Shall We Dance? (14 page)

“Yes, that's what she said, to win a wager of some sort,” Georgiana said, her heart sinking as she thought about how happy Amelia had looked, how her eyes had shone when she spoke of the earl. “I take it Aunt Rowena's fears have led you to think this way?”

Nate tooled his pair of bays past a dray wagon that had no business being on the street at this hour. “I'm being a hysterical old woman. Is that what you mean, Georgiana?”

“Georgie. You call me Georgie when you're…agitated. I'm becoming used to it. And, no, that's not what I mean. Not precisely. But I do think you're seeing bogeymen in the most innocent of associations. Amelia is not a silly, brainless chit. If she finds merit in the earl, then I'm sure it is there to be found.”

“So I should just shut my flapping jaws and mind my own business?”

“I didn't say that, either, but yes, I think so. Right after we find out what he's really up to. Because this business of arriving unannounced to see Her Majesty in order to win a wager is simply too much of a clunker for either of us to swallow. After all, we're not looking at the fellow through besotted eyes, are we? But to kill the queen, as Aunt Rowena is worried may happen? No, I don't think he could do that, although we should find out what he might do, don't you think?”

Nate grinned at her, an unholy grin, and she adored him for it. “We're in league, then, you and I?”

“I suppose so, if you want to be, that is. I know you only had planned to placate your aunt.”

“I didn't do that, Georgie. You did. And I returned the favor by showing my shining face in Half-Moon Street to dazzle your mother and stepfather all hollow. But we've already passed beyond that, you and I. Haven't we?”

Georgiana felt another pang of guilt intrude on her new happiness. “Amelia thinks so, at any rate. Oh, dear, she might be thinking her response to the earl's attentions is quite acceptable, seeing that you and I were also in those trees…and it would be all my fault.”

“I don't understand. I'm a proud man, but I will admit that much, Georgie. I don't understand women. Actually, I believe that to be a whacking great part of their charm.”

“What? Oh, do be quiet a moment, Nate, I beg you. I'm trying to think here.”

Nate sniffed at the air. “Yes, that is the aroma of burning wood I smell. Think on, Georgie, as I drive on. We'll take the long way round to Half-Moon Street.”

“Yes, do that,” Georgiana said, biting at the seam of her glove as it covered her thumb. “Amelia said—what did she say? She said this was so wonderful, just the way she and I had dreamed of handsome princes and such at school. She was always a dreamer, Amelia was, although we were only girls then. And then I said…and then she said…and then she said that you said that you
and I have been courting for some time, and so that it was all right.”

She slapped the back of her hand against his arm. “I knew it was all your fault!”

“
Ow!
Now you sound like my mother, talking to my father. Only one question, Georgie. How is it all my fault? No, two questions.
What
is all my fault?”

Georgiana blinked, coming back to herself to realize that she was really being much too free with Nate. Why, they could have been friends of long standing, or even related to each other, considering the open and easy way she was with him. Brother and sister, possibly, except that she certainly didn't feel sisterly toward him, because when she wasn't sparring with him she was kissing him, or at least wanting to kiss him.

“Amelia has been abroad these past two years, and rather secluded prior to that,” she said softly. “Her only associations have been with what I'm sure my mother would call the very fast set that ran with the queen, here and overseas. Amelia has no real notion of how to go on, not with real London gentlemen.”

“And the country bumpkin does?” Nate asked, nearly earning himself another backhanded wallop.

“I at least have had my mother screeching in my ear, and Amelia was only at school for one term, while I had to suffer through three. I do know how to…how to go on. But Amelia? The king wouldn't go after the queen a second time, if he didn't have a mountain of proof that she has been…indiscreet. That's what Mr. Bateman said, and I have read the newspapers. Poor Amelia. She
doesn't know what's up or down, what's accepted and what is…is…”

“Over the line? Beyond the pale? Yes, I think I understand. What I don't understand is how any of this came to be my fault, blast it, although I'm sure you're going to tell me.”

Georgiana sighed. “Oh, I'm being silly, I suppose. But you told Amelia yesterday that you and I have been courting for some time, and I do believe she's looking at us and seeing what we were doing…back there, in the Park…and has decided that if I can, she can.”

“Anyone can, Georgie. Many do.”

“But it isn't proper, so stop grinning like an ape.”

“Now I'm doubly damned. Amazing feat, you know—corrupting two young ladies in the space of one jaunt around the Park. And, now that I think of it, I got to kiss neither of them.”

“Now you're angry,” Georgina said. “I'm sorry, Nate. But you do see that you and I are different, don't you? We've been very honest with each other, and I don't think you think that the earl is being very honest with Amelia. Do you?”

“You know, Georgie, I'm beginning to forget how this conversation began, but I think it had something to do with how strange it sounded to hear that the earl just punted up the river for a wager, to see the queen. The rest, I'm afraid, is rather a blur.”

“Poor Natey,” Georgiana said teasingly, patting his arm. “All you have to remember is that you and I are going to stick as close as sticking plaster to the pair of
them, to watch the earl very closely, to make sure he's not out to take advantage of Amelia's affections for some sordid reason.”

 

A
MELIA ALL BUT DANCED
into the queen's bed chamber, still fairly well afloat after her drive in the park. Most especially after her interlude under the trees. And most definitely after Perry had walked her around to the side of the queen's residence, out of the way of prying eyes, to kiss her quite thoroughly once more before telling her how loath he was to leave her.

Catching herself up, she dropped into a graceful curtsy. “Your Majesty.”

“Yes, yes, get up,” Queen Caroline said, obviously in no mood for any formalities. “You're looking like the cat with canary feathers sticking out of her mouth. And starry-eyed, as well. You must tell me everything, trapped as I am here, with only old Lady Wakecliff dropping by to see if I'm dead yet. Was the Park splendid? Or did you forgo such tame nonsense and simply go off and bed the man?”

Amelia shot her gaze toward Rosetta, whose command of English was not perfect, but certainly good enough to have understood the queen's last statement, and the maid quickly took her leave.

“We chanced upon my friend Miss Penrose and her beau, Sir Nathaniel, while we were going about in the Promenade, ma'am, and they are of course delighted to have been invited to your dinner party.”

The queen snorted. “Put me in my place, didn't you,
Amelia? The old woman is to know nothing. All right, we shall discuss the dinner party. Summon that butler person and the housekeeper. I feel a great need to order someone about, since you're so loaded down with Hanover cheekiness.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Amelia said, her earlier happiness defused, now that she was back in the queen's residence and the gravity of the woman's situation, and her near incarceration here in Hammersmith, came home to her once more. She rang the bellpull twice, her signal that the upper servants were needed.

She would not think about Her Majesty's reference to her “Hanover cheekiness,” for she had convinced herself that there was no deeper meaning to the queen's words than that Amelia sometimes grated on her nerves, being too straitlaced for the woman's taste. It had nothing to do with being a Hanover, being of the queen's own blood.

A few minutes later there was a timid scratching at the door, and Amelia called out that the butler and Mrs. Fitzhugh should enter.

Pitiful.

Mrs. Fitzhugh's curtsy was so awkward and so deep, and she only half rose out of it before moving forward in a sidling sort of way, so that she very much resembled a crab scuttling across the beach.

And this other one. Nestor, wasn't it? Amelia didn't know where Mrs. Fitzhugh had found the fellow, but she wished there were some way of putting him back there again.

“Your Majesty,” Nestor intoned, his voice squeaking only a little. “An honor to serve you.”

The queen looked at Amelia, one kohl-darkened eyebrow shooting upward. “What a shabby lot. We are reduced to this?”

“Temporarily, ma'am,” Amelia said quietly, wishing that Her Majesty had chosen to be amused by their rather motley crew of servants, rather than disturbed by them. “You will soon be housed and served more suitably.”

“Yes, yes, don't condescend, child. Ladies in waiting, an entire court to amuse me. Gaggles of women, clutches of admirers, I should have all of them again, if I wanted them again. When I am better, when I am not so ill. You—oh, stop bowing, you twit! All the silver is to be polished at once, as I assume we have some. Use that jacket, will you, it's all it's good for. Flowers. Gunter ices. And someone to saw on a violin. Find them. Get them. Do them!”

“At once, Your Majesty!”

Amelia hid a smile. Her Majesty did so enjoy giving orders. She then inclined her head toward the door, as Nestor did not seem to know that he had been dismissed. But the man just stood there, staring at the queen, his mouth open, as if he longed to say something.

“The queen has no further need of you, Nestor,” Amelia said quietly, and at last the man bowed his way out of the chamber…leaving Mrs. Fitzhugh as the queen's sole remaining target.

“Look, Amelia, she's ready to swoon. You—woman. We wish three menus prepared for our choice and ap
proval. See to it. Amelia? What's that smell? Peppermint? I loathe peppermint.”

Mrs. Fitzhugh—mouth closed so firmly her lips were pursed—curtsied again, then backed toward the door, turning and running at the last moment, then belatedly closing the door behind her.

“Scared to death of me, both of them. Good, they should be. How I miss my own servants. Purely a waste of eyesight to see that butler fellow in the queen's livery. Nearly a crime. Now, Amelia, go after that pair of imbeciles and ride herd on them until everything is as it ought to be. My dependence is on you. And call Rosetta back in here. You've arranged passage?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Amelia said, although she hadn't. “Rosetta and her brother leave at the end of the week, ma'am. They're the last of them.”

“The sooner, the better,” the queen said, lifting a wineglass to her mouth. “Ah, Amelia, soon I will not possess the strength to leave this house, sorry as it is, and put this horrid seclusion behind us. Now, come sit down beside me and tell me all about the Earl of Brentwood. What does he say about me?”

Amelia raised a hand toward the door, thinking of the queen's first command to her, and about how she would arrange passport for Rosetta and Gerado, then smiled at her queen, who, of course, must be obeyed. “His Lordship says you are quite the most magnificent creature he has ever met, ma'am. He is much taken with you,” she said, arranging her skirts around her as she sat on the floor, beside the queen's chair. “Another conquest, ma'am.”

“Yes, yes,” Her Majesty said, patting at her blond wig. “It is only to be expected. I remember one much like him, years ago, right here in London. A true courtier, Amelia, who brought me the most lovely presents and wrote odes to my beauty. Oh! Did I ever tell you about Perceval? My, there was a man….”

 

P
ERRY QUIETLY
stepped up behind the man, pressed the tip of his cane into the fellow's back and drawled silkily, “I may be wrong, but I think I'm to say now, your money or your life, sir.”

The man stiffened, then lowered his head. “He told me you were a downy one. Damn it, Brentwood, you gave me a fright. You mind if I pick up my stomach? I think I've dropped it here in the gutter.”

Perry chuckled and lowered the cane as young Harry Townsend slowly turned around, to peer at him through the darkness.

“One minute you were there, and the next you were gone, only to show up behind me. Not very sporting, old man. How in blazes did you do that?”

“I doubt that is information germane to the moment, Townsend. What in blazes are you doing, following me? Because your belly
should
be in the gutter. Your liver very nearly was, you know. Or do you believe I delight in having someone dog my steps as I walk home from my club?”

“I wouldn't, no,” Harry said, the flash of his white teeth in the light from a nearby lamppost showing that the man had regained his composure. “I suppose there's no use in dissembling?”

“In lying to me? No, Townsend, there isn't. Now, who sent you to watch me?”

“A friend of mine, sir. I won't reveal his name.”

“No, of course not. I don't see you as a paid assassin, Townsend. Or are you so badly dipped that you'll take any sort of employment?”

Harry Townsend lifted his chin a fraction. “If you wish to deliver insults, it is, of course, your prerogative, My Lord.”

“So, I'm right, you have been paid. I would suggest you learn to stay away from the gaming tables, if you're ever to be your own man, Townsend. Now again, who sicced you on me?”

“Oh, all right. It's not as if I ever liked the fellow above half. Rolin. Jarrett Rolin. And I was only to watch you, and if you were to ask me why, I'd tell you I don't have the foggiest notion, because I don't. Rolin's a queer duck. But if I was to hazard a guess, it's probably because of how you and your friend Westham routed him so publicly not that long ago—we've all heard how you made a fool of him. My own mother dined out on the story for a month before she left for home, as she was lucky enough to have been at the ball. Good show, by the way. Rolin's always chasing the ladies and has ruined his share of them.”