Follow My Lead (3 page)

All three smiled at that, blushing and waving their fans in what he supposed was meant to be alluring fashion, but Miss Rollins employed hers a little too vigorously, smacking Miss Quigley’s rather too languid fan into a nearby shrub. While a horrified Miss Quigley gave up her position to root around the shrubbery for the missing fan, Misses Rollins and Halloway closed ranks.

“And we were so pleasantly surprised to see you again, Your Grace!” Miss Rollins said, while Miss Halloway nodded brightly. Miss Rollins eyed her friend and competition, and took a predatory half step nearer to Jason. “It must be fate, Your Grace. Destiny. To think, my father did not even think I should have a season this year, and yet we run into you at our first garden party!”

Just breathe, Jason thought to himself. He was, at least, in a better position than the last time Miss Rollins and her friends had cornered him. First of all, they were outside. In daylight. In full view of dozens of other garden party attendees. They couldn’t possibly lock him in anywhere.

But on the other hand, Phillippa Worth’s garden did boast a number of scenic alcoves and trees with low-hanging branches. And an even larger number of zoologically trimmed topiary that could shield one from the eyes of other partygoers. In fact, if Jason wasn’t mistaken, Miss Rollins was angling him toward an oversized rabbit-shaped shrub now. Each inching step of hers, causing an inching back of his. By now, Miss Quigley had rejoined the group, flanking Miss Halloway, the three of them looking for all the world like a brigade of troops rounding up the last resister.

“Ladies,” Jason said, thinking quickly, “have any of you partaken of the refreshments yet?” He eyed the refreshments table, surrounded by other people,
sane
people, shrinking into the distance with every minced step backward. “I would be more than happy to fetch a cup of tea or punch . . .”

“Oh!” Miss Halloway fluttered. “I would love a—” But she was cut off by Miss Rollins’s elbow to her solar plexus. “But Sissy—a
Duke
was going to fetch me punch!”

One sharp look from Miss Rollins told Miss Halloway to hold her tongue. Then she turned her intense stare back to Jason, the feigned sweetness doing nothing to mask that young lady’s intensity. “Now, now, Clarissa—we wouldn’t want the Duke to overly exert himself. After all, he’s so very popular, if he wandered away, he’d likely be held up, dare I say assaulted, by any number of other people.”

Well there goes that idea, Jason thought ruefully.

“Never fear, Your Grace,” Miss Rollins ventured, being so forward as to put her hand on his arm and pat it reassuringly. “We will keep you safe.”

So. This is hell, Jason thought. A garden party, being backed into a corner by three of the most baldly opportunistic furies to have been formed in the British system of wealth and aristocracy. Who knew?

Just as Jason was panicking his way to an escape plan, and judging that his best bet would be jumping the low hedge by the south wall, he was rescued.

By someone who would never let him live this down.

“Miss Rollins, Miss Halloway, Miss Quigley,” Jane, Jason’s sister, cried brightly as she swept to his side, practically knocking him over as she attached herself to his arm—and gracefully removing said arm from the claws of Miss Rollins at the same time.

“Lady Jane,” the three misses mumbled as they dipped into curtsies.

“So . . . interesting to see you here!” Jane smiled through her teeth. Jason thought that perhaps Jane was in some danger of amputating his arm, she squeezed it so hard as she forced herself to maintain a pleasant expression. “Jason, I’ve been searching all over for you!” Then, to the girls, “I’m so sorry, but my brother is required elsewhere.”

“Where is this elsewhere?” Miss Rollins boldly asked, making one last attempt to hold on to her quarry.

But Jane just lifted an eyebrow. “Anywhere else.”

And with that, Jason was steered away from the three misses, their disappointment as palatable as his relief.

“Well?” Jason asked, once he and Jane had gained enough distance.

“Well what?” Jane replied, her gait remaining fast and her attention focused on their destination.

“Aren’t you going to say ‘I told you so’?” Jason asked, quickening his pace to keep up with her. “Or, ‘you’d be lost without me,’ or perhaps, ‘you can thank me later’?”

“I did, you would be, and you can,” she countered, “but right now I’m far too angry to say any of those things.” Jane shot a look over her shoulder. Jason followed suit and saw the three misses lamenting his departure—or more specifically, Miss Rollins roundly abusing the other two with her fan, her frustration breaking through anything that might be considered polite behavior.

“How on earth did those three manage to get into this garden party?” Jane hissed.

“I thought Phillippa invited everyone who was anyone to these things.”

“She did!” Jane exclaimed. “Everyone except them!”

Jane cut through the milling guests, the casual acquaintances of good name. She cut through the well-raised and demure young ladies and their mothers, the lords of state who had an idle afternoon, willing to respond to a beck and call from Phillippa Worth—and to own the truth, they all did. No one could or ever would go against Phillippa Worth.

Which made Jane’s words to Phillippa once she reached her side all the more surprising to those within earshot.

“Have you lost your mind?” Jane cried, going up on her toes in order to stare into Phillippa’s eyes.

Phillippa looked at her queerly. “Only for that sparest moment when I agreed to throw a garden party for your brother. But I have been in the pink of health ever since.” “I’m afraid I have to disagree with you,” Jane replied. “I sincerely doubt your health’s pinkish hue, and your sanity. I think you might have had a relapse when you invited those three!”

Phillippa looked in the direction toward which Jane gesticulated wildly, and her eyes finally fell on the three offending young ladies. Miss Rollins had regained some of her composure and stopped hitting the other two—now she was regrouping, and pointing at and directing her friends. Jason could not hear from this distance what was being said, but he had a feeling a second assault was being planned.

“But I didn’t!” Phillippa replied. “Marcus!” she called, and her husband, Sir Marcus Worth, was at her side in an instant. Jason knew the man a little, but he better knew Marcus’s brother (and Jane’s husband) Sir Byrne Worth. Byrne had obviously been with his brother when Phillippa called for him, because he too materialized next to his wife.

“What is it?” Marcus asked, and threw his spectacles on when his wife pointed to the three misses in the distance. A few whispered words between husband and wife, and Marcus was headed toward the young ladies. A quick glance at Byrne had him following.

“They’ll sort it,” Phillippa said to Jane and Jason’s unasked questions.

“What are they going to do? Throw them out?” Jane asked. “Can you do
nothing
without causing a scandal?”

It was at this point that Jason thought he might be safer with the three misses, and almost suggested he follow the Worth brothers—such was the murderous look in Phillippa’s eye. But wiser men than he had fallen into that trap, and Jason decided to just keep silent and let them fight it out.

Besides, since Jane and Phillippa—notorious enemies in their youth—had married a pair of brothers, they were all connected on the Worth family tree. So no matter how often they might spar, the two had no final recourse other than friendship.

“Your husband might use such uncouth methods,” Phillippa replied coolly, her eyes sparkling like ice. “But mine prefers charm to brutishness.”

Jason chanced a look over his shoulder. Indeed, Marcus Worth was bowing low (any bow was low for him, as he was exceptionally tall) over the hand of Miss Rollins, who seemed to be giggling. Meanwhile, Byrne was walking with the other two young ladies. Whether or not his objective was to pitch them over the low hedge to the south was open to debate.

“But I don’t understand how they got
in
in the first place.” Jane stamped her foot, a gesture not often seen by a lady old enough to have borne two children.

“Neither do I—no one was admitted without an invitation. I made certain my butler collected them at the door.”

“So how did they get the invitation?”

“I. Do. Not. Know. There were no regrets. Everyone who was invited came,” Phillippa replied evenly. Then, like a child caught in a puzzle, tapped her fingernail against her tooth for a moment. “Except . . .”

“Here it comes.” Jane rolled her eyes.

“Totty told me before we sent out the invitations that she couldn’t come—her friend Miss Crane had some big event she absolutely had to attend today, although what is more important I cannot imagine—so Mariah suggested I allow her to invite one of the ladies from her charitable group.”

Jason quickly ran through his memory to decipher who all these names belonged to. He didn’t recall a Miss Crane, but he knew Totty was Mrs. Tottendale, Phillippa’s old companion who had moved to her own residence when Phillippa and Marcus began a family—small children made wine less enjoyable, she said. And Mariah was the other Lady Worth—wife of the eldest Worth brother, Graham. (With Graham having inherited his baronetcy, and both Marcus and Byrne having been knighted for their services to the crown, that made three Sirs and three Ladies Worth—remarkably confusing for anyone trying to assign seating at a dinner party, or so his friend Nevill said.) Mariah was somewhere in the midst of the party, likely lecturing some poor soul on the needs of foundling children in their country.

“Which friend?” Jane asked impatiently.

“Mrs. Pritchard . . .” and Phillippa sighed, as all the pieces fell into place, “who is cousins with Miss Rollins’s mother.”

“And you thought you had control over this party!” Jane crowed.

“I cannot believe any duplicity on Mariah’s part—perhaps Miss Rollins stole the invitation from her mother’s cousin . . .”

As the conversation escalated, Jason was faced with that eternal question: Should he stay or should he go? The quarrel had gotten to the point where staying might mean he would have to interject. Or God forbid, get dragged in by one of them asking for his opinion.

On the other hand . . . he had promised Jane that he would not run. He had promised himself he would make the effort with this party and do as he set out to do, find himself a mate for life. Even though running away was the most appealing option right now.

“Don’t bother,” Byrne’s voice came from behind him, low enough so it went unnoticed by Phillippa and Jane. “She will see it the moment you take one step back.”

Byrne came to stand beside Jason; having disposed of the three misses somewhere, he began to watch the conversational volleys with the attentiveness of a crowd at a tennis match.

“How did you know?” Jason asked.

“We’re in a garden party in London. Escape is all I’ve been thinking about, as well.”

“I cannot run. I set myself up for this.” Jason shook his head. “I have to see it through.”

“Remind me why you are so determined to marry at the age of thirty?” Byrne drawled.

Jason paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Because it’s what comes next.”

Not a terribly incisive answer, but there was no simpler explanation. It had taken him awhile, but he had mastered all the duties of being the Duke of Rayne. And Jason was smart enough to know he didn’t know everything—so if there were some details that went over his head, he had certainly found trustworthy employees who would make certain nothing went awry. He had no concerns on that score—and neither did his family. Marcus and Byrne had undertaken the task of thoroughly investigating any of his hires. Jane hadn’t even had to insist; Jason had asked the Worth brothers himself.

Indeed, the ancient and noble name of Rayne was strong and secure. Jason Cummings had stepped fully and completely into the role of his lifetime. He was content. Comfortable. Marriage was what came next on the list. Besides, all his friends were married. So it couldn’t be so bad. Could it?

But at Jason’s declaration, Byrne just slipped him a half smile, and replied, “If you say so.”

“It’s just . . . it’s less straightforward of a process than I had imagined,” Jason said, surprising even himself with his honesty.

Byrne thought for a moment, then fixed his gaze on his wife, who was requesting that Phillippa provide her with a family tree for every party attendee, even those that she herself had known for dozens of years.

“Well, we could just ask the eligible ladies to line up in a neat row and you point at the one you like best.” Byrne smiled. “But I doubt that would provided you with a loving mate.” He caught Jane’s eye and winked. “Think of this as a battle.”

“A battle?” Jason raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, there are strategies and traditions. But more important, there are rules. Make use of cover. Never fire until you are sure of your shot. If a solider lays down his arms, you are to treat him with kindness, all that sort of thing. To survive, you simply have to learn the rules and be a better soldier than anyone else on the field.”

Jason’s other eyebrow joined his first. “And you followed all these rules when courting my sister, did you?”

Byrne had to laugh at that. “No. But I knew the rules well enough to break them with impunity.” But then he met Jason’s eye dead on. “Unfortunately, you are not I,
Your Grace.
”

“Are you implying that it is my title that will separate us in courting styles?” Jason asked sardonically. “I assure you, I’m well aware.”

“That, and many, many other things,” Byrne replied drily. “But yes, you will be limited by it. Girls will fawn over you, fall into you.”

Jason rolled his eyes. He knew that, too.

“You have to maintain the strictest posture possible,” Byrne continued. “Really, you’d almost do better to simply choose a girl, hand her over to Jane, and let her do the courting.”