How to Beguile a Beauty (14 page)

“H
EIGH-HO, AND AWAY
,
old friend,” Baron Wilde crowed as he guided his mount beside Tanner's as the traveling coach with the Malvern crest picked out in gold gilt on the side doors moved through the morning fog and out of Grosvenor Square. “Oh, and look at that scowl, would you? Did you think to take up the two fair ladies and sneak out of town without me?”

“I knew you'd be along at some point, rather like a bad penny that keeps showing up again and again,” Tanner told him facetiously. “Or did you expect me to send someone to fetch you from the arms of whatever opera dancer took your fancy last evening? You're still in your evening clothes, and looking somewhat the worse for wear for a man who prides himself on his appearance as you do. Long night?”

“Interesting night,” Justin said, rubbing at the morning stubble that darkened his cheeks. “Brummell's finally managed to do his flit, by the way, flown to Calais, the sanctuary of all the best English debtors. Nobody knows yet, but since you and I are leaving town, it's safe to tell you.”

“Safe? Did you think I'd run to alert his creditors?”

Justin flashed his wide smile. “Possibly. You are a very upstanding fellow. A veritable repository of morality and such like. I vow, I don't know how I stand you sometimes. Or how you abide me.”

“I'm also very forbearing,” Tanner told him, tongue-in-cheek.

“Patient as a saint, I agree.”

“In addition, in case you might be wondering, I am devoid of any inclination toward begging for snippets of scandal.”

“Ah. And your point?”

Tanner urged his horse forward as the traveling coach broke free of the early-morning traffic and the fresh team broke into a canter. The second coach, bearing luggage and servants, followed some space behind. Justin, on the other hand, seemed to be traveling light, although that probably meant his coach had been on the road for hours and was already well ahead of them.

“My point? Must I have one? I thought you simply wanted me to recite my assigned line, that being to look at you all goggle-eyed and exclaim in horror-struck tones: my God, man, don't tell me you helped Brummell escape!”

“I would have appreciated that sort of enthusiasm, yes. Do you think, if I were to tell you, you'd deign to at least pretend to be hanging on my every word?”

“I suppose I could try, if it means that much to you. Now, are you going to tell me how he—or should I say, you—outwitted the duns? I heard they sit in his drawing
room and watch him eat his breakfast—which he probably hadn't paid for if accounts of how destitute he is are true.”

“Oh, truer than true. The man had not two shillings to rub together, although he's fairly well-to-go now for a while, if he's prudent. A few of us fellow reprobates took up a collection of sorts, as a farewell gift, you understand. We owe the man something. After all, were it not for Beau, we'd still be prancing about like trick ponies in embroidered satins and dripping lace.”

“Not to mention the periwigs and powder.”

“Please, don't even whisper of those horrid things. And then there's daily bathing. You have to admit that the air in the ballrooms has been fresher since Brummell declared proper hygiene as the mark of a real gentleman. But I digress.”

“You nearly always do. But that gives me time to ask a question, if you don't mind?”

“You nearly always do,” Justin quipped. “You wish to ask me how I managed to be one of the conspirators in our small adventure. Since I've only returned to England two short days ago.”

“So you said.”

“Ah, you're learning. I may have only officially arrived two short days ago, but I did not say this is my first visit to my ancestral home. In truth, I've managed to be in and out of the country—incognito you understand—several times in the past few months. Securing a royal pardon is not only costly, but time-consuming. At any rate, between my growing loathing for our own
Prinney, whose pockets are now clogged with my blunt, and a hard-won affinity for outcasts, such as our prince has made Brummell, it was only logical that I should offer the man my assistance.”

“And yet still I don't know what you did. We'll be at the first posting inn before you tell me, at this rate.”

“It's a curse, this delicious enjoyment of the dramatic, I do try to fight it. Please forgive me. I'll be quick about the thing, then, so as not to have to leave you hanging as I go off to rid myself of my dirt and change into fresh clothing, all courtesy of the estimable Wigglesworth. My coach is already waiting for me at the Hoof And Claw. That is our first stop, yes? I seem to remember your passion for their dumplings.”

“Your memory is long, if not entirely accurate. Her
name
was Dumpling, and that was a long time ago,” Tanner said, stifling a grin. “I'd like to get to Malvern before Christmas, you know, so if you're above an hour primping in your bath, we'll leave you there.”

“You're to be mine host, not my taskmaster,” Justin pointed out, and then shrugged his broad shoulders. “Very well. As my reputation couldn't be more tarnished, I volunteered to be the one who escorted Beau to the opera in my coach. One of the more déclassé duns attempted to share said vehicle, but I disabused him of that notion. It was a rare treat, watching him and a half-dozen others of his ilk running alongside the coach in an attempt to keep our dashing debtor in their sights.”

Tanner could readily imagine the scene, and easily saw the humor in it. “And after the opera?”

“Yes, that was an interesting discovery. Duns, as a species, would seem to have very short legs, and rather limited stamina,” Justin remarked, clamping an unlit cheroot between his teeth. “I'm afraid they couldn't keep pace with my team, which made quick work of eating up the road between London and the estate of a fellow conspirator who had hidden Brummell's carriage. We said our farewells—a vastly touching scene, really—and the man was off on Dover Road, heading toward the tide and the small vessel waiting for both he and his carriage at the docks. I imagine he was sipping wine at some café in Calais before I managed my return to London.”

Tanner shook his head. “All of that, Justin, and you barely knew the man.”

“Or he, me. Still, he left me his seat at the table in the bow window at White's.”

“He
left
it to you? He isn't dead, just gone.”

“You were always such a stickler for accuracy. All right, I'll admit it. I bought the thing. For some reason, and rather belatedly, the man didn't wish to be indebted to yet someone else—me.”

“You bought his seat? The actual chair?” Tanner laughed so hard his mount snorted and began sidestepping until his master returned his attention to the reins. “Have you decided to become an arbiter of fashion? Are you going to sit in the window and critique the rigouts of every hapless man and woman to trip down the flagway?”

“Yes, that about says it. Ought I get myself a
quizzing glass, do you think? To go with my funereal black and melancholy scowl.”

“I think you should get yourself to the posting inn. Either that, or find your own way to Malvern.”

“And give you a clear path to the affections of our fair and—thanks to your honorable idiocy—fair game Lady Lydia? I think not.” And with a flash of his devilish grin and a tip of his hat, Justin dug his heels into the flanks of his mount and was off, down the road…leaving Tanner to mutter curses only his horse heard, which did him no good at all.

He urged his mount forward, alongside the coach, and dipped his head so that he could look in through the window, to where Lydia and Jasmine were seated.

Jasmine saw him first, and quickly lowered the window. “Was that the baron who just sped past us? He looked marvelously dashing, with his neck cloth loose and flying out behind him. Oh! I shouldn't have said that. Are you going to join us, Tanner? The coach is very well sprung, and the seats much more comfortable than those in Papa's carriage. We'd be happy to have you join us, although you'd have to ride backwards. Lydia and I have discussed this, and we both agree that we'd probably take very ill in our stomachs if we were to ride backwards. Well, I agreed. Did you say anything about that, Lydia?”

“I don't recall,” he thought he heard Lydia answer quietly.

“Perhaps later,” he told his cousin, and then looked past her, to where Lydia was doggedly attempting to
work her embroidery hoop, even along this rather bumpy stretch of roadway. Her lips were compressed, and there was a white line ringing her mouth. “I thought perhaps you'd care to ride with me to the posting inn, Lydia? I noticed that you were wearing your habit.”

She looked at him with such relief in her marvelous blue eyes that he instantly decided that Jasmine had probably been chewing off her ears for the last hour. Did she really think pretending an interest in her embroidery was enough to discourage Jasmine's prattlings? “I would like that, yes, thank you.”

Tanner signaled to the coachman to pull to the side of the roadway and stop, and five minutes later Julia was mounted and riding beside him, far enough back from the coach to not have the two of them covered in dust within moments.

“Jasmine was proving to be her normal nattering self?” he asked her as they moved ahead at a slow canter.

“She says she natters when she's nervous. I didn't suppose that
I
made her nervous, but it appears I must. Or else it is simply returning to Malvern that has her feeling overset.”

“Anxious to be going home, or unhappy to be leaving London, do you think?”

Lydia seemed to consider this for a moment. “I think she's anxious to be home. She has…friends in the vicinity.”

“Are they all deaf, do you suppose, like Mrs. Shandy? No, don't answer that, it was mean of me.”

“She's aware of what she's doing. She simply can't seem to stop talking. I would hate to be so nervous.”

“Now I'm doubly ashamed of what I said. It's her father, you know. He pushes her and pushes her—toward me, mostly. Her ambitions for herself don't match his.”

“She'll have to stand up to him at some point,” Lydia said firmly, surprising him. “Nobody else should be allowed to arrange someone else's future.”

Tanner immediately was tossed back to his promise to Fitz. The man had been arranging Lydia's future, even as he lay dying. And, if Thomas Harburton was to be believed, the late duke had arranged his son's future from his deathbed. Was Lydia trying to tell him something without actually saying it? But if so, was she speaking of his father, or of Fitz? Could she somehow know what her captain had planned for her if he were to die in battle? If she did, clearly she didn't approve.

Just what he needed, another hurdle.

“I've never seen you ride,” he said, steering the suddenly uncomfortable conversation elsewhere. “I knew Nicole did, but not you.”

“Nicole doesn't merely ride,” Lydia said, smiling. “She and her Juliet terrorize the countryside. Daisy and I are content to amble along, admiring the view.”

“Sometimes, the slower you go, the more you can savor the route and anticipate the arrival.” Was he speaking of horses now, or his slow pursuit of Lydia herself? He knew the answer to that question—but did she? They both talked, but how much did either of them
really say, and how much of their conversations, the important parts, lay in what was not said?

Her cheeks colored slightly, and Tanner knew he couldn't credit that color to the few minutes she'd been in the warm fresh air. His hopes soared. He was really quite the pathetic fellow, and he knew it.

He hastened into speech: “What were you and Jasmine—Jasmine, mostly, I'm sure—talking about? Were you listening at all?”

Lydia smiled at him. “There was little else to listen
to.
She was only telling me about Malvern. So far, I know that the house is big. And huge. And enormous. She's quite intimidated by its size, probably because, as a young child, she once got herself lost in the West Wing. But you know that because you are the brave hero who found her, rescued her, and carried her safely back to civilization when she was convinced she would be lost forever and succumb to cold and hunger.”

“Good God, she said that? Did she also tell you that she'd closed herself up in a linen cupboard and fallen asleep? How did she expect to be found? And she wasn't that young, Lydia. I believe she was twelve or thirteen at the time, at least. She hasn't gone a step farther than the drawing room since then whenever she and her father visit. She's a…she's rather timid about some things.”

“And with a tendency to overstate matters, it would seem. But now you're no longer a brave hero, are you?” she asked, humor in her voice. “That's too bad, as I was quite impressed when I believed you to be one. Perhaps
you've done something else worthy of my maidenly awe and admiration?”

She wanted to bandy words with him, did she? Well, he was more than amenable. Words could be quite…evocative.

“Not lately, no. But I shall endeavor to do so at the earliest possible moment. Did you have any special feat of derring-do in mind?”

She pretended to consider his question, and he felt his heart swelling, because she obviously felt comfortable enough with him to tease him.

“Are there dangerous dragons at Malvern?”

“The fire-breathing sort, you mean?” He refrained from saying Justin's name.

“Are there other sorts?”

“Oh, yes,” he said with all the solemnity he could muster. “Several, in fact. The horny-toad sort, for one. All bumpy, you understand, and his breath gives you warts. The double-tailed sort—they make a real havoc when they're happy and begin wagging those tails. Many a village cottage has had to be re-thatched over the years thanks to those considerable appendages. Lastly, there's the red-eyed five-legged nut-hatcher. Although, sadly, we haven't seen any of them ever since the walnut trees were felled by a blight some years ago and the lack of their favorite food forced them to relocate. I heard a few have been spotted feeding somewhere in the vicinity of Bagshot Heath, but that may only be rumor.”