The Dangerous Viscount (13 page)

Striking indeed! While not quite as deluded as Marianne MacFarland, Lady Gee was notorious for the excessive ornamentation of her bonnets. Mr. Chandler entered the lists on Diana’s behalf.

“No one in London,” he said, “has more elegant hats than Lady Fanshawe.”

“Indeed,” Iverley remarked with a nod of the head in her direction, then turned back and continued his conversation with the rest of his company.

Her original idea that he had changed his appearance and manners to impress her was revealed as sheer vanity. She could only now conclude that his inheritance had gone to his head.

She turned to Mr. Chandler and asked him to take her to find a glass of champagne, though she knew she’d regret it when the tiresome man started proposing marriage again. It would do Sebastian Iverley good to see her flirting with a good-looking gentleman, and show she didn’t care a jot for him. Why should she? His small talk might be as modish as his
attire, but he was no longer the thoughtful, intelligent, grunting man she’d known at Mandeville.

Sebastian watched them leave, his inane chatter covering scorching anger. He prayed his spectacles disguised the hunger in his eyes as he saw Diana flirt with that worthless idiot Chandler. The fact that he had to ape the conduct of such fribbles was another charge to mark up to her account.

Meanwhile he continued to pontificate about hat trimmings, shocked by how easy it was to behave like a fool. Later he’d break the news to Tarquin that he’d launched a new fashion for peacock feathers.

“Enough of my hunting stories,” Lord Blakeney said. “I’m sure you must be bored to death. Let’s talk about something else.”

Yes, please, do let’s,
Minerva silently begged.

“Oh no, Blake,” Diana said. “Tell us about the third run.”

Nooooo!

And he was off, with a minute by minute account of each field crossed, every fence jumped. Minerva would have been bored to death had she bothered to listen. Of all Diana’s friends who called at the Portman Square house, Blakeney was the most tedious. Diana, on the other hand, was gazing at their visitor with a look of utter fascination plastered over her face.

What was the matter with her? She loathed and detested hunting and never ceased to complain about their mother’s passion for the sport. If she married the marquis was she prepared to spend the rest of her life hearing about ditches and oxers, coverts and earths?

Diana had been glad to invite Min to live with
her so she could dispense with the presence of their mother’s elderly aunt, who had kept her company at Portman Square during the previous season. Minerva had to pay the price of listening to her sister talk about her longstanding infatuation with Blake.

Personally she couldn’t see the point. He was of course marvelous to look at. That part of his appeal Minerva understood. But the Montroses had been brought up to judge appearance of little importance. Intelligence, education, and character were what mattered in a man. And in a woman too. On the evidence so far Minerva found Lord Blakeney lacking in all three. It did cross her mind that Diana’s passion for him seemed more a habit than deep-seated affection. But Minerva would be the first to admit that at the age of sixteen she was observing the couple from a position of ignorance. Her own parents had completely different interests and got along perfectly well.

Nevertheless Minerva was disappointed that the son of one of England’s most prominent political figures so lacked interesting conversation. The Duke of Hampton was immensely influential and had almost become Prime Minister. If his heir should follow in his footsteps,
then
Minerva would be impressed.

“And we lost the scent and while the hounds regrouped my groom brought up my second mount.”

“Did they find it again?” Diana asked.

Longingly Minerva eyed
The Times,
sitting on the table next to her chair. Blakeney’s arrival in Diana’s drawing room had interrupted her reading about the petition for an enquiry into the conduct of the Manchester magistrates. Diana insisted it was rude to read
while they had callers, but she wasn’t looking and Blakeney certainly wasn’t. She picked up the newspaper and was soon engrossed in the political aftermath of the recent massacre, now dubbed Peterloo.

In years of living with her mother, Diana had perfected the ability to listen to hunting anecdotes with an air of spurious interest while half her attention was elsewhere. Elsewhere in this case being contemplation of her companion’s appearance. He’d seated himself next to her on the sofa and his proximity let her enjoy his lovely blue eyes gazing appreciatively at her face while her mind contemplated the joys of being a duchess. A vision of Lady Georgina Harville groveling for an invitation made the subject of the third, and even the fourth run bearable.

Finally Blake exhausted the subject of his recent sojourn in Leicestershire. “Guess whom I ran into at White’s this morning? My cousin Sebastian Iverley.”

“I saw him at Lethbridge House,” Diana said with an indifferent air. “And once or twice since.”

“I hadn’t laid eyes on him since Mandeville. He’s quite transformed. I wouldn’t have believed it possible.”

“I suppose he has neatened his appearance somewhat. I hadn’t really noticed.”

“You know, Diana.” He moved a little closer and lightly touched her knee. “Had I realized the old Owl could cut such a good figure I wouldn’t have encouraged him to …” He broke off, throwing a quick glance in Minerva’s direction. He also, alas, replaced his hand on his own thigh.

Minerva looked up from the newspaper, which
she thought Diana hadn’t noticed her reading. “You didn’t tell me you’d seen Mr. Iverley.”

Minerva had, for some reason, taken a fancy to him. She’d asked about him several times since they arrived in London. Diana hadn’t been able to bring herself to explain that their shabby guest had become the
ton
’s latest darling, a fashionable viscount who showed no signs of wishing to renew his acquaintance with Diana.

Diana didn’t understand why it bothered her and she was beginning to find her preoccupation tiresome. It wasn’t as though she wanted him for herself, or ever had. She was, she thought with a flash of rueful self-knowledge, piqued that he seemed to have got over their encounter so thoroughly.

To think she’d worried he might take their kiss too seriously! No chance of that. The new Lord Iverley appeared gratified to receive overtures from a dozen women, not all of them single. The interest of the unmarried girls was understandable. But quite a few married women were also in the hunt. Nothing demonstrated Sebastian’s transformation better than the fact he was now considered lover or flirt material.

Minerva looked at her reproachfully. “I really liked him. Does he know I’m staying with you? He told me he’d call.”

Blake turned to Minerva, whom so far he’d mostly ignored. “He said that to you? He never speaks to females if he can help it. Especially young ones. You should have seen the way he ran away from my sisters when we were young.”

Minerva looked at Blake coldly. “I suppose they teased him.”

“We all did,” Blake agreed. “But he’s a grown man. He should have got over it by now.”

“If by getting over it you mean his dislike of women,” Diana said, “it seems to have happened. Lord Iverley is flirting quite shockingly with Lady Georgina Harville. All the gossips are agog.”

“Lady Gee! I can’t wait to ask Harville what he thinks of old Sebastian making up to his wife. What a joke!”

“I don’t believe Lady Gee is serious in encouraging his attentions.”

“Of course she isn’t. And it wouldn’t do her any good if she was. My cousin can’t have changed that much.”

Diana wasn’t sure he was right about Sebastian, though she agreed that Lady Georgina probably wasn’t looking for an affair. Conducting an open flirtation with the new Lord Iverley would do wonders for her reputation as a dashing young matron. Diana was beginning to find the whole subject irritating.

She was thus grateful when Minerva decided to practice her political hostess skills on Blake, though Diana could have told her she wasted her time.

“Tell me, Lord Blakeney,” Minerva said in her best sixteen-going-on-sixty voice, “what do you think of events since Peterloo? Do you feel the government has responded with unnecessary harshness to the radical threat?”

“Good Lord, Miss Minerva. That’s no question for me. I care nothing for politics. Just ask my father.”

“I would be honored to hear his opinion but I am not acquainted with the duke,” Minerva said
hopefully. She was dying to meet and converse with Blake’s powerful father.

In one sense the entire Montrose family, as neighbors, knew Blake’s family. Diana had called on the duchess during the season and they exchanged polite greetings when they met. But her position didn’t extend to arranging such a meeting for a sister who wasn’t even out.

Despite Blake’s failure to rise to her bait, Minerva hadn’t given up. “A petition for an enquiry is to be presented at the Home Office tomorrow afternoon. The organizers have obtained thousands of signatures. I would like to see it delivered.”

“I’m sorry, Min,” Diana said. “I promised to drive out with Lord Blakeney tomorrow.”

Minerva looked beseechingly at their guest but it was clear, though he was too polite to say so, that he didn’t give a damn what the magistrates had done and wouldn’t care if they marched in triumph down the street with a fanfare of heavenly trumpets.

“I’ll pick you up at three, Diana,” he said and took his leave very correctly after a half hour’s visit.

“Sorry, Min,” Diana repeated, once they were alone. “I could have asked him to drive both of us to Whitehall but he’d be bored. Wait until I’ve married him. Then I’ll make sure you meet the duke. And with those connections you’ll have your choice of every up-and-coming young politician in the country.”

Sebastian had taken the day off. No morning calls, no afternoon breakfasts. No driving in the park with Lady Georgina Harville, an experience he fervently hoped never to repeat. If he didn’t get Diana’s
attention soon he would either die of boredom or burst from frustration.

His life, his very thoughts, had become dominated by his need to impress a woman who both fascinated and repelled him. When he entered a drawing room he sometimes felt like an automaton going through his clockwork social paces until Diana’s presence brought him to life. Too much so. At the sight of her he’d be thrown into a maelstrom of contradictory emotions that set his head spinning in a manner quite foreign to the experience of his well-ordered masculine existence.

Three hours browsing the superb books in the library at Westminster Abbey soothed him. Tonight he had a choice between a musicale and a card party, either of which Diana might attend. But maybe he’d take the evening off too. He might track down Tarquin for dinner and a strategy session. Or dine at home and read. An evening spent forgetting he’d ever set eyes on Diana Fanshawe would be a relief. There were moments, and this was one of them, when he wished he could make that state of oblivion permanent.

As he strolled up Whitehall toward Charing Cross he became aware of a commotion ahead of him, shouts arising from a crowd outside the entrance to one of the government buildings. Sebastian went on the alert, knowing how much unrest simmered beneath the surface of the country’s peaceful society. He thought the government’s proposed measures likely to provoke the very violence it aimed to combat.

Most of the gathered crowd were men, but he noticed one female hovering on the fringe. Drawing
closer he realized she was no servant girl but, from her clothing, a lady. And a young one. Long fair hair emerged from her bonnet to cover her back. He recognized her just as a boy ran past and grabbed her reticule, breaking the string that was looped over her arm.

“Hey!” shouted Minerva Montrose. He might have predicted she’d neither take such treatment sitting down nor resort to tears. “Come back! Stop! Thief!”

“Miss Montrose,” he said, stepping in rapidly to prevent her taking off after the boy.

“Oh! Mr. Iverley. Quickly, that child has my reticule. Help me.”

“He’s well away and you’ll never catch him. Besides, he’d lead you into a maze of streets and some company you’d rather not encounter.”

He’d known from the start Minerva was a sensible girl. She nodded. “There wasn’t much in it, just enough money for my fare back to Portman Square. I’m going to have a long walk.”

“I’d offer to take you in my own vehicle, but I’m on foot myself. Let me find a hackney and see you home.”

“Thank you. Diana’s butler will pay for the carriage. There’s no need for you to come with me.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

She gave him a big smile. “Good! It would be my pleasure too.”

“You are staying with your sister?”

“I told you I would. You promised to call.”

Sebastian felt quite incapable of offering any explanation for his neglect, and certainly not the true
one. “My apologies” was all he could manage.

“Shall we walk part of the way?” Minerva asked. “It’s a lovely day.”

He offered his arm and they headed up Whitehall together while she filled him in on the reason for her presence in Westminster that afternoon. They’d exchanged viciously critical opinions of government policies before it occurred to Sebastian that there was anything irregular about Minerva’s expedition. He stopped abruptly outside the Horse Guards.

“Why did you come alone? It’s not safe.”

“I was fine.”

“You were robbed. What was your sister thinking?”

“Well, actually she wasn’t. She thinks I’m upstairs in my room with one of my headaches.”

“My God! Minerva, she must be worried sick. I must get you home at once.”

“Mr. Iverley,” she began. “I beg your pardon, my lord.”

“I don’t give a damn what you call me. I care that Lady Fanshawe may be pacing around her house wondering where her little sister has gone to unaccompanied by so much as a maid. Why didn’t you take a footman?”

Minerva had the grace to look a little ashamed. “I knew if I took one of the servants Diana would find out and stop me.”