A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (6 page)

Blasphemy. “What other Lord
Quinton would it be about, hmm? What other Lord Quinton is there
with long, sun-kissed hair, who is clad in all black and is dashing
and daring enough to kiss a young lady so boldly?” He waited a half
a second for Jonas to answer him, but no more. “None! Besides, look
through here at these other stories. Granted, none are nearly so
exciting as the one she wrote about me, but they certainly are
here.” He flipped through the pages until he found the one he was
looking for. “Like this one, about Lord Vickery. Would her
description of him be accurate? ‘
More
round than tall, more on his head than in it, more bleak than
London fog in November
.’”

“
Well, yes, but”

“
But nothing!” Quin flipped
back a few more pages. “Try this one, about Lord Padbury.
‘
So portly he must have filled his pockets
with cakes and tarts, because no man could possibly take up such a
great amount of space without such assistance.
’ How accurate is that assessment?” As his certainty about
this Aurora grew stronger, so did his voice.

Jonas shook his head in defeat.
“Entirely accurate.”

“
Then how, if these other
gentlemen are portrayed as they actually are in real life, might
this
Lord Quinton
be anyone but me?” He raised an eyebrow at his friend.
“Precisely. He cannot. So, who is this Aurora? Tell me what you
know.”

“
What I know is on the side
of meager. Her name is Aurora Hyatt. Her father is Viscount Hyatt.
She’s been on the marriage mart for a number of Seasons. I seem to
recall a wedding announcement at one point years ago, but I believe
her betrothed came to an untimely end before such an occurrence
came to pass.”

A prior engagement he could handle.
And if she had been on the hunt for a replacement for a dead fiancé
for years, surely she was close to the point of desperation.
Precisely what he needed. “So no scandals? Nothing Rotheby could
use to disqualify her as a potential match?”

“
I believe there might have
been some minor controversy over her mother. She was not born of
the
ton,
if memory
serves—but from somewhere exotic.”

Exotic? That sounded
promising.

“
But her father has always
had an upstanding reputation. Rotheby could use the very journal
you’re holding in your hands, though. That bit of bound parchment
is enough scandal to keep the gossips in ceaseless supply for
months.”

Quin waved a hand through the air. “He
can’t use it if he doesn’t know of its existence. Surely, no one
knows of it but the two of us and Miss Hyatt. I can’t imagine any
young lady in hopes of finding a reputable match would reveal its
contents to anyone else, in fear of the damage it would cause to
her reputation. She can’t announce it as missing without facing the
possibility of its discovery.”

“
Someone
else will know if you don’t keep your voice
down.”

Blast. He just couldn’t quite seem to
contain his enthusiasm. The more he thought about it, the more
certain he was. This Aurora Hyatt was exactly the miss he needed to
convince to marry him. She already thought herself in love with
him, the silly minx. And to top it all off, she was a scandal
waiting to happen.

A scandal waiting for him to play his
part and rescue her from her own folly.

As long as he did just that, Rotheby
would be entirely unable to find any fault with her—a young society
miss, daughter of a viscount, clearly (based upon her writing) well
educated, if just a mite on the opinionated side of things. Quin
would have to work on that last part. But there should be plenty of
time for her to learn her new position.

Now he just needed to meet her. “Find
out what ball she’ll attend tonight, Jonas. It’s time I meet my
bride.”

Chapter Four

1 April, 1811

I am no longer entirely
certain I am still alive. There appears to be some feeling in my
extremities, yet my heart has gone utterly and completely numb. I
cannot believe I was so foolish as to lose my journal. I can only
hope that Rebecca is right and it is floating away down the
Serpentine even as we speak. At least then, even if someone were to
find it, the ink would have smeared. Then no one would be able to
read the things I’ve written. No one would know that I called Lord
Endicott a bloated old toad with the warts to prove it. Except
Endicott himself, of course. But he is far too gentlemanly to ever
reveal such a thing. If only I were too ladylike to have refrained
from voicing such a thing.

~From the journal of Miss
Aurora Hyatt

Seething was hardly a forceful enough
term to describe Lord Griffin Seabrook’s mood as he left White’s
that afternoon. Furious might be more apt. Or murderous—aye, that
term held particular appeal.

Time Quinton
meet his bride
,
indeed.

Griffin had heard the word
spreading through the
ton
of Lord Quinton’s arrival in Town, almost always
accompanied by descriptions of his vulgar attire, his indiscreet
flirtations, his lewd behaviors. He’d done his best to protect
Phoebe from the news, lest she again suffer shame and
degradation.

It was enough to make a gentleman
either violently ill or violently enraged.

Particularly when the
gentleman in question happened to be an older brother of
Quinton’s
true
bride.

The bastard had a lot of
nerve.

He even had the audacity to speak of
his plan, of his secret, sitting out in the open in the middle of
White’s. And to make matters worse, he hadn’t bothered to keep his
voice down, despite repeated reminders from his companion. Griffin
half expected the bastard to place a bet in the books on how soon
he could convince Miss Hyatt to capitulate and agree to his
dastardly plot.

He had to wonder about
the
why
of it all.
Not why this pitiable Miss Hyatt seemed so preoccupied with the
monster, per se, seeing as how Griffin’s own sister had once fallen
into Quinton’s trap. But more the why on Quinton’s end: why the
need to marry, and particularly, why the need to do so in such a
rush?

But one thing was certain—he would not
suffer Quinton’s success. He would not sit idly by and watch the
lecher ruin another young lady. He would not bite his tongue and
let the plans in motion play out.

He turned down Piccadilly from St.
James Street, thankful for the time and space to stretch his legs
while he ruminated over his options.

Griffin could take the matter straight
to his father, the Marquess of Laughton, and let him deal with it.
But Father already had enough to deal with at the moment, between
the departure of his longstanding mistress and the impending
arrival of yet another by-blow.

He could confront Quinton about his
treachery. Call him out. Settle the score once and for
all—something he’d been itching to do now for years, but had been
unable to do with the cowardly scoundrel on the Continent—but there
remained the slight problem of the illegality of dueling, and the
rather more pronounced problem of Quinton’s esteemed
marksmanship.

Griffin could take the more backhanded
approach of enlightening the gossips as to Miss Hyatt’s journal and
its contents. But in so doing, he would be lowering himself to
Quinton’s standards—permanently and irrevocably ruining a young
lady. Such an approach might also have unintended consequences,
such as merely rushing the two into marriage. No, that method was
clearly out. None of those options seemed to fulfill Griffin’s
purpose.

He needed something else. Something
better suited to the problem at hand.

Quinton could not get away with
this.

Before he had come up with a solution
to the problem, Griffin arrived at his bachelor lodgings. Blast, he
needed an idea.

Perhaps he could… No, Griffin had no
acquaintance with Miss Hyatt. He could not take such liberties as
paying her a call to explain the situation. But wouldn’t allowing
Quinton to carry out his devious plan be the more egregious
sin?

Griffin changed directions. He
suddenly felt a need to visit a new destination.

Cavendish Square.

~ * ~

“
Drawn and quartered.
That’s what Father will do to me.” Aurora threw herself face down
on her bed.

“
It might not be so bad as
all that. He could just strap you to the rack for a
while.”

Aurora turned her head to frown at her
friend. What a dismal attempt to cheer her mood! Rebecca needed to
try harder with the next one. This was, after all, a disaster of
momentous proportion.

“
It is your own fault,
after all. Why on earth would you have thought it a good idea to
bring your journal with you?” Rebecca plopped down beside her on
the bed. “You couldn’t very well write in it while we were out. I
daresay you would never have read to Lord Norcutt from
it.”

“
Oh, dear good Lord,
no
.” She shivered at the
thought of reading such a thing aloud to a gentleman. “I was
writing in it when Norcutt arrived, and…well, somehow I ended up
bringing it along instead of stashing it upstairs in my chamber.
And since I had it with me, I thought perhaps you and I would have
a few moments to ourselves, and that you could read a bit from
it.”

After all that had come to pass, even
Aurora recognized her excuse sounded at the very least ludicrous,
if not altogether naïve. But even that couldn’t excuse Rebecca’s
lack of support. Certainly not now, when she needed it
most.

“
I’ve never heard anything
so preposterous in my life. I know you, Aurora, and I know how your
mind works.” Rebecca’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “I can clearly
imagine the delightful and devious things you wrote. And you know I
would never take such a chance as to read something like that
anywhere but in the privacy of this very chamber. And speaking of
that…would you care to share any of it with me? From memory, of
course, since your sinful words are currently sinking to the bottom
of the Serpentine.”

Aurora scowled. She
prepared to deliver a scathing retort—something along the lines
of
since you find it prudent to tease me
in my distress, I shall find it prudent to withhold such delightful
morsels in future
(oh, dear—that seemed
more wounded and pathetic than scathing and retort-like, even to
Aurora’s sensibilities)—only to change her mind mid-thought when a
knock sounded at the door. “Enter.”

One of the downstairs maids moved
inside the doorway, holding out a silver salver with a calling card
upon it. “You have a visitor, miss.”

Of course she did. Whoever
it was had inconsiderate timing, blast them, even if it was the
middle of the afternoon. Aurora took the card and frowned.
Lord Griffin Seabrook.
The name was only slightly familiar; she was certain she had
no acquaintance with him.

“
Please inform Lord Griffin
I am out from the house, Eugenia.”

The maid bobbed a curtsy and was on
her way. Once the door closed firmly behind her, Aurora turned back
to Rebecca. “Well, I suppose I could recall a few details. Just
last night, I wrote our wedding. You may go ahead and refer to me
as Lady Quinton now, if you like. I think that should be rather
fitting.”

Thinking about the lovely tidbits
written in her journal felt decidedly better than thinking of her
impending torture and death when her father discovered her
blunder.

Rebecca’s eyes widened. “And the
wedding night?” She leaned in across the bed, taking one of
Aurora’s hands into her own.

And yet another knock sounded at the
door.

“
Blast. Enter!”

Eugenia ducked into the room yet
again. “Lord Griffin is very insistent, miss. Hobbes already let it
slip that you are, indeed, at home.”

“
Well.” Drat. Aurora looked
to her friend for help. If there was one thing she could always
count on Rebecca for, it was coming up with an excuse for
something. Anything. Lady Rebecca Grantham was a virtual
encyclopedia of excuses.

“
Eugenia, pray tell Lord
Griffin that Miss Hyatt is indisposed at the moment and cannot be
imposed upon to receive callers.”

Lovely. She had no intention of
becoming ill in order to escape this interruption of their
afternoon, but she would do anything necessary to have the
impertinent man leave her in peace.

The maid nodded and left, yet again.
Aurora was hesitant to resume their discussion, dreading yet
another interruption.

Which, of course—since she had been
dreading it—arrived in short order.

When Eugenia entered this time, she
rushed to apologize. “I am terribly sorry, miss, but it seems Lord
Griffin is disinclined to leave without speaking with you. His
lordship says he must see you this afternoon, regardless of your
current state of health. He refuses to leave, miss.” The maid
flushed with embarrassment.