How Not to Chaperon a Lady--A sexy, funny Regency romance

by Virginia Heath

  Yet another uncomfortable subject he would not be drawn on. ‘Your father put me in charge.’ And he’d likely never be able to look Augustus in the eye again after the liberties Griff had taken with his youngest daughter’s naked body. ‘Therefore, there was only so much of me that she could stomach before it all became too much.’

  Her sister grinned. ‘Don’t feel badly for it—none of us blame you for her rebellion. It was always going to end badly. My sister is a force of nature.’

  ‘She is indeed.’

  ‘But fair play to you for managing to keep her on the straight and narrow all the way through her tour though. Despite all the trials and tribulations she has undoubtedly put you through, I am glad that part went well and that her career is finally taking off. She deserves every bit of her success as nobody I know works harder or pushes herself more than Charity does.’

  ‘She does indeed.’ Her work ethic had been only one of many staggering revelations about the most vexing of the three Brookes sisters. Before their ill-fated trip, Griff had stupidly assumed singing wasn’t a job at all and that all Charity had to do was stand on a stage and open her mouth for the magic to emerge effortlessly from it.

  After a month glued to her side, he now understood what a challenge it all was. The hours of daily vocal exercises she did diligently each morning as soon as she arose, the endless rehearsals to get the sound of the music just right, the supreme talent of reading the audience to keep them entertained and the physical toll of performing for an hour straight without a break had made him realise that being a soprano wasn’t an easy thing at all. No matter how effortless she made it seem. Of their own accord, his eyes wandered to the dance floor and drank in the sight of her moving gracefully while he tried his best to ignore the other man she was dancing with. ‘She pays for every good review she receives with her blood, sweat and tears.’

  ‘Until she has no blood, sweat or tears left and she makes herself ill—as she has now.’

  His eyes snapped back to Hope concerned. ‘She’s ill?’

  ‘Been under the weather for weeks according to Lily. Exhaustion we suspect... Not that Charity will acknowledge it, of course. She denies there is anything wrong. But then she’d battle through pneumonia with nought but a tisane and a handkerchief rather than admit defeat. She is such a consummate and accomplished performer, her entire world could have fallen apart and she’d rather die than let anyone see it. She has more stubborn pride than anyone I know. Faith and I are both worried about her—not that she’ll listen to us either. Look at her...laughing and smiling as if she hasn’t a single care.’ Griff didn’t need to be asked twice. He would happily stare at her for ever if he could get away with it. ‘But doesn’t she look pale to you?’

  ‘Perhaps...’ She looked beautiful. She always looked beautiful to him. Even crying or windswept or under the weather, the sight of her always made his heart stutter. ‘If she is unwell and working too hard, someone needs to convince her to take some time off. They have to force her to rest or she won’t do it.’

  Hope threw her head back and laughed. ‘Did you learn nothing about my sister during your month away? She is too rebellious to be forced into anything and she certainly never rests.’

  ‘She did for me—and for three days too without any rebellion at all.’ Three idyllic days before he had ruined it all.

  Hope’s jaw hung slack, impressed. ‘Then if you know a way to get her to do anything she doesn’t want to, you must share it with us all at once, because she is as stubborn as a mule. Even if that stubbornness is to her detriment. So stubborn she makes me seem like the reasonable sister.’

  As concerned as he was, he had to scoff at that comment. ‘I wouldn’t go that far, Hope. You’ve certainly mellowed since you married, that much I will concede, but you are still quite terrifying when you lose your temper. I wouldn’t cross you.’

  She chuckled. They knew each other too well for her to take offence at his summary. ‘All right, I’ll grant you her brand of stubbornness is less confrontational than mine and she rebels with more affable diplomacy, but seriously, Griff, if you do know a way to make her slow down, we’d all appreciate it. She has been like a woman possessed since she returned from the north and works all the hours God sends, and now that she’s signed on to do another month of Figaro, I am scared she’ll end up more than a little under the weather and she’ll do herself real harm.’

  ‘I could try talking to her.’ A flimsy excuse to do so without raising undue suspicion, when he had come here tonight with that express intention anyway. ‘Not that I’ll expect she’ll want to listen to me after our...er...tiff.’ The necessary lie felt bitter on his tongue. ‘I am not exactly her favourite person at the moment.’ No indeed, he was her biggest mistake.

  ‘But it is worth a try if she’s listened to you in the past. She was so unwell before we came, Faith and I both cautioned her to stay at home. But you know Charity...’ He did. Intimately. ‘She’s doubtless here to prove to the world that she doesn’t give two figs about Denby’s marriage, even though his engagement broke her heart.’ More nails in the coffin of his futile dreams. ‘Not that she would admit to that either—but I can see it in her eyes. She is still devastated by the rejection. Utterly crushed. I think she thought he was the one...’

  ‘I’ll go talk to her now.’ If he refused to listen to the way she pined for Denby, then perhaps he could still pretend that he stood a cat’s chance in hell of replacing Denby in her affections even though he lacked the aristocratic credentials.

  And pigs might fly but he had to give it one last try.

  Armed with his flimsy excuse and without a backwards glance in case he lost his nerve, Griff stalked towards the dance floor, his shoulders steeled for battle and his foolish, battered, yearning heart in his mouth.

  Chapter Fourteen

  All eyes tonight, Dear Reader, will doubtless be on Miss C. from Bloomsbury, who is rumoured to be still devastated at being thwarted from becoming a duchess and is apparently on the keen lookout for a suitable and immediate replacement for Lord D....

  Whispers from Behind the Fan

  —August 1815

  ‘I believe this waltz is mine?’

  Lord Cranham bowed, and Charity forced herself to nod as she dipped into a wobbly curtsy. She no longer felt queasy, thank goodness, but she did feel strange and that wasn’t only because Griff was here. His sudden and unexpected reappearance, when Dorothy had assured her he intended to remain in Sheffield till Christmas had left her shaken, but the persistent stomach ailment she had picked up made her feel both weak and intermittently dizzy to boot.

  She knew Lily and her sisters were right and that she did need some time off to convalesce because willing this horrid malaise away certainly wasn’t working. If anything, in the last week it had only got worse and hiding the increasingly frequent bouts of vomiting from the eagle-eyed Lily was getting harder. As much as she had the maid’s loyalty, Lily’s fealty to her mother overruled everything else. While her mama might tolerate one of her daughters struggling valiantly though a mild cold with a stiff upper lip—because of course the show must always go on—she would order bed rest and physician for anything more.

  And this was more.

  Charity had never felt so ill in her life.

  ‘Might I be so bold to tell you how lovely you look, Miss Charity?’ Lord Cranham smiled as he took her hand and led her back to the floor, and that compliment buoyed her flagging confidence even though she had little interest in the young peer. That wasn’t his fault. He was pleasant enough, polite enough and had a pleasing enough face, he was also wealthy and destined to be an earl one day, but she felt no attraction for him whatsoever. As he slid his arm around her waist and curled his fingers around hers, she experienced none of the heady frisson or sense of anticipation which had always been there with Griff.

  Against her will, her gaze wandered to where he h
ad been across the ballroom. But instead of laughing beside Hope, her sister now in deep conversation with Dorothy and her new fiancé Captain Sinclair, the elusive Griff was nowhere to be seen. Which was probably just as well as looking at him still hurt. Almost eight weeks to the day since that hideous morning in Sheffield and the pain of their last conversation was as raw tonight as it had been then. Of all the balls to turn up to out of the blue and like a bad penny, he had to pick this one—drat him. The one where she was at her most ill at ease, and just plain ill as well.

  ‘I saw you in Covent Garden again last week...you were magnificent.’ Her eager lord seemed determined that they should have a conversation while they danced and she forced a smile, knowing that her lack of enthusiasm was hardly fair to him.

  ‘I am glad you enjoyed it.’

  ‘I have seen you six times already.’

  ‘You flatter me.’

  ‘It isn’t flattery. I am an ardent fan, Miss Charity.’ To prove that, he decided to slide his hand from her waist to the small of her back as he tugged her closer.

  Too close and that impudence galled.

  Using the steps to aid her, she deftly manoeuvred her body to put some distance between them, but he immediately pulled her back. ‘Take a walk on the terrace with me.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘It is a lovely summer’s night, and the moon is full.’ He tried to spin her from the edge of the floor in the direction of the open French doors, his assumption and impertinence grating.

  ‘That is as maybe but I have no interest in visiting the garden.’ She pushed against his lead, forcing him to alter their direction or stumble and he frowned as if greatly put out by her refusal.

  ‘Perhaps later then?’ She shook her head and was rewarded with outright petulance. ‘If you are not interested in me then why did you agree to this waltz? When everyone knows a waltz is a declaration of intent.’

  Because she had wanted to prove to Griff she was still sought after, that she didn’t care one jot about his unflattering disapproval and because she had wanted to put off having to acknowledge his existence in this ballroom tonight for as long as possible. ‘Then you must forgive me, my lord, as we are clearly at cross purposes as I assumed granting you this waltz was merely a declaration that I was willing to dance with you.’

  Which, she now realised, had obviously been a mistake when Lord Cranham had quite a reputation for keeping a line of mistresses and by the looks of him, was clearly on the hunt for the next. And just like Griff and Lord Denby, he assumed because of the gossip columns’ printed innuendo, she was the sort who was willing to be hunted. She stopped dead and severed the contact, quite done with the dance and not caring that several other couples were forced to quickly adjust their course to avoid colliding with them. She bobbed an insincere curtsy as a farewell without bothering to hide her annoyance because she was sick and tired of floating above all the insults and being treated with such flagrant disrespect. ‘If you assumed it was any more than that, my lord, then I humbly apologise.’

  ‘You have nothing to apologise for.’ Out of nowhere Griff was suddenly behind her, his expression and stance threatening. ‘But I think Lord Cranham certainly does as he appears to have forgotten his manners around a lady.’

  Intimidated, the young peer nodded like a woodpecker. ‘My humblest apologies if I have offended you, Miss Charity.’

  Only slightly placated, Griff claimed her hand and before she or Cranham could argue otherwise, twirled her back into the swirling dancers until they were part of them. His big hand on her waist, his fingers laced with hers, his dark eyes boring into her soul like nobody else ever could.

  ‘You might have asked for a dance like everyone else does.’ She used the handy veil of imperiousness to mask her body’s immediate reaction and tried to ignore how every nerve ending fizzed and came alive at his touch.

  ‘If I had, you’d have only refused me and we really do need to talk.’ His eyes were angry too, yet there was something else swirling in those unfathomable golden-flecked irises which she couldn’t decipher. Uncertainty perhaps. Or maybe hurt. Which would be ironic when she was the one he had wounded. More likely, his judgemental nose had been put out by her rejection of him, exactly like the presumptuous Lord Cranham, and he felt the urge to tear her off a strip or two for not yielding to his superior logic or thanking him for his lacklustre proposal after she had misbehaved once again.

  ‘I cannot think what about when I have said all I need to say.’

  ‘Perhaps you have—but I have plenty more things to add to the discussion alongside the burning questions that I came here specifically to ask. And I am quite determined to make a pest of myself until I get all the answers to them, Charity, because I confess I do not understand what is going on between us or why you ran away.’ As she stiffened in his arms, his anger turned to concern while his voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Did I hurt you that night...? I know you said that I hadn’t but...after you bolted the thought that I might have has played on my mind incessantly. I keep racking my brains to remember if I did something which displeased you or if our...our...intimacy scared you. At the time, I was sure you enjoyed it but...’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ Even at a whisper, her impassioned hiss turned a few heads, so she dropped her voice further. ‘Did you come here tonight to confirm your extraordinary prowess as a lover, Griff? Because if you did, this public ballroom is hardly the place.’

  ‘I came to find out why you left.’ He spun her as they reached a corner and her stomach lurched worryingly again. ‘And to see if there is any way to make you reconsider my proposal.’

  ‘Why would you seek to do that when I have already relieved you from the odious chore?’ A pathetic part of her willed him to banish away the hurt in a sentence. To say the words she craved. To show her that he cared. Wanted her and her alone. ‘Anyone would think you feel obligated.’

  ‘Of course I feel obligated!’ Not at all what she wanted to hear. ‘Your father entrusted me with your safekeeping, and I betrayed him. I took liberties with your person and I laid with you like a husband...’ He dropped his voice an octave and pulled her closer so he could speak directly into her ear. ‘I took your virginity, for pity’s sake. That means something. A decent man doesn’t walk away from such a responsibility.’ He twirled her to avoid another couple and nausea swamped her. ‘I know you were holding out for better... I appreciate you had set your sights higher...’ his voice seemed to be coming from a distance as her head spun wildly ‘...but now that Denby and you are no more... I thought...’ The floor tilted and all at once she found herself engulfed in his strength. ‘Charity...are you all right?’

  As speaking was currently impossible, she shook her head and clutched at his lapel to steady herself as he whisked her off the floor to an alcove then stared down at her concerned. ‘You look grey.’ His hand touched her face. ‘And you’re all clammy. Hope said you had been pushing yourself too hard again and now look—you’ve made yourself ill.’ It was a gentle admonishment, one filled with more sympathy than irritation. ‘You need to go home.’ He searched around him for her family. ‘You need to rest, Charity.’

  ‘I just need to sit down for a moment...that’s all.’ Or perhaps dash to the retiring room so she could retch again before bribing a strange maid to dispose of the evidence like she had taken to doing every day at the theatre. ‘Please don’t cause a scene.’ The absolute last thing she needed was to disgrace herself in the middle of Denby’s wedding ball. ‘Not here, Griff...’ Her eyes flicked to the man in question. Another man who considered her unworthy. ‘And not now. Please not now.’

  He followed her gaze to where Lord Denby waltzed with his new fiancée and nodded, his expression instantly grim and disapproving. ‘Very well. Not here and now. But only if you promise that you will meet me tomorrow so that we can discuss it properly. I shan’t be swayed on that. And no more dancing!
I mean it, Charity. Or so help me I’ll put you in a carriage myself and drive you straight to the physician!’

  Despite his palpable anger, he solicitously and subtly supported her back to the refreshment table where their families chatted amiably, guided her into a chair and stood over her like a sentry as she sipped the glass of water he pressed into her hand.

  ‘It is definitely a girl, Hope.’ Mrs Philpot’s voice washed over her as Charity tried to use sheer willpower and deep breathing to settle her griping guts. Griping that wasn’t helped by the pungent wafts of the trout laid out just inches away on the table. ‘You are carrying too high for it to be a boy.’ His mother tapped her chin as she openly apprised her sister’s stomach. ‘Tell me, do you crave sweet or salty things?’

  ‘Definitely sweet,’ answered Luke, Hope’s husband. ‘And trifle especially. I think she’s eaten a ton of the stuff in the last few months and I’m quite sick of the sight of it.’ The mere mention of food made Charity more bilious, the idea of trifle somehow now worse than the very real trout which taunted her.

  ‘Then that is another sure sign it is a girl.’

  ‘Ah—but she hasn’t suffered from morning S-I-C-K-N-E-S-S at all,’ said her mother blissfully unaware that even spelling the unsavoury word made Charity nauseous, ‘and that is supposed to be a sure sign you are carrying a girl too.’

  ‘I didn’t suffer from it either though, Mama,’ added Faith, enjoying playing devil’s advocate. ‘And while I am aware that I had a boy and that in itself may prove your theory correct, I would also remind you that neither did you and you had three girls.’

  ‘That is very true, dear. We Brookes ladies have always blossomed during pregnancy.’

  ‘Now you come to mention it,’ said Mrs Philpot, ‘I positively glowed with health and vitality when I was carrying Dorothy too. In fact, had never felt better in my life. But with Griff though...’ She pulled an appalled face. ‘Oh, my goodness, that was a truly horrendous time!’