Cupid's Dart (23 page)

Georgie wrinkled her pretty nose. "I wish you would not phrase it in quite that manner. Anyway, I do not see that I have a choice. If anyone can straighten out this tangle, it is you."

Lord Warwick smiled at her. "I appreciate your vote of confidence, I think. Do go on, my dear."

Here was the telling moment. Georgie screwed up her courage. "No," she said.

"No?" Garth echoed, startled.

"No," Georgie repeated, firmly. "I wish that you would kiss me first. We are not at odds at the moment, and I wish to savor the sensation, because I fear that we soon shall be again."

Georgie was acting most unlike herself. Was that
brandy
Garth smelled on her breath? "Georgie, have you been drinking?" he inquired.

Now that Lord Warwick mentioned it, Georgie did feel a little odd. "I didn't mean to, but I may have done. Agatha made a tisane for Andrew, and I swallowed it instead. Please, Garth, I do wish that you would kiss me—but only providing that afterward you do not run away."

"Run away?" Lord Warwick caught Georgie by her shoulders. "Is that what you think, that I have run away from you?"

Georgie fought back tears. It was the fault of Agatha's potion that she was grown so weepy, she told herself. "You kiss me, then you say you shouldn't, and then you play least-in-sight. After the last time you kissed me, you went out of town."

Georgie looked altogether adorable, with her reddened nose and tear-filled eyes and wildly tangled hair. Lord Warwick told himself it would be unwise to smile. "My dear," he murmured, "what do you think brought me to Brighton in the first place?"

Georgie blinked. "I do not know. I thought perhaps it was because Prinny was in Brighton. Or that it had something to do with Catherine."

"Nothing of the sort." Garth rested his hand against her cheek. "Prinny's presence was an influence, but I had learned that you were here. I would have gotten up the courage to call on you, Georgie, had we not first collided on the beach."

Georgie was speechless. Or almost. "Me?" she whispered. "Oh, Garth!" And then, because she looked so adorable, and because he was so very tired of being honourable, and because both were so overwhelmed by their mutual admissions, an interval of kissing ensued. When that interval concluded, Lord Warwick was seated on a peach-colored sofa, with Georgie on his lap. "Before we forget ourselves altogether," he murmured, "I think you should tell me about this coil you wish me to untangle."

Georgie sighed, and removed herself from Lord Warwick's lap, lest in reaction to the tale she was about to tell him, he dump her on the floor. "Did you know that Carlisle Sutton was acquainted with Catherine?" she asked. "He was asking me a great many questions about you, and her. I had the impression that he knew Catherine fairly well."

Carlisle Sutton and Catherine? Garth was intrigued. Not as intrigued as he was jealous of Georgie's own association with the man, which was unworthy of him, because Garth did not imagine that Georgie had sat on Carlisle Sutton's lap. "Continue," he said.

"Mr. Sutton has found out that we sheltered Marigold, and is very angry." Georgie resumed her pacing around the room. "He also offered her a slip on the shoulder, and so
she
is very angry with
him.
Lump is lost, and Miss Inchquist, and Andrew has hurt his leg—" She burst into tears.

Garth could not bear to see Georgie cry. As a result, she found herself back in his lap. "You said Catherine developed a partiality for another gentleman? Could it have been Carlisle Sutton?" she asked, when she was done sniffling.

"Doubtful," retorted Garth, as he mopped her face with his handkerchief. "A man like Sutton would not have danced long to Catherine's tune. Tell me something, Georgia, just who are you embroidering those damned slippers for?"

Slippers? Whether due to Lord Warwick's proximity, or Agatha's potion, Georgie couldn't think. "Oh! Andrew, of course."

There was one burning question answered. "And why are you estranged from your family?" Garth inquired.

Georgie lowered her gaze to his cravat, which was sadly rumpled, as well as tear-stained. "We could not agree on a certain matter," she murmured.

Lord Warwick had little doubt of what that matter was. Another interval of kissing ensued. "Let me see if I have got this right," he said, at its conclusion. "Your Mrs. Smith, who is an actress, lost a certain gem at play. Magnus Eliot has that gem. Carlisle Sutton wants it back. Your brother tried to steal it from Magnus Eliot. This conundrum has brought your brother to a state of nervous and physical exhaustion, which causes him to mumble incoherently about twenty-five thousand pounds. And Miss Inchquist—who the devil is Miss Inchquist? No, don't tell me—has run off with a fortune-hunting twiddlepoop."

Georgie sighed. "Something like that."

Garth set her aside and stood up. "I suppose I need not point out that did you wish to subject your family to another round of notoriety, you could not have come up with a muddle that would fascinate the gossips more."

Surely she was not going to cry again! Georgie blinked back tears. "You promised you would not lecture me."

"I am not lecturing." Garth paused in front of a looking-glass to adjust his cravat. "I am mystified as to the reason why you should think that I might wish to lecture you. Granted, I have lectured you in the past. Unfortunately, it is my tendency to treat you as though you were still a girl, which demonstrably you are not, but I cannot treat you as I truly wish to, and therefore fall back on my old ways."

Georgie wondered how Lord Warwick truly wished to treat her. "You are in an odd mood," she said.

Garth turned toward her and arched his brow. "Missing emeralds. Vanished heiresses. Actresses and rakehells."

Georgie winced. "I take your point. Garth, you said you would never turn away from me. Have you changed your mind?"

How forlorn she looked, huddled on his peach sofa. "I promise that I shall neither turn away nor run away from you," said Garth. "Now go home and wait for me."

Georgie didn't know that she wanted to return home. Heaven only knew what additional disasters might await her there. "What are you going to do?" she asked, as she got up from the couch.

"I don't know what I may do!" responded Garth. "Talk with Magnus Eliot, I suppose. I'll say this for you, Georgie: you pick the devil of a way to call in your vowels."

Chapter Twenty-nine

Lump was greatly enjoying his first curricle ride. Since this pleasure took expression in a great deal of barking, drooling, and leaping about, his fellow travelers were less enthused. Like Mr. Teasdale, the horses cared for Lump no more in the curricle than they had out of it, and became increasingly nervous and hard to control, a circumstance that Peregrine was not equipped to repair. Unlike a more experienced horseman, who would have known to hold the horses' reins in his left hand, and in his right the whip, Peregrine held the reins in both his hands, and up around his nose.

A cow-handed whipster, nervous horses, and a barking dog; a sharp turning, a wheel caught on the corner of a bridge—the result: a broken axle, and a tumble into a ditch. By the time everyone had climbed out of the ditch, and calmed the horses, and found an obliging blacksmith, no one was in a good mood, save Lump, who considered this the grandest adventure he had enjoyed in quite some time. While repairs were being made, the small party retired to a nearby inn.

It was a very rustic inn. Sarah-Louise looked with some dismay around the private parlor that Peregrine had procured for them. The room had more the dimensions of a warming closet, with low ceilings and a small fireplace and a very dirty floor. Even the air smelled stale. "Where
are
we
?
This d-does not seem to me to be the way to Aunt Amice's house."

Nor was it, but instead the road to Gretna Green. Peregrine lifted the tankard of ale that the landlord had provided them, along with a cold pigeon pie. "There is no reason it should seem familiar. We are taking a short cut." This did not seem the moment to inform Sarah-Louise that she was to be a runaway bride. Not that Peregrine expected her to protest. He was doing her a favor, was he not? It wasn't like she might expect to make a love match. Miss Inchquist was unlikely to marry at all, if not for her papa's rolls of soft.

Matrimony, in that moment, was also on Miss Inchquist's mind, not as a grand aspiration, but as something she didn't think she wished to undertake. Not with Mr. Teasdale, at any rate. Mr. Teasdale had not displayed himself particularly well during the past hour, yelling at Lump, and at her, and letting his horses get out of hand. Scant wonder they had wound up in a ditch, which hadn't improved either Mr. Teasdale's temper, or his appearance. Peregrine's clothes were mud-spattered, his boots scratched and dirty, and he had lost both his hat and his quizzing-glass.

Why the deuce was Sarah-Louise staring at him? It put a fellow off. Peregrine hoped she didn't mean to gawk at him like that every morning over the breakfast cups.

Gawking was a small enough price to pay for a fortune, he supposed. Peregrine drained his tankard, and broached the pigeon pie. It was not edible. He put down his fork, and decided he might as well get on with the business.
"'O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move/The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.
'"

Sarah-Louise was in no mood for this nonsense. "Thomas Gray," she said. "Tell me the truth, Peregrine.
Were
you
going to take us home?"

The word "us" reminded Peregrine of that blasted hound. He glanced down to find that Lump had disposed of the pigeon pie. Miss Inchquist was frowning. Peregrine called her his
"bright particular star."

"Shakespeare!" retorted Sarah-Louise. "Answer me, please! Where were you planning to take us, sir?"

Peregrine cast about in his mind for an appropriate reference to marriage. Neither
"Marriage is a noose"
(Cervantes) nor
"Wedding is destiny, And hanging likewise"
(Heywood) seemed appropriate.
"'As
may arrows, loosed sev'l ways, Fly to one mark,
'"
he ventured. "Dear heart, we are flying to Gretna Green."

Mention of Gretna Green recalled to Sarah-Louise an earlier overheard conversation. Gretna Green was going to be overridden with eloping lovers at this rate. Sarah-Louise didn't think she wished to be among them. "You bamboozled me," she said.

Peregrine sincerely hoped so. Ladies who had been bamboozled were much more compliant than otherwise. "Not a bit of it. I'm devoted to you. Give you my word."

Devoted to her? Rather, devoted to her papa's pocketbook. "Fiddlestick!" said Sarah-Louise.

The normally meek Miss Inchquist looked as though she was about to spit fire. "Nonsense," Peregrine soothed. "You are fine as fivepence." Perhaps that reference was imprudent. "Top of the trees."

Sarah-Louise did not care for this reminder of her height. "You have never written a single word of your own poetry, unless it was that silly sonnet about my nose, or if you have, I have never heard it, so I can hardly be your muse. Papa was right. You only wish to marry me because your pockets are to let."

Peregrine didn't see that it was any of his bride-to-be's business if his purse was empty. And she
was
his bride-to-be, whether she liked it or not. "You are making a great deal of fuss over nothing," he said crossly. "I wish that you would stop. So what if I pretended to write something that I didn't? You liked it well enough at the time."

So Sarah-Louise had, because she thought he cared for her, and now she clearly saw that he did not. The realization of her folly made her very sad. It also made her want to damage something, preferably Peregrine. "I thought I wouldn't mind being married for my papa's money. Now I find I do. I no longer wish to marry you, Mr. Teasdale."

Peregrine smiled, unpleasantly. "A pity," he said. "Because now even your father will agree that you no longer have a choice."

Sarah-Louise couldn't imagine her papa agreeing to any such thing. "You must be all about in your head. My papa doesn't even like you," she retorted. "And neither do I!"

Peregrine moved around the table. "Think, Sarah-Louise. You are alone with me. Unchaperoned. And you have been for some time. Your father will be grateful to me for marrying you, now that your good name has been compromised."

Compromised! So busy had Sarah-Louise been with all her other worries that she had not considered that her good name might be besmirched. What Mr. Teasdale said was true. She should not be alone with him. "Oh, botheration!" she cried
.

There was more than one way to lead a horse to water. To clinch the matter, Peregrine would see that the young lady was compromised in truth. He moved closer. Sarah-Louise backed away. Lump watched with interest, curious about this new game. Mr. Teasdale and Miss Inchquist circled the small chamber until she came up smack against the fireplace. "Hah!" said Peregrine, and reached for her.

Mr. Teasdale might have done well to recall the remainder of the adage about leading horses to water, to wit that once arrived at the puddle one still had to encourage them to drink. Sarah-Louise grasped the fireplace poker and swung it at his head. Peregrine ducked and cursed. Sarah-Louise screamed, loudly. Lump threw back his head and howled.

The parlor door flew open. Mr. Sutton and Mr. Inchquist burst into the room. Sarah-Louise flung down the poker—narrowly missing Peregrine—and ran to her father. "I am so glad to see you, Papa! How did you find us?"

Quentin regarded his daughter, who did indeed look glad to see him, and rather the worse for wear. "There aren't many violet and vermillion and blue curricles about. Teasdale wasn't hard to trace. But what's this? You
wanted
us to find you?" he asked.

Sarah-Louise suffered a moment's horrid fear that her papa would do as Peregrine had predicted. "Please don't make me marry him!" she cried. "I know I have been foolish, and disobedient, but please, please,
please
don't make me do that!"