Pleasure for Pleasure

Page 46

“I will stay here and help you choose your future spouse,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “Lord Graystock appears to be wandering in our direction, for instance.”
Griselda looked obediently. True enough, Graystock was ambling toward them. He was a shaggy fellow with a cheerful face and a sharp nose.
“He resembles nothing more than an amiable badger, given that white streak in his hair,” Darlington said. “The two of you could settle in the country and set up a badger run.”
Graystock was bowing now and saying hello in a determined fashion that showed that he, at least, would find the idea of a badger run with Lady Griselda quite acceptable.
But Griselda eyed his rather yellow teeth and withdrew her hand quickly.
“He’s not so terrible,” Darlington said, after Graystock had taken himself away. “There are those who would find Lady Griselda Graystock a less than salubrious sobriquet, but I’m sure you would get used to it.”
“You are very unkind,” Griselda pointed out.
“Always,” Darlington said with a grin. “Are there any more of your suitors about?”
“After all, I must marry a worthy man, just as you must marry a worthy woman,” Griselda said, tipping back her parasol and looking up at him.
“Must your spouse exhibit a badger-like worthiness?”
She smiled at him. He wasn’t as sharp-tongued as he liked to pretend; in his eyes she could see the kind of disappointment that her brother used to display, back in the days when he had a toy he didn’t wish to share. She changed the subject. “Have you read Hellgate’s Memoirs?”
“That piece of rubbish? Absolutely not.”
“I am finding it fascinating. Did you know that most people consider my own brother to be the basis for the book?”
“So you told me.”
“I wish that the book hadn’t been based on my brother,” she said with a sigh. “It makes him seem so paltry, do you know what I mean? Mayne had these little attachments over a twenty-year period, but reading them all at once makes him seem despicably puerile.”
“I don’t see why you are certain your brother is the model,” he said, looking as confused as men always did when one tried to explain the finer points of literature. “I was under the impression that Hellgate married, for example, and your brother is unmarried, is he not?”
“You will simply have to take my word for it,” Griselda said. “Hellgate quotes the poet John Donne, and I promise you that my brother could spout poetry from morning to night if he wished to.”
“Unexpected depths,” Darlington murmured. “Aren’t you feeling rather hot and weary? Perhaps ready to retire to a more secluded spot?”
“Not at all.”
“You look quite hot.”
Griselda blinked for a moment. She didn’t feel hot. Was he really saying that her face was unattractively flushed? To her mind, there was nothing more pedestrian than a lady checking her face in a small glass. “I am absolutely comfortable,” she said, though there was a bit of an edge in her voice.
“I beg to differ,” he said, staring down at her with such an alarmed face that she actually began to wonder what could have gone wrong. Could her carefully applied face paint have smeared in the sun? Surely not. She wore only the slightest touch. “Oh dear,” he said, peering into her face.
Griselda’s heart was beating quickly and it wasn’t from fear of a facial disaster. “Really?” she asked weakly. He was only an inch or two from her mouth. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t possibly kiss her here, with crowds of persons about and—
“You are ill.”
“I am?”
“You are quite ill. Don’t you feel rather odd?”
Griselda had to admit that perhaps she did. Her heart was racing alarmingly, and her knees felt quite weak. And now she thought about it, her cheeks were warm. She opened her mouth.
“Don’t try to speak.”
She began to speak anyway but her attention was caught by the color of his eyes. They really were extraordinary: a beautiful cool gray color that shaded into blue.
“You are about to faint. I can see it in your pallor.”
Pallor? Griselda thought. How could I be pale? Visions of herself delicately patting on a small amount of Virgin’s Blush that morning drifted through her head.
She frowned at him, just as something clipped her behind her knees and her right foot skated out from under her.
With a startled gasp, she dropped her parasol—but there he was. She was scooped into his arms, for all the world like the heroine of a melodrama. “Don’t worry,” he said to her with such a sweet, anxious expression that her heart thumped even harder. “I’ll take care of you.
“It’s just heat,” he said to Josie, who had turned and was looking concerned. “Nothing to fear,” he told Mayne. “I shall accompany Lady Griselda to her home, since she has grown faint.”
Her brother was obviously torn between brotherly devotion and his horse. “I’m fine,” Griselda said, not struggling to get down. After all, since Darlington deliberately tipped her off-balance, he might as well strain his muscles holding her above the ground. Who was she to cavil about the fact that she felt no faintness whatsoever? In fact, perhaps she was dizzy. She certainly felt wildly happy.
Mayne must have glimpsed her face because his eyes narrowed and he started to say something, but Darlington had already turned and was plowing through the crowd. Griselda put her head against his shoulder. He must be terribly strong to carry me along like this, she thought.
“You will put me down if you’re about to fall over, won’t you?”
“Why would I fall over?”
She glanced up, and sure enough, his face had the utterly wicked look of joy that a boy gets when he hides his favorite toy rather than share it. “You,” she said, “ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“I so frequently am that I’m afraid the emotion has lost some of its punch. I will take you to my house.”
They were almost at the hackney enclosure now. His long legs were carrying her through the crowds at top speed. “I can’t go home with you,” Griselda said. He put her on the seat, but then he stopped, arms braced on either side of her, and leaned toward her. His body blocked the light coming in the carriage; surely no one could see.
“You certainly can,” he said. “I’ll put a blanket over your head and pretend you’re a potted plant.”
“I can’t!”
“You can.”
Griselda pushed herself up, ready to do battle even though it brought his lips within an inch of hers. Sure enough, he dipped his head. Some moments later she came out of a daze to find that she was clutching his shoulders. “I don’t do this sort of thing,” she said wonderingly.
“Neither do I.” She met his eyes and knew it was true. “I don’t sleep with women, and in fact, I’ve never invited a woman other than my mother into my apartments. But I would like you to come, Ellie.”
“Ellie is a servant’s name,” she said, pushing her bottom lip out, just because she wanted to make him look.
Of course he did more than look, and by the time that kiss was over, she would have gone with him anywhere. And he knew it. He looked down at her with a slumbering little smile in his eyes and then finally pulled himself entirely into the carriage.