Rogue Grooms (2 page)

Emily sighed. “I knew it. I had hoped, though, that there would be something. Even Farmer Ellis, who sells us our butter and eggs, won’t want to give us credit any longer!”

“What do you know about butter and eggs, angel?” Alex laughed.

Emily’s lips pursed. “A great deal as it happens, brother. Our housekeeper left above six months ago, and someone had to deal with such things. Mother is not able.”

Alex grew somber again. “I am sorry, Em. You should not have had to take on such tasks.”

“I do not mind. But now I shall not have to, as you are here, and will no doubt conceive a great plan for our salvation!”

“I do not have a plan as yet, Em,” he warned. “Damian left us in a very great mess, and it will take time to sort it out.”

“Hm, yes. He was very naughty. Not at all like you, Alex.”

“You do not think me naughty?” he teased.

“Of course not, how could you be? You have all those medals for bravery, and valor, and good deeds, and who knows what else. Earning all those would not have left you much time for anything else.”

He laughed. “Quite right!”

A companionable silence fell between them. They sat and listened to the crackle of the fire, to the soft patter of the rain hitting the windows.

Then Alex said, “You may have to wait until next year for your Season, Em.”

She shrugged. “I like it here at Fair Oak. Much more than I would in London, I’m sure. Who needs balls and routs?” Her face was wistful, despite her lighthearted words.

“You must have a proper Season!”

“So I shall. When things are better for us.” A bell rang out from the direction of the drawing room, and Emily rose and smoothed her skirt. “That will be Mother, summoning us to supper. Thank goodness Cook is still with us! I fear I would be quite hopeless in the kitchen.”

Alex caught her hand in his, and kissed it gently. “Things
will
be better for us soon, Em. I promise.”

She smiled down at him. “I know.
You
are with us now; how bad could things be?” The bell rang again. “But come. Mother will be becoming impatient.”

As Alex took her arm and led her from the library, she said, “What will you do now?”

“I think, sister dear, that I will go to London. Perhaps the solution to our troubles is there!”

“Does it always rain in London?” Mrs. Georgina Beaumont leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the morning room window, watching the endless silvery sheets falling down on the small, beautifully manicured garden.

Lady Elizabeth Hollingsworth, seated before the fire with her feet up and a blanket tucked about her cozily, laughed.

Georgina’s new dog, Lady Kate, a small white terrier Georgina had saved from being drowned by a farmer in Scotland, looked up at the sound of laughter. Then she yawned, stretched out on her satin cushion beside the fire, and went back to sleep. For once she was not barking and running about like a tiny bedlamite.

“Georgie,” Elizabeth said. “It rains just as much in Venice as it does here.”

“Hm. But it seems a much
warmer
rain there. Romantic. Here it is merely dreary.”

“Then come away from the window, and sit here by the fire. What do you think we should do this evening? The Beaton ball? The Carstairs musicale?”

Georgina left the window and sat down on a settee next to the fire. She eyed Elizabeth worriedly. “Should you not stay home tonight, Lizzie? We were out so very late last night.”

“I am
enceinte,
not ill!” Elizabeth protested. “I am barely showing as yet. I must have fun while I can, before I grow as big as a house.” She tugged the blanket aside to peer down at her belly, only a bit rounded beneath her pale green morning dress.

Georgina laughed at the vision of her petite friend as round as a full moon, waddling about Bond Street. “I shall have to paint your portrait when that happens!”

“Don’t you dare!” Elizabeth protested. “But I promise that if I grow fatigued I will say so. And no doubt you, under Nicholas’s orders, will drag me home immediately.”

“What a proud papa Nicholas is becoming! I vow one would think he had done it all himself, the way he has been preening about.”

Elizabeth smiled softly at the mention of her husband. “Yes, he will be an excellent father. It seems we have waited an age for this, and now it is upon us!”

“I am so happy for you, Lizzie.”

“Well, you, I am sure, will be the most excellent of godmothers.”

“Oh, yes! I shall teach him or her to paint pictures and run wild.”

“You will teach them to be true to themselves, to enjoy life. Those are the most valuable lessons of all, you know.”

Georgina’s laughter sounded a bit sad, even to her own ears. After three marriages, she remained childless. She had thought it all for the best; her life as an artist, racketing about the Continent, was not a very stable one. But now, seeing her friend’s radiance, she could not help but be a bit regretful.

“Well, it was very good of you to come stay with me now, Georgie,” Elizabeth continued. “I know how you miss Italy.”

“I would not miss this time with you for the world! Besides, we are having a marvelous time, are we not?”

“We are! I am only vexed that Nicholas will not let me ride with you in that curricle race next week.”

“I
would not have let you in any case! You can watch safely from the side of the road as I trounce that arrogant Lord Pynchon.”

“And I will make a great deal of money from wagering on you!” Elizabeth turned her head as a single ray of yellow-white light fell from the window across the carpet. “I do believe it has stopped raining! Shall we go out? I need to visit the lending library.”

Lady Kate sat straight up, her ears perking at the mention of the word “out.” She leaped off of her cushion and trotted over to the cabinet where her leads were kept, barking her sharp “go for a walk” bark.

“I think Lady Kate is in agreement,” said Georgina. “We should take her for a run in the park, as well.”

“What a good idea! And let us call at my brother’s house and see if my niece Isabella would like to accompany us. We could take her to Gunter’s for ices after. She is rather lonely, with Peter and Carmen still on their wedding trip.”

“Oh, yes, let’s! We shall make a day of it.”

 

The first thing Alex saw was the hat.

It was wide-brimmed, fine-milled straw, with fluttering streamers of pale green and white satin. Perhaps not precisely appropriate for London in early spring, but certainly fetching.

Then his gaze lowered to the lady beneath the hat, and he very nearly fell from his saddle in startled admiration. She was—well, she was very
vivid.
Quite a contrast to the giggling young misses his friends had taken to hurling in his direction since his return to London.

She was not very tall, but her posture, her manner of walking, made her seem almost Amazonian. She wore a pelisse of a green that matched the streamers of her hat, and the hair that fell from beneath that hat could only be described as red. Not a fashionable auburn, or a demure dark blonde, but the very red and gold of flames. Or—or a sunset.

Good gad, man
, he berated himself.
You’re beginning to sound like some deuced poet!

Yet if he were to turn to poetry, surely a woman like this one would be all that was needed to inspire him.

She was strolling alongside the river with a petite female companion and a little girl. Looped about her gloved wrist was the braided lead of a small white dog, who was darting about in a most unpredictable manner and barking at every unsuspecting passerby. The woman laughed merrily at the dog’s antics. Not a ladylike simper or giggle, but a full, deep, rich, laugh.

Alex could not help but smile at the infectious sound of it.

“Why, Freddie! I do believe Wayland is ogling La Beaumont.”

Alex’s two companions, his old Etonian friends Mr. Freddie Marlow and Hildebrand Rutherford, Viscount Garrick, pulled up their horses on either side of Alex’s, and followed his gaze to its object.

“I say, I do believe you are right, Hildebrand! What excellent taste you show, Wayland. Mrs. Beaumont is extraordinary. Though, I must say I rather prefer her friend, Lady Elizabeth Hollingsworth, myself. I always had a weakness for pocket Venuses!”

Alex scarcely glanced at his friends. The dog and the little girl were walking down to the edge of the river, and the two women followed. A breeze threatened to carry away that fanciful hat, and she clutched at it with one gloved hand.

“The woman with the red hair is a Mrs. Beaumont?” he asked.

“Mrs. Georgina Beaumont, the artist. Surely you have heard of her?” said Freddie.

Alex feared he knew little about art. Or artists. “Is she married?”

“A widow!” Hildebrand said with a certain glee. “Three times over. That is even better, eh? Good sport, what?”

Alex turned a glare onto him, and Hildebrand stifled his chortles behind a gloved hand.

“As I said, she is an artist,” offered Freddie. “A deuced successful one, from what I hear, though I’m a complete bacon-brain about painting and music and such.”

“She’s come from her home in Italy to stay for the Season with Lady Elizabeth,” said Hildebrand, now recovered from his giggling fit. “It’s quite the fashion to be in love with one or the other of them. Though Lady Elizabeth is married, more is the pity.”

A thrice-married artist. Alex almost laughed at the thought of the looks on his family’s faces if he brought such a woman home to the Grange! Not, of course, that Mother and Em were such high sticklers as all
that.
They just maintained certain standards, despite their straitened circumstances.

But then, Alex had always had a great weakness for red hair.

He looked from one of his friends to the other speculatively. “I take it, then, that one of you has been introduced to the lady?”

“I haven’t,” Freddie said, his wide brown eyes looking positively downcast at this fact. “Hildebrand has.”

“At Lady Russell’s card party a fortnight ago,” Hildebrand preened. “Should you like me to do the honors, Wayland?”

Alex gave him a long look, and Hildebrand coughed uncomfortably. “Er, yes,” he said. “Just so. Most happy to perform the introductions, I’m sure.”

They had only just turned their horses in the direction of the ladies, when disaster struck.

The small white dog, who had been regularly menacing any and all unwary pedestrians, now broke free from the lead the little girl held, and bounded away down the riverbank after an errant duck. In a swift white blur, it became airborne, and landed with a great splash in the murky river. Only its pale head was visible as it drifted off, carried inexorably away by the current.

“Lady Kate!” Mrs. Beaumont cried. She lifted her skirts indecently high above her ankles, revealing green kid half boots and an inch of white stocking, and dashed off after her dog. Her hat fell from her head to dangle down her back by its ribbons.

The little girl followed, shouting, “Be careful, Georgie! You’ll fall in the river!”

The petite woman, Lady Elizabeth, ran after the girl, crying out, “Help! Help!” to no one in particular.

Mrs. Beaumont nearly slid down in the mud at the edge of the river, tottering precariously on those half boots. “Lady Kate! Come back, darling!”

Alex was already sliding from his saddle, and striding away across a busy thoroughfare and a wide greensward that separated him from the rather bizarre party of ladies.

He had faced many a dire situation in Spain, when he had had to think and act quickly, decisively, and calmly. To be sure, he had never seen a situation quite like this one in Spain, but he knew at a glance what had to be done to save the dog.

He stripped off his coat and boots, pushed them into the arms of the beauteous Mrs. Beaumont, and jumped in after the dog.

 

Georgina watched in astonishment as the man—a man she had never seen before in her life!—dove into the murky waters after the escaping Lady Kate.

It had all happened so very quickly that she felt all in a daze. One moment she had been strolling along with Elizabeth and little Isabella, laughing and enjoying the day. Lady Kate had been frisking about, as usual; she was quite the most curious and excitable dog Georgina had ever seen. Then, all at once, Lady Kate had twisted out of her lead, scampered down to the river, and splashed right in!

And the man, whose coat and boots Georgina now held, had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and gone in after Lady Kate. Like some sun-bronzed guardian angel.

Georgina bit her lip in anxiety as she watched the man seize Lady Kate about her torso and pull her along toward the bank. The dog struggled mightily in his grasp, howling and frightened that her adventure had ended so badly, but the man hung grimly on. Finally, they both stood before Georgina, dripping with great quantities of dirty water but safely on
terra firma.

“I believe, madam,” the man said, his voice brandy-rich, rough with laughter, “that this belongs to you.”

Georgina laughed, hiccuped really, with embarrassment and consternation and a dawning realization of the utter absurdity of their situation. “Yes, indeed, it does! Thank you so much, sir. You have gone quite above and beyond the call of gallantry! I do not believe I can thank you enough.”

“He is a
hero,
Georgie,” little Isabella Everdean piped up. She gazed up at their rescuer with adoring chocolate-brown eyes.

Georgina very much feared she was doing the same. Gaping at him like the veriest moonstruck half-wit! It was just that he was so very
beautiful,
even dripping with mud and odd plant life, his light brown, curling hair plastered to his head. Her artist’s eye skimmed over his high cheekbones and firm jaw, lightly shadowed with afternoon whiskers. His nose was straight as a knife blade; his lips firm but strangely sensual. And his eyes, alight with laughter, were a clear, sweet, heavenly blue.