by Lynne Barron
“And the bitch sent you to hell,” Killjoy snarled as he hauled her to her feet and into his arms. “We’ll make her pay, George. We’ll make her pay or we are not Buchanans.”
Hours later, as all but one of the inhabitants of Lady Joy’s house slept through a summer storm, a silent figure crept down the stairs. With only the dancing nymphs to bear witness, a letter was added to the tray of outgoing mail neatly stacked on a gilded table. The folded parchment was tattered and well-traveled, a frayed thread of worn blue velvet stuck to the wax seal, the painstakingly scrawled address just barely legible.
The dark figure hesitated, one hand hovering over the missive that would serve as payment for all of the lies that had shadowed a girl’s life, all of the decisions that colored a young lady’s past, present and future.
A husky sigh broke the silence as the hand fell away and the figure retreated, quietly ascending the stairs, setting one final scheme in motion.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Entering Lord Somerton’s Grosvenor Square mansion was akin to stepping into the dreams Georgie had endured when she’d first arrived in London, terrible nightmares in which she arrived at a crowded gathering of the ton and whipped off her pelisse only to realize she’d forgotten to don so much as a shift, let alone a gown. There she stood naked but for her stockings and slippers while the ladies twittered behind their fans and the gentlemen openly ogled her goodies.
Well-to-do tradesmen and farmers mingled with wealthy merchants and aristocrats in a spacious front foyer graced with twin marble staircases that wound up and around to meet on the second floor, forming an open gallery. Giggling young ladies hung over the balustrade in order to capture the best possible view of the new arrivals.
Everywhere Georgie looked ladies and gentlemen unabashedly looked back, some whispering to one another, others silently watching as she handed her shawl over to a footman. From the balcony a warbling laugh rang out and she peeked up to see three pretty young creatures dressed in white satin and ruffles pointing at her.
Thrice while she and Killjoy waited for the couple in front of them to move on, Georgie looked down to assure her nipples weren’t rising above the square-cut neckline of her emerald silk gown. She lost count of the number of times she patted her elegant chignon to be certain her unruly curls weren’t sticking up this way and that all over her head.
“Why is everyone looking at me?” Georgie asked of Killjoy as she handed her shawl to a waiting footman.
“Might be you’re the comeliest lass here,” he replied with a rusty chuckle.
“Go one with you.”
“Truly, you look…” he swept his gaze over her features while he searched for words.
“Don’t strain yourself coming up with a bit of flattery,” she teased.
“Pretty. You look right pretty tonight.”
“You’ll turn my head,” she warned.
“Aye, and you’ll likely decide you can do better than an earl,” Killjoy agreed. “But if I had to guess I’d say all these fine folks are staring at you because they’ve heard whispers of an upcoming wedding.”
“Damn and blast,” Georgie muttered as her already rioting nerves took up a jig, dancing along her limbs and reeling about in her belly. “How could they have heard?”
Killjoy barked out a laugh. “This is London. News travels faster than spit on a stiff wind.”
“But…I’m not…that is…there’s been no announcement,” she stammered, pressing one hand low on her belly.
“If you’d been at home when your earl called yesterday, you’d know he intends to shanghai his cousin’s ball to serve as a betrothal party.”
“Henry intends to announce…tonight?” Georgie felt suddenly lightheaded and unable to catch her breath.
“Just before the supper dance so as to make for lively conversation at table,” Killjoy replied as he steered her toward one of grand marble staircases. “What’s with all the dried leaves and red and orange ribbon tacked to the walls and the wheat sticking out of every vase and urn?”
A fat yellow gourd rolled down the stairs and across the floor and Georgie watched it, waiting, hoping it might roll right into her. If she were knocked over like a lawn pin perhaps she could fake an injury that would necessitate her returning to the safety of her bedchamber where she could bar the door and lock out the world.
“Lady Piedmont might have made mention she’d chosen an autumn harvest theme,” her cousin grumbled as the gourd narrowly missed her silver satin slippers. “I could have worn my red coat instead of this fucking penguin suit.”
Two ladies on the stairs turned to glare at Killjoy who only glared back at them as if daring them to comment upon his vulgar language. With a huff the older woman tugged the other back around and they hurried along their way.
“Damn jacket’s too tight and my trousers are loose enough to fall down around my ankles.” Killjoy stepped back and circled around her, coming up on her right and offering his arm as they reached the stairs and Georgie gave him a wobbly smile in thanks.
“That would be quite a treat for the ladies,” she offered, valiantly attempting to rein in her quivering panic.
Once again she’d proven herself to be a rash and brash creature, ignoring good sense in favor of her selfish desire for one last dalliance with the too-handsome, too bloody sweet earl.
She ought to have known Henry would choose Lady Piedmont’s annual ball to make the announcement, even without the lady’s less than subtle hints at the theater. After all, this would be the last ball of the Season, the last hurrah before the members of the ton decamped to spend the autumn at their country homes.
Killjoy had the right of it, she would have known Henry’s plans had she received him any one of the numerous times he’d called upon her in Bedford Square. But she’d thought it prudent, she who’d never given a single thought to prudence, to avoid him, spending her days tooling around in her curricle from sun up to sun down, sneaking into weddings as far away as Surrey and Richmond. Each night she’d crawled, exhausted, into her carriage only to lie awake, staring up at the silk-covered ceiling as Brain slowly crisscrossed London, returning to Bedford Square just in time to break her fast.
Not that she’d had the slightest interest in food, not with her stomach forever tied in knots and her nerves stretched taut. No, it was the paper waiting beside the plate piled high with fruit and toast that had drawn her attention. Each morning, as she’d read the paper from front to back, twice for good measure, and found only the usual gossip and calls for the king to cease his proliferate spending, she had known a giddy relief, when she ought to have known impatience and disappointment.
The unexpected reprieve could only go on so long, one morning soon, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps the day after, she would flip through the paper and find what she’d been searching for, and polite society would know the truth. When that happened Henry who would never again look at her as if she were sweet cream atop the berry crumble of his perfect life.
But not yet. The supper dance was hours away still. She had plenty of time to lure his lordship into an empty bedchamber, a dark corner of the garden or a cramped linen closet, to have her way with him before sneaking off into the night. Surely an announcement could not be delivered without the bride.
“Seems to me I heard there’s a tower somewhere in the house,” Killjoy said as if reading her thoughts. “Mayhap I’ll toss a buxom widow over my shoulder and carry her away.”
“Or you could choose one of the unmarried ladies to ravish her atop the tower,” Georgie suggested. “Catch a bride the ancient Scots way.”
“I’ve a scheme to catch myself a bride already in the works,” he replied with a grin.
“Have you really?” she asked in surprise.
“And it’s a beauty, too.”
“I’ve no doubt your future bride is a beauty.”
Killjoy might have chosen to consort with some of the wickedest women on earth but each and every one of them, and surely there’d been dozens,
had been a beauty to his beast.
“My scheme’s a beauty,” he corrected. “You of all people will appreciate the sheer simplicity and absolute wonder of the thing.”
“Well, are you going to tell me?”
“I’ve a mind to make a surprise of it, a wedding gift, if you will.”
“Seeing you happily settled would surely be the best gift you could ever give me.” Georgie squeezed his arm, knowing that whatever scheme he’d devised would not be given to her as a wedding gift, but rather a consolation prize.
“Likewise,” he mumbled.
They continued up the stairs and joined the loitering melee above in silence, Killjoy unapologetically shoving aside a dandy in a lime-green jacket and pushing between twin debutants without a murmur of pardon.
The ballroom doors were thrown open, the orchestra just beginning the first bars of a country dance when Georgie spotted Lady Easton engrossed in conversation with a wondrously handsome young man adorned in a powder blue jacket and silver waistcoat.
Beatrice was adorned in a gown of jet silk, without benefit of so much as a hint of lace or a single ruffle. Her blonde hair was pulled back and wound into a demure coil at her nape. She wore no jewels beyond a cameo affixed to a black velvet ribbon wound around her neck.
The show of mourning for the Countess of Hastings struck Georgie as the height of hypocrisy, just before it struck her as morbidly funny. Henry and Olivia’s mother had made Beatrice’s life a living hell, turning her away from her home when she was barely more than a girl, threatening her and blackmailing her in an attempt to banish her from her children’s lives lest she corrupt their morals and their good name.
Yet there she stood, regal and lovely, pretending to mourn the countess.
And then the truth struck Georgie. Beatrice was not pretending, she was not putting on a show of mourning for Lady Hastings. No, she’d put aside her own feelings for the lady and dressed in mourning as a show of solidarity and respect for her half-siblings.
It was an act of selfless love and loyalty so utterly foreign to Georgie that she almost hadn’t recognized it, had been fully prepared to chalk it up to hypocrisy and find it amusing.
Georgie blinked back tears and pressed one hand to her belly in an attempt to tamp down on the fluttering that intensified with each step she took toward the ballroom.
What was wrong with her? She’d been on the verge of tears for days and if her stomach didn’t settle sometime soon she was going to go stark raving mad.
“Now, that’s a lady worth winning,” Killjoy remarked as they passed and Beatrice looked up with a smile only to tilt her head to one side in a manner the entire family seemed to have inherited from some illustrious forbearer. “From her slippers to the bauble at her throat, Lady Easton is the sort of woman a man would be lucky to call his own.”
“Yes,” Georgie agreed, turning to look back over her shoulder to find Henry’s lovely sister frowning as her gaze followed them.
“Who’s the boy?” Killjoy asked, entirely unaware of Beatrice’s silent scrutiny.
“The Marquis of Belmont.”
“Ridgeway’s grandson?”
“Are you acquainted with the Duke of Ridgeway?”
“We played a few hands of cards last night at Cybil’s house after last curtain.” Killjoy stopped just inside the doors, his shaggy head whipping around as he took in the scene.
The orchestra, twenty musicians at a minimum, was set up in one corner of the immense room just to the left of a long wall of open french doors. Along the opposite wall a line of ladies sat amid a multitude of pots, vases and urns filled with all manner of stalky grains, dry grass and willow-wisps. The dance floor was a rolling mass of brightly dressed ladies and gentlemen interspersed with those members of Henry’s family adorned in shades of black, gray and lavender.
“Not so different from our harvest festivals,” Killjoy pronounced. “I’ve a mind to find a spot of whiskey. Will you be all right alone?”
“But of course,” she replied, her gaze swinging about the ballroom in search of a tall man with broad shoulders and tawny curls.
Henry was nowhere in sight but everywhere she looked she saw his relations.
Lady Singleton stood just beyond the refreshment table, one gloved hand gripping the wrist of Lady Heloise while Lady Margaret ducked her head and fidgeted with the drape of her skirts. The two lovely young ladies were forever up to some mischief or other. Georgie quite adored them.
Lord Piedmont held court before one set of french doors, Lord Morris hanging on his every word while Lady Morris watched the couples sweeping across the dance floor, her gaze lingering on Lord Everett and Mrs. Fontaine who nearly careened into Olivia and Jack Bentley.
Alice conversed with Lord Baldwin and Mrs. Statham whose twin daughters, Lily and Rose, took advantage of their mother’s inattention to slip away, making a beeline for the terrace.
As Georgie watched Henry’s extended family laughing and talking, moving from one group to the next, confident of their welcome, of their place in the world, an odd sort of fury coupled with a deep, seething pain took hold of her, mingling with her nerves and sending her heart racing.
“The lot of them will be your family soon enough,” Killjoy remarked in an off-hand manner entirely at odds with the glint in his eyes.
“My family,” she repeated, releasing his arm to press both hands to her belly where it felt as if a hundred tiny spiders danced about willy-nilly.
“Between the Buchanans and this bunch, you’ll have more family than you can shake a stick at,” he continued, his voice low and gravelly. “You can let go of the past.”
“I only wish I could,” she replied, knowing she’d come too far to do as he suggested.
“Whatever scheme you’ve got brewing, don’t allow it to spoil your future.”
“No, I won’t allow it to spoil my future.” And she wouldn’t, by God.
When the debt had been paid in full and the dust had settled around the debris left in the wake of her vengeance, she would carve out a new future for herself. That future would not revolve around a man too foolish to recognize that she was the last woman he ought to make his wife, a man who would one day open his eyes long enough to see the ghastly mistake he’d made in tying his fate to hers.
Georgie would be damned before she waited around to see his blue eyes cloud over with regret, his smile dim until it was nothing but a perpetual frown and his kind heart wither away until it matcher the useless bitter lump beneath her breast.
Killjoy studied her and she fought to keep her features free of the tumult of emotions ricocheting around within her. Finally he gave a nod that sent his shaggy curls tumbling. “Good enough. Now where do you suppose a man might find a bottle of whiskey?”
“I happen to know where Somerton keeps his stash.”
As one the cousins turned to find the Earl of Hastings standing just behind them.
Dressed in a black jacket of the finest brocade silk over a gray waistcoat, a starched white cravat tied into an intricate knot that reached to his chin, and dark breeches that hugged his long, muscular legs, he might have stepped from the pages of one of the romance novels Tag was forever reading.
The swelling around his eye had subsided, the color faded to mottled shades of green and yellow that only highlighted the blue of his eyes. His golden curls had been tamed and slicked back from his forehead but for one unruly lock that hung over his brow.
Georgie’s twisting and twirling nerves subsided, her unaccountable fury and pain ebbed away, leaving her wallowing in a lust so great, so blessedly pure, she smiled.
Lust was an old and welcome friend, one she understood, one that did not frighten her, did not cause her to doubt her plans, doubt herself.
“Mountjoy.” Henry gave the disreputable duke his due in the form of a low bow.
“Ach, leave off with the bloody bowing and scraping,” Killjoy ordered.
“Miss Buchanan,” the earl turned and kicked out a leg
as he offered the rebuffed courtesy her way, his lips lifting in a crooked smile and his eyes going all tender. “You are looking especially lovely this evening.”
“Why thank you, Lord Hastings.” Bobbing a curtsy, she batted her lashes for all she was worth and dipped down low enough to give him a good look down her bodice.
“So, where’s this stash of whiskey hiding?” Killjoy asked with a raspy chuckle.
“Did I hear someone speaking of whiskey?” the Earl of Somerton asked as he joined them. “Lord knows I could use a tot, what with allowing all manner of ruffians and their womenfolk into my home. Will you join us, Hastings?”
“I’d much prefer to lead Miss Buchanan about the floor if she’s saved me a spot on her dance card.” Henry’s hand settled on the small of her back.
Together they watched as the heads of their families disappeared from the ballroom, Somerton’s voice booming out a dire prediction that this would be the last year he allowed his daughter to host her shindig in his home.
“Where have you been, love,” Henry murmured, his fingers drifting dangerously close to the swell of her bottom.
“It took an awfully long time to wind our way through the line of carriages,” she answered, dancing around the true question.
“No, not tonight,” he replied with a chuckle. “These past two weeks. I’ve not seen you at all but for that one dinner.”
“I saw you at the theater,” she said as he led her to the dance floor. “Across the pit, surrounded by a harem.”
“It wasn’t as it appeared.” Henry peered at her from the corner of eyes, his lips twitching.
“As you wanted it to appear,” she corrected with a laugh.
“Saw right through me, did you?”
“Did you imagine I would run into your box and lop off Mrs. Fontaine’s arm?”
“Only until I realized you would pick your battles better than that.”
“I hadn’t a sword on me so victory would hardly have been assured.”
“And there were far too many witnesses for you to claim deniability with anything even remotely approaching plausibility,” he finished with a laugh and it occurred to Georgie that she was going to miss this easy banter, the teasing and laughter, as much as she would miss the wondrously satisfying coupling.