Читать книгу Historical Romance June 2017 Books 1 - 4 - Энни Берроуз, Annie Burrows - Страница 23

Chapter Thirteen

Edmund shifted from one foot to the other as he waited for his turn to hand in his ticket to Lady Chepstow’s charity ball. It was no use telling himself that the cause was a good one. He didn’t give a rap for indigent governesses, or whatever it was tonight’s takings would fund. He just wanted to see Georgie again. Ever since the conversation they’d had at Bullock’s Museum, about the way he’d felt when his mother had sent him into exile, he’d been kicking himself for not bringing up the topic of the intercepted letters.

He’d practically accused her of being too cowardly to grow up, yet he’d balked at bringing the truth out into the open. Out of concern for what the result would have been. He’d stood there, wondering if she’d be angry, or hurt, or, if she’d felt as deeply as he had about it, if she might not even have burst into tears. In the museum, of all places.

So he’d changed the focus of their conversation. Talked to her about the suitors she ought to be attracting, for heaven’s sake. When there were already far too many men hanging round her for his liking. With their tongues hanging out.

He slapped his ticket into the hand of Lady Peters, the gorgon presiding over admittance to Durant House for some reason, and then stalked past, ignoring her speech about the premises tonight’s profits would be used to purchase.

He needed to see Georgie for himself. To...

To do what, exactly, he wasn’t sure. He stomped up the staircase that led to the ballroom, his face rigid with self-disgust. Since the day she’d made that outrageous proposal it felt as if he’d abandoned every principle by which he’d ever lived. He might have come to London with the intention of proving he was the better man, by steering her into the kind of marriage she’d said she wanted, but what had he done instead?

Deliberately sabotaged the one chance she might have had at making such a match by warning her stepmother about Lord Freckleton’s proclivities, that’s what. And then, when he’d seen glimpses of the old Georgiana peeping out from behind the curtain of ladylike behaviour, he’d practically dared her to come all the way out, by introducing her to that hoyden Julia Durant. And then, at the museum, telling her outright that’s what he wanted her to do.

He reached the ballroom just as the orchestra was screeching its way to the conclusion of a dance and scanned the couples returning to their seats for a sight of her.

And he saw her. With Eastman. Eastman! Hadn’t his warnings about the libertine been explicit enough? Clearly not, because Eastman was bending over her hand as she sat down and saying something which was making her look uncomfortable.

And her stepmother was smiling up at the scoundrel in an encouraging way, while Georgiana looked as though she was only holding a polite smile on her face with an extreme effort.

Then Eastman sauntered away, in the direction of the card room, leaving Georgiana with her lips pulled tight and shoulders so tense they were practically up by her ears.

He strode over.

‘What did he say to you?’

Georgiana blinked up at him as though in confusion.

‘You know who I mean. Eastman,’ he said.

‘Nothing,’ she replied. Which was obviously untrue.

After he’d continued to glare at her for a second or two, she wilted.

‘Nothing I care to repeat,’ she admitted, lowering her gaze and fiddling with the struts of her fan in a distracted manner.

‘I thought we had agreed you should stay away from him,’ he said.

‘You don’t understand—’

‘Then explain it to me.’

‘He asked me to dance. If I had refused him...’

She didn’t need to say anything else. If she had refused one partner, publicly, she would not have been able to dance with anyone else. He flicked one contemptuous glance at her stepmother. The woman whose job it was to protect her charges from just such a situation by vetoing unsuitable, or unwelcome, men.

‘And he took advantage?’

‘Only to say...something. He didn’t do anything...’

He couldn’t very well. Not on a dance floor. But he could guess what a man like that might have said.

‘I will deal with him,’ he growled. And set off in pursuit.

He caught up with his quarry just outside the card room.

‘Want a word with you,’ he said, just before Eastman went through the door.

‘Me?’ Eastman half-turned to look at Edmund over his shoulder. ‘Cannot imagine what business you would have with me,’ he said, with a hint of disdain.

Edmund ignored the intended insult, since he felt a reciprocal disdain for men like Eastman who frittered their lives away on a variety of trivial, and often immoral, pursuits. Then he stepped a little closer and lowered his voice before speaking again, although it was unlikely anyone could hear any conversation held at a rational level, above the general hubbub emanating from the ballroom. ‘It concerns Miss Wickford.’

‘Oh?’ Eastman’s demeanour underwent a subtle shift. It put Edmund in mind of a hound catching an elusive, yet fascinating scent on the wind. ‘Wasn’t aware you had an interest in the chit.’

If anything could have confirmed his suspicions about the reasons Eastman was pursuing Georgiana, it was his use of such a disrespectful word to describe her. ‘And now you are,’ said Edmund through gritted teeth.

‘Would have thought,’ said Eastman, turning to face him, ‘that her stepsister was more in your style.’

He bit back the retort that immediately sprang to mind, since it was entirely his own fault everyone assumed his tastes ran to diminutive blondes, when every mistress he’d had since attending Oxford had conformed to that type.

‘I have known Miss Wickford since we were children,’ he therefore said, deciding to get right to the nub of the matter.

‘Indeed? She hails from Bartlesham, then? I was not aware.’

‘Yes. Her father was the master of the local hunt.’

‘That would account for it,’ said Eastman, propping himself against the panelling and folding his arms across his chest.

‘Account for what?’ replied Edmund against his better judgement.

‘Her rollicking sort of air. Can just see her riding to hounds. A bruising rider, I’d wager. Eh?’

‘I haven’t come here to discuss her prowess on horseback.’

Eastman laughed. In a distinctly dirty manner.

‘Ashenden, you astonish me,’ he said, reaching into his waistcoat pocket for his snuffbox with a sly grin.

‘I do not—that is, Miss Wickford is—’

‘Makes no difference to me,’ said Eastman casually flicking open the lid.

‘What makes no difference?’

‘Her virginity. Or lack of it,’ he said with a shrug.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Edmund couldn’t believe his ears. Even though this was what he’d suspected all along.

‘No need,’ said Eastman, taking a pinch of snuff between his thumb and forefinger. ‘I don’t mind not being the first. She clearly still has much to offer a man, being so, ah, spirited. I shall look forward to...taming her,’ he finished with an evil smirk. A smirk that Edmund simply had to wipe from his face.

Before he knew it, he’d clenched his fist and lashed out.

And Eastman went down like a felled oak, snuff exploding in all directions as the enamel box went flying.

For a moment, Eastman simply lay there, looking as stunned as Edmund felt.

‘Good God,’ he gasped, lifting a rather shaky hand to his nose, which was bleeding. ‘You knocked me down.’

‘So I did,’ said Edmund, reeling. And not just at the fact he’d just done something so rash, without a moment’s hesitation. Nay, not even so much as a moment’s thought. But the fact that it would mean a duel. Nobody knocked a man like Eastman down and got away with it.

Edmund would choose pistols, he decided. He’d be a fool to fence with a man whose reach was so very much longer than his own. Pistols would make the contest fairer.

Having reached that decision, Edmund felt a surge of anticipation stirring deep within him. It would give him a great deal of satisfaction to blow a hole in the smirking lecher who’d not only assumed Georgie wasn’t a virgin, but admitted it made no difference to his plans.

The sound of a chorus of groans, followed by a burst of laughter wafting from the card room as someone briefly opened the door, brought both men back to their senses.

‘Damn...’ Eastman groaned, fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief. ‘It’s going to be common knowledge in a matter of minutes that you’ve knocked me down.’

As if to prove him correct, Edmund heard someone exclaim, ‘Good God, Ashenden is having a set-to with Eastman!’

And someone else saying, ‘Ashenden? Never!’

Then the unmistakable sound of chairs scraping back and feet tumbling in their direction.

But Edmund never took his eyes off Eastman.

‘Oh, lord,’ Eastman said plaintively. ‘When I think of all the fellows who’ve challenged me to a bout and never been able to so much as to pop one in over my guard...’

‘Do you require someone to act as your second?’ said a voice at Edmund’s side. From the corner of his eye he saw Lord Havelock, eyeing him, and then Eastman’s prostrate form, with what looked suspiciously like approval.

For a moment, Eastman looked annoyed. But then his lips twitched, and he started to chuckle. ‘I’m not going to fight a duel over this little...misunderstanding. It’s bad enough to have been knocked down by a spindly bookworm like you,’ he grumbled, dabbing at his nose. ‘If it gets as far as meeting on a field of honour, they’ll be selling tickets. You should consider this,’ he said, gesturing to the blood streaming down his face, ‘satisfaction enough. And the fact that all these gentlemen here,’ he said, waving his hand at the men spilling from the card room, ‘are witnesses to your triumph. Here,’ he said, raising his free hand in supplication. ‘Help me up, there’s a good chap.’

Havelock bristled, and made a move to block him.

‘Oh, for the Lord’s sake, Havelock,’ grumbled Eastman. ‘You don’t think I’m going to start a mill, right outside a ballroom, do you?’

‘You had better not,’ he said.

‘You will apologise,’ said Edmund grimly.

‘Unreservedly,’ said Eastman. Which left Edmund no alternative but to hold out his hand as Eastman attempted, somewhat shakily, to stand up. Eastman’s eyebrows rose as Edmund hauled him unceremoniously to his feet.

‘Not so spindly, after all,’ he said, raising the hand that wasn’t held in Edmund’s grip to feel his upper arm beneath his coat. ‘You may be a slender chap, but you don’t spend all your time reading books, do you?’

‘That is beside the point.’

‘No, I don’t think it is. It almost makes me...’ He shook his head, and grimaced. ‘No, never mind. Please accept my sincere apologies,’ he said, sweeping Edmund an ironically deep bow, ‘for poaching on your preserves. I shall, of course, cease pursuing your...intended bride forthwith. Shake on it?’

Intended bride? The murmur rustled among the assembled spectators like a breeze through a forest. Making Edmund wish, more than ever, to ram a couple of Eastman’s shiny teeth down his throat. But if he made a production of Eastman’s sly allusion to the woman over whom they were fighting, it would only increase the chances someone would guess who the woman in question was. He could not say anything, with all those others watching, without making Georgiana the subject of scurrilous gossip.

He had, in short, no choice but to take the hand Eastman was holding out to him and shake it grimly.

Eastman grinned. ‘You must let me in on the secret of how you keep in such good shape, Ashenden.’

Edmund blinked at Eastman’s bonhomie. But then reflected that men of his ilk often appeared to believe they’d become firm friends with someone, simply because they’d either knocked them down, or been knocked down by them.

‘Rowing,’ he said curtly.

‘Rowing?’

‘Rowing.’

‘Rowing?’ Eastman’s incredulity increased every time he repeated the word. And Edmund saw he was going to have to offer some form of elucidation, or the idiot would be keeping him standing there all night, batting the word back and forth like a shuttlecock.

‘Yes. I took it up when I was sent, as a boy, to the Scilly Isles to recuperate from an illness.’ At the mere mention of the word, illness, the men who’d abandoned their card games in the hope of witnessing a brawl began to drift away.

‘It was the best way,’ Edmund continued, ‘to get from one island to another. And my physician encouraged me in that pursuit, hoping it would broaden my chest muscles and thus help with my breathing difficulties.’

‘Continued up at Oxford, did you?’

‘Well, the colleges are surrounded by water. And I found that the exercise was conducive to contemplative thought.’

At that Eastman burst out laughing. ‘Well, I never heard of you taking part in any of the races, so it never occurred to me that—’ before bursting out laughing again. ‘Damn, you must be the only man there who took to the Isis as an aid to study rather than to win a wager!’

As soon as all the men but Lord Havelock had gone, the jovial expression faded from Eastman’s features.

‘I think,’ Eastman continued, eyeing the card room, ‘that this would be a good time to try my luck at the tables. Since it is not running in my favour with affairs of the heart.’

‘You will need to clean yourself up a bit first,’ said Havelock, then snapped his fingers to summon a footman who must have been hovering somewhere close by. ‘Bridges here will take you to find water and a washcloth. And a fresh neckcloth. Cannot have you sitting down to play cards in soiled linen.’

Eastman sauntered off after the footman as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

And Edmund watched him go, his fists still clenched, bitterly regretting the fact that a man could wriggle his way out of fighting a duel if he made what sounded like an honest apology.

‘Come on,’ said Havelock, taking him by the arm.

‘What? Where are you taking me?’

‘My study. Only place Mary hasn’t put into use to raise money for Lady Chepstow’s blessed charity school. And you look as though you could use a stiff drink. And the privacy in which to pull yourself together.’

The privacy, however, was denied him the moment they entered Havelock’s study and found Lord Chepstow already in situ, nursing his own drink, in an armchair before the empty fireplace.

‘Ah, Havelock,’ said Chepstow, raising his glass. ‘You don’t mind, do you? This was the only room I could find that ain’t infested by charitable types attempting to separate me from my money.’

‘Not at all,’ said Havelock affably, pushing Edmund in the direction of another armchair. ‘We came in here for much the same reason.’

‘Good God,’ Chepstow suddenly exclaimed, straightening up from his slouch. ‘What the devil happened to you, Ashe?’

‘He had an altercation with Eastman,’ said Havelock, going to the sideboard and pouring two drinks. ‘Knocked him down.’

‘No!’ Chepstow grinned. ‘Why?’

Because he’d had no choice. He’d had to convince Eastman that he wasn’t going to let Georgie become yet another one of his conquests. He’d challenged him in the first place because everyone knew about the number of broken hearts and ruined reputations the man had casually left in his wake. It was just a pity the man’s reaction had made him lash out without thinking. Which had been extremely foolish as well as being completely out of character.

But he couldn’t have stood back and let Eastman add Georgie to his tally. Or hurt her in any way at all. Or even touch her, come to that. The thought of Eastman, or that bumbling cavalry Major, fixing his slobbering lips on Georgie’s perfect breasts...

Insupportable.

And yet, in order to protect her, he’d given her would-be seducer the notion he was on the verge of proposing to her himself.

Which he wasn’t.

But now there were at least two people who thought he might be.

And half a dozen more who suspected he had marital intentions in relation to someone.

Dammit!