The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown (Lady W 1) (28 page)

Since Linney had not uttered a word, it seemed rather presumptuous of her mother to use the pronoun “we.”

“I mean, really!” Lady Darington paced. “It is not even noon. Nobody calls before noon, does he not know this?”

Obviously not, whoever the culprit was.

“And he is so…” here her mother appeared unable to find the right words. Amazing, that. If there was something that Georgiana Starling, Lady Darington, was never at a loss for, it was words. “Well, if he thinks that he can give me the cut direct at the Worth ball and then show up in my drawing room nearly a whole two hours before noon and act as if we are bosom friends, he is most sadly mistaken.”

Linney’s heart fluttered, truly it fluttered. How horribly melodramatic of her stupid, awful,
tender
heart. Perhaps she needed to have Dr. Nielson around to have a look at her.

But, of course it only fluttered because Lord Darington was an awful cad. That was exactly why her heart fluttered and her head felt light.

“Lord Darington is here?” Linney heard herself ask. “Now?”

Her mother stared at her, blinking. Georgiana liked to talk; conversation, though, was rather beyond her.

“Go to him,” her mother said with a flick of her wrist. “I shan’t, that is certain. As
if
I would be ready to receive at this indecent hour. I haven’t even had my tea.”

Neither had Linney, but obviously that mattered not at all.

“And I will certainly not receive Lord Darington, ever.” Georgiana turned on some imagined companion who, obviously, had the audacity to question her. “No, I will not! I do not approve of him at all. You saw him!” and suddenly Linney was the center of her mother’s attention once more, imaginary companion be damned. “Saturday night, flaunting his horrible manners by taking that poor girl to the theater and then sitting among the rabble. Your father would be appalled that his title is being so abused.” Lady Darington bit the back of her hand to stifle a sob. “Now I am overtaken.” Georgiana swept from the room.

Linney sat for a moment contemplating the door her mother had just left through. She often wondered if her parents hadn’t found her at the side of the road. Her mother was absolutely beautiful. Well, she had been when she was young. Now she had to work at it a bit.

Her father had been the same; a man so lovely to look upon he could see no reason to focus beyond his mirror.

And then there was Linney, pale, beige Linney. She was neither too tall nor too short, too thin nor too fat, too beautiful nor too ugly. “Too” was absolutely never used before her name.

In fact, she blended right into the woodwork. No one ever noticed her.

When her father had been alive, her parents had fought like a midnight storm, both of them constantly vying for attention, but never letting any of that attention spill over onto their progeny.

She rather thought they did not remember her, most of the time, even though she sat in the same room with them.

It had been like living with two three-year-olds as parents. At least now there was only one of them.

Duchess picked up her head and gave Linney a look.

“Oh, I know, I know,” Linney said. She eyed the washbasin across the cold floor. The water would be absolutely freezing, and that was not an exaggeration. In the last week, Linney had actually had to crack the ice to get at her wash water.

Her mother, of course, got warm water and her fire stoked each morning by Annie. Since no one made a fuss that Annie didn’t attend to Linney, the maid didn’t bother.

Duchess swished her tail.

“Right, I’m off then.” Linney threw off her covers, and with great courage braved her morning ablutions.

It was she.

Could his crying wood nymph be Lady Darington? But no, he had met Lady Darington at the Worth ball. This must be Lady Caroline Starling.

All his thought processes stuttered to a halt, and Terrance Greyson, fourth Marquis of Darington could only stare.

“Lord Darington,” she said as she entered the small drawing room and bowed her head. Her eyes were duller without tears, not quite the bright emerald he remembered from the theater. And God knew he had remembered them, especially as he tossed and turned and tried to sleep.

No, he shouldn’t say they were duller, just muted.

But her skin was still an ethereal pale pink.

The cat Terrance had been petting rubbed its head beneath his fingers, and he automatically continued scratching behind the kitty’s ears. She, the woman, that was, stared at him as if he had just forgotten to stand in her presence.

Dear God, he
had
forgotten to stand.

Terrance stood quickly, dumping the poor cat unceremoniously at his feet. The feline made a horrible sound and shot from the room like a ball fired from a cannon.

This was not a good way to start. With all that he had to overcome when conversing with others, the very least he could ask for was a smooth entrance so that his tongue did not get tied up in knots.

It was not that his mind did not work, it was just that, ever since a bullet had lodged in his skull on a soggy battlefield in France, Terrance Greyson had a hard time finding the words to show that his brain worked perfectly.

“I see you have met Miss Spit,” the lady said succinctly. “She doesn’t take to most people, usually. And I daresay she shall not be jumping up again on your lap anytime soon.”

Lady Caroline Starling frowned, the delicate skin just above her dark brows furrowing. “That is to say…” she said quickly. And then she stopped and just looked as if she wished she might disappear.

Terrance knew that feeling intimately. “Lady Caroline,” he said, trying desperately to fill the silence with words that were not easily recalled. “I…” Words, words would be very nice. Please? Words? English, French would suffice.
Ah, Lady Caroline, your neck was made for kissing.

No, those were not good words to begin the conversation at all.

Lady Caroline took a deep breath and stood very straight, waiting.

“Damn,” he said, realizing only after the word came out of his mouth that he had said it aloud.

Good work, Terrance.

“Excuse me?” Caroline Starling’s eyes rounded.

It would have helped immensely if he had not been shocked to discover that the crying wood nymph of Saturday night was his fourth cousin thrice removed, Lady Caroline Starling, late of Ivy Park.

To be shocked speechless was rather a detriment when one had to work so hard at speech in the first place.

Terrance could not help but chuckle.

Lady Caroline stiffened and cleared her throat. “I’m sure I do not know why you are here, Lord Darington. Especially at so early an hour. But if you think to…to tease me about what happened at the theater…”

“I would never!”

“Good then.”

And they stared at each other.

He had a whole speech prepared and memorized. He realized, of course, that he had incurred Lady Darington’s wrath when he had been introduced to her at the ball. But, for the life of him, he had been unable to find the words when suddenly faced with the dowager of the late marquis.

And he knew that he must find the right words for such an important relationship. And so he had returned home, written a small speech for Lady Darington, and put it to memory.

Of course, now he was faced with her daughter, so nearly half the speech had to go, and the rest altered.

This was not good.

Especially seeing that the daughter was making it extremely difficult for him to concentrate on words. She had the most delicate skin he had ever seen. There was a spot, actually, right at the base of her throat, which certainly needed to be explored further. Preferably with his tongue.

Terrance closed his eyes for a moment, trying to dig through his paralyzed brain for a word. Lady Darington. That was it, Lady Darington. That was how the speech started.

“Lady Darington,” he began then stopped at her perplexed look.

God no, ’twasn’t Lady Darington standing before him, but Caroline. He had, of course, realized this right off. Terrance wished he could rip his tongue from his mouth and give it a good talking to.
Just say the words, damn it.

Okay, Miss—no, Lady Caroline Starling. “Lady Caroline,” he started again, and couldn’t help a twitch of a smile.
Good, Terrance, you got the name right
. “I come with greetings from your former tenants.” All right, that was fine. But then he had some sentences that would only sound right if said to Lady Darington.

Oh, but he did have some letters for Lady Caroline. She seemed to have been a favorite, actually, of the Ivy Park servants and many of the tenants. “I have letters addressed to you in my command.”

Good, good. He was almost giddy with pride since he was getting through this all so well even though he was speaking to a person he had not prepared himself for, and, even more mind-warping, that Lady Caroline was quite a vision, poised as she was in a golden splash of sunlight angling in from one of the windows.

“Also,” he continued. “I wished to tell you that Ivy Park does very well. Miss Elizabeth Bilneth married last month, a boy from farther south. The Lawry children are all in school now, and their mother is working for the cook at the Park, she wanted me to tell you. She also said that Lady Caroline…er.” Whoops, he had gotten a bit too sure of himself and slipped up.

“That is…I mean, you would like to know that the roses are doing beautifully and Mr. Lynch has kept them up very well since your absence.”

Silence again.

Caroline stared at him as if he were a three-headed snake in a freak show. Was that truly necessary? Yes, his words had come out a bit stilted; still, he had said everything he meant to say, and even though it had all started out rather oddly, it wasn’t that bad at the end, was it?

And, though he had not anticipated his crying wood nymph—so named in his thoughts because he had first spied her through the leaves of a potted palm—to waltz into the drawing room just now, it was rather nice to have a name for the face that had stayed with him through two sleepless nights.

Not a remarkable face, really. Not at all like Miss Rellton, who was quite incredibly beautiful, though about as scintillating as dishwater. No, Lady Caroline had a face one might overlook unless one had first met it in the throes of a passionate cry, her teary eyes like a bottomless forest pond.

Wasn’t he turning into the poet?

Actually, he had to admit that the reason he could not get her out of his mind was the spark in those eyes when she had stood and shoved his dirty hanky in his front pocket. She had made him laugh.

He smiled now at the memory.

“Oh!”

Terrance blinked at the anger in Lady Caroline’s exclamation.

“You are horrible!”

It had been a rather long time since Terrance had ventured into society, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything that could be called horrible.

“You are laughing at me!”

No, he wasn’t. “No, I’m not.”

“How dare you, Lord Darington! I do not know what it is you think you are doing, or why you would even want to spend your precious time teasing someone as unnoteworthy as I, but I will tell you right now that I will not have it! You come in here with the obvious intent of making me squirm for the circumstances you found me in at the theater, say your little piece as if you are reading it off a note card, and then you laugh at me? Well, I never! And it means nothing at all to me that Miss Spit actually sat on your lap. Nothing at all!”

The girl stamped her foot. “And it means nothing at all that you have hair on the back of your head or that my heart flutters. I think it flutters because I hate you!” She turned on her heel, walked through the door of the drawing room, and stomped down the hall.

And then Terrance heard the distinct sound of a door slamming. He could have sworn, as well, that the door that had just slammed was the one he had come through to enter the house.

That would mean that Lady Caroline had just screamed at him and then slammed out of the house. Her house. He had just run the girl from her own home.

Though he had a problem with words, he knew that his mind worked just fine. But the last few minutes left him completely flummoxed.

What on earth did his hair have to do with anything?

Terrance glanced around the empty room, waited for a few minutes while silence pounded off the walls, and then went out into the hall.

“Hellooooo?” he called, and then waited a bit more.

No one came. He could spy no bellpulls, either. He
did
see his hat and coat on a rack at the end of a hall off the front door.

“Excuse me,” he tried again. But the little maid who had let him in did not appear. Well, fine then. Terrance went and took his hat and coat.

He’d quite bungled that.

Still, he thought as he let himself out of the small town house, he had said what needed to be said. Probably he should stay well away from Lady Caroline Starling in the future.

She made his mind feel jumbled, and he really needed to keep confusion to a minimum.

Anyway, she did seem a bit touched.

Why, then, did he feel this strange need
not
to stay away from her?

Maybe
he
was touched.

There was nothing like making a fool of oneself first thing in the morning. Add to that, freezing to death on one’s own stoop. In her humiliating rush out the front door, Linney had forgotten her hat and coat. She had forgotten, as well, that it was her own front door she was rushing out of. Stupid woman. She had just made a scene and stomped out of her own house.

And now she was going to freeze.

For she most certainly could not go back in until Lord Darington left.

Oh, the downfall of pride. And the downfall of allowing herself to speak at all. She did much better when she kept all her queer musings tucked up inside her own head, thank you very much.

Linney marched down the stairs to the deserted walk and spied Lord Rake sauntering up to her. He flicked her a superior glance, twitched his tail in disdain, and continued on his way. Obviously, he was just back from a night of debauchery.