“It was Papa’s life that was threatened.”
“So! Eet is long ago, now.”
“Yes. Mama?”
“Mais, oui?”
“Daisy is his granddaughter.”
“The Raven’s?”
“The very same.”
There was a long silence. Armand swallowed and felt his chest tighten in sudden concern. Surely his mama would not object . . . ?
A tinkle of infectious laughter lightened the tension. “So! Eet comes a full circle. Your father shall see the ’umor.”
“I hope so, Mama, I hope so. Tonight I shall ride off into the sunset with my bride, and you shall see how well I have chosen.”
“You shall ride with your back to the sun, cheri. You are traveling east to Westenbury.”
“Mama!” Armand sounded genuinely shocked. “How can you be so prosaic! I have a good mind not to include you in this escapade at all.”
At which, the incorrigible Countess Westenbury rolled her eyes in the most uncountesslike of fashions, and called for her smelling salts.
“Lord Rochester. What a singular surprise! I knew your mother. Chirpy little thing. Might have married her myself, but for a silly scandal and a temptingly pretty widgeon called . . . good grief, I forget her name, but she is the Countess of Westenbury now.”
Lord Rochester had heard of the scandal, but he was too polite to refer to it. Instead, he withdrew a pinch of excellent snuff and offered the same to Lord Raven.
“No, by God, won’t touch the stuff unless I have mixed it myself. Now where was I? Oh, your dear mama. I trust she is still a beauty, though time must have wrought some damage. Even I am not as handsome as I once was.” He gave a bark of sudden laughter. “Your father cut me out neatly, I fear, though I blame it entirely on his tailor. If he hadn’t been wearing one of those dashed military style coats by Scott . . .” The earl sighed. “Your mother had eyes for no one else after that.”
Gareth refrained from mentioning how relieved he was that this was the case. Instead, he inclined his eyebrows, murmuring a polite “Really? I do not believe she ever mentioned the circumstance of your being acquainted.”
Raven gave a bark of slightly bitter laughter. “No, I don’t suppose she has. Probably took me for some doting old fool. I was much older than she was, you understand.”
Gareth thought he did, so his nod was perfunctory, for he did not wish to appear pitying.
The old man grunted. “Madeira?”
“Thanks.” Civilities accorded, his lordship took a seat by the window and inspected his elegantly manicured hands. Despite his credentials, he was suddenly strangely unsure of himself. Certainly, it was hard to begin, especially if Raven had already accorded the honor he was about to ask for to that trumped-up sprig Barrymore.
The earl regarded him closely. If there was a slight, mischievous smile behind his eagle eyes, Lord Rochester was too overset to notice it.
“I suspect you know why I am here.”
“No, I am intrigued. Doubtless you shall tell me.”
“I have come to offer for Miss Chartley. If she agrees to do me the honor of becoming my wife, I shall own myself the happiest of men.”
Lord Raven regarded him with sudden animation. Ha, if that wasn’t one for the pot! He had rather hoped for Barrymore, but had not raised his thoughts so high as a marquis. He schooled his hands to be still, for they were itching to rub together with glee. Instead, he rather mildly—for one of his temperament—inquired which Miss Chartley Lord Rochester referred to, for he assumed he must have some kind of preference in this matter.
“Oh!” Lord Rochester stared at him in some surprise. “Miss Primrose Chartley, of course.”
“No ‘of course’ about it, my boy. I have had suitors begging for all three on at least two occasions. One, how ever, had the unmitigated gall to tabulate which he desired in order of perceived merit.”
“But that is frightful!”
“Precisely.” Lord Raven watched the younger man in amusement. Secretly, he was as pleased as the punch Richmond brewed at his specification. He had caught Primmy—ever his favorite-a catch beyond even his hopes. But the bait, the bait! Surely Lord Rochester’s coffers were not so far depleted that they needed restoring from the ransom? But why else would he offer for Primrose? He hardly knew her! He decided to prod, a little. It was all part of his fun, after all.
“The happiest of men, eh? Doubtless you will be happier still if Primrose’s name was picked from out my tricorne.”
“Your tricorne, sir, is of no concern to me. Keep it upon your head, I beg. It is almost certainly of more use there.”
“What? What?” Lord Raven almost bellowed at this calm, rather mild reproof. Still, that was ever his way. Beneath the gruff exterior, his rather kind heart was rejoicing. If this young man could play fast and loose with his fortune, he didn’t need it. Lord Rochester, marvelously, unaccountably, was offering for Primrose out of sounder motives than he had feared.
Lord Rochester cut into his private thoughts. “You hear me, Raven! The wretched ransom—and yes, I call it that—is of more nuisance than consequence. Allow me Primrose, and I shall be satisfied with the real treasure.”
“You shall, shall you?” The gruff voice, in spite of itself, was more mellow.
“Oh, undoubtedly.”
“The minx! She said nothing of meeting you at all.”
The marquis felt a sudden stab of pain.
“Nothing at all?”
The earl, for the first time in forty years, actually grinned.
“Nothing at all. That means, my dear, glum-looking greenhorn, that in the contrary way of females, you have made a conquest. Shall I ask you how this came to pass?”
“I think not.” Lord Rochester’s lips twitched a little, though his voice remained pleasingly firm.
“Bother! I think it would make the most intriguing tale yet. Despite her calm exterior, Primrose has always struck me as a dark horse, rousable to passion.”
“Quite possibly, but it is a tale that I assure you, my lord, shall remain untold. I take it you are amenable to my offer, despite any or all prior claims?”
The Earl of Raven shrugged. It would not do to appear too eager.
“Suit yourself.”
“Oh, I shall, my lord. I shall. By the by, I have a missive here from my mother. How remiss of me not to have handed it to you earlier.”
“The marchioness? May I have it?” If the earl appeared a little eager, Rochester appeared not to notice. He rather pitied the old man, really, for there was nothing in the missive that was likely to bring hope to his cheeks or a sparkle to the heavy, black eyes.
He was wrong. His lordship ripped open the contents and snorted, a decided glimmer in his world-weary eyes.
“Ha!” He said. “Ha! So your mother thinks she can whisk away my granddaughters in the twinkle of an eyelash, does she? Well, there she is very much mistaken! Lily may be her goddaughter, but by god, blood is thicker than water any day! She shall not ‘sponsor’ them, if you please! As if the Chardey sisters need sponsoring! Why, their blood is all as blue as you please, their lineage unimpeachable, as granddaughters to the Earl of Raven!”
Rochester was gentle. “That may be so, sir, but they are still in need of chaperonage. Why, Primrose believes she is old enough to play that part! She as good as told me so!”
“Stuff and nonsense! Primmy is a diamond of the first water; she is not to be regarded as a miserable, maudlin, meddling old . . .”
“Ah”—Rochester’s eyes lit with sudden amusement—“I take it you do not hold chaperones in high regard?”
“No I do not! Crabby old spinsters! And if you have the impertinence, sir, of suggesting that my Primrose falls into that category, why, I shall . . . I shall . . .”
“Withdraw all consent?”
“Precisely. And stop smirking, sir! You are liable to choke! Though what in tarnation I should care . . . Good God, I feel another spasm coming on....” Lord Raven put old, gnarled h
ands to his chest. Alarmed, Gareth rang the bell hard and stepped forward. Lord Raven appeared short of breath, but recovered sufficiently to wave the younger man away irritably with his cane.
“I am not dead yet, Rochester, so you needn’t look so grim. And don’t think to slumguzzle me with your kindness merely because I apparently have a foot in the grave. There is fight in the Raven yet, and I give you fair warning.”
Brave words, but they failed to have the desired impact on his guest. Lord Rochester refused to continue the argument, despite various taunts from his host. Instead, he rather solicitously handed the earl some water—for which he was not thanked—and waited quietly for a manservant to arrive.
He took heart when Lord Raven revived sufficiently to remark that if Lady Rochester did take them on, she would best have her wits about her, for his granddaughters were nothing, if not hen-hearted, and would undoubtedly lead her a merry dance. By which Lord Rochester inferred that grudging consent had been given, and privately rejoiced.
Sadly, the marquis, though burning with sudden impatience, did not speak with Primrose that day, for by the time his singular interview with Raven was brought to a close, the sisters had left the house, headed, with just a groom and a footman, for Hookhams and the London Museum. He was not alone in his regret, for Lily, too, was sighing at this rather unexciting agenda. She wondered whether Barrymore had received the note she’d penned, and more importantly, what he would do about it. Surely, surely, he would not be so hard-hearted as to ignore it?
Perhaps she ought to have stayed at home in case he called. Better still, she ought really have sneaked out of the house and called up a hack. She had no patience with young ladies who sat around in hope when they could have been devising ingenious ways of shaping their own fate. True, she could be ruined, but oh, at such a very tender age, the specter of such a thing seemed too far away to contemplate. Besides, she had not imagined the blaze kindling in Lord Barrymore’s eye. She wanted nothing more than to kindle it again, detestable Raven’s Ransom or no.
She was still deliberating over her next rather uncir-cumspect course of action, should Lord Barrymore fail her, when her eyes alighted on a rather old-fashioned landau. Despite the fact that the wheels were not as well sprung as they might have been, the carriage was smart, all up to the rig with a fresh coat of paint. It drew to a halting stop some small way up Marlborough Street. None of the sisters hurried, for the chaise was unknown to them, but something in the bearing of the sole passenger sent delicious warning tingles up the youngest Miss Chartley’s spine.
Fourteen
“Good afternoon, ladies!”
“Good afternoon, my lord!” Primrose answered, for Lily, though a wreath of sudden smiles, was suddenly, uncustomarily, tongue-tied. My lord—for indeed, it was undoubtedly Lord Barrymore within—did not appear to notice. Rather, he grinned and politely remarked that the weather was crisp, for that time of year. At which both Primrose and Daisy agreed heartily.
Lily, however, was silent, for she was gazing quite shamelessly at the gentleman in the debonair morning coat of ruby red superfine. She appeared mesmerized by his epaulettes, which indeed were rather handsome, being trimmed in gold braid and adding a military style to his jaunty ensemble. Still, my lord could wish that the full force of her deep emerald eyes could be cast a little higher, perhaps, to match his own. In this wish he had to be patient, for Lily—ever resourceful even in tongue-tied crises such as these—was now scheming to consult him alone. She thus did not needlessly waste her energies on trifles like looking up. The amused, rather twinkling blue eyes that watched her were doomed to disappointment.
“Would it be daring, Miss Primrose, to offer to convey you all to wherever your destination might be?”
His gaze turned from Lily with reluctance and alighted, once again, upon the remaining sisters.
“I am afraid, so, my lord.” Her eyes stared at him levelly.
Daisy dug her parasol into the elder Miss Chartley’s ribs, but she need not have bothered. Dear Primmy was merely having fun at his lordship’s expense.
“It would be daring, sir, for I do not believe that your elegant chaise would house more than two extras at most, and we have five between us, counting Horsley our footman and Standish, the groom.”
Both men shuffled uncomfortably under the viscount’s sudden scrutiny.
“True, Miss Chartley! How very maladroit of me not to have perceived the problem instantly. Shall I send for a larger chaise?”
“On no accounts, my lord, for Daisy and I were merely stepping into Hookhams and that, as you can see, is not so very far at all.”
“Ah. And Miss Lily? Was she not going to select a book for herself?” My lord addressed himself very properly to the elder Miss Chartley, but it was clear by the direction of his smile that it was the younger Miss Chartley that maintained his interest. She answered, now, before Primrose could dream up a plausible reply.
“No, for I still have Evalina to get through and the heroine is so tedious it takes her pages to do anything!”
“How very inconsiderate! I am certain that if you were the heroine, your readers would not have the substance to make a similar complaint.”
“No, for I should not weep into my pillow and pray for miracles. I would take action upon the instant.”
“Like writing clandestinely to the hero and demanding immediate rescue?”
Lily shifted uncomfortably in her pastel walking boots of powder blue. She shot a glance at her sisters, but they seemed satisfyingly unaware of the innuendo that was passing between them. So, gathering her courage, she took a deep breath, and looked, at last, boldly into the handsome face.
He quirked an eyebrow that nearly caused her to choke. Pointedly, she ignored him, as she replied, with some emphasis, “Exactly like that, my lord.”
“Ah.”
He smiled noncommitally but Lily was not deceived. She no longer wondered whether he had received her note, or how to ask him in so public a place with the sharp ears of her sisters about her. They were dears, of course, but she knew she had been horribly naughty in demanding an assignation with the frivolous likes of Denver, Lord Barrymore. Especially when Grandfather had so expressly forbidden it. Primmy was bound to have scruples. Daisy, too, though her soft heart would feel earnestly for her. Better they knew nothing of it. Now, she waited for Barrymore’s next move. Not anxiously, for by the set of his shoulders he was bound to have thought up something. One did not have such delectably compelling shoulders if one was not a man of firm resolve. Lily, for all her youth, was determined about this.
“Shall you step into my carriage, then?”
“Said the spider to the fly?” Primrose’s tone was light, but the words were curt and interrogatory.
“With the groom up front, of course. Stanley, was it?”
“Standish. And that, of course, makes all perfectly acceptable.” Primrose allowed him a glimmer of a smile. My lord responded in kind, though he cursed poor Standish to the devil.
“Standish?”
The groom made an inarticulate gesture, being a man of fewer words than stable talents—and hoisted himself, pillionlike, upon Lord Barrymore’s finest beast. This was not nearly so fine as Lord Raven’s, being one of the few the viscount had not sold off to recoup his debts, but it was admirable nonetheless. Standish made a huffing murmur into his throat and subsided back into habitual silence.
“And now, Miss Lily?”
Lord Barrymore stared hard at his beloved. She gazed at him in trusting triumph and tried desperately to still the sudden beating of her heart. Surely a man brazen enough to whisk her out from under the elder Miss Chartleys’ noses must care? Or did he merely wish to privately—and decidedly—decline her rash offer of herself and the gamble that necessarily came with it? At either possibility, Mistress Chartley’s heart felt quite entitled to hammer ceaselessly in her chest, and did so with unrelenting vigor. As she climbed into the landau and waved her sisters away with an airy brush of
her satin-gloved hand, she could hardly hear herself think. She wondered whether her thoughts were as transparent to Lord Barrymore and she winced. Oh, if only he were not quite as debonair! Or quite as much in need of funds!
She was very quiet as the horses settled into a pattern and clip-clopped against the cobbles in a soothing, if rather monotonous rhythm. The viscount’s groomsman must have known his destination, for his lordship saw no need to issue any altered commands to the first postilion. Rather, he concentrated all his energy on not kissing the adorable Miss Lily full on the lips, an act he was perfectly certain she would approve, but one he was equally certain society would not. So he laid his cane upon his knees and settled for watching the breeze play havoc with her neat, rather elegantly turned chignon. Lily said nothing.
“Excellent weather, is it not?”
She peeped at him. Her eyes were wider than he remembered, and more green. Behind her, England was turning from cobble to lane. She scarcely noticed, for his voice was a luxurious tone she had not before encountered. Still, she was not the type of lady to agree without question to everything a gentleman—however personable—might say, so she turned her mind to the question and pulled her bonnet down hard.
“If you are partial to great gusts of wind and icy squalls, my lord.”
“Icy squalls? You exaggerate. But here, if you are cold, you may have my traveling rug.”
For the first time, Lily blushed. The rug was warm from his knees and the intoxicating thighs one tried so hard not to notice. Or at least to peep at without being observed. So annoying that Barrymore seemed to be a mind reader, for he obligingly revealed his legs, shockingly clad in buckskins that had not the shadow of a crease upon them, and stretched them—and himself—luxuriously, so she could see both the buckskins and the broad expanse of his impeccable chest.
When she blushed again, he merely chuckled and cocked his head annoyingly in her direction.
“Where are we going, my lord? Should we not be turning back?” The first question was asked idly, to turn his mind from his coxcomb thoughts. Also, to introduce a safe topic of conversation. It was about time, Lily thought, that she conversed. She would not like Lord Barrymore to think she was deficient in turning out a common phrase. The second question came rather more sharply, for she had just noticed, from the pastoral scenery, that they were well beyond the boundaries of fashionable London.
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