Miss Pymbroke's Rules (5 page)

“Indeed I do,” the marquess agreed cordially, “but with
willing
females.” Turning to Miss Pymbroke, he observed her expression turn from relief at her release to one of stubborn purpose.

Before she could attempt to return to her sermonizing, he said, “Miss Pymbroke, I am sorry to inform you that Miss Woolcott has overexerted herself in her efforts to be on her way out of London. She requires your assistance.”

Verity gasped in alarm.

Ignoring the stricken look in her brown eyes, he concluded this Banbury tale with an offer to take her up in his carriage. “I assure you the conventions will be observed as I have my tiger with me, and I assume that Friday-faced chit outside the door is your maid. You have not already bespoken a vehicle, have you?”

“No, my lord, I came in a hack,” she replied distractedly. Accepting his proffered arm, she called to the maid and allowed herself to be hurried away.

Watching their retreating backs, Roxanna’s blue eyes narrowed.

Lord Davies assuaged his wounded pride by commencing to flirt with a buxom girl dressed in a shepherdess costume.

Outside in the street, Lord Carrisworth halted their progress and turned to face her. “I daresay you have never seen a play, am I correct, Miss Pymbroke?”

“Y-Yes, I mean no, I have not,” she stammered, confused by the question. Pray, sir, Miss Woolcott’s condition is not serious, is it?”

Dusk was falling over London. The streets were growing more crowded as people hurried home to prepare for the evening ahead.

Lord Carrisworth contemplated the young woman standing anxiously before him. She could not be more than twenty, yet she had affected the manner and dress of an old prude. He experienced a sudden desire to see her dressed in finery, with her hair curled about her face in the latest fashion. “I shall tell you only after I have your solemn promise to attend the theater with me on an evening of my choice.”

For a moment, she stood there, struck dumb by such an astonishing proposal. With a quick intake of breath, she retorted, “You infuriating man! What has that to do with anything?”

His lordship folded his arms across his chest. “Give me your promise,” he commanded.

“Very well, if I must,” she said, her voice rising an octave. “I promise I shall attend the theater with you. Now what has happened to Miss Woolcott?”

The marquess leaned negligently against a lamppost and smiled a bewitching smile. “Not a thing that I know of. I made the whole tale up to get you out of there. You should not be gallivanting around London in a hack, nor preaching sermons at theaters, Miss Pymbroke. Surely one with your superior sense of the proprieties would know it is not ladylike behavior.”

Hands on hips, Verity was the picture of righteous indignation. “You tricked me?” Then, recalling herself, she took several deep, calming breaths. “You glib-tongued devil,” she said at last, glaring at him.

Lord Carrisworth raised his hands in a deprecating manner. “Please, Miss Pymbroke, do not try to turn me up sweet.”

This nonsense and the lively twinkle in his lordship’s eyes only incensed her more. “Are you a complete care-for-nobody, my lord? I find it hard to believe someone as astute as Lady Iris could be so taken in.”

He reached out and flicked her cheek. “I care about you, of course, Miss Pymbroke. After all,” he said, ticking items off on his fingers, “we shall be neighbors, and I have your promise to attend the theater with me, and then there is the fact that I shall be sleeping in your bed. You’re so charming when you blush that way, my avenging angel. Naturally, I meant while you are sleeping next door. Are you sure there is not an unmaidenly cast to your mind?” he inquired.

At that moment a fiendish wind blew down the street, depositing a bristling sheet of paper against Verity’s skirts. Distracted, she retrieved it, glancing at the content in the most cursory manner. Then, a look of horror crossed her delicate features.

It was one of the print shop caricatures circulating about Town. In it, the marquess was depicted reclining in bed with two women. Underneath the lampoon ran a poem:

Most gentlemen are satisfied, ’tis said,

To have one mistress warm their bed.

But a certain eligible marquess,

Just won’t be content with less

Than a pair of French turtledoves,

To have as his light o’ loves.

Now, can there be any pleasure on earth,

Left to be pursued by my Lord                                                    

Carrisworth?

Verity felt her face flame.

The Marquess of Carrisworth stood at her side viewing the paper over her shoulder. Abruptly, he let out a roar of laughter. Had a man ever been so vilified for a deed he had not done?

Unaware of the marquess’s innocence in the situation of the twins, shock and anger lit Verity’s face as she turned to him. In a choked voice, she railed, “You laugh at this disgusting lampoon, my lord? It amuses you to know these poor girls’ reputations are soiled forever? That all of London knows of your vile behavior?”

A crowd gathered to watch the pretty young girl deliver the aristocrat a scathing set-down.

Beyond caring that she had an audience, Verity pointed an accusing finger at his broad chest. “Do you think it funny you have disgraced your name in this way?”

The marquess chuckled and said, “Really, Miss Pymbroke, you refine too much on the matter. In this age, no gentleman is condemned for pursuing his pleasure.”

The assembly snickered and guffawed their agreement. Verity looked at them in disgust. “Perhaps that is a sad truth, sir,” she said archly. “In that case, people need to learn that true happiness comes from helping others and from maintaining a pure mind and heart.”

Groans and hisses issued from the crowd.

A smile spread across Lord Carrisworth’s face. “You see, the multitude is in my corner, dear lady. You would be wise to remember ‘Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall’.”

Digging in her heels in the face of adversity, Miss Pymbroke unwittingly delivered the marquess a verbal facer. “What would your mother think if she saw this sheet of paper?”

Lord Carrisworth’s features hardened. “Why damn me, I declare she could not say anything about it. Nothing at all.”

Verity stared at his unyielding countenance. In the following silence she felt a deep mortification grow within herself to mingle with a number of other emotions. Here she was, in the middle of the street, raising her voice like a hoyden. Despite her earlier resolutions not to let the marquess cut up her peace and cause her to behave with less than her usual composure, he had done so again.

“If that is how you truly feel, my lord, I must decline your offer of transport. I would much prefer to find my own way home than to be seen in your company.” She turned on her heel and, with her maid trudging along, marched away through the parting crowd.

Seeing the show was over, people began moving on their way, leaving the marquess to stand alone. He shrugged his shoulders thinking he would not have been able to rally quickly enough to protest her departure.

Shouting to his tiger, Lord Carrisworth entered his carriage hell-bent on spending another evening at Mrs. Dantry’s becoming thoroughly, disgustingly drunk.

Chapter Three

Having completed her move into Lady Iris’s house, Verity was taking care of a few last-minute tasks before turning over the keys to her home to the Marquess of Carrisworth.

With only Empress for company, she was in what had been her father’s bedchamber. The cat reposed with half-closed eyes on a massive four-poster, her beautiful silver-gray fur and regal air contrasting with the bed’s faded maroon silk hangings.

Verity had ordered a thorough cleaning in anticipation of the marquess’s arrival, and the air smelled faintly of beeswax. A mahogany highboy gleamed on one side of the room, and a heavy, dark armoire stood between the two narrow windows that overlooked the mews. His lordship would surely select this masculine bedchamber for his use while leasing the house.

Verity thought back to the contretemps with Lord Carrisworth outside the theater two days ago. Even in the privacy of the room, she blushed when she remembered her too-public display of emotion. Drat the man for oversetting her self-control! But the provocation had been great, she allowed, and another gently bred young girl might have swooned at the contents of that lampoon.

Her heated reproach had been pointless, however. In the future, she would not waste her time trying to reach the conscience of such a confirmed rake. The scoundrel probably had none.

Dismissing the marquess’s character from her mind. Verity looked about her sadly. The room had not been opened since her father’s abandonment of his family some thirteen years before when she had been a little girl of seven summers. How ironic that another rake would inhabit these walls.

She seated herself at the late viscount’s  desk and tried to recall a memory of her father in this room, but as always, she could not. They had not been close, and most of the sorrow she had endured as a result of his desertion sprang from empathy with her mother’s pain, rather than any personal loss. Although, as she’d grown, she had wondered what her life would have been like had the viscount stayed and fulfilled his role as father to her.

Giving herself a mental shake, Verity came back to the present from her musings. Anxious to quit the room, she jerked open the drawer underneath the leather writing surface.  She removed the viscount’s embossed paper, leaving the space tree for the marquess’s use.

At that moment, Empress hopped from the bed to scurry underneath the desk. The cat began a playful game, jumping in excitement and clawing at the bottom of the drawer.

“What in heaven’s name are you doing, Empress?” Verity asked, leaving the drawer open and rising from her seat to see what had caught the cat’s attention. Kneeling down, she peered underneath the desk and saw a length of pale blue ribbon hanging suspended from the back of the drawer.

“Oh, Empress,” Verity cried with a laugh, “you are a demon when it comes to ribbons.”

Empress swiped furiously at the enticing toy in apparent agreement.

“No, I must not allow you to capture it. You might devour it, and then you would be in the suds.” Verity grasped the dangling ribbon and quickly pocketed it before Empress could see where it had gone. Giving the cat a scratch behind the ears, she said, “Sorry, your highness, but it is for your own good.”

Empress gave the bottom of the drawer a final swipe, turned, and crept from the room, her fluffy tail twitching in frustration.

Verity missed this display of temper, however. Her curiosity had been aroused by the sight of a small drawer, which could be seen from her particular vantage point, worked into the back of the larger drawer. How clever. Only if the larger drawer was open could the secret one be observed.

Ducking under the desk again, she spied a tiny pull, grasped it, and tugged the drawer open. It extended with its opening upside down, and something shiny fell from the hiding place onto the Aubusson carpet at Verity’s knees.

She picked it up, closed the drawer, and backed out from under the desk. Sitting on the floor, she examined the object closely.

It was a miniature of a stunningly lovely woman. Her dark curls framed a perfect face marred only by the sadness in her eyes.

Verity felt her heart beat hard. This was not her gentle, brown-haired mother. Nor did it resemble the portrait she had seen of the viscount’s first wife, Louisa’s fair mother.

Her fingers tightened on the framed likeness of the woman who must have been her father’s mistress. The actress he had left his family to run away with, only to be killed in a rough crossing from Ramsgate on the way to Brussels.

“Verity, where are you, dear child?” Lady Hyacinth’s voice called from the hallway.

Slipping the miniature into the pocket that contained the ribbon, Verity was still seated on the floor when Lady Hyacinth entered the room clinging to the Marquess of Carrisworth’s arm.

Seeing her young friend on the floor, Lady Hyacinth immediately assumed the worst. “Oh, Verity! Is something amiss? Never say you have had a spasm at your age. Or was it a knee? Knees can be such pesky things.”

“Please do not be concerned, my lady. I simply dropped something under the desk.” Embarrassed by her unseemly position, Verity prepared to rise using the desktop as a lever.

But before she could do so, the marquess was at her side. “Here, allow me to assist you, Miss Pymbroke.” As he spoke, he reached down, grasped both her hands, and in one swift movement brought her to her feet.

Lady Hyacinth raised a plump hand to her mouth to cover the astonished O of delight that formed. While she was not privy to Lady Iris’s scheme for the two, romance was never far from her mind.

Seeing the young people together, her thoughts immediately ran down the gratifying road of a flirtation between the marquess and dear Verity. Lady Hyacinth quickly crossed the room to the side of the bed; ostensibly to be sure the sheets had been aired properly, but really to give the couple a moment alone.

At Lord Carrisworth’s nearness Verity’s senses spun.

She inhaled the faint lime scent he wore as she noticed that he was the very glass of fashion in his dark blue coat, buff pantaloons, and gleaming Hessian boots. His deep, caressing voice had acted like a magnet to draw her close. A fact that, as a practiced seducer, he was probably well aware of, she abruptly realized.

Verity pulled away from him. “My lord, as I have already informed you, I can look after myself,” she said in freezing accents.

A roguish expression came onto the marquess’s face. “That did not appear the case with Lord Davies in the Green Room,” he said for her ears alone.

Flushing under this truth, Verity sought refuge in a change of subject. “The house is ready for you, Lord Carrisworth. I have had this room aired and cleaned, assuming it would be to your lordship’s taste.”

The marquess took this gaze from her face with reluctance. She enchanted him with her prim manner. He sensed there was much more beneath her oh-so-proper ways. Perhaps he might spend some time uncovering it. “Was this your father’s room?”