Mad About the Earl (14 page)

He’d hesitated too long with all this conjecture bubbling in his brain. Before he could decide whether to go or stay, Lady Cecily spied him and waved. Rosamund turned her head and saw him, too. Nothing for it but to grit his teeth and join them.

He suspected his teeth would be ground to stumps before his sojourn in London was over.

“Lord Tregarth. How delightful.” Rosamund beamed at him and put out her hand.

Surprise at the cordiality of her greeting made him hesitate before taking her fingertips and bowing over them.

He met Rosamund’s eyes and discerned a slight frown in their blue depths. Did she suppose he’d brush a tender kiss over her knuckles? She ought to know better than to expect all that folderol from an oaf like him.

Instead, he released her fingers and greeted Lady Cecily and Miss Tibbs.

“Oh, and this is Captain Lauderdale,” Rosamund added, confirming Griffin’s suspicions.

Her voice was expressionless—carefully so—as if she were determined not to give any emotion away. That was perhaps more telling than any overt display of her feelings could ever be.

The captain turned, and for the first time, Griffin got a good look at the man’s face.

Hell.
If Griffin had needed any reminder of the chasm between him and his intended wife, there it was, embodied in scarlet regimentals. The fellow looked like a bloody prince from a fairy tale. How could a gargoyle like Griffin ever hope to compete with that?

Well, he’d go through with this charade because he’d given his word. But once it was over and Rosamund was his wife, she could forget about trying to change him into something he wasn’t.

Lauderdale smiled, but his dark eyes were hard and bright. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance … at last.”

Griffin ignored the implied criticism. “Isn’t your lot stationed in Brussels now?”

“Yes. I’m about to join them.” He glanced at Rosamund. “All the world flocks to the Continent, Lady Rosamund. You should ask the duke to take you.”

“I can’t imagine why,” said Rosamund. “We’d be shockingly in the way.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Cecily said with a mischievous grin. “I expect we’d do our bit to keep up the soldiers’ morale. And it would be an adventure, would it not?”

Miss Tibbs remarked, “Lady Cecily, as you are not yet out, you would find Brussels just as tedious as London, I daresay.”

“Rosamund is not going to Brussels,” snapped Griffin.

The captain’s sleek eyebrows shot up. Sculpted lips trembling with amusement, he slanted a glance at Rosamund. As if to say,
And this is the uncivilized brute you choose to marry?

She held herself very still, clearly bracing for a confrontation.

“Perhaps you weren’t aware, Captain,” said Miss Tibbs in her soft, precise voice. “Lord Tregarth and Lady Rosamund are to be married. A happy event for us all.”

The spring air hummed with tension. “Yes, indeed,” returned Lauderdale with a significant glance at Rosamund. “Lady Rosamund informed me last night, ma’am. Might I be among the first to wish you both
extremely
happy?”

Rosamund’s features froze. It seemed to cost her a great deal of effort to unclose her lips and say, “Thank you.”

Then her gaze caught Griffin’s, and she sent him another dazzling smile. Damned if it wasn’t like being showered in diamonds, even if the smile didn’t quite reach those Delft-blue eyes.

“I am sure we shall be,” said Rosamund. “Very happy, indeed.”

“Rosamund, dear, your ice is melting,” said Miss Tibbs.

“Oh.” Obediently, Rosamund lowered her gaze to her lemon-colored ice and licked delicately at the cool, swirling confection. An appreciative little murmur sounded in the back of her throat as she savored its sweetness; her pink lips glistened with moisture. She passed her tongue over them, innocently unaware of the effect she created.

Griffin sucked in a breath. For a searing instant, he felt light-headed. He longed to taste those cool, soft lips, to make them heat and move and part beneath his own, to feel her tongue stroking his, her mouth on his body.…

A soft groan came from Lauderdale. “You are a lucky dog, Tregarth.”

Yes,
he thought.
God, yes. I am.

Then he scowled, realizing that Lauderdale’s fantasies ran along the same lines as his own.

Rosamund’s eyelashes fluttered a little as she raised her eyes to Griffin. Her gaze fused with his, her eyes soft and warm. She must have read the tenor of his thoughts in his face, for she blushed so adorably, he wanted to snatch her up in his arms.

Lauderdale’s tone was sharp with annoyance. “What a shame you neglected Lady Rosamund all those years, Tregarth. Some ardent young buck might have stolen her away from you.”

CHAPTER NINE

Rosamund dearly wished to knock Lauderdale’s hat off and dump her ice over his guinea-gold head. Only her innate good breeding and years of practice in elegant restraint held her back.

Cecily was right: Sometimes being a well-bred lady was the very Devil.

“By the way, when is the, er …
happy
day?” the captain inquired.

Rosamund’s fingers clenched around the handle of her glass. Lauderdale could laugh at her all he wanted, but it
would
be a happy marriage if she had anything to say about it.

The way Griffin had looked at her just now …

“The wedding is set for next week.” Griffin shot the captain a challenging glare.

“Next week?” she repeated, doing her best to look flattered and amused. “You are impatient, sir! But I must insist we do the thing properly. Why, I’ve not yet had the chance to buy my bride clothes.”

“Quite right, Rosamund,” said Cecily. “One should never pass up an excuse to spend a lavish amount on one’s appearance. The modistes are always at their busiest this season. There is no time to waste. We must plan our strategy.”

Grateful that her cousin had helped steer the conversation to safer waters, Rosamund relaxed a little. “My thoughts exactly. Isn’t it odd, Cecily, how often our cogitations coincide?”

“Great minds and all that,” Cecily agreed. She bit into the rosy cloud of her raspberry ice. “Bride clothes. That reminds me. Where do you go on your bride tour?”

Rosamund choked.

“Bride tour?” Griffin looked as if his horrid old neckerchief strangled him.

“Well, of course!” Cecily considered. “Such a pity Paris is ineligible, now that Bonaparte is on the rampage. Perhaps you should go to the Lake District. Or even Scotland might be pleasant if you wait until summer. Constantine and Jane did that, although I don’t believe they’d have cared where they were, they were so wrapped up in each other.” She held up her ice. “This raspberry flavor is delicious. Would you like some, Rosamund?”

Slowly, Rosamund shook her head.

Cecily’s mention of a bride tour conjured visions of days spent alone in Griffin’s company. Many days … and a commensurate number of nights. Rosamund’s heart thumped hard, and she felt her color rise. She couldn’t even glance at her betrothed.

Her bergamot water ice had gone largely untouched and now began to melt in earnest. A single lemon-colored rivulet snaked down the side of the glass and pooled in the crook of her finger and thumb.

Resisting the urge to lick it off, she said, “Cecily, Lord Tregarth has only just arrived in Town. I am sure we shall sort out the details of our … married life later.”

Abruptly, the captain took out his timepiece and glanced at it. “Ladies, do forgive me,” he said. “I’ve recalled a pressing engagement.”

“Don’t let us keep you,” grunted Rosamund’s betrothed.

Lauderdale met Rosamund’s eyes. “I’ll see you at Lady Buckham’s soiree tomorrow night.” He snapped a bow in their direction, nodded to Griffin, and strode away.

They all fell silent, watching him go.

When a waiter arrived, Rosamund gladly surrendered the sad remnants of her treat and hunted in her reticule for a handkerchief to wipe her sticky fingers. Her wits were a sad, melting mess, just like the ice. Her head ached; her heart felt strangely bruised.

Bruised? No, it wasn’t her heart that was bruised, of course. It was her pride.

She’d never loved Captain Lauderdale. Yet, his unflagging devotion had been a balm to the wound Griffin inflicted three years ago, a wound Griffin’s continued absence and other people’s pity had rubbed raw. She’d never dreamed Lauderdale regarded her marriage with complacency, content to wait for the moment he could safely make her his mistress.

How galling to admit her mother had been right.

On impulse, Rosamund turned to Griffin. “Will you walk with me, my lord?”

He stared at her. “Walk?”

“Yes,” she said, impatient all at once. “Promenade. Perambulate. I wish to stroll in the garden, and I require your escort.”

He shrugged with exceedingly bad grace. “If I must.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tibby and Cecily exchange significant glances. Rosamund put her chin up and pulled on her gloves. “Will you wait here, my dears? We shan’t be long.”

“Don’t go out of sight, Rosamund,” said Tibby.

“Of course not.” Rosamund smiled, all compliance. She’d discovered that a habit of compliance tended to lull suspicion. The duke and Tibby watched Cecily like hawks, while allowing Rosamund far more freedom than they knew.

She picked up her parasol and stood and waited with a pointed look of expectation at Griffin.

There was a beat of silence before he took his cue, opening the low door to the barouche and letting down the steps. Without further prompting, he took her hand to help her down. She felt the immense strength in him even from that fleeting contact.

She snapped open her parasol, a frivolous tasseled shade made of sea green silk and white crêpe to match her gown.

“Let us go that way,” she said, pointing. “I wish to pay my regards to the statue in the middle of the garden. Have you seen it? It’s the king posed as Marcus Aurelius and remarkably ugly. I have a particular fondness for it.”

Oh, dear, she was babbling.

With a slight shrug of his shoulders, Griffin tucked her hand through his arm and led her into the garden in the center of the square.

They walked in silence for a few moments while Rosamund absorbed Griffin’s presence. She was no waif, as her mother was fond of telling her, but he was so much broader, taller, so much more solid than she. Larger in every sense. Her hand looked tiny nestled there in the crook of his arm.

The sea-foam froth of her skirts flirted with his shining black boots as she and Griffin meandered beneath the dappled shade of the ancient maples. Griffin’s new valet must have gotten to those boots, she thought, for they had not gleamed like that when he arrived in Town.

Abruptly, Griffin spoke. “Are you in love with him?”

She did not need to ask to whom he referred, nor did she insult him by pretending ignorance. “No. Not at all.”

She thought of the locket around her neck, which still held Griffin’s portrait.

From the moment she’d seen that ill-painted miniature, only one man had occupied her dreams. Despite the success of her first season and Griffin’s neglect, she’d never wanted another. Inexplicably, she’d set her heart on the great, recalcitrant colossus beside her, and no one else would do.

She caught the slip even as she thought it. No, not her heart. She’d staked her
future
on Griffin deVere. Her precious, fragile heart would never come into play. The odds of that gamble were not in her favor.

She thought he wouldn’t reply, but after a few moments, he said, “I am glad. Not that I would have released you from our betrothal. He is unworthy of you, and besides, Montford would never let you throw yourself away on an army captain. Still … I am glad.”

As an afterthought, he added, “For your sake, of course.”

She digested this. “Did you think because my parents lived in separate establishments that I’d desire that sort of life?”

He turned his head to look at her. “I didn’t know your parents lived separately.”

She hid her relief behind an arch smile. “Not know about the epic battles between the Marquis of Steyne and his lady? My dear sir, where have you been living? Under a rock?”

“In Cornwall,” he said, rubbing his jaw with the side of his thumb. “Which often amounts to the same thing.”

She detected the suspicion of a grin and laughed. But she sighed, too. “My parents were so dreadfully incompatible, you see. Their marriage was arranged, of course. He was a cold, unemotional man for the most part, and he detested scenes. But when his temper was roused…” She shuddered. “And she—my mother—roused it whenever she could. She … she threw things. Tantrums, china. Once, she heaved up the ormolu clock from the mantel and hurled it at my father’s head. Missed him by a mile, of course. But I do believe one of them would have ended up killing the other if Papa had not sent us away.”

“Is that when you went to the duke?” said Griffin.