Courting Chaos (Dunaway's Daughters Book 2)

by Lynne Barron

  And the starring attraction in their midst was Miss Harry O’Connell. For all her gown was an outlandish concoction of shimmering cream silk trimmed with an assortment of gold, silver and bronze ribbons twisting and looping along the bodice, and the intricate coronet of flaxen braids tightly coiled atop her head decorated with all manner of feathers and gems, she somehow managed to present a modestly elegant counterpoint to her companion’s flamboyance.

  There was a story there, something beyond a distant familial connection. The scandalous Sinclair sisters had been belles of a bygone era when such a position brought with it a certain prestige and position within Society. A time when mistresses held court in their country houses and townhomes, often just down the lane or around the corner from the homes of their lovers’ wives.

  Phin was struck by the queer notion that, much like the mistresses of yesteryear, Miss Harry O’Connell was hiding in plain sight of Society’s curious eyes.

  “I used to watch Miss O’Connell and wonder if she was truly insensible to the regard bestowed upon her by every man within a hundred-foot radius.” Marchant’s voice, edged with amusement and affection, broke Phin’s concentration but did nothing to draw his attention away from the lady as she shifted in her chair, leaning ever so slightly away from Baron Whatley who sat to her right. “Every Friday for two years, either from this box or one in any number of lesser play houses, opera houses or marionette theatres scattered across London, I studied her in an attempt to work out the puzzle she presented.”

  “Did you?” Phin edged forward in his seat when Lord Dryden scooted nearer to her on the left, as if he might somehow wedge his way between the pair before the pup could engage her in conversation. “Work out the puzzle she presented, I mean?”

  “Hmm, to some degree, but only after we’d become acquainted,” Marchant murmured in his typical musing manner. “It isn’t so much that Miss O’Connell is insensible to male attention, but rather she’s so accustomed to it she takes no notice of it. Much the same way she takes no notice of her own reflection in the mirror. She knows she is beautiful, just as she knows the London sky is gray more often than not, and the grass is green in Hyde Park come spring. These simple truths hold no value for her, thus they are beyond her notice.”

  “The relevance effect.” Phin wasn’t completely convinced she’d manufactured the hypothesis as she’d claimed, but even if she had, he rather thought her theory held some validity. “Miss O’Connell is more likely to take notice of the nuances, those elements of a subtle, elusive nature the rest of us miss because our attention is caught and held by the more obvious, brightly colored components.”

  “Precisely,” Marchant agreed. “I’ve often heard Lord Dunaway proclaim Miss O’Connell a connoisseur of humanity’s frailties, follies and foibles.”

  “Dunaway?” Phin dragged his attention from the lady’s attempts to put distance between herself and the men seated on either side of her without toppling from the crowded box. He found the earl sharing his box with his countess and their three daughters. As Phin watched, Dunaway lifted his opera glasses and pointed them directly at Miss O’Connell. “Never say the earl is one of the lady’s admirers.”

  “Perhaps her greatest admirer, though she would argue the matter until the end of time.”

  Phin rather thought he had grounds to argue the point as well. Surely the randy old reprobate hadn’t any true regard for the woman beyond getting into her bed.

  Whereas Phin, while decidedly desirous of spending an unholy amount of time in the same place, found himself wanting desperately to get inside her mind as well.

  “Do you intend to set Miss O’Connell up with a house and an allowance, or wait until some other man plucks her from your grasp?” Phin hadn’t meant to ask the question, but out it came. Louder than was required and most definitely in a far more hostile tone than intended.

  But damn it all, lately nothing in his life was as he’d intended.

  “I’d set her up as the future Duchess of Montclaire, were it possible,” Marchant replied, his voice perfectly proportional to polite conversation. “Alas, it is nowhere near within the realm of possible.”

  “So you’ll make her your mistress instead?” Phin demanded, temper rising.

  “Contrary to what’s written in the betting books, I am currently not in the market for a mistress. Like you, I must marry sooner rather than later. For different, though not markedly divergent, reasons. And, again like you, I cannot say I am particularly happy at the prospect. But, whereas I am still railing against fate and looking for corners to cut and means of escape, you have resolved yourself to carry out your duty.”

  Another point Phin could have argued most strenuously, seeing as he’d spent the last three days and nights either seeking out Harry or devising strategies to do the same.

  It was time to shore up his shoddy resolve and choose a bride. With that thought in mind, he rose to his feet, his gaze resolutely turned away from the temptation seated across the way. “I promised Mrs. Westerfield I would pay a visit to her box. I’d best do so now before intermission renders the halls crowded to the point of impassable.”

  “Ah, yes, the lovely Miss Abigail is attending with her mother this evening,” Marchant said by way of agreement or perhaps commiseration. “A rare occurrence, as her mother tends to keep the girl under lock and key.”

  Phin turned to leave, but Marchant’s next utterance had him pausing just as the orchestra wound up to a fevered pitch in preparation for the end of the second act. “You might consider looking to the nuances yourself.”

  Phin shot a glare over his shoulder. “I beg your pardon?”

  “It might be that you are overlooking some worthy lady simply because she is not the obvious solution to your matrimonial dilemma.”

  “I haven’t time for nuances or subtleties,” Phin all but snarled. “I’ve an estate that will perhaps struggle on for one more year, thanks to our newly formed partnership, a well-earned reputation as a wastrel, two sisters who ought to have come out this spring only I hadn’t funds to see to their wardrobes, outstanding accounts all over Town and precisely four pounds, three shillings in my pockets. What I need is a bride willing to overlook it all for the privilege of becoming the next Lady Knighton.”

  “Then by all means, make haste to Mrs. Westerfield’s box and the bodacious Miss Abigail,” Marchant replied with a regal nod that scraped Phin’s nerves raw. “I’ve a mind to pop in on Miss O’Connell and her merry band of revelers.”

  Phin resisted the urge to accompany Marchant, turning on his heel and fleeing in the opposite direction as if his very life depended upon it.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d turned his back on temptation, nor would it be the last.

  Chapter Ten

  “Why you insisted upon an open carriage in this weather, I don’t know,” Harry said to Madeline as Lord Dunaway’s barouche trundled through the Hyde Park early Saturday morning. “Or why you ride in a carriage at all if you needn’t do so. It never fails to turn your complexion pea green.”

  “Mother insists daily carriage rides will inure me to the jostling, though I don’t know as it’s the jostling that sickens me so much as the feeling the world is moving around without me,” Madeline replied, smiling wanly at Harry from the forward-facing seat. “And I wanted to see you before you leave for Runnymede.”

  “You needn’t inure yourself to anything as you are perfect as you are,” Harry said in exasperation. Honestly, the notions the Countess of Dunaway took into her head. “Though I do applaud your time management.”

  “I rather thought you would.”

  “Was there something in particular you wished to discuss?”

  “I’m calculating chaos, and you are the only person who might be able to dissuade me.” Madeline’s proclamation surprised Harry not at all, considering the girl’s propensity for mischief.

  “Calculating chaos is an oxymoron, and therefore strictly prohibited before noon.”

  “
I thought it was only idioms, clichés and euphemisms,” Madeline protested.

  “I’ve just this moment amended the rules,” Harry said. “Now, what sort of chaos are you contemplating?”

  “Kissing Lord Kendricks.”

  “Chaos, indeed.” Though still not surprising as the gentleman in question was young and handsome in the dandified fashion some ladies found appealing.

  “I know he isn’t good ton,” Madeline began.

  “Lord Kendricks isn’t even bad ton,” Harry said. “He’s the worst sort of ton, beyond dissolute, steadily working toward depraved.”

  “There aren’t any other lords whose names begin with K currently in London.”

  “Are you kissing your way through peers in alphabetical order?” Harry skipped surprised altogether and went straight to shocked. “And you’ve already reached K?”

  “I kissed Lord Jergens last night at Mrs. Tarlington’s ball. I do so want to kiss Lord Lannister, but I need a K first.”

  “You’ve been out three days and you’ve kissed ten men?”

  “A lady needn’t be presented to Society before she kisses a man, or seven,” Madeline replied on a laugh. “She need only be presented a fortuitous opportunity.”

  “And a pair of willing lips, apparently,” Harry muttered. “Mad, you cannot kiss your way through the alphabet, nor the House of Lords for that matter.”

  “I’ll stop after Lord Lannister, I promise.”

  Harry paused to carefully consider her next words, fully aware that she was wading into dangerous territory about which she knew absolutely nothing. “Are you in love with Lord Lannister?”

  “Good gracious, no,” Madeline exclaimed. “Were I in love with Lord Lannister, or any man, I would not have kissed lords A through J.”

  “Then why would you even contemplate kissing Lord Kendricks to get to Lord Lannister?” Even as Harry asked the question, the answer came to her. “Lord Lannister will make it twelve.”

  “I said I would kiss an even dozen men before I am twenty.”

  “But that was nonsense, a little joke between sisters. No one will hold you accountable to such a silly vow.”

  “I hold myself accountable.”

  “Why?” Harry demanded. “Please explain to me how it makes any sense whatsoever to hold to such a ridiculous vow, and one made in jest, no less?”

  “I don’t want to be like Papa,” Madeline replied, meeting and holding Harry’s gaze with something like desperation shining in her pale blue eyes. “Forever vowing one thing and doing another, making promises I’ve no intention of keeping.”

  “Lovely. That man cannot manage to keep a vow to refrain from kissing the next pair of lips presented to him, leastwise not for more than a day. And here you are eighty-three percent to keeping your vow with seven hundred twenty-eight days still at your disposal.”

  “How do you do that?” Madeline asked. “Calculate the numbers so quickly?”

  “Do not attempt to change topics,” Harry ordered. “Now then, why the rush?”

  “So says the lady always rushing off here or there.”

  “You are not on a tight schedule, Madeline.”

  “I want to get it over with, preferably by today or tomorrow, so that I might enjoy the next seven hundred twenty-some odd days.”

  “Honestly, that is quite the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Apart from the word ‘nipples’ spoken on a busy street by a certain viscount, against his better judgement and all his good breeding. “If kissing all these men is so onerous a chore you must get it over with quickly, why are you determined to do it?”

  “I made a vow,” Madeline all but wailed. “Me. I made it. It belongs to me, Harry. No one can alter it to suit their purposes. Or use it to manipulate me. No one can damage it or destroy it or take it from me.”

  “Oh, my darling.” Anger and a terrible sorrow filled Harry until she wanted to scream with it. “I understand.”

  “You don’t! You cannot possibly understand. You’ve no idea what it’s like to be me. Mother is determined to see me married by twenty, and Papa can barely afford to allow me to wait that long.” Madeline’s eyes filled and her lips trembled. “I spend every day in pursuit of a single goal, feeling every minute of every hour of every one of those days passing by me. Worse still, is knowing at the end of all those minutes and hours and days it will only be more of the same, but rather than parents to dictate my life, I’ll have a husband.”

  Harry understood all too well the feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness of which her youngest sister spoke. She’d felt the same when she’d been a girl living in squalor, while Jimmy O’Connell spent every coin he could beg, borrow or steal on cards, women and whiskey. She’d felt it when, at barely twelve years of age, an elderly couple had arrived in a grand carriage, proclaimed themselves to be Harry’s grandparents and taken her away from her home, such as it was. She’d felt it when Bathsheba and Monty had shared the truth of her paternity and enlightened her to the existence of Dunaway’s multitude of daughters.

  Oh, yes, Harry knew precisely how Madeline felt.

  She also knew the exact moment she’d ceased to feel as if she hadn’t any control over her life. Monty and Bathsheba had given her the freedom to choose her life, and the courage and self-confidence to take control of that freedom and form it into whatsoever she desired.

  Harry wasn’t a duke, nor was she an infamous courtesan, but she could give her sister the freedom to choose, and the control of her future that came with it. “Are you still filling your journal with those saccharine stories, essays and poems?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Sniffing and blinking back her tears, Madeline leaned forward to swat Harry’s hand. “I pour out my heart to you, and you ask me about essays and poetry?”

  Harry captured her fingers and squeezed. “If you’d wanted sympathy, you’d have gone to Lilith.”

  “Have you noticed it too? How positively sentimental and overprotective Lil is when carrying a babe?”

  “And prone to temper tantrums,” Harry agreed. “Had you gone to Lilith, she would have thrown a veritable fit, and Malleville would have ridden out to pummel lords A through J, perhaps even K as a warning to L through Z.”

  Madeline laughed, though it emerged more a hiccupping yelp. “You aren’t going to have one of your gentleman callers pummel anyone, are you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I haven’t any gentlemen callers,” Harry replied, waving away the suggestion. “I’ve something far more useful than gentleman callers.”

  “What have you?”

  “Connections.”

  “You’ve connections?” Madeline repeated, clearly confused by the notion. “What sort of connections?”

  “The sort who owe me dozens of favors I’ve been hoarding for the just the right opportunity to collect upon.”

  “You’ve already fully formulated a plan to help me, haven’t you?”

  “Of course,” Harry assured her. “But first I’ll have your word you will cease haphazardly kissing your way through Mayfair.”

  “I’ve still K and L to see to before I stop.”

  “I have recently made the acquaintance of a lord whose name begins with K.”

  Later, when Harry had time to contemplate the folly of not thinking her words through to the obvious conclusion, she would blame the startling green of Madeline’s complexion. She would blame Lady Dunaway for prescribing daily carriage rides as an antidote to motion sickness. She would even lay some blame on her footwear, new half-boots of the softest kid-skin imaginable. It went without saying, she would blame the Earl of Dunaway as, when it came right down to it, all of life’s troubles began and ended with him.

  At present she could only marvel at her own idiocy.

  “Who is he?” Madeline asked.

  “Never mind. It was a nonsensical notion.”

  “Who is it, Harry? It can’t be Lord Kellison as he’s in Bath with his ailing mother. Lord Kutchens has recently made a love-match by
all accounts. And Lord Kincaid is seventy if he’s a day, and I have to draw the line somewhere.”

  “And you’ve chose seventy years of age as the perfect delineation?”

  “Thirty, actually.”

  “Well, then I’m not at all certain my lord K meets your requirements, lax as they are.”

  “I’ve not drawn the line in stone, Harry. Tell me who he is, and I’ll decide if he’s too old and decrepit to suit.”

  “Even if he isn’t too decrepit, he is nearly as dissolute as Lord Kendricks.” Except Harry rather suspected he wasn’t dissolute at all. Certainly he was a rake, a rascal and most probably a reprobate to some degree. Still, he adhered to his own brand of gentlemanly conduct and was perhaps more honorable than even he realized.

  Just look how hard she’d had to work to maneuver him into saying ’nipples‘ in the presence of a lady. She’d initially intended only to divert his attention, but one thing had led to another—specifically udders to teats—and Harry had never been one to quibble with a boon when it all but fell from the sky.

  “Dissolute, working toward depraved like Lord Kendricks?” Madeline demanded, sounded decidedly petulant.

  Harry took in Madeline’s yellow-tinted pallor and pinched lips. “Let’s put away this topic for now, remove ourselves from this contraption and walk around for a bit, even all the way to Dunaway House if you like.”

  “But you’ll get a late start for Runnymede,” Madeline protested. “And I’ll wind up kissing Lord Kendricks at Lady Chatsworth’s ball this evening.”

  “You aren’t going to get out of the carriage until I tell, are you?”

  “Papa always says I’m his second most stubborn daughter.”

  “Lilith isn’t so much stubborn as strong-willed.”

  “How is it you readily claim me, claim all of us, even Annalise whom you don’t particularly like, as your sisters, privately if not publicly, but you will not claim—”

  “Kissing Lord Knighton is out of the question,” Harry interrupted, all but yelling. “We’ll find you another Lord K with a pair of willing lips.”