The Belligerent Miss Boynton AND The Lurid Lady Lockport (Two Companion Full-Length Regency Novels) (24 page)

Lady Chezwick wrinkled her aristocratic nose. "Playing in the dirt like a couple of children. I wouldn't be surprised if they made mud patties and held little tea parties under the trees." She threw up her hands and exclaimed, "Sometimes I want to pull his flaming hair out by its flaming roots. How can he be so dense?"

Jared came into the room in time to hear his aunt's last words, and as he kissed his wife's cheek and settled himself beside her he said, "I assume you're discussing the backward beau? Pray don't harm the lad, Aggie, for he comes by his density quite naturally. Not that he's entirely vacant in his upper story, but he is by nature a very, um,
deliberate
person. I have it from his own lips that he intends to wed the girl—at least I think that's what he said—he just has to build up his courage to approach the Squire."

Lady Chezwick was not impressed. "Ha! If I know Francis Bosley he'll not only agree to the match but kiss Bo's hands and feet in the bargain. Anne is the last of six daughters and he's been trying to marry her off for three years. They'd take Bo if he were completely to let in the attic, which personally I think he is. By the way, where is the fellow—out pinching the ladybugs off the roses?"

Jared made an elaborate business out of repositioning a curl that had sprung loose at Amanda's nape while he calmly announced, "As a matter of fact, I have no idea where he is. He rode out earlier to pay a morning call on the Squire, but he should have been back by now."

"Oh, foul! Foul!" Amanda exclaimed as she jumped up from her seat and turned on her husband. "You knew all along that Bo was going to ask the Squire for Anne's hand this morning and never breathed a word of it to us. You are the most—" She searched for a word, which her aunt quietly supplied. "Yes, thank you, Aunt, that will do nicely—the most
despicable
man I have ever met. And stop grinning like an ape, Jared, for you know how long I've planned for this moment." Slowly the indignation left her face and she reached out her hands to Jared and smiled happily. "You're just as thrilled by this as I am, aren't you?"

He squeezed her hands as he replied, "Yes, infant, I am, although I must say it pains me deeply that you should be so successful on your first attempt at matchmaking. I shudder to think of poor Kevin's fate once you spy out a suitable match for him. He won't stand a chance of escape."

"Jared, that is unkind. I didn't
force
Bo and Anne to fall in love. I merely introduced them and, er, let Nature take its course."

Jared rose and put his arms around her waist. "Certainly, dear heart, you yourself did little to forward their romance. Only a slight nudge or two in the right direction every now and then. Such as the day you invited Anne over and then deliberately left her alone with Bo for an hour, pleading a crisis in the kitchens. You were very subtle, Amanda—as subtle as a house falling on his head."

Amanda's lower lip came out in a pout, but she was too happy to be subdued for long. Still in the circle of Jared's arms, she turned to Lady Chezwick and appealed for her help. " Was I too heavy-handed, Aunt Agatha?"

"Good heavens, no, my dear. Compared to me you were light-handed indeed. Why, in trying to get Jared bracketed to Miss Farnsworthy, I deliberately stepped on the hem of her gown at a picnic so that I could offer her the use of our coach to return home and change."

"Yes, indeed, Aunt," Jared added, "and once you had the chit and her abigail firmly entrenched on the seat you came to me and forced me to accompany her because you—you won't believe this, Amanda—were feeling ill on your stomach and were afraid of the inferior springs of my coach upsetting you further. Inferior springs indeed, on a coach of mine. It took nearly three months of being downright rude to the dratted gal before she accepted Viscount Whitterby in my stead. I also remember the time —"

"Stop your prattlings, Nephew. I don't recall asking for a recital of my sins."

A drawling voice issued from the doorway. "Sins? Oh, good, we're baring our souls are we? For me, my greatest transgression of late was to be called on to compliment Lady Elizabeth on her needlework. I do hope she won't present me with handmade slippers this Christmas, for I refuse to wear anything so shoddy and my valet is much larger of foot than I."

"Oh, shut up, Kevin Rawlings. Your tongue betrays the void between your ears," said Lady Chezwick. "I've known you since before you were out of short coats, and you become more like your mother every day, always primping and posturing and worrying about your outside while totally ignoring the vacancy in your upper rooms. Sit down, you popinjay, and fasten your lip. We're discussing important things here today."

Kevin assumed a suitably crestfallen expression and took up his position at the drinks table, saying, "I retire from the lists and leave the field to you, madam. I dare not argue with someone who admits she is at least thirty years my senior."

Jared had been putting a glass to his lips as Kevin spoke, and Amanda was soon quite busy, thumping him soundly between the shoulder blades as he choked and coughed on the wine that had been halfway down his throat when his aunt called Kevin a son of a female hound. "Aunt," he got out after another round of coughing, "where did you ever pick up such a, um,
candid
expression?"

Lady Chezwick busied herself with her needlework while she informed her nephew that, contrary to what he believed, her time in India was not all spent at ladies' teas. "I saw a bit of the rough and ready, if you know what I mean."

A now thoroughly chastened Kevin approached the offended lady and bowed deeply over her hand as he issued a long and rather complicated apology which ended only because Bo chose that moment to enter the room.

The poor fellow immediately became the cynosure of four pair of interested eyes. He stopped, looked around at the four staring faces, his face turned an unbecoming puce, and he muttered something unintelligible as he quickly turned to leave. Amanda was after him like a shot, dragging him back into the room, where she proceeded to ask him a half dozen questions without once waiting for an answer.

As Amanda stopped to catch her breath, Lady Chezwick stepped into the breech and launched her own volley of questions, which sounded very like the ones Amanda had just asked. As Jared was fully engaged in laughing up his sleeve at the sight of Bo's confusion, Kevin felt it was up to him to pour his friend a glass and step into the fray, thus saving his befuddled friend from this female attack.

"I say Bo, stop opening and closing your mouth like a demmed fish and take a deep swallow of this. The ladies are a bit agitated about something and it's impolite of you to ignore them. Here, drink deep, and I promise to hold them off until you're ready to face them."

Then he turned and addressed the two impatient women. "Ladies, I implore you to consider this poor boy's feelings. Look at him—" and they did. "Look at his high color, a sure sign of a fever, I'd say. Note his trembling hands; possibly he has sustained some bad shock." He leaned over and peered deeply into Bo's rather vacant eyes. "You know, you're really not yourself, Bo. I'd take something for it, I really would."

Amanda appealed to Jared to make Kevin stop his taunting, but her husband was so dissolved in mirth she gave it up as a bad job and tackled the tormentor herself—a move which completely disabled both Jared and his aunt—by simply stepping up to Kevin and kicking him soundly in the shin, sending him sprawling full length on the carpet, one leg held high in the air as he exaggeratedly howled in pain.

"Why, Kevin," she exclaimed in all innocence, "That was a most lamentable accident. You really should be more careful."

"Brat," Jared said, trying to be stern, and failing miserably. He held out his hand to his friend and helped him to his feet. "Get up, Kevin. You're making a cake of yourself."

To Lady Chezwick it was obvious this entire scene was getting out of control. She clapped her hands for attention. "Silence! Silence, all of you! Good heavens, I feel like a nanny whose charges have run amuck in the nursery. Now sit down, all of you, and let us get to the business at hand. We're all waiting to hear the outcome of young Bo's visit to the Squire this morning, correct?" She sat primly on the edge of her chair, hands folded in her lap, and said soothingly, "All right, dear Bo, we're all attention now. Please tell us what happened."

Bo's usually florid complexion faded to palest parchment. In his agitation he ruined his already poorly-tied neckcloth with his fumblings, and now he tried to calm his nerves by reaching for his glass—which unfortunately slipped from his shaking fingers and landed upside–down in his lap.

"Oh, poor Bo!" cried Amanda.

"Get you a napkin," Jared offered.

"Sapskull," commented Kevin.

"Brightest thing you've said all day," Lady Chezwick added, glaring at Kevin.

In the end, Amanda handled the affair in a question-and- answer interview which, Jared commented later, "would have put the Lord High Justice firmly on his mettle."

"You went to call on the Squire, Bo?" Amanda purred.

Bo nodded.

"And was the Squire at home?"

Another nod.

"Ah, we proceed," Kevin whispered to Jared, whose shoulders had begun to shake.

"And did you and the Squire have speech?" the Lord High Inquisitor continued after throwing a quelling glance at the two men.

Once again Bo's head moved in the affirmative.

"And what did you talk about?"

"The weather. Nice weather." Bo nodded, as if agreeing with himself. "Warm."

Jared groaned and sank down in his chair, earning himself another speaking glance from the love of his life.

"And did you perhaps speak of anything else?" Amanda fairly pleaded.

"Napoleon."

Kevin put his hand to his mouth and loudly whispered to Jared, "Gad, that must have been a deep debate. I'd have given my best bay to hear the farmer and the hopeless swain discussing politics."

Amanda was rapidly reaching the end of her tether. "Was there anything else, dear Bo?"

Bo buried his chin in his neckcloth, whereupon Amanda took a deep breath and asked, "Did you discuss Miss Anne?"

Another nod. One nod too many, it appeared, as Kevin jumped to his feet and shouted, "Good God, we could be here until Christmas with all this dancing around the outside of the question." He turned to Bo and asked, "Are you going to marry the chit or ain't you, Bo? It's getting on for dinner and I have things to do."

Amid the general uproar from the ladies following hard on this candid questioning, Bo's garbled "Yes" was barely heard, so that he repeated it. He then repeated it a third time, whereupon all other speech quickly died—just as he took a deep breath and admitted, "I love her! " so that his declaration echoed in the silent room.

"No need to shout, man," Kevin remarked coolly. "We all heard you. Don't say that I like it a bit, the two of you deserting me like this. All I know is that after tonight I shall be shoving myself off to London before Lady Elizabeth corners me in the gardens." He crossed to his friend and shook his hand. "Getting yourself riveted, are you Bo? My condolences." And then he quit the room, taking up the wine decanter as he went.

Amanda watched him go. "Poor Kevin, he's feeling quite deserted. I really must—"

Jared cut her off the only way he knew how. He kissed her soundly, and then warned, "Connubial happiness is not the only happiness, although it suits me perfectly well. Leave Kevin alone, my love. I'm sure he can find his own companionship in the city."

Amanda would have answered him with a remark concerning Kevin's notion of a suitable companion, but the butler came into the room at that moment, to announce the arrival of guests.

"How opportune. Who could it be?" asked Jared, happy for the interruption.

"It is I, darling—or is that, 'It is me?' No matter," Lady Blanche Wade trilled as she swept into the blue room, followed closely by the squat, puffing figure of Peregrine Denton.

Blanche slid her arm through Denton's and leered down into his plainly adoring face. "Peregrine has honored me with a proposal of marriage—a proposal which I accepted, of course. Isn't this above all things wonderful? Jared, dear—aren't you going to come kiss your little bride's soon-to-be step-mama?"

Amanda was busy in the morning room, arranging flowers with an intensity of purpose that was literally destroying the fragile blooms. After cutting one stem too short, and finding she had run out of roses entirely, she was about to give it all up as a bad job when Lady Wade floated into the room on a wave of musky perfume. Immediately Amanda tensed, snapping yet another delicate stem.

"Oh, what a pity, child," Blanche drawled as she hastened to remedy the damage. "But don't feel badly. Some of us are simply less talented in the artistic things. Here, let me help you. Hand me the scissors, please, dear. I just need a few blooms here, here, and—behold. A perfect bouquet. Now you go sit down, dear, and I'll summon a servant to clean up your mess. I must say you are looking a trifle
off
this morning."

"Am I? Why, thank you, Lady Wade. I have sat here in my new gown since breakfast waiting for just such a compliment. Now my day is complete."

Blanche looked over her shoulder as she went to ring for a maid. "Oh, dear, are we out of sorts? Has my naughty stepson-to-be been ignoring his little bride?"

Amanda restrained an impulse to yank Blanche's golden hair out by its bound to be brown roots, and crossed to a nearby chair to sit down. She looked innocently at her uninvited guest and commented, "If only that were the case, dear Lady Wade, but Jared scarce leaves me any time to myself. He's extremely attentive to my every wish, for after all, as you say, we are newly wed. Perhaps when I am as long in the tooth as you he will not be so eager."

Amanda smiled sweetly as she watched the color drain from Blanche's face. She could not resist adding, "Surely my stepfather, being closer to your years, keeps you sufficiently amused?"

"Why you—I mean,
please
, Amanda, cannot you find it in your heart to address me more informally? After all, I am soon to become one of the family."