Springtime Pleasures (6 page)

Charlie searched his face—all in all, it was a nice face, despite its stern aspect. His chin was square and firm, the shape of his lips rather becoming, the nose straight and slightly bony, and his eyes the colour of a horse chestnut. A lock of blond hair flopped endearingly down over his forehead. As she watched, a nerve jumped in his cheek.

It occurred to her then that the poor man was probably horribly nervous—Mr Bernstone had warned them that there existed gentlemen who might feel uncomfortable dancing and had a propensity for stumbling over their own feet. One had to look at such unfortunate persons with charity, he had impressed upon the girls at St. Cuthbert’s. Under no circumstances must such poor people be teased or bullied or their frocks decorated with slips of paper bearing comic inscriptions.

After listening to the deprecating remarks made about her own person, Charlie was in no mood for teasing anybody this evening anyway, and so she adjusted her spectacles with her free hand and gave Lord Chanderley an encouraging smile. If he was indeed so bad at dancing, it was no wonder the poor man looked like three days of torrential rain. “I believe we will get on famously,” she said, and made her voice light. “Listen—they are playing are slow dance. We will do splendidly, I am sure.”

He inclined his head. “As you wish.”

While he led her to a place in the long row of dancers, Charlie cast about for a subject that would put him at ease. Her acquaintance with gentlemen being limited, this presented somewhat of a problem. She supposed that Mr Bernstone did count as a gentleman even though he was only a music teacher. But he was a very good one, and, besides, had a friend in far-away places who regularly sent him copious amounts of Turkish delight, which he was happy to share with the whole of St. Cuthbert’s. Apart from music, Mr Bernstone was rather fond of fishing. On a sunny day, he could be often found standing in the shallow stream not far from the school, casting his rod and letting the line dance over the water.

The only streams Charlie had seen in London had been the Thames and the Serpentine in Hyde Park. She had not detected anybody fishing in any of these waters, but the topic was worth a try. Didn’t gentlemen spend a lot of time in the country in the summer and autumn? They
would
be able to go fishing then, wouldn’t they?

And so, when they first met in the course of the set, Charlie gave Lord Chanderley a sunny smile and asked, “Don’t you find fishing
extremely
exciting?” When she took the proffered hand, something like a tingle shot up her arm and she had to fight hard to keep the smile in place. His hand was large, and even through both their gloves she could feel the hardness of his palm.

One-two—they stepped towards each other.

Oh my!
she thought, her breath hitching in her chest.

With his fingers closed around hers, she could now feel their strength. And their size. Her hand felt positively
dwarfed
within his!

Three-four—they stepped back.

“Fishing?” His brows rose. In contrast to the rest of his hair, they were dark, almost black. And very bushy.

One-two—and around, around in a circle.

Heat radiated from his body. And a… scent. A very nice one. Very masculine, too. Indeed, he was a very masculine man, being so tall and, well, becoming.

Very
becoming.

“Personally, I find catfish a bit of a nuisance,” Charlie said, her smile still firmly in place, despite the tingles that seemed to have taken up residence in the pit of her stomach. “Not only are most of them so monstrously big as to make it a real
effort
to drag them out of the water, but skinning them is rather tedious work, too.”

He gave her a blank look. Perhaps he had never caught catfish before. She seemed to recall that Old Squire Nettles had imported them many, many years ago to Ardochlan, the village near St. Cuthbert’s. Therefore Charlie elaborated her point when she met Lord Chanderley again.

“Cutting the skin beneath the head and then pulling it down, I mean.
Tedious
. And your hands
stink
.” She thought about this for a moment. “Perhaps not as a bad as scraping the scales off and getting them all over you, though. But breaking their backbone to get the innards out, now
that
I wholly detest! Truly, it makes me shudder just to think about it!” She gave a tiny shudder to prove her point, but also because it felt so very
delicious
when Lord Chanderley held her hand in his. She had not known that holding somebody’s hand could evoke such… such
feelings
. Overwhelming feelings. She wished they could dance the waltz so he would hold her hand
all the time
. But she had been told that young girls did not dance the waltz in London. It would be most improper—which was a gross unfairness, if she now thought about it.

They went around and around each other again.

“Well, better than eels, I suppose,” Charlie remarked somewhat absentmindedly because she was inwardly still smarting about the waltz. “Slimy, slippery things, eels. But they taste nice.” With a regretful pang, she let his hand go as she moved back in line. “Do you like eels?” she asked the lady standing next to her.

She gave Charlie a confused look. “Ihls? Is that a new poet?”

“A poet?” Charlie blinked. “No. It’s a fish.” She shook her head. My, but the people of London were a strange lot!

~*~

Griffin climbed into his cousin’s carriage and flopped onto the seat opposite Boo. With a relieved groan, he stretched out his legs as far as the confined space allowed. “Oh, by gum! How’s a fellow to endure rounds and rounds of such damned overheated and overcrowded affairs?”

Boo had the nerve to bellow a laugh. “It’s no laughing matter,” Griff said testily as the carriage jerked into motion. He frowned. “I don’t understand how you can stand to attend such monstrous events on a regular basis! All those giggling debutantes and chattering mamas!” Not to mention the gossipmongers, only waiting to get a bit between their teeth. “It’s enough to drive a man deranged!”

Which only made his cousin laugh harder. “
One
ball, Griff! You’re this disgruntled after only
one
ball?”

Griff threw his hat at him. “It was a damned circus! Did you see how those matrons
ogled
me?” He threw up his hands in exasperation. “As if I were bloody damn naked!”

“Which only means that they consider you a piece of prime flesh.” Boo’s grin nearly split his face in half.

“Bloody hell!”

“For their daughters, that is.”

“Gaggle-toothed, cheese-faced chits,” Griff growled. “Bah! I felt like a horse at Tattersall’s!” He narrowed his eyes. “I would have thought that most would steer clear of me, given… you know.”

Boo stifled a yawn and then shrugged. “You shouldn’t mind people like Greykin or Mrs Wilson, who hasn’t got a kind word for anyone. You’re the heir to a jolly earldom. So if the mamas parade their daughters in front of potato-faced me, they will most certainly parade them in front of you as well, what with you having a much nicer countenance
and
being a viscount to boot.”

“Bah!” Gloom settled over Griff like a black thundercloud. In the following days, weeks,
months
he would have to endure endless repetitions of this evening—encountering people of Mrs Wilson’s ilk, dancing (which surely must have been invented by the devil to torture hapless souls!), trading inane niceties with giggling chits, seeing other girls giggle and whisper behind their fans… He shuddered. “How can you stand it? All of it?”

Boo gave a shrug. “I like dancing. So I go to balls and assemblies, where people will dance.”

“Bah! It’s unnatural!”

Boo laughed again.

Griff considered taking off a shoe and throwing it at his cousin’s head.

“Surely it was not
all
a bad evening,” Boo now said, meaningfully. “I
did
see you smile—lud! that must have shocked the other ladies exceedingly!—I did see you smile when you danced with
one
lady.”

For a moment the vision of two very fine, green eyes teased Griff’s memory, and his lips curved. “Izzie’s new friend. She’s a funny little thing.”

“I wouldn’t call her
little
, exactly.”

Now it was Griff’s turn to laugh. “No, not exactly. I heard Whalebottom call her a giantess.”

Boo snorted. “The oh-so Honourable Lord Walbottingham is a dwarf,” he said. “And a rather unpleasant, self-important little dwarf on top of that. Who gives a fig for what
he
says?”

“Not I, certainly. But you have to admit that the way she grabbed that glass of lemonade was a tad hoydenish. Poor Izzie—she’d waited for the lemonade for so long!”

“I offered to fetch her a new glass, but she declined and insisted I stay and keep her company.”

The two men exchanged a glance.

Boo shook his head. “Women!”

“Pffft. Women!” Griff echoed.

For a moment, they remained silent, each mulling over the mysteries of the other sex.

“Her figure is rather boyish, too,” Griff remarked after a while.

His cousin grunted.

“Izzie’s friend. The giantess. She hasn’t got much…” Griff cupped his hands in front of his chest. “Must have the tiniest bosom in the whole of London.”

Another grunt, which Griff interpreted as an invitation to continue his musings.

“Must be strange—not having a nice handful to fondle.”

“She could stuff her stays with woollen stockings.” Boo grinned.

“Bah, woollen stockings!” But he couldn’t help laughing at the image Boo had conjured up. What was more, he still couldn’t shake off the memory of those fine green eyes that had sparkled at him from behind these ridiculous spectacles. It was true, the girl didn’t possess much in the way of sweets, yet she had a rather lovely smile.

And she had befriended Izzie.

And…

And…

His smile dimmed.

Lord, she had looked so
alive
. Despite the horrid coiffure and the equally horrid spectacles, she had positively sparkled. Like a diamond.

“A diamond of the first water,” he murmured.

“What? Didn’t hear you there.”

Griff cleared his throat. “There was something about that girl, don’t you think so? She sparkled.”

Boo stared at him as if he had suddenly grown a second head. “Sparkled?” he echoed.

Griff nodded. “Like a diamond.” He cocked his head to the side. “Would you believe that during our dance she talked about gutting fish?” He hadn’t felt like a horse at Tattersall’s when he had danced with her. She hadn’t ogled him, and she hadn’t giggled either. Instead she had happily babbled on about catfish and eels and how to take them apart, and all the while she had
sparkled
.

Something in his chest constricted.

“Damn,” Boo said. “You are… You have…
Damn
. Griff.”

She was not handsome, not in the traditional way. But there was an inner kind of beauty that made her shine and had made him feel drawn to her.

“
George
.”

“Hm?” He looked up, surprised at the use of his childhood name. “What is it?”

“She talked about gutting fish?” Even in the dim light inside the carriage he could see that Boo wore the most peculiar look on his face.

“Yes. Isn’t it most extraordinary?”

Boo opened his mouth, then closed it again and, sighing, rubbed the back of his neck.

“What? What is it?”

An unaccustomed seriousness stole over Boo’s features. “You are supposed to find a
wife
, George.”

Suddenly uncomfortable, Griff shifted his shoulder against the back of his seat. “Yes. You know that.”

“Think of it: which young lady talks about gutting fish?” Boo asked, his tone very soft. “Your parents will expect your wife to talk about the latest fashion and watercolours and music and, if she is very adventurous, gardening. But not about gutting fish.” He bit his lip.

Griff felt as if his cousin had plunged him into icy cold water. A large hand seemed to reach into his chest to mercilessly squeeze his heart to pulp.

Yet Boo was far from finished. “And that name, Stanton? Izzie mentioned that the girl appears to be related to the Dolmores. Do you remember that monstrous scandal that erupted when we were still lads? Dolmore’s younger sister eloping to God-knows-where with an impoverished young artist? I’m almost positive that his name was Stanton.”

Griff closed his eyes.

“I wouldn’t have mentioned it, if I hadn’t seen how you… Damn it!” Boo’s frustrated sigh wafted through the carriage. “Griff, you looked at her as if she were the Fairy Queen herself, and you the poor mortal asshead. But, by Gad, it wouldn’t do. See, Lewdon has a painting hanging in the gallery of his abbey down in Devon, a classical nude, but a nude nonetheless. Lew’s father, the old goat, always boasted that he bought it because it shows Dolmore’s sister in all her glory and that the elopement was financed with his money. It is a good—a very good thing Lew is currently too busy with his classical manuscripts to be coming up to Town for the Season.”

There was a pause.

Griff opened his eyes again to find his cousin staring at him with an expression that looked awfully like pity.

“Griff, Miss Stanton is not someone your parents would consider a suitable bride for you.”

The ghastly thing was that Boo was right. Utterly and absolutely right. Griff’s stomach heaved, and bitterness gnawed at his insides. He wondered whether this was how an animal felt when it was caught in the ragged teeth of a trap.

“You cannot court her,” Boo went on. “You know Lymfort. He would never countenance such a connection. Just now, when you talked about her, I saw how you—” An odd note had crept into his voice, and he had to clear his throat. “You must stay away from her. I am so sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t be.” Griff felt as if he was cast in ice. Indeed, when he looked out of the window of the carriage at the houses rolling by, he was almost surprised that the pavement and the window-sills weren’t covered with snow. “You are right, of course. The parents would find her most unsuitable. She is… She is…”

Not for me.