Amanda McCabe (11 page)

The gathered crowd parted for the duke and duchess, allowing them to walk unimpeded to Allen’s side. As Alexander spoke quietly to the red-faced Lady Anderson, Rosalind turned to her brother.

Do not hit him
, she told herself sternly.
Be calm. Remember the rules. Surely there is one about not pummeling gentlemen in public places.
Even foolish younger brothers.

“Rosie!” Allen cried. For one instant, relief flashed across his face. Perhaps, Rosalind thought, he supposed his big sister had come yet again to his rescue. But the relief was quickly replaced by chagrin, and then bluster. “What the deuce are you doing here?”

“What am
I
doing here?” Rosalind said, trying to keep her voice quiet. She was all too aware of the many people watching them with avid interest—including parents of some of her pupils.
“You
are meant to be at university, not gallivanting about London making an absolute fool of yourself—and of me.”

“Ah, Rosie, you are making too much of it,” Allen insisted. He sighed, releasing a wave of that “pungent” odor Lady Emily had mentioned. He pulled off his battered cap and twisted it between his hands. “It is nothing. A mere wager.”

“A
what?”
Rosalind’s voice rose dangerously as she felt her temper slipping out of her control. She felt a soft touch on her arm, and glanced over to see Georgina’s reassuring smile.

“Lady Portman says we may speak privately in her library,” Georgina said. “Perhaps that would be better
than staying here? Alex and Emily will smooth things over with the others.”

Rosalind turned to Alexander. Indeed, he had already smoothed the ruffled purple feathers of Lady Anderson and her sobbing daughter. The indignant matron was even smiling, and much of the crowd was wandering away as the spectacle faded.

“Ah, young men,” Alexander said to the general gathering, with a handsome, rueful smile. “What can one do?”

There was a knowing ripple of laughter, and Rosalind began to think—to hope—that all might not be lost after all. A faint ray of relief pierced the gloom of her anger and humiliation. But it did not entirely eradicate them—they still simmered in the depths of her mind.

She and Allen would not always have a duke to rescue them, and Allen had to come to understand that. Even if he understood so little else—like how precarious their livelihood was at the moment. She had this bank loan to pay, and not enough to pay it. The money from
A Lady’s Rules
that she had counted on was dwindling away. If pupils abandoned her school due to a scandal attached to her family, she and Allen would be entirely lost.

“Yes,” she said to Georgina. “We should retire to the library.” Then, not giving Allen a chance to argue, Rosalind took one of his arms and Georgina the other, and they marched him out of the ballroom. Behind them, the music resumed, and Alexander led Lady Anderson into the dance.

Rosalind was still not entirely certain what had just happened here, but she was quite sure it had
something
to do with Lord Morley.

When Michael returned to the ballroom, many of the guests had departed. But there were still a great many people dancing, sitting in the white brocade chairs lining the dance floor, and taking turns about the room. Everything appeared just as a ball ought
to—except for the two men huddled in the shadows by the door.

Mr. Gilmore and Lord Carteret, dressed incongruously as a Roman centurion and a fop from the last century.

“Morley!” Gilmore cried, his voice hoarse with relief. “You are here.”

“Yes,” Michael answered, as they pulled him into the shadows with them. “I am here. What, though, are
you
two doing here? And dressed like that?”

“It is that wager,” Carteret said, flicking at the deep lace of his cuff. “We thought Lucas would see he cannot win if we brought him here tonight. So we made a sort of secondary wager.”

Carteret seemed faintly amused by the whole thing, while Gilmore looked pale and shaken. Michael glanced from one to the other of them, a strange, sick feeling growing in his stomach. Something had obviously happened while he was lingering with Mrs. Chase in the dark corridor, something involving that very lady’s brother.

Something else she could hate him for. Because he knew, deep down, that she would surely blame him for whatever trouble young Lucas had wreaked tonight.

He swept a quick glance over the ballroom, and did not see Mrs. Chase, Mr. Lucas, or the Duchess of Wayland anywhere. Lady Emily, though, stood not very far away, watching their little group with far too much shrewdness for such a young miss. Michael gave her a rakish grin, hoping she would blush and turn away. She just laughed, but she
did
leave, crossing the room to her brother’s side. The duke was talking with a very buxom lady in bright purple satin, whom Michael recognized as Lady Anderson, mother of the prettiest debutante this Season.

Michael turned back to Gilmore and Carteret. “Now tell me exactly why you three came here in costume.”

Carteret gave him a resentful scowl. “You are not our father, Morley, to be taking us to task.”

“Carteret…” Gilmore said nervously.

“But,” Carteret continued, “since you
are
our friend, we will tell you. We were at a masquerade at Vauxhall, with the loveliest little bits o’muslin you ever saw. There was a bit too much wine and brandy, too, and so we conceived the idea of coming here.”

Michael stared at them through narrowed eyes. “That cannot be the entire story.”

“It is
almost
the entire story!” Gilmore said. “Except that Carteret dared Lucas to steal a kiss from Miss Anderson, then dash away before he was caught. Miss Anderson is the Diamond of the Season, y’know.”

“It would have worked, too, if the chit hadn’t sent up such a fuss,” said Carteret. “Then Lord St. Regis and Miss Anderson’s mama laid Lucas low.”

Miss Anderson “sending up a fuss” was surely exactly what Carteret had been hoping for, Michael thought. Public humiliation was probably the only way Lucas was going to be persuaded he must follow the rules, and thus allow Carteret to win the silly wager. “Where is Lucas now?”

“His dragon sister and the Duchess of Wayland marched him out of here, quite smartishly,” said Gilmore. “And the duke calmed everyone down in here. Even Lady Anderson.”

“So you see?” Carteret said languidly. “There was no harm done.”

No harm done?
Could these—these
loobies
truly be so very ignorant? Their prank had very nearly humiliated a young man and ruined his sister’s business. Michael knew very well how unforgiving people in Society could be if they felt they had been embarrassed, and these boys’ escapade had involved the loveliest debutante in London and her snobbish parents. Only the intervention of people as influential as the Waylands had saved the entire ridiculous situation. And now this smirking bacon-brain was prating about no harm done.

Michael could not stop himself from reaching out
to grab Carteret by the lace of his cascading jabot—his anger blinded him, burned white-hot behind his eyes. Carteret’s eyes widened in shock, and he made ineffectual little jabs with his beringed hands as Gilmore, looking on, gave an incoherent cry.

“Don’t you realize what could have happened here tonight? Lucas’s
sister
was here. Her reputation was at risk as well as his, if your ‘harmless’ prank had not ended where it did. The Waylands saved all of your hides this time, but next time you will not be so fortunate, you brainless pups.”

Carteret’s face was turning red beneath his layer of rice powder, and his hands clawed ever more insistently at Michael’s arm. Michael loosened his grip, but still held onto the lace.

“You were the one who claimed we could break all the rules and still be accepted,” Carteret gasped. “Are you so quick to change your mind, just because Lucas got taken to task?”

Michael had never meant his words like
this.
Yes, following all of
A Lady’s Rules
was absurd, was soul-killing. But their behavior this evening, that of all three of them, had been beyond the pale. Michael himself would never do anything so rash, so ill thought out. He would never actually damage anyone.

Would he? Certain youthful indiscretions flashed through his mind, pranks every bit as ridiculous as the one this trio had tried tonight. Yet that had been long ago; he had learned from those mistakes, as one day these boys would have to learn from theirs. That sort of wild, pointless rule-breaking was far behind Michael.

Then another vision flowed through his mind—himself, pulling Lady Clarke close to him and putting his arm about her waist. All in this very ballroom, not three hours ago—and under the gaze of Mrs. Chase.

A heat that felt uncomfortably more like regret than his previous anger flowed through his veins. He released Carteret, who fell back a step and reached up to rub at his throat.

“You are far more dangerous than we are, Morley,” Carteret said weakly. “People pay far more attention to
your
infractions than they ever would to ours. And I think the ladies over there would agree with me.”

Michael, still trembling with the force of his anger and uncertainty, glanced back over his shoulder.

Mrs. Chase and the Duchess of Wayland stood in the doorway of the ballroom, with Allen Lucas nowhere in evidence. The duchess paid them no attention; her gaze was scanning over the crowd, no doubt looking for her husband.

But Mrs. Chase was staring right at them—at
him.
Her posture was perfectly straight, her expression completely composed. Her eyes, though, burned with a freezing, pale blue light, even more vivid than the duchess’s sapphires. She watched him, unblinking, for a long, still moment, the force of her disdain clear. She then slowly turned her back to him and moved away into the sea of people.

It was as if their moment in the corridor had never happened at all. As if he had never glimpsed the heat that lay beneath her serene, proper exterior.

He felt as if he had just lost something precious, something he had not even realized he could desire so much until this very moment—something as beautiful as Mrs. Chase’s smile.

He had the strongest urge to rush after her, to apologize, to beg for her understanding. He could not, though. It would do no good, not when her eyes were as cold as they were right now. She had drawn back into herself, after shyly peering forth when they were alone. She was again the self-contained Mrs. Chase. And how could he ask her to understand something he could not yet understand himself?

He should talk to her, and he would. But not here. Not now, with all these people about. He strode away from Gilmore and Carteret, down the staircase toward the Portman’s front door. He reached inside his coat and touched the satin and lace fan—Mrs. Chase’s fan. Tomorrow, he would take it to her, would talk to her.
Surely by then he would know what to say. Words were his profession, after all—he ought to be able to find the right ones.

He was not sure why he felt he had to speak to her so urgently. She was a woman who stood for everything he so disliked, had so strained against all his life. He only knew he
did
have to talk to her, to see her again. He had to find the woman he had met in the corridor.

“G
ood heavens, what an evening!” Georgina collapsed onto a settee in her own sitting room, and kicked off her satin slippers before propping her feet on a low footstool. “I cannot recall a more diverting soiree, can you, Emily?”

“Not at all,” Emily replied, settling herself in an armchair. “There was that jug-bitten young man who tried to slide down the banister at the Eversleys’ ball last Season, but I would say…” She broke off, and cast a guilty smile in Rosalind’s direction. “Not that I enjoyed seeing
your
brother get into trouble, Mrs. Chase.”

Rosalind gave her a small smile in return. A small one was all she could manage, she was so very tired. She wished she could kick off her shoes like Georgina, but it did not seem proper. Not in front of people. “It is quite all right, Lady Emily. Allen
did
look ridiculous there, and it was entirely his own fault.” His—and Lord Morley’s, for encouraging such silliness among impressionable young men. “I wonder if I should go up and see how he fares?”

“Oh, no, Rosie,” Georgina said, scratching the ears of her spoiled white terrier Lady Kate. “Alex will have him tucked away in a trice. He knows exactly how
to deal with drunk young men, after all his years in the army.”

“It was very kind of you to give him a chamber for the night,” said Rosalind. “When you invited me to stay with you, you could hardly have expected to put up my entire family.”

“Oh, pooh!” Georgina answered, with a careless wave of her hand. Her ruby betrothal ring flashed in the firelight. “We must have a hundred guest chambers in this place, and no one to fill them. Mr. Lucas is welcome to stay as long as he likes.”

Rosalind’s lips tightened. “He will not stay long. Tomorrow, he will be going back to Cambridge, where he belongs.”

Georgina laughed. “Rosie dear, I fear he will not be in any shape to travel tomorrow!”

Emily, who had been staring thoughtfully out of one of the windows, turned serious eyes to them. Rosalind wondered what she was thinking of; usually, Rosalind was adept at reading young ladies, but she found Lady Emily to be a mystery. Emily, in her third Season, was older than most of the misses on the Marriage Mart, and had seen far more of life than they had. She might look like a china shepherdess, with her golden curls and china blue eyes, but she was shrewd and did not miss much around her.

Her words showed that. “I am of the mind that Mr. Lucas could never have conceived of such a prank alone. He is too good-hearted, and was far too foxed.”

“Do you suppose it was that silly Mr. Gilmore?” Georgina asked. “Or perhaps Lord Carteret. I saw them both there, in their costumes. They must have had a part in it.”