A Season for Love (19 page)

Another small frisson of regret shook Lady
Caroline as the landau pulled up in the bricked drive in front of
Longville House. In all the hustle and bustle of acquiring gowns,
bonnets, shoes, shawls, spencers, pelisses, an evening cloak, and
sundry other accessories, from gloves and reticules to fans and
ostrich plumes—all while attending as many as four social events a
day—Lady Caroline had had almost no private moments with Viscount
Frayne. In truth, until this simple pleasure was snatched from her,
she had not realized how much this afternoon in his company—his
sole company—had mattered.

What a foolish girl she was, to be
attracted to a fribble. A town
beau
. A care-for-naught.

A gentleman who could not resist the appeal
of two pairs of eager young eyes.

Perhaps Tony was not, after all, so dreadful,
Caroline conceded. Yet it was his kind heart, the gentleness behind
his mocking smile that made him so dangerous. Surely, Viscount
Frayne was exactly the type of man her mama had told her to
shun.

A frisson of a different kind shook her
as Tony took her hand to help her into the carriage. Their eyes
met, his stating quite clearly his apologies for the change of
plan.
The devil!
She welcomed
the children, truly she did. When Tony Norville was around, she
needed all the chaperons she could find.

In the end, the afternoon passed with no
further incident than heads turning to stare at the children or at
the outriders who accompanied their leisurely drive through Hyde
Park. While waiting for the landau to be harnessed, Caroline had
sent for the blue and white sailboat, which had been unearthed from
the attic directly after her first drive in Hyde Park. So a
pleasant half hour was spent at the Serpentine while Laurence
learned to sail the small craft. The only unpleasantness came when
Susan demanded to sail the boat as well, and it had taken all of
the viscount’s diplomatic skills, and Lady Caroline’s as well, to
settle the resulting argument. Viscount Frayne, in fact, resolved
to go sailboat shopping the very next day.

The duke’s roar, however, when he heard about
the children’s afternoon in Hyde Park could be heard all the way to
the attics of Longville House.

The duchess made a surprising discovery. She
no longer quaked when her husband roared. In fact, she was
beginning to welcome the sparks that flew when she stood up to him,
occasionally as close as toe to toe and nose to nose. He would
glower, she would speak softly, while remaining as adamant as he.
The duke had married her to have a mother for his children. She
would, therefore, perform that duty to the best of her ability.
Even if it meant thwarting their papa’s decrees.

Near the end of their argument about the
children being allowed out of Longville House—after the duke had
ordered his daughter to her room to reconsider her stubbornness and
filial disrespect—Jen proffered a coaxing smile, placing two
fingers on her husband’s still-snarling lips. The snarl softened
into a brush of lips across her fingertips. Then his lips were
somehow on the back of her hand, moving up her bare arm to the
inside of her elbow, nuzzling her neck, flirting with her lips
until her knees threatened to melt and she lost all track of the
point she had been trying to make. Their encounter ended quite
satisfactorily for both, although until the next morning at
breakfast, when the duke casually allowed that the children might
go out as long as they were attended by two armed outriders, the
duchess assumed she had lost the argument.

Extraordinary. In truth, she was forced to
concede that Marcus, Duke of Longville, was considerably more
complicated than Captain Gordon Wharton. A fact Jen found more
intriguing than annoying.

In the following days the servants in
Longville House could be seen winking and nudging each other as the
duchess passed by. “A rare one,” was the general consensus. “A
mistress what did the house proud.” Although Sims and Mrs. Jenks
were above such backstairs gossip, they had actually been caught a
time or two in something close to a smile. There could be little
doubt that since the arrival of the new duchess and the three
children, life at Longville House had taken on a glow of warmth and
color it had not seen in years.

“
Shame ’er Grace’s brother don’t seem
to see what’s right under his nose,” declared one of the parlor
maids that night as the servants gathered round the long pine
dining table in the kitchen. “Spooked by thought of a leg-shackle,”
the footman, Kerby, offered.

“
Lady Caroline ain’t anxious to jump
into parson’s mousetrap neither,” Nell Brindley shot
back.

“
Then what’re they doin’ t’gether all
the time?” Kerby demanded. “Fair growin’ roots in the drawing room,
’e is.” A grumble of assent swept the table.

“
That,” declared Sims from the head of
the table, “is none of our affair.”

“
Mebbe each thinks the other’s safe,”
Nell whispered in a voice audible to more than half the
table.

“
You may leave us, Nell,” Mrs. Jenks
pronounced. “Perhaps doing without Cook’s raspberry tart will
remind you not to comment on your betters.”

“
Just you wait,” a defiant Nell
asserted as she pushed back her chair. “When Lady Caroline’s ready,
she’ll snap her fingers and he’ll come runnin’. You’ll
see.”

“
For the next week you will eat above
stairs with the children,” the housekeeper decreed. “And if you
still cannot mind your manners, you will find yourself on a coach
back to whatever backwater village you came from quick as cat can
lick an ear.”

Though her chin was squared in defiance, Nell
Brindley’s flashing eyes revealed the publican’s daughter was still
far from tamed. She sketched a curtsy and managed a creditable,
“Yes, ma’am,” before leaving the kitchen for the long climb up the
back stairs to the nursery.

“
Vauxhall? No, no, no, Tony, doing it
too brown,” Sir Chetwin Willoughby protested. “I’ve stood up with
Lady Harriet at every ball, been seen chatting with her at the
Seffington’s rout. Escort her to Vauxhall, and the blasted baron
will be expectin’ a declaration of my intentions.”

“
Do not be absurd,” Lord Frayne told
his friend. “We are all of a party, with no particular
escort—”

“
Can’t say that, Tony,” Peyton
Trimby-Ashford interjected. “The duke’s paired with the duchess,
don’t y’know? And you never let Lady Caroline out of your sight.
And I plan to do the same for Miss Emily. I mean, Vauxhall, ain’t
it? Not exactly the safest place for a young lady. Let anybody in,
don’t they, if they’ve the price of a ticket? So that leaves Lady
Harriet to Willoughby. Plain as a pikestaff. Can’t blame him for
hesitatin.’”

“
Speaking of Miss Emily,” Sir Chetwin
drawled, “I never thought I’d see the day you’d be such a mooncalf,
old chap. Need to marry money, do you not? Ain’t going to find it
with a colonel’s daughter.”

“
I do
not
need to marry money,” declared an indignant
Peyton Trimby-Ashford.

“
Wouldn’t hurt.”

Mr. Trimby-Ashford drew himself up until his
nose reached Sir Chetwin’s chin. “Happiness,” he pronounced, “is
far superior to wealth. I would prefer to live in simple comfort
with the wife of my heart rather than cut a swath through society
with funds brought to me by a woman who turns my veins to ice.”

“
Bravo!” Tony couldn’t believe those
were his hands applauding his friend’s noble declaration. He did
not believe in love, truly he did not. Someday, preferably far in
the future, he would marry for the sake of an heir, a marriage
arranged for land or wealth or simply because the lady had an
outstanding pedigree. And yet, Peyton’s words touched something
hidden far inside him. A longing for something better, something
more. The need to feel what he could see in his sister’s eyes when
she looked at Marcus. Would the duke, Tony wondered, ever realize
what a treasure he had in his second wife?

Would Anthony Norville ever admit he might
have found a treasure of his own?

Putting this annoying inner voice aside, the
viscount proposed a compromise. Two more young people, including
the parents of the young lady, would be invited to Vauxhall. This
would, Tony assured Sir Chetwin, make a large enough party that no
one should feel paired with a particular escort. Grudgingly,
Willoughby allowed himself to be persuaded. It wasn’t as if he
didn’t like the chit, he kept repeating, it was merely that—

“
We know, we know,” Tony murmured,
clapping him on the back. “There’s a good chap. Peyton and I need
your support.” He winked. “Just think of all the things that can
happen at Vauxhall.”

“
You might think of them, too,” Sir
Chetwin snapped back. “I believe, on a previous occasion, we’ve
mentioned Longville’s prowess with a pistol at dawn.”

Tony covered his inner turmoil with a laugh.
He did not want to acknowledge the strange compulsion that kept
drawing him back to Longville House. The frisson down his spine
that guided him unerringly to Caroline Carlington, no matter how
crowded the ballroom or rout party. Yes, it was foolish to deny he
was plunging downhill out of control, straight toward a fatal crash
upon the altar at St. George’s. But he was plunging kicking and
screaming.

At least he thought he was.

“
Ten bricks shy of a load ye are, Bert
Tunney,” Flann McCollum declared. “I been on the dub-lay for more
years than I care to remember, and I know what kin be snatched and
what’s goin’ to bring on the nubbing cheat.”

“
Dook’s got to pay,” Alfie Grubbs
asserted. “Bert ain’t the only one ’urt. Big black ’orse knocked me
down, stomped m’ hands. Couldn’t work for a fortnight, I
couldn’t.”

“
Work!” Bert Tunney snorted. “What d’
you know about work? A cutpurse, a jostler? A bit of bump and dip,
and you’re set up for a week, while I’m out there breaking m’ back
hauling goods fer those kin afford to pay for ’em. If I hadn’t
tossed y’ a shilling or two for past services, you’d a
starved.”

“
And ain’t that just what I’m sayin’?”
demanded the indignant pickpocket. “Lost m’ livelihood, I did. And
all account of the dook and that giant of a woman ’e
married.”

“
Don’t matter a bit,” Flann
interjected. “Give me a lock to pick, and I’ll be past it in a
flash. But snatch a child out from under a coachman, a groom, and
two men with shotguns, I can’t. I won’t. And you’re touched in the
upper works if y’ think
you
can.”

Bert Tunney stroked his chin, obviously
thinking hard. He was a man who seemed to have been born
disgruntled, his anger at the government genuine. The London
drayman had joined every riot since the turn of the century. But
for this particular job he needed men who were willing to go beyond
occasional political protest, men who scoffed at the law on a daily
basis. Until now, he thought he had found them.

“
I suppose the girl might do,” Tunney
conceded. “I hear the dook’s right fond of ’er.”

“
Don’t want no screamin’ female,” Alfie
Grubbs protested.

“
Jay-sus!” bawled Flann McCollum. “Ye
don’t want nothing. “The fencing cull pays so fine, does ’e, that
you’re set for life? Retiring to the country, are y’ then? Your
pockets so well lined ye don’t need none of the dook’s
gold?”

“
I don’t fancy ’anging,” the pickpocket
stated firmly. “And for that, it don’t matter whether it’s the boy
or ’is sister. It’s the nubbing cheat for sure.”

“
It’s the Canadas for me,” the Irishman
countered. “I’ve fought long enough. I leave riot and revolution to
Bert here. Ye might think on it yourself, Alfie,” Flann advised. “A
new world, a clean slate. Not a bad choice, if y’ have gold enough
to get there.”

“
What if sumthin’ ’appens to the boy?”
Alfie asked, though his companions could see he was wavering. “What
good’s your gold then?”

“
It’s worth the risk,” said Bert
Tunney, the light of revolution filling his eyes. “I kin cart the
dook’s goods to hell ’n’ back, but he never sees me, do he? I’m
just part of the furniture. Same for all the others starvin’ ’cuz
of the blasted Corn Laws. A dook looks up, he sees old Boney. He
sees France and the Peninsula, but he never sees me. Bert Tunney,
who lives in London right under ’is nose. This time”—the carter
lifted his head, seeing sights his companions could not
fathom—“this time the duke sees
me.
”

Flann McCollum, the picklock, turned to Alfie
Grubbs, the pickpocket. “Well,” he demanded, “what’s it to be then?
Are ye in or out?”

“
God help me,” Alfie sighed, “I’m
in.”

With all the solemnity of a vow, the three
men shook hands.

~ * ~

“
Are you quite certain you do not mind
an evening at Vauxhall?” the duchess inquired anxiously. “Tony and
his friends are quite suitable as escorts.”

The Duke of Longville paused over the jewelry
boxes that had somehow not yet found their way into the vault, a
necklace of shimmering opals, each stone surrounded by a frame of
tiny diamonds, dangling from his fingers. “You do not wish me to
go?” he murmured, his face betraying not the slightest emotion.

“
Of course I wish you to go,” Jen
countered swiftly, “but I cannot think it something you would
enjoy.” She dropped her head, avoiding his penetrating eyes. “After
all, you spend so many evenings with your friends, at your
clubs—wherever else gentlemen go—that I could not help but wonder
at your accompanying us to Vauxhall. I would not, of course, wish
to see you suffer from ennui.”