‘Innovation and progress in action then, my lord.’ She squeezed his arm and stared up at him coquettishly through her lashes, knowing a little harmless flirting would help grease the wheels further. ‘What a clever man you are, Lord Ackroyd, to see the future and to prepare for it in advance. I have always had a soft spot for a gentleman of vision who refuses to fit into the traditional mould. Your fiancée is a very lucky woman.’
Typically, he puffed out his chest like a peacock. ‘I like to think of myself as a visionary, Miss Brookes.’
‘I got that sense from you immediately, my lord.’ It was almost too easy. No challenge at all. She hadn’t intended on selling him one of Griff’s speculative and experimental designs, but when the opportunity presented itself out of the blue, as so often all the very best opportunities did, she decided to grab it by the horns. It might be precisely the push that was needed to allow the Philpot & Son Manufacturing Company to branch out in the way its brilliant son envisioned and give him the chance to build the sort of locomotive which made his dark eyes dance whenever he mentioned it.
‘You have a certain gravitas, my lord, which is rare and sadly lacking in most of the aristocratic young men I encounter in London...’ If he was already half sold on the back of a short chat over one dance, he would be eating out of her hand after a protracted and uninterrupted discussion while they took a slow turn around the garden. Because nothing was more appealing to a gentleman than a woman who found them fascinating. ‘What other revolutionary ideas do you and your clever fiancée have for your business?’
Who knew she was a born saleswoman as well as a soprano?
* * *
Griff jumped on top of the stone bench to see if he could spot her and growled into the silence when he didn’t. It was his own stupid fault she had gone missing. In trying to be magnanimous by giving her both the benefit of the doubt and a little more freedom seeing as they seemed to have reached a tentative accord, Charity had been gone, completely unchaperoned, for a good half an hour. As too had the besotted Ackroyd, which didn’t bode well when one considered he was the heir to an earldom, and she had a particular penchant for handsome men with titles.
That would teach him to let his guard down and her out of his sight! There was no telling what mischief the pair of them had got into in thirty minutes. Out here. In the dark. All alone. And he had faithfully promised her parents he would look after her and had, up until now, been doing a splendid job of it too!
As much as he dreaded stumbling across her kissing another man, a kiss was the least of his worries after so long a time when a kiss could easily have already morphed into more now—or much more if they lost their heads and threw all propriety out of the window. The more which didn’t bear thinking about, yet he did anyway. Torturing himself with the same erotic images of her which had peppered his dreams for weeks now. Only in these hideous scenarios, the scantily clad Charity was sighing in another man’s arms and not his.
Limbs entwined.
Bodies joined.
Writhing in ecstasy.
He didn’t fool himself she was a stranger to such sports either.
Despite his regrettable and overwhelming feelings for her which only seemed to get stronger the more time he spent with her, Griff had never harboured such rose-tinted illusions about the sort of woman Charity was. Only a few weeks ago, she had enjoyed a similar tryst in Lady Bulphan’s orangery with Lord Denby and had emerged looking unrepentant as well as thoroughly ravished. He had seen that with his own furious eyes at the time and he had read about countless other indiscretions in the gossip columns over the years, which she had always featured in with far more frequency than her older sisters ever had. But then Charity enjoyed rebellion and actively courted it, whereas Faith and Hope did not.
Categoric proof, he supposed, not that proof was needed, that with Charity there rarely was smoke without fire and that his stupid heart had chosen the worst possible woman to fall head over heels in love with. She wasn’t the sort to be constrained for all eternity to the rules of monogamy he would insist upon. Charity drew men like flies to a honey pot, had done since her first forays into society, and made no secret of the fact that she enjoyed their company. Expecting her to give all that up for him was as futile as contemplating them having a romantic relationship in the first place.
He wasn’t her wronged lover; he was her chaperon. He apparently needed to chant that inescapable fact like a mantra in the hope it talked some sense into his outraged heart.
He stalked further into the garden following the path in the vain hope she would have avoided the grass to save her expensive silk slippers. The silly embroidered concoctions had matched her daring blue evening gown which, he couldn’t help but notice, also brought out the deepest periwinkle in her eyes. He knew this because he had caught a flash of them alongside her shapely silk-covered ankle as he had helped her into the carriage to get here and just that had had the power to send every drop of blood he possessed flying to his groin.
How blasted typical that after seventeen long and confusing years he had to settle for her ankle when Ackroyd got to sample the rest of the tempting goods on offer after an acquaintance of less than two hours!
Also, and undeniably Griff’s own blasted fault too, as in a fit of uncharacteristic and unbrotherly madness he had almost asked her for that waltz himself. Even though he knew, and she certainly knew, that a waltz was tantamount to a declaration of intent. He had been so close to claiming it, he had even grabbed her dance card. Yet instead of writing on it, which ironically might have prevented her wandering off with her handsome lord in the first place, he had pretended to scrutinise the worthiness of her partners like any good chaperon would before half-heartedly doing the same to his sister’s.
What a blasted lovesick fool!
For the sake of his own sanity, all this nonsense needed to stop.
And it would! If he managed to survive these last two weeks before he deposited her back home and then ruthlessly washed his hands of it all before he combusted from unrequited lust.
As he turned to follow the gravel towards the dark silhouette of what appeared to be a sculpture garden, he heard her earthy giggle float upon the wind, confirming all of his worst fears. Like a man possessed he sprinted towards the sound bellowing her name.
‘Charity!’ As incensed and upset as he was by what his foolish heart refused to see as anything but her infidelity, he wasn’t masochistic enough to want to encounter her completely in flagrante delicto either. That would be sheer unmitigated torture. It was one thing knowing she wasn’t a stranger to passion, another entirely to have to see it enacted in graphic detail before his eyes. ‘Charity—where are you?’
‘I’m here.’ She had the gall to sound amused at his concern. ‘Alive and well and not the least bit dead, if that’s what you are afraid of.’ He skidded to a stop in a paved circle, braced to discover a scandal and instead found her sat primly on a bench opposite Lord Ackroyd. Aside from a few loose tendrils of golden hair which danced in the weak night air, she still appeared to be completely respectable.
Unless, of course, he had arrived too late and the misdeed was already done.
‘Poor Griff has been appointed my chaperon on this trip, at the express insistence of my father, and takes his responsibilities much too seriously.’ Then she smiled at him, an odd expression on her face as if she were trying to tell him something important.
Knowing her and her determination to rebel against him, that secret message was most probably go away.
‘I was just telling His Lordship about your steam engines, Griff.’ A likely story. ‘And what a talented and innovative inventor you have become. He is thinking of further mechanising Thirsk Mining and is particularly interested in the feasibility of installing a locomotive to move his coal uphill from the pit to the barges on the Tyne.’ It was obvious she was trying to distract him from the sordid truth by
navigating the subject towards one he preferred. Not that he was the least bit convinced by such a contrived tactic.
‘The carriage is outside waiting.’ Griff wasn’t in the mood to make small talk either. Not when it was as much as he could do to speak, albeit through extremely gritted teeth. ‘You have an early rehearsal first thing and a big day tomorrow.’
‘Evan won’t mind waiting a few more minutes. Come. Sit.’ She patted the space beside her on the bench. ‘I am sure Lord Ackroyd would much prefer to hear about Philpot & Son’s revolutionary ideas for transforming mining straight from the horse’s mouth rather than mine.’ She patted the bench again, her eyes imploring. ‘You have draft plans for a locomotive and rail system, do you not?’
‘I do.’ That would teach him for boring her for hours with his work. ‘But alas, I cannot spare the time tonight to explain all its myriad complexities.’ Not when spending any more time in Ackroyd’s company would likely result in Griff pummelling the opportunist seducer with his fists. ‘And neither can you, Charity. Dorothy is already in the carriage waiting and it wouldn’t be fair to delay Evan any longer and then expect him to be up again at the crack of dawn to get you to the theatre on time.’
He held out his hand, glaring, quite prepared to throw her over his shoulder and carry her back kicking and screaming like a marauding Viking if she refused to comply. ‘It is long past time to go when we expressly agreed midnight.’
‘But, Griff...’
‘I am afraid I must insist, Charity. It is almost one and I promised your father I would look after you and that includes seeing that you get enough sleep.’ He attempted a polite nod towards their host who was staring at Charity with obvious lust still in his eyes. ‘Thank you for this evening, my lord, and please excuse my over-zealousness to get my charge home, it has nothing to do with your excellent hospitality and everything to do with Miss Brookes’s final performance. In her wisdom and against my advice, she agreed at the last minute to do a matinee as well tomorrow, and she needs to rest in preparation.’
She gave him an odd look but took his hand, then turned to Lord Ackroyd. ‘Walk with us... I am sure Griff won’t mind imparting some of his wisdom while we are en route to the carriage. And do please forgive him for his current mood. For he is as overprotective as any brother could be.’
That pertinent and deliberate description of the parameters of their relationship really galled—as clear a sign as any that his foolish heart was still barking up the wrong tree and that his unhealthy feelings for her had to stop. They were eating him from the inside like a cancer, and as such, needed to be ruthlessly cut out.
‘He does take his promise to my father a little too literally sometimes—but to be fair to him, I suppose he is right. Tomorrow is a big day, and today has been a long one too. I would be short-changing the good people of York if tiredness got the better of me tomorrow.’ Then she pinched Griff hard on the arm as she threaded hers through it.
‘Griff, dearest, if you wouldn’t mind taking your chaperon’s hat off for a moment and donning your usual engineer’s cap instead, perhaps you could explain to Lord Ackroyd how long you estimate it would take to build a working locomotive from scratch...’
Chapter Nine
Opera’s rising new star, Miss Charity Brookes, left audiences in York begging for more when she finally waved goodbye to the north. She is rumoured to be expected back in Bloomsbury late next week. This news will, of course, delight her current crop of bewitched suitors, who will be eagerly awaiting their first glimpse of her in a month and, Gentle Reader, no doubt praying—beneath the sheer weight of their ostentatious welcoming bouquets—that the vivacious but fickle soprano remembers they ever existed at all...
Whispers from Behind the Fan
—June 1815
Charity had no clue what had caused the change, only that for some inexplicable reason, the camaraderie and easiness she had enjoyed with Griff only a few days ago was gone and she missed it. He was polite enough—she couldn’t fault him for that. And on the surface, to any onlooker, things would seem much the same. He had still been her rock for her final performance in York, ensuring that she was looked after and that her nerves stayed under control.
He had guarded her against unwanted attention and ensured her comfort in the inns he had carefully chosen since. He had even been pleasant, if uncharacteristically quiet company last night when they had dined at their final stopover on the way to Sheffield, and Dorothy was oblivious of the subtle change in him. Charity knew that because she had explicitly asked her, and her friend had laughed and said that she was imagining things. Griff was just being Griff, that was all, exactly as he always was.
Yet change he had, at least towards her.
He was distant all of a sudden and that wasn’t just her imagination. They no longer shared knowing looks or quiet moments, private confidences or even the open and teasing conversations which she had enjoyed so very much. Each time they found themselves alone, she could feel him retracting and sense his discomfort, until he found any excuse to extricate himself from the moment and from her. Even now, when Dorothy was plainly sleeping on the carriage bench beside her, he was doing his level best to pretend she didn’t exist—which was most odd when those intimate, honest, whispered moments had become the most delightful parts of their journey. Just him and her, and no pretence.
What had shifted?
‘Have you conquered the mysteries of your power loom?’ They were the first words she had spoken in almost an hour and he reacted with an impatient frown before he stifled it.
‘I think so.’ Straight away, his eyes returned to his drawing, as if he was eager to be back with it and resented the interruption.
‘Then if you have cracked it and it is no longer explosive, why does it still occupy you so?’
‘Because I still need to check all the calculations to be certain.’ And there it was again. That flash of annoyance which he couldn’t fully disguise, as if their relationship had regressed back to the way it had been before this month away, when he found her an irritant and she had chafed against his irritation as a point of principle. However, this time there was one stark difference in that familiar status quo. Before this trip, his standoffishness merely bothered her, now it hurt.
‘But you have some confidence the engine will not explode with your new modifications?’
He nodded curtly, his jaw clenched in irritation, not even bothering with the courtesy of as much as glancing her way. ‘Nothing is unfixable.’ Then he lapsed into silence again which continued for the next five minutes until she could stand it no more.
She wasn’t imagining it. She was certain now because the atmosphere in the carriage was tense, as well as silent, and that was all his doing too.
‘Are you going to tell me what I have done to infuriate you or am I doomed to spend the next week walking on eggshells and feeling uncomfortable in your presence?’ It was a fair question because that was how his sudden curt withdrawal felt.
She knew he was about to lie when he carefully composed his features before he glanced up from his work. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about, Charity.’
‘Of course, you do!’ The urge to snatch his precious diagram from him and tear it petulantly into confetti was overwhelming, but she wasn’t a frustrated child any more and he no longer enjoyed the gravitas which came from being the eldest. ‘You do this all the time and I am sick of it! For reasons best known to yourself, you have placed me in purgatory again, and we both know it. What egregious crime am I guilty of this time? For I know I haven’t broken anything precious to you or attempted to rebel against Gruff Griff’s pernickety rule of law. In fact, I will go one further and say that I have been the model travelling companion and exceedingly well behaved since Lincoln, so you cannot even level that charge against me.’
He huffed softly as he returned to his drawing. ‘Perhaps in your mind you have bee
n well behaved.’
‘Ha!’ She prodded his solid arm, forcing him to acknowledge her. ‘I knew I was guilty of some minuscule and inconsequential misdemeanour! Because your customary disapproval and all-round stodginess since York has been palpable!’
‘Keep your voice down, my sister is sleeping.’
If that dismissive statement hadn’t been patronising enough, he rolled his eyes so sanctimoniously, she had to suppress the urge to kick him hard in the shin. Instead, she settled for stamping her foot and managed to wake up Dorothy in the process regardless. Her friend squinted at them, disgruntled and bleary eyed, sensed the traditional battle lines had been redrawn and winced.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Your brother has developed some new and huge grudge against me, though heaven only knows what it is based upon this time as he prefers to fester in his own righteous indignation like a child rather than admit to it like an adult!’ If he could patronise, so could she. ‘He’s in one of his legendary sulks again!’
‘By that, Dottie, she means that she is having one of her legendary tantrums because I have had the audacity to be too busy with my job today to pay the great Charity Brookes, soprano extraordinaire, the uninterrupted, unadulterated attention she thinks she deserves!’
That accusation was petty and uncalled for. ‘How dare you level that at me when I have never behaved like that to anyone in my life!’
‘Griff!’ Even his sister was horrified. ‘That isn’t the least bit true. Apologise to Charity at once.’
‘Hasn’t she?’ Far from contrite, his dark eyes were stormy. ‘Then I suppose this entire trip hasn’t all been about you? That we haven’t all been dragged from pillar to post and left standing about and twiddling our thumbs in every godforsaken city on the Great North Road because of you either?’
How Not to Chaperon a Lady--A sexy, funny Regency romance Page 9
