Unraveling the Earl (20 page)

“Bah, can’t stand the stuff.” He whisked a small silver
flask from his breast pocket and held it out to her.

Georgie lifted her cup and watched him pour a dram in to mix
with her pale tea.

“Now, you take his lordship,” Critchley said, settling into
his seat and lifting the flask to his lips.

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”

His eyes met hers over the shining silver. He swallowed and
swallowed again before lowering the flask, capping it and tucking it back into
his pocket.

Georgie sipped her tea and glanced toward the window.

“If Mrs. Porter is at home, she’ll keep his lordship there
with her chatter long enough to hitch up the horses and make the journey to and
from the village,” he said, watching her closely.

“No need,” she assured him.

“You’re certain?”

“My carriage will be along shortly.”

“I don’t know that your lumbering box will make it, what
with the roads being a muddy mess,” he warned. “We got stuck twice.”

“Hmm, good whiskey,” she said, ignoring his words entirely.
Tag and Brain would come for her, should have been there as soon as the rain
had ceased. “How is it you did not make the journey safely that first day,
before the skies opened up?”

“Broke an axel just after we separated from his lordship,
took until dark to see it repaired. By morn the rain was coming down in
sheets,” he replied, crossing his hands over his chest and pushing off with one
foot, setting the chair gently rocking. “Why won’t you take Lord Hastings?”

“No offense, but your master is a bumbling idiot,” she said.

“None taken,” he assured her. “But he ain’t near as bumbling
you might think.”

“Bumbling enough,” she replied. “And quite blind to boot.”

“There is that,” he agreed.

Georgie lifted her cup and drained the contents as her
carriage appeared in the distance, a small spot of black pulled by tiny horses,
cresting one knoll and disappearing again.

“You’d be the making of the man.”

Her cup rattled as she lowered it to the fine china saucer
and she hurriedly placed both on the table.

“Already you’ve changed him,” he continued. “Set him on the
straight and narrow path.”

“I don’t know that I want to change him,” she began, waving
one hand in the air in agitation.

“Like him just the way he is do you?” he teased. “Bumbling
and blind.”

“Nor am I the sort of woman to set any man on the straight
and narrow,” she replied with a laugh, refusing to give the kind old man a lie.
“I’d be more likely to push him from the path and clap my hands in glee as he
fell into a marshy bog.”

“You’d no more take pleasure in another’s misfortune than
would the young lord.” His voice was soft, his eyes softer.

“I never…” she began, stopping to delicately clear the frog
from her throat before forcing the words out, “I never meant for him to fall.”

“Whether you meant it or not, he’s fallen.”

“Damn and blast,” she muttered. “He took me by surprise, you
see.”

“That’s often the way of it,” Critchley agreed.

“We made a bad bargain,” she whispered, feeling an
unaccountable need to defend herself. “I should have spelled out my terms
clearly from the beginning. Or he should have concisely explained what I would
be receiving in return. But I did not and he did not. We did not.”

“There’s still time,” he offered.

“Time won’t change the fact that he cannot give me what I
want.”

“Marriage?” he asked.

“Marriage?” she repeated, jumping to her feet.

“A family?”

Georgie spun about and walked to the window. Her carriage
was just reaching the next hill, larger now, her mismatched horses discernable
for the mighty beasts they were.

“Children?” the old man persisted.

Her vision blurred and she swayed, lightheaded and off
balance. She felt the oddest sensation low in her belly, a tiny fluttering, as
if she’d swallowed a spider with her tea and whiskey and the poor, tiny
creature was dancing around inside her.

“I’ll have marriage,” she whispered. “I’ll have a family and
children. Someday.”

“You’ll make a fine wife and a wonderful mother to a passel
of carrot-topped little ones.”

“My carriage is coming up the lane, Mr. Crotchety.” Georgie
put starch in her words through sheer force of will as she straightened her
shoulders and turned to face the kindly old philosopher. “Thank you for the tea
but I really must be going now.”

He lumbered to his feet with a sigh. “Will you leave some
words of farewell for his lordship?”

Georgie tapped one fingers against her chin as she debated
the wisdom of sharing a message with the too wise butler.

“I can fetch quill and parchment for you,” he offered.

“Tell his lordship to beware fuzzy mold masquerading as
sweet cream.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, and remind him he must attend the assembly and dance a
set with each of the Misses Brooks as promised.”

“Are you quite certain you would not like to write him a
lengthier and more private message?”

“He would not be able to read it.”

“He isn’t that blind, I don’t think,” the butler protested.

“’Twas a pleasure taking tea with you again, Mr. Crotchety,”
Georgie said, holding on to her composure by the fraying ends.

“The pleasure was all mine, Miss Buchanan.” Critchley bowed
as best he could and Georgie bussed the top of his bald head before fleeing
from the parlor, traversing the hall in four long strides. She breezed past the
footman just as her carriage coasted to a smooth stop in the circular drive.

Brain smiled from the driver’s bench when he spied her while
Tag shot her a frown from the open window. Beneath and old blanket on the boot,
Silas’ beefy hand and hairy arm hung down, the neck of a jug clenched in his
fingers.

“Hullo, my lady,” Brain greeted cheerfully.

“Don’t you my lady me,” Georgie called back, taking the
steps from the porch at as close to a run as she could manage with her skirts
tangling around her legs. “What took you so bloody long?”

“You would do well to toss the ball higher and scoop from
the side.”

Sharp blue eyes lifted from the jacks spread out over the
stone walkway as a small red ball bounced once, twice before springing off the
path and rolling over the lawn to land beneath a row of pink pansies.

“I’ve seen you in the park.” Lady Frances Gibbons’ gaze
swept over Georgie from her rather simple straw bonnet to her white half-boots
poking from beneath the hem of the demure pink muslin dress she’d donned for
the occasion.

“Aye, I’ve seen you as well,” Georgie agreed, making her own
perusal of the young girl she’d often seen playing beside her brother at Hyde
Park. She was a pretty little thing, all enormous eyes and dark hair pulled
back from her face by a blue ribbon that perfectly matched both her eyes and
the ruffled dress she wore beneath a grass-stained pinafore.

“You’ve a yellow curricle,” the girl continued. “My mother
has a curricle but hers hasn’t such big wheels or so high a perch. Do you ever
get dizzy sitting so high?”

“Only when I take a corner too fast.”

“So nearly every time you take your curricle out.”

“It’s true, I do like to whip around corners.” Georgie
shrugged one shoulder as she fought not to grin at the little girl sprawled out
on the walkway to her home.

She knew instinctively that the little girl would not
appreciate her amusement.

For all that she was not yet eight years of age, Lady
Francis was a fierce little creature, and already too pretty for her age and
too intelligent for a lady of any age.

Georgie sincerely hoped the girl learned to find humor in
her own foibles. If not she was likely to find the life she’d been born into a
difficult path to travel.

“You enjoy feeling dizzy, then?” the girl prodded, slowly
rising to her feet.

“It seems that lately I feel dizzy more often than not,”
Georgie replied, pressing her hands to the persistent fluttering in her belly.
There was little she could do about the accompanying sensation that her head
was stuffed with wool, soft, fluffy lamb’s wool, so light it might float away
on a stiff wind.

“My brother likes to spin around and around until he’s
dizzy.”

“I believe I know precisely who Lord Palmerton inherited
that trait from,” Georgie mused. “Along with his blond curls and lopsided
smile.”

“Charlie’s smile is rather lopsided,” Lady Francis agreed.

As if they’d conjured him simply by talking of him, Charles
Gibbons, the Earl of Palmerton, careened around the corner of the house, his
booted feet slipping on the grass before he righted himself and tore across the
lawn toward his sister.

“Fanny!” he called out. “Fanny, look what I found in the garden!”

The little lord spotted Georgie peering in through the fence
and came to a sudden halt a dozen feet from his destination. From his right
hand hung a small black snake, twisting and writhing.

“Oh good,” his sister said. “Let’s cut him up.”

“No!” Lord Palmerton whipped the snake behind his back.

“How can we see what’s inside if we don’t cut him open?”

“He’s my pet,” the boy protested, his lower lip trembling.
“I’ve named him Blackie.”

“Oh, very original. You might as well have named him Snake.”

“Huh?” The boy tilted his head in an exhibition of yet
another trait he’d inherited from his idiot uncle and Georgie’s breath hitched,
tears rushing to her eyes.

“Damn and blast,” she muttered, swiping at the moisture with
the tips of her fingers.

Lady Francis turned to gift Georgie with a look of
astonishment, or perhaps wonder.

“My apologies,” Georgie said, chagrined to have uttered the
words before two children.

“Mama says ladies do not swear but Aunt Alice swears like a
sailor.”

“Auntie says bloody this and bloody that,” the boy agreed
with a decisive nod that set his curls to bouncing over his forehead.

Damn it all, the boy was almost an exact replica of his
uncle but for the gray eyes he’d inherited from his mother and grandmother.

It pained her to look at him. One more ache to add to the
others that sat heavy over the jagged stone that was her heart.

“Ho, you’re the lady from the park.” The young lord circled
around his sister, careful to keep his distance lest she snatch Blackie from
his hand and commence dissecting him on the lawn.

“We’ve already established that little tid-bit,” Lady
Francis tossed out with a disdain too sharp for her years.

Ignoring his sister’s snide words and superior attitude, he
came right up to the fence and tilted his head way back, finding her eyes
beneath the brim of her bonnet. “You’ve purple eyes.”

“So I’ve been told,” Georgie replied.

“And awfully orange hair.”

“I rather like my orange hair.”

“Me, too. It’s…Fanny what’s that word? The one that means
nobody else gots it?”

“Unique,” his sister supplied with a sniff.

“What’s your name?” the boy asked.

“Miss Georgiana Buchanan.”

“I am Lady Francis Marie Gibbons,” the girl said, sweeping
into a wobbly curtsy. “And this is Lord Palmerton. But you may call us Fanny
and Charlie.

“I would be honored.”

“Georgiana Buchana. Your name rhymes,” Charlie said with a
grin.

“Buchanan,” his sister corrected.

“I like Buchana.”

“You cannot simply run around changing people’s names to
suit yourself.”

“I don’t see why not,” Georgie said. “I gift nearly everyone
I meet with a new name.”

“What’s my name?” Charlie asked, bouncing up and down.

“Bumbling idiot,” Fanny said with a grin.

“Sorry, that one is already taken,” Georgie replied, meeting
her gap-toothed grin with a smile.

“What’s my name?” the boy persisted.

“I’m afraid I don’t know you well enough to gift you with a
new name.”

“If you came onto the lawn and played with us for a bit then
you would know us and you could give us new names.” He smiled, and while it was
certainly a charming, crooked smile, it belonged entirely to a four-year-old
boy who hadn’t yet discovered the power he would one day wield over women.

“You are going to be the very devil with the ladies one
day,” she murmured, enchanted.

“Just like Uncle Henry,” Fanny said. “Mama says he tears a
swath through the ladies a mile wide and six miles deep.”

Georgie snorted.

“When I grow up I won’t be so foolish as to fall for a
rake.”

“No, I don’t suppose you will,” Georgie agreed.

“Mama says we aren’t to open the gate to strangers,” Fanny
said, even as she stepped toward said gate at the base of the path.

“A very sound rule.”

“But Aunt Bea says there is no such thing as a stranger in
London, not to us,” the girl continued, obviously searching for a reason to
allow the stranger inside. “We are related to most of the great families in one
fashion or another.”

“I am not, I’m afraid,” Georgie replied. “Related to the
great families in England, that is. I am, however, related to one or two in
Scotland.”

Fanny pinched her lips tight and shook her head.

“Won’t do?” Georgie asked. “Must we be related? Might we not
share a friend or acquaintance?”

“One true friend or three nodding acquaintances,” the girl
decreed.

“Would you consider Dr. Goldman a true friend?”

“Dr. Sam is your friend, too?” Charlie asked, his eyes wide.

“I am pleased to count him as one of my dearest friends,”
Georgie assured the little lord.

Without further ado, Fannie lifted the latch and pushed the
gate open with a flourish. “Won’t you come in, Miss Georgiana Buchanan?”

“Georgie Porgie pudding pie, kissed the girls and made them
cry,” Lord Palmerton sang as he dropped to his knees and pulled Blackie from
behind his back, depositing him on the grass at Georgie’s feet. “Don’t go
trampling him.”

“No, I won’t.” She held still until the little black snake
slithered away into a bush on the safe side of the fence.

“I’m going to call you Georgie Porgie,” the boy decided with
a nod. “On account of you’re a skinny girl, do you see?”

“Every time I glance in the mirror,” she replied, resisting
the urge to reach between the fence rails to ruffle his curls.

“Well, are you coming in or not?” Fanny demanded, one booted
foot impatiently tapping the ground. “I’ll not stand about all day playing
footman.”

“Princess Prickly.” Georgie tossed the words at the girl she
breezed by her in the narrow opening.

“Oh, that’s perfect!” Fanny clapped her hands and beamed.

“Fanny’s going to be a real princess when she grows up,”
Charlie said as he rose to his feet and skipped up the path and if Georgie
didn’t already know it she never would have guessed that the little lordling
had been born with a mangled foot that had nearly left him lame.

“It’s true, I am.” Fanny nodded to emphasize the point.

“She’s going to live in a castle. And do you know what?
She’s not going to have a bedtime.”

“I’ll stay up all night if I so choose.”

“And she won’t have to finish all her dinner.”

“I’ll waste more than I eat.”

“And all of her servants will be young and pretty like Mrs.
Miles and Miss Amherst.”

“And Bill the footman,” Fanny added, ducking her head to
hide the blush that swept over her cheeks.

Charlie spun around and walked backward, surefooted and
confident. “Fanny says Bill is too beautiful for words but my pet sister—”

“Stepsister,” Fanny corrected.

“Justine says he has beady eyes.”

“He has no such thing,” the girl cried, stopping and
thrusting her hands to her hips. “Bill has lovely eyes, limpid brown pools.”

Georgie rolled her eyes, erupted into laughter when the
young earl did the same.

“What are you laughing at?” Fanny demanded. “Are you
laughing at me?”

“She’ll throw you in her dungeon if you laugh at her,”
Charlie warned around a giggle.

“Stop that at once,” the girl ordered.

“Ha ha ha,” Charlie teased. “Ha ha ha. I’m laughing at
Princess Prickly.”

“You’d best have a care, Charles Gibbons.”

“I’m laughing at Princess Prickly, laughing at Princess
Prickly,” the boy continued in a singsong fashion designed to annoy his sister.
“Laughing at Princess Pri-i-i-ickly!”

Fanny jumped into motion, sprinting up the path toward her
brother, her skirts and pinafore lifted above her knees.

Charlie let loose of squeal of mingled delight and fright
and took off across the lawn.

Fanny pursued him around a gnarled old oak tree with a swing
hanging from the lowest branch, past a small seating arrangement of spindly
chairs and tables, over a wooden bridge traversing a small stream.

Laughter and threats of dire consequences rang out, sending
birds flying from the trees to soar across the cloudless sky.

The children circled around the way they’d come, aiming
straight for Georgie who stood on the path just before the porch watching the
spectacle with unabashed amusement.

“What on earth is going on out here?”

Two little bodies halted in their tracks, two pink faces
lifted to the woman who stood under the portico with her hands on her hips and
a trembling scowl pulling at her lips.

Mrs. Bentley, formerly the Countess of Palmerton, swept her
gaze over her children, clearly assuring that neither was injured, before she
turned to the stranger in the yard.

Her eyes were as gray as her son’s and set in a face that
was truly beautiful, with pale skin, arched brows, sculpted cheekbones, a plump
mouth, and a delicate chin. Not to mention, a pretty little nose, straight and
tilt-tipped.

“Good gracious,” Mrs. Bentley said, one bare hand coming up
to rest over her heart. “It’s you.”

“Me?” Oh no, had word of her dalliance with the lady’s
brother reached Town already?

“The girl who was a boy.”

“I…what…how…” Georgie stammered, taking one step back, fully
prepared to turn and flee.

“The daughter of Mother’s friend,” Mrs. Bentley continued,
stepping off the porch. “Oh, what was her name? Lottie? Bonnie?”

“Connie,” Georgie breathed as the lady stopped before her.

“Of course, Connie. The last of Mother’s angels.”