“Like what?” Winn took the purse away from her and unwound the strings. “A seditious statement against the government? A blackmail threat?” Irma took back the reticule, fumbled inside, and pulled out a pointed quill. “It doesn’t matter what, as long as he’s so disguised he doesn’t notice the pen.” She triumphantly presented the item to the viscount, who checked around to make sure they were unobserved, smiling to himself at the intrigue, before examining the quill more closely. He raised his eyebrows. “Tiny pinholes?”
“Mama cannot stand a messy hand. She says it denotes a flawed character.”
“So the tampered pen and Demon Rum shall strike him from the lists?”
Irma bit her lip. “As far as Mama is concerned. It might be best if you got him to write something Papa wouldn’t like, a love poem or such.” She patted his hand in reassurance. “You’ll know what to do; you can speak six languages.”
So the pride of the Foreign Office was supposed to stay up half the night with a slimy cit he hardly knew, get the toadeater castaway enough to blot and bedaub an incriminating letter—and all for an engaging green-eyed, grinning chit who had such confidence in him, he could move a mountain.
He did better than move a mountain. He moved two.
*
Only the family was in the breakfast parlor the next morning, having seen Iselle and her new fiancé off to an early, private departure.
Irma was dressed in jonquil muslin when she took her place at the table. Before buttering her roll, she took a scrap of paper from her pocket. “Oh, Mama. I found this in the library when I returned a book this morning. You know how you wished for a sample of Mr. Frye’s writing, since he responded to your invitation in person, recall? It seems to be a bill of sale to Lord Wingate, if I make it out correctly, so perhaps I should just see it returned. Dobbs mentioned that the two gentlemen were in the library late.”
“Making inroads in my best brandy, too,” Lord Bannister grumbled. “Bill of sale, you say? Let me see that, missy.” He held the paper one way, then the other. “Blasted chicken scratches, if you ask me.
“You are simply too vain to wear your spectacles,” his life’s companion sniped from the opposite end of the table. “Hand it here.”
“‘Bag filled by Sneeze or Crud?’ What in tarnation? Blast! It must mean a bay filly by Breeze out of Crusader! By damn, that blighter’s gone and sold Wingate the yearling I wanted!”
“Oh, pooh, Isa, what’s another horse? Let me see the handwriting.”
“What’s another horse? You might as well ask what’s another arm or leg, Irene! I wanted
this
horse, and that dastard knew it. Hang it, I can’t make out the sale price. I offered the blackguard five hundred pounds, and he turned me down.”
“Five hundred pounds for a horse?” Lady Bannister shrieked, jumping out of her seat.
“A thousand? Could that be a thousand?” The baron whistled. “Dash sight higher than I wanted to go. And instruction in fencing on Mars? What the blazes?”
Lady Bannister reached her husband’s end of the table and snatched the paper out of his hands. “Let me see that, you blockhead. I’m the expert.” She took the page over to the window. “Faugh, what a mess. Not even being in one’s cups is an excuse for such a mishmash. Yes, one bay filly, um hm, for the sum of one thousand pounds, hm, and…and an introduction to Fancine O’Mara.”
“Why, that dirty dog! The filly I wanted and the highest flyer in London town!”
“What’s a high-flyer, Papa?” Irma asked, earning glares from both parents. Inessa had gone pale; now she started crying into her serviette. “You mean she’s a…a courtesan?”
“Go to your room, Irma,” Lady Bannister ordered. “You are too young for this conversation.” Still intent on the blotted sheet, she never noticed that Irma stayed. Wild horses could not have dragged her away.
“Blast, the filly I wanted.”
“Fancine O’Mara. Look at all these splotches and blots, a sure sign of a disordered temperament. Those lust-laden loops, the prurient penultimates, the prodigal pressure. And yes, the margins are definitely miserly. Why, the man is a cad!”
“He’s never going to be welcome at one of my hunts, I can tell you that.”
“And he’s never going to be welcome in my house, and you better tell him that, too.”
“Me tell him?”
“Well, you didn’t think I was going to let an old reprobate like your friend come calling on my sweet Inessa, did you? My pure, unsullied darling? No, I’d rather see her lead apes in hell than be besmirched by one such as he, even if she spends the rest of her days helping the vicar with his charity work.”
Just as Inessa wailed that she didn’t want to die a spinster, Viscount Wingate walked into the room, dressed in riding clothes.
“Pardon,” he said, “but I was up early, and your butler said I might break my fast here. I can see you are having a family talk, though, so I’ll just—”
Irma assured Winn that he was welcome, to help himself to the sideboard and take up a seat. Lady Bannister glared at her, recalling she’d been dismissed. Lord Bannister glared at the viscount, thinking how the bloke had all the blunt in the world, and entree to all the best bordellos. Inessa whined that she loved babies.
Into the ensuing silence, Winn casually remarked, “I couldn’t help overhearing your mention of the vicar. No one has aught to say of him but the highest praises. My uncle the duke has a living open at his seat, a large, wealthy parish up near Rutland. That’s close to the Belvoir hunt, I believe. He asked me to keep an eye out for a likely young cleric. It would be a real step up for a good man. I was thinking of offering it to young Allbright, if you wouldn’t mind my stealing him away.”
“Why not?” Lord Bannister growled. “You’ve got everything else.”
“We’ll all miss him,” Irma chimed in over her father’s rudeness, “especially Nessie.” Inessa whimpered about a house of her own, a little cottage would do. Irma hurried on as if her sister had not spoken, or sniveled. “But we’d never put a damper on his career, would we, Papa? Kelvin Allbright’s such a fine, upstanding man, isn’t he, Mama?”
Lady Bannister nodded, wondering how she would keep possession of the bill of sale for her files, marked
D
for depravity. “He comes from a good family, writes a neat hand. High-minded horizontals.” She drifted out of the room with the vague excuse of preparations for the ball.
“That’s very kind of you not to stand in the fellow’s way,” Lord Wingate said after accepting a cup of coffee and a wink from Irma. “Who knows how high a churchman can rise, with the right connections. Of course, he’d need the perfect helpmate. Someone who can serve the needy and entertain the bishop. Someone like your charming Miss Inessa, for instance, who is much too good for a frippery fellow like me.”
“Belvoir, eh?”
“Oh, Papa, please.”
“Tea with the bishop, what? That would please your mama; you could get his autograph.”
“My Kelvin might even
be
the bishop someday, Papa.”
“Your Kelvin, is it? Well, Irene said she wanted to see you all settled by the hunt ball. Send him to me, Nessie, we’ll talk.”
6
“You were magnificent, Lord Wingate!”
“Winn.”
“That, too! Why, the horse, the high-flyer. I swear you couldn’t have done better!”
“So we statesmen are not such stodgy, paltry fellows after all, eh, Glory?”
“I should say not. It’s a wonder we lost the colonies. I daresay you must have poured buckets of brandy down Mr. Frye’s throat to get that paper.”
“No, the makebait was barely disguised. He merely drives a hard bargain. I must have been the one who was cupshot, paying a thousand pounds for a filly! Never in my life have I been so outrageously extravagant. And my poor head!”
“Oh dear, and it was all my fault!” Irma cried, clutching at his arm.
“Don’t shout, sweetheart!” he moaned, but he squeezed her hand on his arm, and did not let Irma draw it back to her side.
They were walking in the woods, unsupervised since Lady Bannister was closeted in her sitting room with Vicar Allbright’s latest sermon. Yes, the
i
’s were dotted with a dollop of devout dedication, but, ah, the
a
’s
were awash with ambition. Poor Kelvin had ridden over to ask an opinion, and he was stumbling home with a new bride, a new position, and no Sunday sermon.
Lord Wingate, despite his throbbing head, was meanwhile basking in the light of another crisp day, and Irma’s grateful admiration. The companionable silence was broken only by the sound of their booted feet kicking up leaves, and the occasional bark of Bridey, the old hound bitch, who waddled along behind them. Winn was thinking what a relief it was not to have to make idle chitchat, and Irma was struck dumb, for once, at his endearment, and the fact that Viscount Wingate had actually sought out her company. She pretended to study the treetops so she wouldn’t be caught staring at him in his fawn breeches and high-topped Hessians.
After the fresh air had cleared his head somewhat, Lord Wingate commented, “Well, now there is only one sister to be saved from sacrifice on the altar of marriage.”
“You need not concern yourself, my lord.”
He stopped walking. “I thought we were friends. Of course I am concerned.”
A squirrel was suddenly found fascinating as Irma considered whether Winn was more concerned with her possible forced marriage—or his own. “Fustian, they’ll never push me in your direction. Not even Mama is so buffleheaded.”
“What, does she think I am too old for you?”
“What does old have to do with Mama’s plans? Mr. Frye was ages older than Inessa. Besides, you’re not too old. I am too young. Too unschooled and unpolished for a top-of-the-trees gentleman like you. Mama will be the first to tell you.”
So she didn’t think he was too old? The viscount’s waistcoat buttons nearly popped, his chest swelled so. He started walking again, Glory’s hand still in his. “But she must have noticed how we’ve become friends. Won’t she hope for more?”
Irma sighed. “Not Mama. She’ll realize that with Iselle gone and Inessa promised, we are thin of company. She’ll thank you for being amused by her harum-scarum adolescent.”
Winn was amazed again at Glory’s lack of vanity. Hadn’t anyone ever told her she was beautiful? And would she believe him if he said it? “In truth I am amused with your company, entertained by your charm and wit, and knocked cock-a-hoop by one of your smiles.”
Which, of course, restored that glorious grin, dimples and all. “Flummery, sir, but I accept the compliments all the same. Nevertheless, Mama has made her choice for me. Algernon Thurkle. Squire’s son.” She took her hand back.
“What? That cawker? I could cut him out with my eyes closed. Shower you with flattery, strew flowers in your path, write sonnets to your dimples.”
Irma laughed at the absurdity of the nonpareil at her side making such a cake of himself over a hobbledehoy female. “And leave me the bobbing-block of the neighborhood when you leave, with Squire Thurkle and Papa still dickering over how many acres make a proper dowry. No thank you.”
“But I want to help. Or is there someone you prefer waiting in the wings?”
“No, but I can discourage Algie’s suit in a snap. He’s hunt-mad, just like most of the gentlemen in the neighborhood, and not half inclined to wed yet anyway. I only have to disrupt his sport again to make sure he cries off.”
“Again?”
“You cannot think I approve of what they do to the poor fox?” Earnest green eyes looked beseechingly into his brown ones, and Viscount Wingate swore off fox hunting on the instant.
“Ah, what then? I mean, once you dispose of the unlamented Algernon, is there some totally ineligible beau you mean to spring on Lady Bannister when she is desperate? A highwayman, perhaps, or a hog butcher? I know, a lawyer.”
“Silly, I don’t have any beaux.”
“Then you’ll be coming to London to devastate the ranks of bachelors?” he asked hopefully. Not that he hoped she’d catch the eye of every Buck and Blood on the lookout for an incomparable, but that she’d get a chance to spread her wings out of her sisters’ shadows. She should have the chance to know her mind, make her own choice, he thought. He also thought that was deuced noble of him.
Irma hadn’t really considered what would happen after she rid herself of the Thurkle toad…or after his lordship left. “Mama swears she’ll never go to London again, and positively not with me in tow. I suppose she’ll ship me off to Nessie or Ellie, once they are settled, to be the doting aunt.” She shrugged. “No matter. I do not intend to marry.”
Winn chuckled in a superior manner. “You are young, Glory. You’ll change your mind when you meet the man of your dreams.”
There was hardly a chance of that happening, she thought despondently, not twice.
*
Baron Bannister’s big day had arrived. He was strutting about the courtyard like a cockerel in his scarlet hunt jacket, greeting friends and neighbors, getting in the way of the grooms bringing the horses and the servants handing around stirrup cups. The day was overcast and blustery, but not too inhospitable for the hunt. Never that. Finally everyone was mounted, the horn was ready to be blown. Bannister ordered that the keeper be signaled to release the hounds.