Wildblossom (39 page)

"Not at all," Castle protested. "I aspire to higher goals. In fact, although I had hoped to ask you in private, Miss Matthews, I shall take this moment to request that you join me this evening for theater, followed by supper at the Palm Court at the Carlton Hotel. It is my habit, with my friends, to dine either there or at the Savoy, every night." He was watching her face anxiously, oblivious to the duke's darkening visage. "If you would join me, I can promise you an evening of rare pleasure. Do, please, say yes, Miss Matthews!"

Silence charged the air, then Shelby smiled suddenly and replied, "Yes... I would be honored to accept your invitation, Mr. Castle!"

Vivian pressed a hand to her mouth, smothering a gasp, but Geoff did not react. Victorious, Bernard Castle announced that he had another appointment and could not linger. He promised to send an automobile to fetch Shelby that night, adding that the driver would escort her from her tent to the waiting Daimler. Then, bowing again, he hurried off, disappearing among the tents and the colorful performers who were milling about.

Geoff immediately imagined Shelby wearing the gown and cape he'd given her on her outing with the odious Castle. He very nearly demanded that she return them, but good breeding won out. Instead, glaring at Shelby, he ground out, "If you are doing this to make me jealous, I can assure you that you will suffer much more than I tonight."

"How could I have misjudged you so completely? You're a conceited jackass!" she whispered loudly, hands on hips. Vivian flinched in the shadows behind them. "Thank God you showed your true colors before I got myself in any deeper than I have already."

"Fortunately, I know that you don't mean one word of that nonsense, so I'll forgive you in advance."

"If I were a man, I'd punch you!"

Geoff laughed at this, which made Shelby even more furious. "How charmingly transparent you are, scamp. I think that we both know that you would have sent Bernard Castle on his way if you hadn't seen a way to strike out at me. How long will it be before you send word to him that you aren't feeling well and won't be able to join him this evening?" He flashed a wicked grin.

Since this was exactly what Shelby had intended to do, it made her furious that he should have guessed. "How amusing it is that you make yourself so important! Ha ha! Why should I go to such trouble on your account?"

"What other motives might you have?" Geoff tapped a finger to his jaw, pretending to consider a range of possibilities. "Are you longing to be owned? If so, Castle can pay the price. He's one of the wealthiest of the diamond millionaires and financiers whom King Edward has befriended. The circle of friends he spoke of includes the Rothschilds, Cecil Rhodes, Barney Barnato, and Ludwig Neumann. They could buy
me
ten times over."

"I will not even dignify your ugly insinuations with a response." She presented her back to him. "You and I have nothing to say to each other. You made your position quite clear this morning, and your visit this afternoon has only served to convince me that I am doing the right thing. Please go."

Looking over Shelby's head, he met Viv's eyes. Had he made his problems worse? "I know that you are tired. I'll see you later." When she made no reply, Geoff turned to leave. Just then one of the stable boys came toward Shelby's tent, leading a magnificent buckskin stallion by the reins.

Geoff felt as if he'd been struck squarely in the chest. "Good God. It—can't be—"

Charlie came toward him whinnying, pulling the reins right out of the startled boy's hand. The reunion between Geoff and his horse was so touching that Vivian began to weep. The buckskin nosed at his master's face, seeming to smile, leaning into each glad caress of Geoff's hands.

"Miss?" the stable boy murmured to Shelby, fearful lest he'd be scolded for letting Charlie go. "Did you still want to exercise him this afternoon?"

Geoff gave the lad a cutting glance. "This horse belongs to me. You may go."

Shelby nodded as well, but as soon as the boy had dashed away, she accosted Geoff with flashing teal-blue eyes. "How dare you? You left Charlie in Wyoming, just the way you left everyone else who cared about you, and none of us thought we'd ever see you again! You have no right to barge back into our lives with this proprietary air—"

"How dare
you
not tell me that my horse was in London?" His tone was just as angry as hers.

"It seems that we both forgot to say a lot of things—until it was too late." Shelby went back into the tent, her voice thickening as she added, "Go ahead and take him, then. You're never satisfied until you have your own way."

* * *

The Carlton Hotel's restaurant was liberally decorated with elaborate potted palms. One of them brushed Shelby's nape each time the doors opened and the air moved, but otherwise she had no complaints. This was the first restaurant she had ever been in where music played softly in the background, and the snowy table linens, crystal, and silver dazzled the eye. Bernard Castle had ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon stuck in a bucket of ice, and Shelby feared she had drunk her first glass a bit too quickly.

"How did you like the play?" Bernard inquired over the top of his menu.

"It was quite... interesting," she replied. They had been to see something called
The Cigarette Maker's Romance,
which Shelby had found deadly dull. Of course, she wasn't able to concentrate on much of anything, let alone a plot line.

"I thought it would be a special treat for you, my dear, since you come from a part of the world where entertainment is wholly lacking."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Now, now. I do not wish to call into question the honor of your homeland, but it is a simple
fact
that the American West is a cultural wasteland,
n'est-ce pas?"

"Non, ce n'est pas vrai!"
Shelby shot back.

"I like you immensely! In many ways you remind me of my dear mother. Wait until you meet her! She's an absolute
brick."

The manager, Cesar Ritz, appeared at that moment to chat with his dear friend Castle and suggest choices for their meal. It was eventually agreed that they would start with escargots, and the chef would choose the other eight or ten courses.

"My friend Rothschild contends that a particularly fine dish can be confected by first taking the roe of nine hen lobsters," Bernard said when Ritz had left them.

"That sounds horrid," she decided, eyeing the champagne.

"My own particular favorite is a course wherein birds of varying sizes are cooked inside one another, like those Oriental nesting boxes." He lit a cigarette. "I do hope you don't smoke. My mother despises women who smoke. Did you know that the very first Society woman who ever smoked a cigarette in public did so in this restaurant? It was three or four years ago, I b'lieve. Lady Essex..." Castle paused to drain his own glass, then added, "She was an American, of course."

Shelby was speechless. How was one to make conversation with this person? Mr. Ritz approached the table again, this time wearing a cautious expression. After pouring more champagne for both Bernard and Shelby, he turned to her and bowed.

"Miss Matthews, an important call has come through for you on the telephone. If you would be so good as to follow me, I will escort your personally."

"Oh." This was even more confusing than the play.

Who in the world would be calling her on the telephone? Who even knew she was here?

"Perhaps it's your missing uncle...?" Castle suggested. "Do hurry, my dear. It's vital that one consume one's escargots as soon as possible, and they should be arriving any second."

Shelby was wearing the yellow silk and lace gown that she'd bought in Cody for the party at the Irma Hotel. It was very pretty, and the sash still set her tiny waist off to fine effect, but she knew it wasn't much by the standards of London Society. Bernard's eyes had told her so earlier, and now the patrons of the Carlton gave her more critical glances as she passed. Up came the monocles and nose glasses. Shelby wondered why she had ever come, for she felt as out of place as Alice at the Mad Hatter's tea party.

Cesar Ritz led her into the velvet-tassel and palm-filled foyer of the restaurant, then peered back and forth, suddenly furtive. Shelby spied the telephone on a little desk with his reservation book, but the manager motioned to her to follow him again, this time into a tiny anteroom that appeared to be his private office.

"Miss," he whispered earnestly, "I must explain that I compromise my friendship with Mr. Castle tonight, and I beg you to keep this a secret from him. It is only because the Duke of Aylesbury is a personage of such noble, exalted grandeur that I am forced to put his wishes ahead of—"

"What does the Duke of Aylesbury have to do with this?" Shelby interrupted. "Where is my urgent telephone call?"

"Here," intoned a familiar voice, and Geoff stepped out from behind a coat rack. An aura of power surrounded him, more potent than Shelby had ever felt before. His eyes roamed over her, branding her as he took in every detail of her appearance, and she was thankful that she hadn't worn the finery he had purchased for their reunion night.

Of course, Shelby had no intention of conveying any of her fluttery emotions to
him.

"I cannot believe you could be so rude as to interrupt my supper with a
ruse
such as this!" She heard Cesar Ritz gasp in the doorway and knew she was on the right track. "Self-centered is too small a word for someone as vainglorious as you are, Your Grace!"

"She does this all the time," Geoff told the goggling Ritz. "It means nothing. This is the language of love for her." Before Shelby could protest, he gripped her arm in a way he knew she would find secretly thrilling. "Now then, before Mr. Castle comes in search of his goddess, I would like you to deliver a message to him, Cesar."

"Yes, Your Grace," he agreed, wincing in anticipation.

"Tell him that Miss Matthews has been called away and regrets that she could not bid him good evening personally."

"No! He'll think I am the rudest of wretches!" Shelby cried. "Mr. Ritz, don't listen to him! Call the police and tell them the Duke of Aylesbury is trying to kidnap one of your female patrons!"

This last wild demand sent Cesar Ritz scurrying out of the little office. Suddenly, the prospect of delivering Aylesbury's dreadful message to Bernard Castle sounded like a reprieve. He could only hope that, by the time he returned to his station, the duke would have carried that ill-bred little hoyden off into the night.

Chapter 19

The Carlton Hotel was located at the junction of Haymarket and Pall Mall, in a terribly proper quarter of London known as St. James. There was an assortment of palaces nearby, as well as the National Gallery, and the Cafe Royal and Verry's Restaurant in Regent Street. It wasn't at all the sort of place one would expect outrageous behavior to go unnoticed, especially if one were a duke.

Geoff had long since thrown caution to the wind. When he demanded to know whether Shelby would walk or be tossed over his shoulder, she agreed to cooperate.

"I feel like a hostage in a bank robbery. You might as well be holding a gun to my back," she muttered under her breath as they exited the hotel. "I can only pray that Mr. Ritz will do as I bade and use the telephone to summon the police to rescue me!"

Geoff threw her a sardonic glance. "You are confused.
I
am rescuing you at this moment, scamp. I know you too well to believe that you actually wanted to suffer through that ten-course meal with Castle!" His voice was laced with laughter.

"This is hardly a rescue! It is an...
abduction!"

A richly dressed white-haired couple were stepping out of their automobile at that moment and paused to stare at Geoff. "Your Grace?" inquired the gentleman. "Is everything all right?"

"Quite, Sir Harry. A misunderstanding, you know." He winked over the top of Shelby's head.

"Do convey our regards to your dear mother," the woman chirped as she and her husband tottered toward the Carlton.

"Certainly, Lady Maude."

When they were gone, Geoff glanced down to find Shelby glaring at him so fiercely that he had to laugh. "Why not relax and enjoy yourself? I am."