,” Reuben objected. “Seems to me that’s to the good, ain’t it?”
A look of understanding passed between Mercy and the steward. Mercy gave an almost imperceptible nod, but Reuben was still in the dark. She quickly folded up her darning and stashed it in her sewing basket.
“Mr. Humphrey is right. Come with me, Mr. Darling.” She crooked her finger at him as she sashayed out of the common room and up the back staircase. “Time for you to make your pretty self useful.”
Eleven
“Beau-ti-ful-four! There-you-go-four,” Nate called out as he and Georgette moved through the intricate steps. Simple counting had become boring in short order, and after his particularly untuneful attempt at humming an appropriate melody in common time, he’d settled on rhythmic encouragement to keep their steps synchronized.
It had the added benefit of making Georgette laugh at intervals. Her nose was still a little red from her earlier tears, but her eyes were brighter now. Nathaniel had never been tempted to hit a woman before, but if he were Lord Yorkingham, he’d have taken his wife over his knee and paddled her bum before he let her crush his daughter’s spirit as Lady Yorkingham had crushed Georgette’s at the dining table.
“One-more-turn-four,” Georgette said, giving him a bit of a break as the set of figures came to a close and she settled into a deep curtsy. “Now-we’re-done-four.”
“Done for? Oh, I hope not.”
She laughed and the joyful sound broke over his heart like a sunrise. Then her expression turned serious.
“This helps tremendously. Now I’ll be able to face Mr. Gooch tomorrow. Thank you, Nathaniel.”
“My pleasure, milady.” He swept an old-fashioned bow. “Now, enough country dances. Do you know how to waltz?”
Her eyes went round. “Of course not. I’ve never even seen it danced, but I’ve heard it’s positively indecent.”
He silently conceded the point. The waltz made a man and a woman move in tandem, their bodies as close as the man dared and the woman allowed. There was no doubt about it. There was something undeniably sensual about dipping and turning together to a languid three-quarter-time melody.
“Indecent or not, the Prince Regent is mad about the waltz,” Nathaniel said. “He introduced it to his court over a year ago.”
“I read the notices at the time.” She tucked a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. “‘Obscene’ was one of the nicer things the Times had to say about it.”
“The press will come around so long as the dance remains a favorite at court. They always do. In the end, the royals can do no wrong.”
As opposed to me, he thought wryly.
“Imagine how pleased your mother will be when you surprise her and the Duke of Cambridge with a waltz,” he said.
Her worried frown was back.
Nate despised himself for stooping to that level of extortion, but he wanted so desperately to hold her, it was beginning to border on a sickness. She’d been skittish around him since he took those liberties in the hackney. Teaching her the waltz was the only way he could be sure she’d allow him to touch her again.
Finally, she sighed. “Very well. Teach me.”
***
Reuben knew the rich were different. It was more than the cut of their clothes or their fancy educated talk. Everything they did seemed to shimmer with elegance. Like the way Lady Georgette and Lord Nathaniel were moving together around the room, for instance. Every step in time bespoke quality.
Even though the dance did look a bit like doin’ the unmentionable deed with their clothes on. Still, if the nobility did it, it must be all right.
“I never seen that dance before,” he whispered to Mercy. The pair of them had sneaked up to the little balcony usually reserved for the string quartet that played when Yorkingham House hosted a ball or soirée. The curtained balcony offered a perfect spot to watch the couple below with no danger of being caught hovering near the open doorways.
“It’s the waltz,” Mercy whispered. “But they’re doing it a good bit slower than usual.”
With each pass around the room, the space between Lady Georgette and the gentleman shrank until Reuben could see no daylight between them at all.
“Is he holding my lady a good bit closer than he ought as well?”
Mercy nodded, holding a slim finger over his lips to shush him.
“Thought so,” Reuben said, bending so he could whisper into Mercy’s little shell of an ear. He decided the need to keep quiet was a good thing if it meant she let him put his lips so close to her tender earlobe. “Should we stop them?”
She shrugged. “It’s just a dance. Her ladyship’s not complaining.”
Judging from the soft, doe-eyed expression on Lady Georgette’s face, she wasn’t likely to complain in the near future either.
Reuben and Mercy watched in silence for a few more minutes. The light scent of violets with a musky undertone teased Reuben’s nostrils.
“Have you been into milady’s perfume?”
Mercy’s gaze jerked toward him at that. If she’d been a cat, her back would have been fully arched. “She knows about it. She told me to help myself, so she did. Don’t ye be thinkin’ I’ve got sticky fingers.”
“I wouldn’t think that,” Reuben said. “I was only thinking how nice you smell.”
“Oh.” The cat’s back settled a bit. Mercy turned away to peer down at the dancers. “Thank you, Reuben,” she whispered. “Er, you smell nice too.”
“Me? I don’t wear no scent.”
Something inside him leaped up in joy. It was the first time she’d ever called him by his Christian name. He was usually “Mr. Darling” to her.
Unless it was “lummock” or “moron” or some other nickname that folks might consider an insult. He knew she was teasing when she did that.
He hoped she was teasing.
One of her shoulders lifted in a little shrug. “Must just be you I’m smelling, then.”
As they stood there side by side, he was achingly aware that her hand was brushing against his. Not so close as to be considered actually touching, but near enough to tease the dusting of hair on the back of his hand. He bit the inside of his cheek to contain himself.
Then Mercy nearly surprised the breeches off him. She slipped her fingers into his hand.
“Ye know what they say about dancing, don’t ye?” she whispered without looking at him.
He shook his head, then realized she couldn’t have seen that gesture since she was still peering through the slit in the thick velvet curtains. “What do they say?”
She slanted a sly gaze at him. “That it’s all about using music as an excuse so folk can do upright what they’re thinking about doin’ lying down.”
Lying down? Reuben swallowed hard. All his muscles tensed up hard, too. Yes, indeed, hard described him just about everywhere.
Mercy looked up at him, her eyes enormous in the dimness. “I haven’t danced with a man in a while.” She ran her little tongue over her bottom lip. “A long while.”
Reuben’s groin ached as he slipped a hand along the curve of her waist. “I don’t see as how we could do a reel here in this little space, but I collect we might manage that waltz thing if we take really small steps.”
Mercy made a low growl in the back of her throat. Then she dragged him out of the curtained balcony and into the narrow hall used only by the help. She didn’t stop there, pulling him behind her toward the back stairs.
“What about milady?” he asked.
“Milady’s fine. She’s a big girl,” Mercy said. “She can certainly manage a gentleman like Lord Nathaniel or I’m much mistook.”
Instead of heading down to the common room below stairs, Mercy began climbing the steps.
“We’re not going back to join the others?” Reuben asked.
“No.”
“Then where are we going?”
She stoppe
d on the step above him, turned around, and cupped his cheeks with both hands. Then she kissed him, right on the mouth.
It was hard and quick, a resounding bass drum bang of a kiss. It reverberated through him, clear to the soles of his feet.
“Ye’re a fine figure of a man, Reuben Darling, and we’re going to my room,” she said simply. “Now don’t ye say another word. Or I might just change my mind.”
Reuben clamped his lips shut and purposed in his heart not to utter another sound, if his hope of heaven depended upon it.
He suspected it truly did.
Twelve
The room swirled around Georgette in a soft blur. Nathaniel tried manfully to hum, but he was as poor at staying in the same key as she was at playing the pianoforte.
It didn’t matter. It seemed she could almost hear the tune he was attempting to hum played instead on shimmering strings.
The gentle swish of her skirts. The warm glide of muscles moving together. The heat of Nathaniel’s gaze as he looked down at her.
Georgette was no longer capable of coherent thought. All she could do was register impressions in disjointed images of the ballroom and their place in it. Her body was flush against Nathaniel’s as they turned and dipped in perfect concert.
She was born to waltz with this man.
And it didn’t feel at all lewd. It felt natural. Meant to be, somehow.
Wonderful.
Then the tempo slowed and Nathaniel raised her hand to signal a final underarm turn. She twirled slowly back into a close hold position as they came to a stop. Her skirts continued to turn for a moment, brushing against her pantalets in a silk-on-silk caress. Then the fabric swirled back into the stately column her modiste had meant for it to resemble.
Nathaniel didn’t move. He simply went on holding her with one arm around her waist and the other sheltering her hand against his chest. When he looked down at her, his gaze was strangely hungry. As if he’d like to start nibbling on her around the edges and not stop until he’d consumed her entirely.
Connie Mason & Mia Marlowe - [Royal Rakes 02] Page 8
