Rogue Grooms (7 page)

“No! Of course we would not do that.”

“Of course.” Alex paused at the door. “And one other thing—I want to have a talk with the two of you about that ridiculous wager you concocted.”

“Wager? What wager?” Hildebrand cried, all innocence. “You
really
should be going now, Wayland.”

“Very well. I will speak with you later, then.” Then Alex left, closing the door softly behind him.

Hildebrand and Freddie ran to the window, to grin and wave as Alex’s curricle drove away.

“D’e think he fell for it all?” Freddie asked anxiously.

“Of a certes,” said Hildebrand in great satisfaction. “We will be toasting our friend’s health at his wedding breakfast before the Season is out!”

Alex glanced up once to his window before he guided his curricle into the traffic, and saw his friends waving and smiling like a pair of bedlamites.

They were up to something, he could tell. Ever since the three of them had first met at Eton, Freddie and Hildebrand had always behaved like the silliest clunches when they were concocting a scheme. Sometimes it had been smuggling a toad into a don’s bed, or coaxing a larger allowance from their fathers, or trying to catch a pretty opera dancer’s attention.

Now, it obviously had something to do with him.

But right now, Alex had weightier matters to consider than what those loobies were about. Matters such as Georgina Beaumont. And why he was so very anxious to see her again.

Perhaps it was only that he had been gone from England for so long, and then immured at Fair Oak when he did return. He had been in company with his fellow officers’ wives in Spain, of course; and in Seville there had been a lovely innkeeper, Concetta. Yet it had been a long time since he had spent any amount of time with a pretty, unmarried
Englishwoman.

Yes!
he thought in relief. That would account for it. He had simply formed an infatuation for the first lovely woman to smile at him. In the clear light of a respectable afternoon drive, without the excitement of a swim in the river or the glitter of a ball to distract, he would see that really she was quite ordinary. Then there would be no more hours of anxiously thinking about her, of waiting until he could respectably see her again.

And he could get on with more businesslike and unpleasant matters—such as trying to raise some blunt.

Alex drew up his curricle outside Lady Elizabeth’s town house and leaped down, much relieved by his thoughts. Now he and Georgina could enjoy their afternoon, without any silly romantical thoughts interfering!

Then he saw her again.

She emerged from the house before he could even ascend the front steps. She was wearing an afternoon dress of sunshine-yellow muslin, with sheer, gauzy white sleeves and a gauze Vandyke collar. It seemed she was
made
of light today; the late afternoon sun reflected on her brilliant hair and the yellow of her gown, and Alex’s eyes dazzled as he looked at her.

She put on the bonnet she held, a white straw confection tied with wide yellow ribbons, and then came toward him, her hand outstretched. Her merry smile could have eclipsed even that sun.

Alex knew then, with a desperate, sinking sensation, that the feelings that had struck him when first he saw Georgina had not been mere gratitude for her attention, or his long deprivation of female company.

Those feelings had come from
her
, and her alone. From the sheer force of her beauty and her vibrant personality. She was unique, she was—special.

“Oh, Lord Wayland!” she said, taking his hand in her own gloved one. “How very good of you to rescue me from madness.”

Still much struck by these new and strange emotions, Alex assisted Georgina into his curricle and climbed up beside her. He had never been so glad of anything than he was to have the reins and the driving to distract his thoughts. “Madness?” he asked.

“Yes. You see, Lizzie has decided to launch her own
salon.
Every Friday evening she will invite painters, writers, singers, what have you to her drawing room.”

“It sounds delightful.”

“Oh, yes! No doubt it will be. But she intends to hold the first one next Friday, and this afternoon she is in an uproar trying to decide exactly
who
to invite, and what food to serve.” Georgina sighed. “Right now, the butler, the cook, little Isabella, and Lady Kate are all gathered together, offering their opinions, and Elizabeth is nay-saying them all. I tell you, I escaped only just in time. Perhaps, if we are gone a
very
long time, all will be settled by the time I return.”

Alex laughed, his heart lightened, his doubts forgotten. As he had the day before, he quite forgot all his worries the moment he was in her company. Money, marriage, his family—there would be more than enough time to worry over those when he was deprived of her presence.

“Then, Mrs. Beaumont, I shall endeavor to take the long way about the park,” he answered with a grin. “If there is a long way.”

“If there is, I am certain we can find it.”

“And, when the
salon
does come off, I am sure Lady Elizabeth will have a mad crush on her hands, and invitations will thereafter be highly sought for her Friday evenings.”

“Of that I have no doubt. Certain high sticklers do not entirely approve of Lizzie, but she is the very center of a younger, more dashing set here in London. The
salon
will be a great success, and fun as well.” She smiled at him. “You will be invited, of course. As will your friends, Mr. Marlow and Viscount Garrick.”

“Now, that invitation I happily accept! I cannot speak for my friends, though. They are good enough fellows once you get to know them, but not precisely what one might call artistically minded.”

“So I have gathered, from our very brief acquaintance!” Georgina laughed. “But I’m sure they would add an interesting element to the guest list.”

“Then I will pass the invitation on to them.”

Alex watched Georgina from the corner of his eye as she laughed and turned her face up to the warmth of the sun.

“You really are very lovely,” he blurted, before he could even think.

Then he felt his face burn.

Georgina looked at Lord Wayland in shock, wondering if perhaps her ears had deceived her. A
compliment,
from the so-perfect duke? And a blush from him besides!

She found herself hopelessly, absurdly delighted. She even had the most unaccountable urge to giggle. Several swains in Italy had composed poems to her “emerald” eyes; some had even written songs and then sung them beneath her window. No flowery tribute had ever moved her so much as the fact that Lord Wayland thought she looked lovely today.

How very curious.

She waited until the need to giggle and simper had passed, then said, “Thank you very much, Lord Wayland! What a very kind thing to say.”

He smiled at her, a wide white flash against his sun-bronzed skin, and Georgina once again felt the giggles coming upon her.

She covered her mouth with her gloved hand.

“I speak only the truth, Mrs. Beaumont,” he answered. “But I am sure that you must hear how lovely you are every day.”

“Oh, not
every
day,” Georgina answered lightly. “Every other day only, Lord Wayland.”

“Then, I shall have to make it every day,” he said. “If you will but do one thing for me.”

“What might that be?” said Georgina, hoping against hope that it might be a kiss.

“Will you call me Alexander? Or Alex. Lord Wayland makes me feel too fusty! It makes me look about for my father.”

Georgina smiled. Well, it was not a kiss, but it was a very nice thing nonetheless. “Very well. Alex suits you so much better than Lord Wayland. And you must call me Georgina.”

He smiled in return. “Done.”

As they turned into Hyde Park and joined the parade of worthies, Georgina thought that Alex seemed more at ease than he had when he first arrived at Elizabeth’s house. When she had emerged to greet him, she had had the very odd sensation that he had not quite been expecting
her
to be there; as if he had arrived to escort someone else and had gotten her by mistake. He had looked quite surprised.

In the midst of all her excited anticipation, she had felt a small prick of uneasiness. She liked him so very much, had so carefully prepared for their drive. What if
he
did not like
her
so much? What if all the easy accord she had sensed the night before had been all in her imagination? What if she was making a wigeon of herself over a man who could have no regard for her?

The confident, sophisticated artist existed only in front of the scared, lonely, awkward orphan she had once been. At the thought of looking foolish in front of this man, little Georgie Cheswood completely took over Mrs. Georgina Beaumont.

But not now. Now Alex seemed more the man who had fished Lady Kate out of the river, who had waltzed so
vigorously
with Georgina. He was smiling, at ease, seemingly happy as he nodded to the people they drove past.

So Georgina, too, relaxed, and set herself to enjoying the sunny afternoon and the lovely man beside her.

“Your horses are very grand,” she said.

“Scylla and Charybdis. They are not perfectly matched, I fear,” Alex answered ruefully. They were, in fact, a pair that had once belonged to his brother, and were now almost all that remained of the Kenton stable. “Not at all fashionable.”

Georgina examined them, one perfectly chestnut and one with a white star on its brow and white socks. They
were
prime goers, even if not perfectly matched. “Perhaps not. But they are strong and healthy, and very graceful. Good-looking, too.” Much like their master, she reflected. “I should love to have some like them for my own curricle.”

Alex looked at her, one brow raised in surprise. “You own a curricle., Mrs. Be—Georgina?”

“Oh, yes. It is not here, of course. It is at my villa. When I want to drive here, Elizabeth’s husband gives me the loan of his.”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I did hear that you and Lord Pynchon were to have a race.”

Georgina laughed. “So you have heard of that! Yes. That silly popinjay was spouting off about how women should never drive, because we are so slow and such menaces on the road. So I asked if he cared to make a small wager on that point.”

“Did you?” Alex’s voice was quiet. “Do you often gamble, Georgina?”

Georgina remembered then, much to her mortification, that Alex’s brother, the late Duke of Wayland, had caused a great scandal with his huge gambling losses. Even in the
ton,
who often routinely lost hundreds of pounds on the turn of a card, he had been notorious.

“Oh, no,” she hastened to assure him. “A bit at silver loo now and then, but never high stakes. And I hardly ever wager. Only to bring ridiculous loobies like Pynchon down a peg. I have much better things to do with my money.”

“Such as that charming bonnet,” Alex murmured. “Well, if you ever need to go driving, my horses are at your disposal.”

“Why, thank you, Alex!” Georgina cried. “They
are
darlings. And you must be sure to come and watch me trounce Pynchon. It will be an easy victory over one so ham-handed! Everyone will be there.”

“When is the race to be?”

“A fortnight from Saturday, at the White Hart Inn, just outside of Town.”

“I shall be sure to be there.”

“Excellent! Oh, look, there is Lady Lonsdale waving to us. Shall we go speak to her?”

“By all means.” But as Alex turned toward where Lady Lonsdale waited, perched on her gray mare, he looked at Georgina with a rather serious gleam in his eyes. “You will be very careful in this race, will you not, Georgina? And you will have a physician in attendance?”

“How very solemn you are!” Georgina laughed lightly, but she was secretly pleased that he was so very concerned. No man had been careful of her or her well-being for such a very long time. “Of course I will be careful. And you will be there to watch out for me, will you not?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I will certainly be there.”