Regency 09 - Redemption (3 page)

“What if, shwat if,”
remarked Dare carelessly. “I will wear what I want until I am
forced to go about in Society. And if the ladies who visit will be
frightened by my dress I will simply hide until they go
away.”

“Will you cut your
hair?”

That wiped the grin off
Dare’s face. “Why should I?”

“You look like a pirate,
Dare. All you lack is the eyepatch.”

A gleam of interest lit
Dare’s expressive face. “Indeed. I’ll look into that.”

Miles released an
exasperated breath. “As you will,” he muttered, wondering why he
even tried to change his brother. It was a thankless task and never
successful.

“I’ve often wondered the
same, brother,” Dare uttered softly. “Trying to change someone who
is equally determined not to is ever frustrating.”

Miles shook his head, a
trifle aghast at his twin’s unnerving perspicacity.

Several minutes passed with
Miles once again poring over his paperwork and his twin prowling
around, poking his fingers into everything like a curious child.
Miles felt like a father sometimes when he was with Dare and it was
not a feeling he enjoyed considering he was the younger of the
two—by twelve minutes.

“If you are going to hang
about, Dare, do something productive, please.”

Dare stopped prowling and
stared at Miles. “What do you suggest?” He moved across the room
and stood looking over his twin’s shoulder. “Do you have party
invitations that need addressed?” he asked impudently, knowing this
was not an activity that fell under Miles’s jurisdiction. “I assure
you, should I do so, all the invitations would go astray resulting
in some unsavory characters arriving for the ball…or rout…or
breakfast…or whatever.”

He paused, one finger on
his chin in a pose of thinking that Miles knew was feigned. “Why do
they call it a breakfast? They never start until three in the
afternoon and go until all hours.” The look he bestowed on his
brother positively begged for an answer.

Miles managed to contain
his annoyance. He had a difficult time dealing with Dare’s
lackadaisical way of life. The man was eight-and-twenty years old.
It was time for him to grow up and stop acting like life was a
game.

Dare knew how his attitude
annoyed Miles and secretly reveled in it. Their relationship was a
constant struggle between comedy and drama, Dare preferring to
laugh at the bumps in the road of life and Miles preferring to
analyze and configure everything life tossed in his path. The very
thought of taking life seriously wearied Dare to the point he was
afraid he might have to retire to his room for a two-week
nap.

The
slightly elder of the two identical gentlemen resumed his place
behind his brother’s shoulder, shamelessly perusing the paper
currently on the top of the stack. He was intrigued to note that a
lady’s name seemed to be scrawled across the page with many
flourishes. Did his brother have a
tendre
for someone?

“
Dare, do you mind?” snapped
Miles. He jerked the paper out of the other man’s line of sight. He
was more annoyed with himself than his brother but the way Dare was
hovering made him edgy.

Dare’s ready grin flashed
again. “No, I don’t mind.”

“Get out!”

Laughing, Dare left Miles
to his papers. He crossed the hall and went back upstairs. As he
moved past the drawing room, Lady Prestwich stepped out. He
stopped.

“I wondered if perhaps you
were lost,” remarked Bri with a smile. “Then I heard Miles yell and
I assumed it was a little brotherly squabble.”

“You were right.” Dare
smiled. “So tell me all the news. I have not heard anything to
date.”

Lady Genevieve Northwicke
stared at the young man with feigned incomprehension. She fluttered
her eyelashes and gave him such an ingenuous look that he felt
quite intelligent, which was just what she wanted him to think. The
poor young captain had neither wit nor looks and Jenny did not have
the heart to puncture his bubble of self-importance.

Finally growing tired of
her feigned stupidity, she smiled and asked, “Captain Carter, would
you be so good as to escort me to my sister. I do believe she is
signaling me.”

“Of course, Lady
Genevieve.” The captain bowed and held out his arm.

Jenny placed her hand on
his arm and followed him across the crowded ballroom. She managed
to keep the smile on her face until she reached her sister, Gwen.
The captain bowed and moved away.

Jenny grabbed her sister’s
arm and pulled her behind a potted plant so they were in relative
privacy. “Please, Gwen, get me out of here! If I have to act stupid
to satisfy the vanity of one more witless young man,
I’ll…I’ll—”

“Scream?” suggested Gwen.
She gave her twin a sympathetic smile, her bright blue eyes
twinkling. “You might do better punching them in the eye, Jenny. I
almost did.”

Genevieve, the older of the
twins, gave her sister a look of delight. “Who, Gwen? Was it Sir
Gerald? He can be such a bore. Do you know he once gave me a
jaw-me-dead when he caught me reading Plato in the original Greek?
He actually told me ladies should not addle their brains with
difficult reading materials. Their sole purpose in life is to look
pretty so men can enjoy gazing upon them, act stupid so stupid men
can feel intelligent, and faint at the sight of a spider so men can
feel strong.” She released a sound that was suspiciously like a
snort—if ladies made such a sound, that is, which they didn’t. Then
she added darkly, “He did, however, think it was adorable that I
was pretending to know how to read Greek.”

Gwen giggled. “When were
you reading Plato, Jenny?”

“Three days ago at Lady
Jersey’s rout. I was so tired of pretending to be something I’m not
that I sneaked into the library for a good read. I was just getting
to the good part when Sir Gerald walked in.” She grimaced. “I was
sorely tempted to draw his cork.”

“Shh!” admonished Gwen. “If
Mama hears you speaking cant she’ll make us listen to a lecture
about the proper behavior becoming a lady. I can’t sit through
another, I promise you. After the last one, I swore I’d run and
hide.”

“How very unladylike, Gwen,
to be sure,” replied her sister tartly. She spoiled the effect by
laughing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the arrival of Lady
Adam Prestwich. “Oh, let us go say hello to Bri, Gwen. I have not
seen her this age. And she was always good for chasing away the
doldrums.”

The twin beauties moved
sedately across the floor, smiling serenely at gentlemen as they
went. Both were well versed in the art of flirtation and it was
automatic for them to do so. If they weren’t a duke’s daughters
with notoriously high dowries, they’d be considered on the shelf,
in fact. They were three-and-twenty and both had been inundated
with offers of marriage, still were, in fact. Neither had found
gentlemen they liked well enough for marriage, however, and so they
were both still unwed.

Upon reaching Lady
Prestwich, Gwen burst out with, “Oh, Bri, you are the answer to our
prayers.” Then she caught sight of Miles Prestwich, a gentleman
with whom she was slightly acquainted and more than slightly
attracted to. She blushed prettily and offered him a
smile.

Jenny noticed this little
bit of by-play and rolled her eyes. Really, her sister could be
such a ninny sometimes!

The sound of a male laugh
jerked her attention to Bri’s other escort. Her eyes widened
considerably and she had to bite her lip to avoid embarrassing
herself by laughing outright.

Before her stood a replica
of Miles, only, somehow, much more handsome, but in a piratical
sort of way. His hair was longer than fashion dictated and tied at
his nape with a black silk ribbon. His evening dress was flawless,
his cravat a miracle of starch and linen with a blue diamond
glowing from the folds, and his dancing pumps shined like black
glass.

He had a
decidedly roguish look in his dark blue eyes. It was this look that
made her think of pirates and made her want to laugh. He looked
very out of place in the glittering ballroom surrounded by members
of the
ton
.

He stared right back at
her, his look frankly appraising and Jenny surprised herself by
returning the look hundredfold. His eyes darkened and she felt
goose flesh break out on her arms. Her heartbeat accelerated and
her palms grew moist. And all that from a simple look! What would
it be like to actually touch the man?

She became aware suddenly
that everyone’s attention was focused on her. “I’m sorry,” she
said. “I wasn’t attending.”

Bri laughed. “That was
apparent, my dear. I was merely introducing Miles’s brother, Dare.
You may or may not acknowledge him, as is your preference,” she
said carelessly, grinning hugely. “He is a bit of a rogue, a bit of
a flirt, and a bit of a rake.” The older woman pursed her lips. “On
second thought, you might do better to stay away from
him.”

Dare seemed much amused by
this assessment of his character. He made no reply, however, beyond
admonishing Bri to be careful whom she informed of this
fact.

“You admit to being these
things?” Jenny asked with raised eyebrows.

“I admit nothing, Lady
Genevieve,” he replied. “Confession leads too often to
misunderstandings and assumptions better
left…unassumed.”

“Many would disagree, Mr.
Prestwich, and say that confession more often leads to better
understanding.”

He
snapped a smart bow, his eyes crinkling in amusement.
“
Touché
, my dear
lady.”

The band chose that moment
to strike up a waltz. Dare bowed to Jenny and asked if she cared to
dance.

She accepted out of
curiosity. “I was under the impression that you have been away for
many years, sir. How is it that you know how to waltz?”

“What a savage you must
think me,” he remarked lightly, placing one hand at her waist while
the other took her hand in a strong clasp. “I have not been among
only the uncivilized, you know. The waltz is danced in
Germany.”

“I know that,” she replied
with a tinge of asperity. Did he actually believe her to be so
stupid that she did not know in which country the waltz
originated?

Dare grinned down at the
diminutive beauty in his arms. “Indeed? You didn’t exactly strike
me as the type to know much beyond how to flirt and spend
money.”

He made the comment just to
rile her and he got just the reaction he wanted. She puckered up
like an angry kitten and he strongly suspected she’d hiss and spit
at him if she could do so without destroying her reputation beyond
any sort of atonement.

“I’ll have you know,” she
said angrily before she thought about what she was saying and to
whom, “I happen to read extensively on every subject I can get my
hands on. I would wager I have read more than you.”

“I would not take you up on
that, little trumpeter,” he commented dryly, “considering I avoid
reading like the plague.” Lord, he’d no idea the chit was a
bluestocking. No wonder she was still unmarried at her advanced
age.