Why Earls Fall in Love (3 page)

Con knew that to any outside observer, he and Philip were obviously related. Both of them bore the dark hair and blue eyes of the Callows, but there the resemblance ended. Whereas Con had grown into his frame some years ago, and bore his height and breadth of shoulder with confidence, Philip was rather more like the family name, that is, callow. Even so, standing side by side, they were a handsome pair and more than one set of female observers in the
ton
had remarked upon it.

“Philip, I believe you’ve grown,” their aunt said, surveying the twenty-three-year-old with a keen eye.

To Con’s amusement, the young man’s ears reddened. “Aunt Russell,” he said with an adolescent whine. “You shouldn’t remark upon such things.”

“But it’s the truth, Phil,” their cousin, Mr. Geoffrey Callow, chortled from his position at the mantel. “Have you got lifts in your shoes? I thought—” He broke off as his wife, none too gently, poked him in the ribs.

“Pay no attention to him, Philip,” Elisabeth, Geoffrey’s wife, said sweetly. “I think you’re looking quite fine. Is that coat Weston?”

While Philip and the married couple discussed fashion, Con leaned forward to kiss his aunt’s paper-thin cheek. Was it his imagination or did she seem more frail than she had the last time he’d seen her?

“Is it the gout again?” he asked, indicating her foot. “I thought the waters were supposed to be doing that some good.”

“They were for a time,” she said with a frown, “but I’m afraid even the foul-tasting waters of Bath fail to make a difference now.”

“What does your physician say?” he asked. “Surely there is something to be done.”

“He insists that she should change her diet,” said Georgina Mowbray, stepping forward with a shawl, which she wrapped around Lady Russell’s shoulders, despite the warmth of the fire. “I hope you will attempt to reason with her while you are here, my lord. She refuses to give up lobster patties no matter how I remind her of their effect on her foot.”

“Mrs. Mowbray,” Con said, giving the lady a slight bow. “How good to see you again so soon.”

“What’s this?” Lady Russell demanded, looking from one to the other. “You didn’t tell me you’d seen Con lately, Georgina.”

Giving Con a low curtsy, Mrs. Mowbray bowed her head and turned to Lady Russell. “Lord Coniston and I ran into one another in the art gallery earlier. I did not have time to tell you when I returned because the guests began to arrive.”

Lady Russell’s eyes brightened as she turned her gimlet gaze on Con. “I should have known you’d go to the gallery first,” she told her nephew. “Were you able to get him to take that abomination of a painting down once and for all? I vow I have no notion of why he wishes to hang it there for all the world to see.”

“Bath is hardly all the world,” Con said wryly, “but I see your point.” The Cleopatra painting was one of his earliest and lacked the skill and technique his work had become known for over the years. Now that the earl was considered to be one of England’s most talented artists, the Cleopatra, despite its amateurish technique, was quite valuable and no amount of money would convince the owners to part with it. Much to Con’s dismay.

“At least,” he continued, “you display some of my better works so that I can rest easy knowing that the Cleopatra is not the only example of my talent to grace Bath.”

“Is it usual for aristocrats to dabble in the arts?” Mrs. Mowbray asked, her blond brows raised in curiosity. “I had thought—”

Con finished for her. “That it would be akin to being in trade? Oh, it is and many of my peers have let me know it. But since I haven’t sold any of my paintings since my salad days it’s not much of an issue anymore. I paint wholly for my own enjoyment now.”

“Or mine,” Lady Russell said with a grin, recalling to Con how long it had been since he’d seen her look really happy. He must credit Mrs. Mowbray with some of that, he knew.

“Which reminds me,” Lady Russell said. “I should love to have a little portrait of my spaniel, Percy. He’s such a little dear.”

Con bit back a sigh; it would be the devil to get Percy, the most spoiled pet in three counties, to sit still long enough for a portrait, but since his aunt asked it, he would have to try.

“You shall have your work cut out for you, my lord,” Mrs. Mowbray said with a rare smile. The effect was rather like watching a storm turn into a sunny day in the space of a breath. When Georgina Mowbray left off her usual, serious expression, she was a beauty. Con had suspected as much before, but had never really seen it for himself. How the devil did the woman not have a line of suitors leading out into Henrietta Street? he wondered. “Percy,” she continued, breaking him out of his daze, “is as profligate as the Regent and as difficult to control as Byron at his most reckless. I wish you luck with him.”

“Percy and I are acquainted, Mrs. Mowbray,” Con replied with an exaggerated grimace. “I have little doubt painting his portrait will be as wretched as anything I’ve attempted. And that includes the time Uncle Russell made me empty the chamber pots for a week as punishment for frightening the chambermaid with a frog.”

“Impudent boy!” his aunt chided, rapping him on the knuckles with her fan.”I thought you were renowned for your charm. You do not speak to your legions of female admirers of chamber pots, I should think.”

Con felt his ears redden. “Not so many as all that, Aunt,” he said, trying not to sound like a green lad just up from the country. When a low feminine chuckle sounded from his aunt’s companion he turned. “I suppose you find this amusing, Mrs. Mowbray?”

“To be perfectly honest, my lord,” the widow responded. “I am enjoying the sight of someone besides myself being raked over the coals by Lady Russell. It is uncharitable, I suppose, but the truth.”

Her wry humor gave Con, who had been puzzled by Mrs. Mowbray’s friendship with Perdita and her sister Lady Isabella, some notion of what the sisters found in common with her besides an interest in charity. From what he could remember, the widow had followed the drum with her husband, who had been killed in the war. It was a rough life for a woman, he knew, and now that he’d glimpsed the beauty beneath the serious demeanor, he wondered if perhaps her usual manner wasn’t something she used as a defense against unwanted attentions.

“Well, I like this,” Lady Russell groused, though it was clear she was enjoying the repartee. “My nephew and my companion enjoying a laugh at my expense. I suppose it’s to be expected at my age.”

To Con’s surprise, Mrs. Mowbray leaned down to hug his crotchety old aunt. And his aunt did not rebuff the show of affection. That she’d been able to break through his aunt’s shell was another point in the widow’s favor.

“You know we adore you, Lady Russell, but even you must admit that you have a certain fondness for exposing our vulnerabilities.” Mrs. Mowbray smiled as she spoke the words and Con was amazed to see his aunt looking sheepish. “I pray you will remember what you’re about this week, when there is so much at stake.”

“At stake?” Con asked, wondering to which issue the lady referred. “I think the celebration of my aunt’s birthday is hardly so fraught as that.”

“Oh, do not be so nice,” Lady Russell said with a dismissive wave. “You know quite well that the majority of people in this room are here to toady me into enlarging their bequests in my will. If I weren’t so fond of them I’d be quite put out.”

Looking about him, Con had to admit that his aunt was likely right. Some of these cousins he hadn’t seen in the same room in years. But then again, his aunt hadn’t celebrated her birthday in such a grand fashion in years. If ever.

“That’s as may be,” he conceded, “but it’s not why I’m here.”

“Of course you aren’t, dear boy,” his aunt said, patting him on the cheek. “You were always my favorite. And not just because you were the eldest. Mrs. Mowbray, you will not account for it,” she said to her companion, “but Coniston was such a dear thing when he was a boy. He could sing like an angel and—”

“That’s enough, Aunt,” he said cutting her off before she could continue. What next? A recitation of his first pony ride? “I’m sure Mrs. Mowbray would rather not listen to tales about my childhood. We are, after all, here to celebrate you.”

“Yes, we are,” his uncle Rex said in his nasal voice as he approached their circle. “Hortense, I’m so glad you decided to have this little party. It’s good to have the whole family back together again. Even if one could wish that you’d chosen a more entertaining spot. Bath is positively dull when compared with London.”

While his uncle prosed on, Con felt Mrs. Mowbray’s eyes on him, and when he looked up, she quickly glanced away. On impulse he reached out and touched her on the arm, indicating with a tilt of his head that they should move to the small window alcove on the far end of the room. Warily, his aunt’s companion gave a brisk nod and made her way through the various clumps of Callow cousins to the window. Striding across the room behind her, Con was determined to put whatever it was that gave her a distrust of him behind them.

Because despite the affability he’d seen from her during their little chat with his aunt, there was something wary lurking behind Mrs. Mowbray’s eyes. And he refused to spend the next week enduring covert glances of distrust from the woman.

*   *   *

Georgie fought down a wave of unease as she walked to the window overlooking the back garden. She knew that outwardly she gave no evidence of being flustered—she’d long ago mastered her expressions so that whatever she felt inside was hidden from the outward observer—but inside she worried that she’d done something that would make the earl press his aunt to dismiss her. Or that he’d learned somehow of the threats she’d been receiving. Fear for his aunt’s safety would certainly be reason enough for him to wish her gone.

Reaching the window, she steeled herself to maintain her expression, and turned to face the earl. And found him watching her.

Fleetingly she wondered if this was what it had been like for Perdita to have all of his attention focused on her.

Perdita had never really explained why they had broken their engagement but Georgie knew the reasons for the dissolution were all on her side. If Coniston was pining for her friend, however, Georgie couldn’t see it.

“What is it you wished to discuss with me, my lord?” she prompted, wanting whatever it was he was going to say out in the open before she lost her poise.

His words, however, though not the warning or dismissal she’d expected, threatened to shatter her reserve all the same.

“Have I done something to offend you, Mrs. Mowbray?” the earl asked, his usually good-natured expression clouded with concern. “Because for the life of me I cannot remember anything which might have put us at loggerheads. With the exception, of course, of my engagement to your friend, the young dowager Duchess of Ormond, the breaking which, I am quite sure you know, he was her choice.”

Georgie stared at him for a moment. Of all the scenarios she’d imagined, this one had never crossed her mind.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she responded, pretending confusion to buy herself some time.

“Do not brush me off, madam,” he said, deliberately leaning in so that she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “I know there is something I’ve done to make you uneasy in my company and I wish to know what it was. And barring that, I’d like to know what I might do to make amends so that my aunt will not be forced in the next week to feel the tension between us. She is obviously not in the best of health right now and I do not wish to worry her.”

Georgie was taken aback by his directness. But she supposed he was right. It would bother Lady Russell to see them at cross-purposes and Georgie did not wish to worry her. She’d grown quite fond of the older lady during the past few months.

And it was hardly Lord Coniston’s fault that Georgie thought him an undisciplined fribble. Lettice had been perfectly correct when she’d said it was his right to behave as he wished. He could hardly be expected to live his life according to Georgie’s standards of correct behavior. And he clearly adored his aunt, which was certainly a point in his favor.

Addressing the earl, she made herself look him in the eye. “You are correct when you say that your aunt is not in the best of health, Lord Coniston,” she agreed. “And if my manner toward you has given offense, I sincerely apologize. I may have been a bit stiff, but that is simply my own cow-handed manners, not anything purposely insulting at any rate.” To her own surprise what she said was the truth. She hadn’t intentionally been cool toward him. She simply did not know how to go on with him. She was hardly in the company of handsome earls every day.

“Then what is the problem?” Coniston demanded, his brows drawn together. He stood so close to her that Georgie could smell the sandalwood of his cologne, and see the laugh lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes.

“There is no problem with you, per se,” she explained, willing her attention back to the matter at hand. “I am simply not all that comfortable around…” She paused, searching for a word. “Gentlemen,” she forced herself to say aloud.

Coniston’s pique turned to puzzlement. “You’re afraid of me?” he asked in a bewildered tone. “Whyever for? If I’ve done something to give you a fear of me, I do sincerely apologize, Mrs. Mowbray. It was certainly never my intention.” If the situation were less serious, Georgie would have been amused at the echo of her own earlier apology.

“It’s nothing you’ve done,” she assured him with a smile. “Indeed, you have been a perfect gentleman. I have simply not been accustomed to moving in such elevated circles and I fear that my own natural reticence coupled with my diffidence in the company of gentlemen has made me seem less than friendly. Which has certainly not been my intention.”

It wasn’t that she disliked him, personally, she suddenly realized. Just that he seemed so much like the titled officers she’d known in the army. Which was hardly his fault.

Unaware of her mental struggles, Coniston rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his eyes troubled. “I must admit, I had not considered that you might find me intimidating,” he said with a frown. “I do not mean to brag, but I have a rather easy rapport with most of the people I encounter. And though, yes, I am an earl, I hardly think myself to be so fearsome that I would cause a spirited lady like yourself to cower before me.” The twinkle in his eyes let her know that this last was meant to be a jest.