A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (5 page)

Her
journal
. It was gone. She stood in
the curricle and searched beneath where she had been sitting, but
it was nowhere to be found.

Norcutt looked upon her like she
belonged in Bedlam. “Miss Hyatt? We shall fetch your things
immediately. There is no cause for concern.”

“
My journal. Have you seen
my journal?” She tossed up the tail of his greatcoat where it lay
on the bench beside her. “I must find my journal. It is a matter of
dire importance, sir.” Life and death importance. Oh, dear good
Lord, the things she had written there. If anyone were to come
across it…

“
I believe it must have
gone missing with your parasol. Surely it will be here along the
way.” He hurried the horses at the urgency in her voice.

“
Oh, it simply
must
be.” If someone
found it, if word got out, if Father learned… She was
doomed.

When they arrived at the trees where
her parasol lay, she leapt down from the curricle without waiting
for his assistance and dashed to look under the foliage.

It wasn’t there. Nor was it tucked
neatly into another nearby grove of trees. Nor could it be found
alongside the Serpentine. It was nowhere.

Gone
.

Aurora got down on her knees to look
behind a row of bushes. Lord Norcutt followed suit soon after. Lord
Merrick came along with Rebecca, still laughing gaily with her hair
flying freely at her side.

“
I say, are we still
missing some items?” Merrick’s flippant tone set Aurora’s blood to
boiling.

“
Miss Hyatt seems to have
misplaced her journal.”

Rebecca’s gasp underscored
the gravity of the situation. She flung herself to her knees as
well, to assist in the process. Soon, all four of them were
scrounging around upon their knees, most decidedly ruining their
clothing and making utter fools of themselves as half the
ton
watched in combined
shock, curiosity, and horror.

After nearly half an hour, they had
all given up the search except for Aurora.

“
I think,” said Rebecca,
“it is time to stop, Miss Hyatt. Clearly, the journal is not here.
We must assume that it has landed in the Serpentine and been washed
away.”

Yes. Washed away. Perhaps that was the
case. Perhaps her world would not crumble in all around
her.

She slowly rose to her feet and
brushed the grass and dirt from her gown. All the life had been
sapped out of her in the search. She felt weak. Numb.

Perhaps no one would discover her
secret.

Chapter Three

1 April, 1811

Life as I have known it is
now over. It was nice to know you. Please remember me
kindly.

~From the new journal of
Miss Aurora Hyatt

“
Today, my friend, is the
first day of your future as a true gentleman.” Jonas stood before
him as the picture of the London gentleman, with everything in
precisely the proper place. Top hat, angled just so. Pantaloons,
waistcoat, greatcoat, cravat. Check, check, check, check. Sheer
elegance and perfection.

Devil take him.

Standing next to him, Quin felt like a
buffoon. His breeches fit more snugly than he liked, his greatcoat
hardly allowed him any free movement, the bloody cravat threatened
to strangle him, and he’d be damned if he’d enjoy wearing a blasted
beaver hat.

Jonas had tried to convince him to cut
his hair along with the shave, but there were some things a man
just simply couldn’t allow.

He attempted to stretch out his legs
and arms, hoping to find a way to function in the fussy attire.
“Can we get on with it already? I don’t know how long I can pass as
a dandy.” At least not without swooning like a woman.

Jonas smirked. “Not very long.” He
gave Quin’s appearance a final examination. “You really ought to
have worn one of my coats. Something with some color. Something
less funereal, sans the look of…well, death.”

Color. That would be the day. “I feel
like death. Death agrees with me. Besides, we’re hunting for a
bride. Isn’t that much the same as attending my own
funeral?”

“
How do you intend to catch
a bride if you scare all the young ladies away? You look as dour as
a gravedigger preparing to bury his father.”

“
Excellent. That is just
the look I had hoped for when I dressed this morning.” Quin failed
to understand why his appearance was of such import.

Jonas heaved a sigh. “Well, I suppose
there is nothing to be done for it. Shall we away?” He headed for
his stables without waiting for Quin’s reply.

It was about time, too. While Quin
wanted nothing less than to find a bride, the matter was no longer
up for debate. And clearly his tactics had been dismal failures, at
best. He might as well try what Jonas suggested, even if he thought
it a ridiculous notion.

Honestly. Riding through Hyde Park and
hoping to meet young ladies there? Impressing them with his posture
on a horse? Making small talk? Making himself affable to their
chaperones and escorts? None of this sounded like a good method of
convincing a young lady that she was madly in love with him and
needed to marry him at once. If anything, it sounded like a good
method of landing himself in Bedlam.

But what did he have to lose? Only his
sanity (which some might claim he’d already lost) and an
afternoon.

He followed along behind Jonas,
mounted his horse, and they were off. They reached the park well
before the fashionable hour, but still several groups of walkers
strolled along the Serpentine, and Rotten Row was filling with
people on horseback and in a variety of carriages. As one group
came upon another, they would all bow and curtsy and stop for
conversation.

Bloody hell. He’d never felt so
confined, so trapped, whilst out of doors. Perhaps he would toss
himself into the Thames before they were through. Or maybe he’d
toss Jonas, instead.

Yes, now that he thought about it for
a moment, most assuredly Jonas.

“
Ah, wonderful,” Jonas
said. “Lord and Lady Tyndall and their daughter, Miss Tyndall, are
headed our way on foot. Perhaps we should start with
them.”

“
Perhaps we should gouge
out our eyes with dull, rusty daggers,” Quin responded. “That might
be equally as pleasant.”

“
Coward.”

“
Degenerate.”

But Jonas afforded him no opportunity
to hesitate. He lifted his hand and called, “Lord and Lady Tyndall.
Lovely day today, is it not? And how delightful to see you out as
well, Miss Tyndall.”

The baronet rode to the family’s side
before Quin had a chance to stop him, leaving Quin with no choice
but to join them or look the part of the cad. Which, of course, he
was, but he was supposed to be mending his ways.

He had half a heart to toss his
grandfather into the Thames now, instead of anyone else. Then he
could just inherit and be done with it. Devilish old
codger.

So he rode over to
the
oh-so-delightful
Tyndall family and joined his friend.

“
Have you all had the
pleasure of meeting my good friend, Lord Quinton? He has finally
come in from the country to give life in Town a try.”

Tyndall seemed interested
and started to speak, but his wife shook her head furiously at him
with a forbidding glare in her eyes. “I believe,” she said, “we
must be on our way, Sir Jonas.” She tugged on the arms of both her
husband and her daughter, whispering loudly to her husband, “Lord
Quinton is
the
one
. We must
not
associate ourselves with him.”
They walked at a much faster pace than their previous stroll and
were out of earshot within moments.

“
I told you this was a bad
idea.” Quin watched the trio move along the Serpentine and stop at
another group of walkers. They talked for a moment and then turned
and pointed in his direction. The second group changed directions
and walked away with the Tyndalls. “Are you ready to give up on
this bag of moonshine yet? We need another plan. This will never
work.”

Jonas spurred his horse forward. “Not
yet. We’ve only talked to one family! There are easily a dozen more
groups we can try. If we stay long enough, the park will be full of
fashionable opportunities.”

“
But if they won’t even let
me speak…”

“
We’ll worry about that
when we come to it.” Jonas had spotted another group, this one with
two gentlemen and two ladies who were heading for them.

“
We’ve already come to it!”
Blast. He should turn around. He ought to go back to Jonas’s
bachelor lodgings and prepare himself for that evening, and then
return to his original plan. It would work. Eventually. Somehow, he
would stumble upon a young lady desperate enough to be married that
she would marry even him. She had to exist. He merely had to find
her. Weren’t balls the most likely place for a young lady to be in
search of a husband?

The sound of galloping horses and out
of control carriages barreled down on him from behind. Quin had
only just leapt to the side and out of the way before they were
upon him: two curricles, each carrying a gentleman and a lady,
racing along the path, headed for Rotten Row. He had to stop
himself from cursing them for their audacity.

One of the ladies screamed and grabbed
hold of her bonnet. A book flew out of the curricle and landed only
a few feet from him. Up ahead, parasols and bonnets and top hats
flew out behind the two vehicles, landing in a decidedly haphazard
fashion as they went.

Quin dismounted to collect the book so
he could return it to its owner, even if she did pose a dangerous
risk to society by racing at full speed through a park without
regard for the other people who might happen to be there. Out of
curiosity, he flipped through the pages to see what she’d been
reading. But this was no printed book—it was her
journal.

Before I could react in
any way, Lord Quinton’s lips fell upon mine, soft and supple and
wantonly delectable.

Damnation!

One of those chits had been
writing about him. And not writing about how fiendish he was, or
what a cur he was, or any other reasonable thing for a young lady
of good
ton
to
believe of him. But she was writing about kissing him. And
liking
it. Which was no
surprise to him, but seemed it might be a bit of a surprise to
her.

He was fairly certain he hadn’t kissed
either of them. Not yet, at least.

But he’d be damned if that remained
the way of things.

“
What have you there,
Quin?” Jonas asked as he returned. “A book? I never took you for
the reading sort.”

“
I’m not. Or I wasn’t until
now.” His life was on the verge of a momentous change. He could
feel it. Granted, part of that change included marriage, but that
couldn’t be avoided any longer.

At least that marriage would be to
someone who might keep him interested. Because how could a woman
who wrote such a thing about him be uninteresting?

He felt invigorated. Alive.

Quin had just discovered his bride.
Now he simply had to discover her identity and convince her to
marry him.

That couldn’t be too
difficult.

~ * ~

“
Aurora. There couldn’t
possibly be very many Auroras to choose from.” Quin sat at a table
at White’s with Jonas, reading through the journal he’d found at
Hyde Park.

“
I know of only one in
the
beau monde
.
But keep your voice down. You’ll ruin her before you even meet her,
if anyone hears.”

Only one. Excellent. “She’s the
one.”

“
What the hell are you
after? How can you know she’s the one? You’ve never met her. You
know nothing about her.” Jonas threw up his hands in disgust. “All
you have is this…this…
book
that she’s written.”

“
Precisely. I have this
book in which she’s written a cornucopia of brazen and lascivious
ideas. About me. And her. About
us.
That means she already thinks there is an us.” He
couldn’t have dreamed up an idea more perfect if he’d tried.
“Listen to this: ‘
Lord Quinton pulled me
into another embrace and I felt my body come alive. The energy
between us thrummed with an electricity I never knew existed. I
looked up into his eyes, beckoning, begging. Before I could speak
the words to ask, his lips crushed down against my own again, far
more insistently than before.
’ She’s
practically begging me to come and ravish her. How can I deny the
minx the joys of my infinite skill in that area?” He turned to
another page. “And here! Here she writes of us
marrying.”

Jonas glared at him across the table
and placed a finger over his lips. “Be quiet. You can’t know that
it is really about you. Be realistic, Quin. She could just have an
overactive imagination.”