Vying for the Viscount

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Given that he was her brother and all.

  Lord Brimsbane nodded to Aaron. “Testing the stock yourself these days? Bit tall for a jockey, aren’t you?”

  “Simply showing Lord Stildon what his stable contains.” Aaron gave a polite nod toward both men, the smiles and easiness of moments before nowhere in sight. “My lord, may I present Lord Brimsbane, heir to the Earl of Gliddon.”

  “Ah, the new viscount. I’d heard you’d finally made it home from India. Is it as rustic as they say?”

  “I’ve never found it lacking, but I suppose it would depend upon where one lived.”

  Lord Brimsbane nodded. “Capital. I’d love to hear about it. I always wanted to travel, though perhaps not quite so far afield. Maybe through Europe, now that peace has settled.”

  Midas walked close enough to the group to catch Aaron’s attention. The other men soon followed his glance and noticed her presence. Bianca tried to smile as she would if encountering Lord Brimsbane in a ballroom, but it felt strangely formal from the back of a horse.

  “Ah, Miss Snowley. Always a pleasure to see a woman who knows how to ride. Can’t get my sister out here in the mornings, you know.”

  Bianca allowed Midas to take a few more steps in until the four horses were nearly standing nose to nose. The agreement she’d made was suddenly all too real. If she were going to actively assist Lord Stildon’s pursuit of Lady Rebecca, it started now. Her brother’s opinion would surely weigh into her final decision.

  She nodded her head to Lord Brimsbane. “I’m sure Lady Rebecca’s time is being taken up by other equally important endeavors.”

  Lord Brimsbane shook his head. “Only if one considers flowers essential to life. We’re hosting a ball soon, and she and Mother are acting as if the Prince Regent intends to come.”

  “Are you sure that he won’t?”

  “Come now, Miss Snowley, we both know our esteemed Regent won’t show his face in Newmarket anymore. He didn’t take kindly to those cheating accusations.”

  Right. She glanced at Lord Stildon but quickly reverted her attention back to Lord Brimsbane. Local gossip was something Lord Stildon wasn’t going to be familiar with, especially gossip that was years old.

  Lord Brimsbane looked at Lord Stildon as well and was a bit slower in returning his gaze to Bianca. “Still riding the Hawksworth horses, I see.”

  “They are convenient.” She nearly winced at the statement, as it implied she couldn’t care less about who owned the horses. If word got around, though, that she and Lord Stildon had formed some form of tendre, as the hesitance on Lord Brimsbane’s face seemed to speculate, neither of them would achieve their goals. Well, she might, but she’d determined at the outset not to win a husband by manipulation.

  “I see.” He glanced between the two of them once more. “You would not be opposed to riding another stable’s horses, then?”

  “No,” Bianca said, dragging the word out as she contemplated what the man might mean with his question. Midas shifted beneath her and bumped his nose into Poseidon’s neck. Aaron took the opportunity to back his way out of their small circle. She hated that he felt the need to do so and that she felt grateful for his discretion.

  She pushed her smile wider as she gave her attention back to Lord Brimsbane. Now was not the time to speculate upon the unfairness of the world, especially when there was nothing she could do about it. “Even if the Prince Regent doesn’t come to your mother’s ball, I’m sure it will be a well-attended gathering.”

  “Don’t remind me. We’re doomed to be overrun.” He turned his horse in the direction Bianca had recently raced from. “May I join you as you ride back to Hawksworth? I confess I’ll take any excuse to prolong my morning ride. The back of a horse is the only place I’m likely to find sanity until my sister marries.”

  “Do you truly expect it to be as bad as all that?” Lord Stildon asked as he too turned his horse toward home.

  “I suppose not,” Lord Brimsbane mused, “since Meadowland Park is far larger than our London residence and therefore easier to hide in. Still, I’d rather escape the whole business entirely.”

  Should Bianca ride Midas between the men? Should she go next to Lord Stildon or over to Lord Brimsbane’s side? Etiquette books were sadly lacking in horse-riding protocol. Should dinner escort rules apply here? What about orders of precedence? Not that either of those helped her any, as she was the only woman among three gentlemen.

  Oh bother, she would let the men sort out where to situate themselves. She gave Midas a kick and let him burst into a brief trot that pulled her ahead of the men and then slowed him to a walk.

  A horse came up on each side of her. It was similar to the position she’d been riding in with Aaron and Lord Stildon as they left the stable, but it didn’t feel as easy now.

  She smiled up at Lord Brimsbane. “At least you’ve a fine animal to escape on, if you must ride away. You could always join us on our morning rides.”

  In the immediate silence that followed, she questioned her own boldness, but truly it was time to commit to helping Lord Stildon, and she needed to push past the uncomfortableness of playing matchmaker. Lord Stildon was going to need some form of advantage, besides Hestia, and a friendship with Lord Brimsbane could be it.

  Had she pushed too hard, though?

  She held her breath until Lord Brimsbane replied in a quiet voice, “I might take you up on that.”

  They walked along in silence for a few minutes, then Lord Brimsbane spoke again. “Will you be at the assembly Saturday? Rebecca insists on attending. She was rather miffed that our return was delayed and she missed the first ones.”

  “I’ll be there.” Bianca swallowed. “I believe you were saying something about attending as well, weren’t you, Lord Stildon?”

  “Yes.”

  Bianca nearly rolled her eyes. Hadn’t the man claimed to know how to converse with other men? If this was what he considered successful conversation, it was a wonder he’d accomplished anything in India.

  At the hedge border of Hawksworth, Lord Brimsbane said his good-byes and trotted off. Bianca looked around to see that Aaron and Poseidon had fallen quite far back, though he moved the horse a bit faster as Lord Brimsbane rode away.

  As she turned back to Lord Stildon, she was surprised to see him frowning. “What?”

  “How are we supposed to make plans on our morning rides if he is riding with us?”

  “Lord Brimsbane is a plan. If you become friends with him, your access to Lady Rebecca increases dramatically.”

  “So you don’t have designs on him yourself?”

  Bianca blinked. Designs? On Lord Brimsbane? “I am a gentleman’s daughter. Perfectly respectable, I assure you, but I’m hardly going to marry an earl.”

  Aaron, who was now riding beside them once more, cleared his throat. “If one wants to be particular, he’s actually a viscount at the moment.” His gaze fixed hard on Bianca’s face. “Same rank as our friend Hudson here.”

  “If we’re being particular, our friend currently outranks Lord Brimsbane, as a viscount outranks the eldest son of earls, but I’d be a fool to set my cap for a man who will one day be an earl.”

  “Does that mean you wouldn’t be a fool to set your cap for a viscount, then?” Aaron widened his eyes in feigned innocence.

  Bianca glared at the manager. She did not need him doing . . . whatever he was doing. She was Lord Stildon’s friend. Nothing more. And as soon as she found herself a man she could reasonably see herself marrying, she would have no problem remembering that.

  Sixteen

  Lady Rebecca’s arrival sent ripples throughout Newmarket, but the men who followed her caused waves of gossip to crash through the drawing rooms and shops. At the modiste, the latest pattern book was surrounded by young ladies and mothers, all debating the merits of the current fashions.

  Bianca wasn’t immune to the excitement, and she ran her hand along a selection of fabrics she never would have considered before. S
he also wouldn’t normally come here with her stepmother, but here she was.

  “Did you see the new sleeves?”

  “I think the waistlines are even higher on this one.”

  “How do you think this one would look in blue?”

  “I would have it done in green.”

  Bianca glanced at the group that included Marianne and Mrs. Snowley. Would that be her if her mother had survived? Or even if Mrs. Snowley had claimed Bianca as her own? It wasn’t a thought she often considered, but as she entertained this new philosophy of life, she was realizing just how lonely her existence was. She didn’t have anyone she could giggle with like Marianne did, didn’t have anyone offering her advice on colors and cut like Miss Turner did, and didn’t know where she would begin to look for someone to do either.

  Her two closest friends were a stable manager who eschewed most of society and a viscount who was everything she’d ever wanted in a husband but had his eyes on someone else—or rather had his mind on someone else, because his eyes hadn’t yet seen Lady Rebecca.

  Bianca moved toward another of the pattern books, one that had arrived a few months ago, and flipped through the pages without really seeing them.

  “Did you hear who arrived in town this morning?”

  Bianca angled her head to better hear the conversation. The last attention-getting arrival had been Lord Stildon, and he was proving rather life changing for her.

  “Lord Rigsby.”

  Three feminine gasps met the news. Bianca frowned. She’d never heard of Lord Rigsby.

  “Mrs. Vernon said he took rooms on the south side of town,” Miss Wainbright said. How did she always know the latest on dit? Did the woman simply wander from drawing room to drawing room all day?

  Miss Turner sighed. “Of course he did. That’s near Meadowland Park.”

  Several women murmured their own disappointed agreement.

  “Don’t forget, ladies,” Mrs. Snowley said, “Lady Rebecca can only marry one man. All you have to do is catch the eye of the others.”

  The murmurs turned a bit more excited.

  “We should stand near each other Saturday at the assembly,” Miss Turner said. “That way, when the men escort us to the side after dancing we can meet all of them.”

  Given the amount of effort she’d had to put in last Saturday to position herself for Lord Stildon, who had been a co-conspirator in the meeting, she couldn’t imagine how difficult arranging introductions could be.

  “We should meet for tea to discuss the best topics of conversation. We can’t mention the same ones everyone else is or we won’t stand out,” Miss Wainbright added.

  Bianca blinked. She’d never considered putting so much thought into a conversation she wasn’t even sure she’d be having. On this, at least, she knew she had an advantage. The men coming to town would mostly be horsemen, and there wasn’t a girl on the current marriage market who knew horses better than she did.

  “Whatever you do,” Mrs. Wainbright told the girls, “don’t bring up racing or horses. You don’t want them to start thinking about Hezekiah while dancing with you.”

  Bianca sighed quietly. Why was this so complicated? Life had been so much simpler when she had just done whatever she pleased and enjoyed it for the moment it was. Not only had it never drawn an ache into her head like the one forming after hearing this conversation, but she’d never been faced with how few people she truly knew. It didn’t escape her notice that no one was inviting her over for tea to contrive introductions or plot conversations.

  “I think we should see if Madame Bridget can make this one for you in a pale pink,” Mrs. Snowley said to Marianne, pointing at the book. “It will look quite fine with your complexion, and I’m sure Lady Gliddon will be holding a ball at some point.”

  Mrs. Snowley and Marianne moved away from the book, passed by where Bianca was standing, and started perusing the available fabrics.

  Neither of them even glanced her way.

  Bianca looked back down at the book in front of her and the ball gown that had been the height of fashion four months ago. What was the point? Could she alone, save two men who hadn’t mentioned anything like the strategies these women were discussing, hope to compete for the attention of the eligible men in town?

  The idea of a new dress, which had been somewhat exciting moments before, now seemed like a desperate effort to cling to the mane as one fell off a horse.

  “I’m just going to step outside for a bit,” she said in the direction of her stepmother.

  To her surprise, the woman heard her and glanced over. “Take Dorothy with you. We can’t have you marring your reputation right now.”

  Bianca opened her mouth to ask when would be an acceptable time to mar her reputation but snapped it shut again as Mrs. Snowley turned back to inspecting the fabrics.

  After collecting Dorothy from the cluster of other waiting maids, Bianca stepped out of the shop and leaned against the wall outside, watching the people go by. There were indeed a great many more young men on the street than there normally would be. It wasn’t unusual for Newmarket’s population of rank to swell during the racing season, but these men were a good month earlier than normal. The July races were long past, and the next large meetings weren’t until October.

  The prize at stake in this race wasn’t a purse, though. It was a woman.

  Or, more specifically, it was the horse that came with the woman as an unofficial part of her dowry.

  Perhaps Lady Rebecca was in an even worse position this year than Bianca was. Bianca knew what it was like not to be wanted—her stepmother had made quite sure of that—but she didn’t know what it was like to be wanted for all the wrong reasons. She rather thought she’d prefer the honesty of the former.

  HUDSON DEPARTED FROM THE TAILOR’S SHOP, where he’d promised a large sum of money to have some of his new clothing delivered by tomorrow. People streamed down the pavements on either side of the town’s main street, while horses and carriages clogged the actual road. There were no street stalls, no tents, and the people were all entrenched in their cloaks and hats.

  All in all, the town felt very . . . closed.

  He glanced back at the store he’d just departed. The large windows displayed finely tailored goods, but the door dumped one right out onto the pavement. There was no overhang, no open-air portion.

  The closeness of it all made him long to return the few short miles to the openness of his estate, but if he wanted to find his place among the turf set, he had to make forays into town, particularly to the taverns and coffeehouses around the Jockey Club in the afternoons and to the gallops, where the horses trained in the mornings.

  He’d also have to wade through the astonishing number of invitations that had landed on his desk. He couldn’t see Aaron nudging the appropriate ones his way on a regular basis, but perhaps he’d haul the whole lot to the stable and get Bianca to go through them after their ride tomorrow. In India, the group with which he had to socialize was small and, for the most part, lived close together. He’d never had to choose between four different events for a single evening before.

  His stomach grumbled as he entered a tavern and the smell of food filled his senses. He couldn’t tell what it was—wasn’t even sure if it smelled good or bad—but at this point he would welcome anything as long as it simply had a distinct taste to it.

  First, he had to decide where to sit. A long table to his left was empty at one end, so he took it and placed his order, hoping he’d managed to request whatever it was he was smelling.

  At the other end of the table sat three men. One of them he recognized from the training stable, and another from last week’s assembly. They were leaning in to listen to a young lad talk about a horse. His words were somewhat slurred, and the empty tankard in front of him as well as the half-empty one in his hand attested as to why. His other hand rested over a small stack of coins.

  “He’s off his feed, that’s for sure. Been running poorly in his morning gallops
. If you wanted to challenge, now’s the time.”

  “Is Crawford aware of this, or will the stakes still hold high in the betting?” one man asked.

  “Ain’t nobody paid me enough for this but yous.” The lad shifted to the side, his shirt stretching across muscles formed by the hard labor of a stable, and he gathered the coins into one of his pockets. “Shubert ain’t telling either. Refuses to admit that his horses might not win anything this year.”

  The serving lass set Hudson’s meal in front of him. The aroma wasn’t quite appealing, but it was at least something.

  “Would he accept a challenge?”

  The lad shrugged and belched before taking another gulp of drink. “Not if he thinks he’ll lose.”

  “I’ve an unknown,” the man with curly hair said. “If no one else knows Gypsy isn’t running well, my win will look impressive.”

  Hudson frowned. That didn’t make any sense. He turned his head to look at the group at the other end of the table. “Won’t it look worse when your next win isn’t as impressive, though? Your horse will gain a reputation that he can’t uphold.”

  Three dark looks told Hudson that just because the men had been having this conversation in an easily accessible location did not mean they welcomed someone else approaching them.

  “Stildon, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Hudson narrowed his gaze, trying to make out the details of the man in the dimly lit room.

  Ah. It was Lord Davers. If Hudson had noticed that earlier, he’d have kept his mouth shut. The other man had taken a dislike to Hudson from the beginning, though he wasn’t entirely sure why.

  “As you put no coin into this particular endeavor, I suggest you have the decency to stay out of it,” Lord Davers sneered. “Or didn’t they teach you common courtesy in India—if that’s even where you are truly from.”

  The stable lad drained the rest of his drink and rose from the table, less than steady on his feet but not dangerously so. As long as he could find his way home, he should be fine. “Pleasure doing business with you, my lord.”