The Bolingbroke Chit: A Regency Romance Read online

  Miss Hedgley, a one-time flirt of the Duke of Trent currently enjoying her second season, stared in silent terror at the intimidating matron whom she had once aspired to call her mother-in-law.

  “Reviving and unfussy, your grace,” the girl’s mama said, rushing forward with an awkward chuckle. “My daughter merely observed that Miss Harlow is reviving and unfussy. Naturally, she meant it as a compliment and was only trying to understand why such a lovely girl would be the target of such a vicious attack.”

  At once, the dowager’s face relaxed into a smile. “Yes, of course, that makes so much more sense. I don’t know what I was thinking to imagine otherwise. Do accept my apology.”

  Letting out another uncomfortable giggle, Mrs. Hedgley assured the duchess there was nothing to forgive. Then she quickly ushered her daughter away before the indiscreet young lady could get herself into further trouble. The dowager watched them scamper off with a satisfied smile before looking to her left and asking, “What was that, Mr. Orton?”

  Mr. Orton, a middle-aged gentleman with irregular front teeth and a slight lisp, immediately walked in the opposite direction. Undaunted, the dowager followed.

  Amused by the display, the viscount turned to Lady Agatha and observed, “Even with his twenty-year advantage, Mr. Orton is rapidly losing ground. I fear his only recourse now is to run, which is, as you know, hardly appropriate behavior for a ballroom. Even so, the floor is far too crowded for him to pick up any speed. Oh, no, wait, he’s changed course and is headed for the cardroom.” Addleson shook his head and tsked softly. “A tactical error, for now he’s trapped in an even more confined space with all those tables and only the one egress.”

  Despite the hilarity of the situation, Lady Agatha’s grim mood continued unabated. The dowager’s antics did nothing to lighten it, and she watched the scene silently, her dark eyes heavy with misery. Disturbed by her expression, by the bone-deep sadness of her unhappiness, Addleson longed to ask her again what was troubling her. The exercise was pointless, of course, for there was no reason why she should trust him with her confidences. He was but an annoyance to her, a gadfly who buzzed so stridently around her head that she had showered him with water to cease his chatter. He had never been so surprised nor his topcoat so wet.

  But what an event that had been—a thorough dousing at the hands of an unrepentant miss!

  The viscount was not one to stand on his dignity, and the thought of making a stinging reply had never crossed his mind. Quite the opposite, in fact, for he genuinely admired her ingenuity, fearlessness and self-possession. How calmly she had stood there in the Duke of Trent’s conservatory watering him like a lily in a garden as if it were an everyday occurrence. And then to coolly deliver a clever rejoinder in an exemplary imitation of his own cynical drawl.

  All in all, it was the most impressive performance he’d ever seen, made more satisfying by the delighted gleam in the young lady’s eyes. One did not expect sparkling wit from the deflating Lady Agony, let alone cheeky humor. His purpose in escorting her home in his carriage had been just as he’d stated: for the pleasure of her company. There was more to her than anyone suspected, and he was determined to learn it all. It wasn’t only the mystery she presented, which, he admitted now, was considerably more complicated than he’d originally supposed, but Lady Agatha herself. He wanted to understand the woman, not the riddle.

  The realization that his interest in her was personal, not academic, was a surprise, to be sure, but the true revelation was how close he was to pleading with her to tell him what had caused her distress. His need to know was so sharp, he might stoop to begging at any moment, and that would never do. Viscount Addleson might not stand upon his dignity, but he didn’t slouch beneath it either.

  Taking refuge in the familiar, he said, “Upon my word, the esteemed personage to whom the dowager should really devote her attention is Lord Curtlesby, for he is wearing golden buttons on a yellow waistcoat. Without question, the gold button is a difficult adornment to pull off with elegance and few can manage it with any finesse, but such a combination flies in the face of all that is decent. Appearing before Prinny in his shirtsleeves would be less offensive. Or pairing orange and red,” he said. Then he shuddered and announced that he had misspoken. ’Twould be better to present yourself at court without a stitch of clothing than to match orange with red.

  He kept his eyes trained on the lively company as he spoke, but sly glances in Lady Agatha’s direction revealed an unexpected expression: appreciation. Instead of her usual disgust or disdain or even annoyance, she looked grateful for his chatter. The ferocity of her anxiety did not lessen, but it no longer ruled her thoughts, allowing her to make pertinent observations on a topic for which she had little patience. When he paused in his cataloging of Lord Curtlesby’s many sartorial sins, she jumped in with a critique of Lady Haverford’s elaborate ostrich-plumed headpiece.

  “Somewhere, there is a very chilly ostrich,” she said.

  Addleson agreed with her assessment and wondered why ostriches didn’t form a union to lobby Parliament for better treatment at the hands of society matrons. The turban itself was entirely à la mode and extremely elegant, but he would sooner bite off his tongue than offer a hint of criticism to Agatha. He didn’t want to say anything to upset the moment.

  When they finished abusing Lady Haverford, for her large emerald-green fan made her dainty hands look distressingly small, the viscount pointed out the droop in Mr. Herring’s Oriental, which was the result of not enough starch in the cravat. It was, he explained in resigned tones, a common mistake made by many valets, though not by the faultless Girard.

  As if taking his cue, Lady Agatha said, “I am in awe of your Oriental, Mr. Girard, for it is the most finely starched example I have ever seen.”

  Addleson laughed at this sally but didn’t otherwise call attention to it. Instead, he noted that the Earl of Thynn’s breeches lagged behind the current style by several years. Silently, however, he thought her remark was sublimity itself, and although the fathomless black eyes did not reveal a hint of sparkle, he thought he detected a lightening of her mood.

  Lady Agatha seconded his observation about Thynn’s breeches by calling them Jacobean, and Addleson agreed the article of clothing bore a striking resemblance to trunk hose and knee garters. He then commented on the Elizabethan quality of Lady Fellingham’s neck ruff, an entirely unfair characterization of the delicate lace that lined her collar. Verisimilitude, though, was not the point of the exchange but rather to make the more outrageous comment. For as long as he could—and sadly, it was only thirty minutes more before Mrs. Mobley claimed him for a quadrille—he stood against the wall swapping absurdities with Lady Agatha.

  It was a game, to be sure, but more than that, the viscount thought, it was a conversation.

  Chapter Seven

  Although the Harlow Hoyden had been skewered by Mr. Holyroodhouse on no less than seven occasions—the last one showing her waltzing with Trent on the back of her mother-in-law—she had never considered hunting him down and cutting out his heart with a knife until he depicted Vinnie tightening her fiancé’s corset to a fatal degree. The usual forbearance one was obliged to show cartoon-drawing villains was not required when they painted one’s sister as a murderer.

  There was no person less of a murderer in the entire kingdom than Miss Lavinia Harlow. She had shot a man, yes, and took his life, but she had done so only out of defense of herself. What was the more palatable alternative? Let him kill her with a fish knife and her sister, too, and perhaps the entire household because shooting a man point blank was considered ill bred by the ton? It was patently absurd to believe anyone would blame Vinnie for her actions.

  And yet society was frequently absurd.

  Emma knew the truth must remain secret for Vinnie’s sake, for her twin already felt herself guilty—wrongly!—of murder. Vinnie understood the necessity of Windbourne’s death and did not regret it, but nor would she let Emma cast the event in
an entirely heroic light. Having never sent another human being to his grave, the Harlow Hoyden was impatient with what she considered to be her sister’s martyrish behavior, and she had been greatly relieved when, instead of extending her suffering, Vinnie had told Huntly the truth and agreed to marry him.

  Now, thanks to Mr. Holyroodhouse’s efforts, Vinnie had called off the wedding, which was supposed to take place two days hence. Mistaking fear for honor, she refused to expose him to the ridicule and humiliation of having a widely suspected murderess as a wife.

  Huntly and Emma had spent hours and hours trying to reason her out of her ridiculous position. Everyone had: Trent, the dowager, their brother Roger, his wife Sarah. Even the duke’s sister, Louisa, whose response to any caricature remotely connected with her family was to board up the town house and repair to the country, insisted Vinnie was overreacting. Like the dowager, she had no idea the charge was actually correct and shrugged it off as overreaching nonsense.

  “The drawing’s mendaciousness is its undoing,” she said. “If Holyroodhouse had been so clever as to include one or two elements of fact, I could understand how the representation as a murderess would discomfort you. But this illustration is so unmoored from reality, it is naught but an overdone joke that exceeds its ambitions. If you want the gossip to stop, simply go through with your hastily conceived marriage and the ton will rightfully return to being horrified by how quickly you threw off your mourning.”

  Emma, seconding the argument, found herself in the unusual position of praising her sister-in-law’s good sense. What an upside-down world it was when the perpetually hysterical Louisa was held up as a totem of reason.

  But Vinnie would not accept reason or logic or even a clearly articulated gut feeling. No, she was far too determined to save Huntly from herself.

  It was infuriating, and Emma would be arguing with Vinnie still if Trent had not pulled her out of her sister’s bedroom at a little after three in the morning to let the poor girl get some sleep. By the time the duchess had come downstairs at ten to resume her arguing, Vinnie had already left the house.

  That was three hours ago and all she had done since then was pace from one end of her study to the other, back and forth like a horse trapped in a corral.

  Suddenly, the door flew open and in stomped Philip Keswick, the duke’s scapegrace cousin whose bearing was as resolute as his words. “Let’s go!”

  Emma did not have plans for the afternoon, let alone an engagement with the young cawker, but she immediately spun on her heels and strode toward the door. Yes, they had to go. Pacing accomplished nothing. Indeed, less than nothing, for she would wear a hole in her floor while the wicked Mr. Holyroodhouse remained unmolested.

  Not while she still drew breath and had access to a knife.

  No, not a knife, for that would be too good for him. The incision would be clean and exact, almost painless in its surgical precision. She needed a tool that would be difficult to maneuver through skin such as a fork or, even better, a spoon. Yes, she would hunt down Mr. Holyroodhouse and spoon out his heart with a soup ladle. Then she would bury his body in a shallow plot and dance on his grave.

  In the hallway, Emma turned right as Philip went to the left. “Hey, where are you going?” he asked, trotting to keep up with her.

  “To the kitchens,” she said briskly, “to get a spoon.”

  Assuming she would also retrieve food to go with her cutlery, he shook his head in disgust. “We don’t have time.”

  Unaccustomed to heeding the wisdom of Philip, whose ramshackle ways recently led him to knock over a lady with his hobbyhorse in Hyde Park, Emma conceded the truth of his statement and decided she could get the utensil elsewhere. Given the unreliable cleanliness of the establishment she intended to visit, any spoon found there would most likely be filthy, which was even better for gutting alive repellent caricaturists.

  Abruptly, Emma spun around and resumed her march to the front door. She nabbed her reticule and pelisse from the newel post where she left them despite her mother-in-law’s pleas to show a little decorum—her ways could be ramshackle, too—and strode outside to Philip’s curricle.

  The young man, who had managed to acquire a little town bronze during his year in the capital, considered himself a tolerable whipster, but he knew better than to try to take the reins in the presence of his cousin’s wife. Previously, when they had dashed out of the capital together in pursuit of the treasonous Sir Waldo, she had insisted on holding the ribbons, claiming superior skill. Naturally, he’d found the idea of being driven around the countryside by a woman humiliating, but her boast turned out to be true: Where he showed keen proficiency, she demonstrated expert skill and talent.

  As the carriage pulled into the street, Philip announced, “Your assistance was very much missed at the ball last night. The dowager was a regular out-and-outer, inserting herself into a dozen conversations at once and never losing her temper, not even when Miss Phelps-Bute said she had always known there was something dangerous about a woman who knew how to wield a drainpipe.”

  Emma, whose hoydenish escapades had long kept her on the fringes of polite society, tried to call up the image of Miss Phelps-Bute. Was she the red-haired girl with brown freckles on her nose or the brown-headed girl with red spots on her nose?

  It didn’t matter. Had Emma been present to hear the slight against her sister, Miss Phelps-Bute’s appendage—either freckled or spotty—would have been bloodied. Her pugilistic impulse was precisely why she hadn’t attended the affair. Although at first she had resisted Trent’s argument on the grounds that she was perfectly capable of controlling her baser instincts, she had ultimately conceded his point: If she had gone, she would have turned the ball into a brawl.

  “The dowager said you were not entirely useless either,” Emma observed.

  A blush crept up his cheeks as he accepted the high praise. “Really? I, uh, rather thought I’d annoyed her when I stomped on Sir Reginald’s toe for describing Vinnie’s charm as lethal or when I spilled a whole glass of ratafia on Lady Douglass’s dress for suggesting Huntly needed to hire larger footmen to protect him.”

  Emma applauded his innovative approach to gossip squashing. “The dowager did not mention any of that, but I’m wildly impressed. I don’t think I could have done better myself.”

  Now the flush deepened and swept to the tips of his ears. “Just did what I could,” he mumbled, delighted by the light of admiration he saw in her eye. “It’s not right, everyone talking about Vinnie as if she did something wrong. How is the old girl today? Still refusing to marry Huntly?”

  Emma slowed the horses as they approached a corner. “I don’t know how she is because she snuck out of the town house before I even came down. According to Caruthers, she went to pay a morning call on Lady Agatha Bolingbroke.”

  Philip would not have been more surprised if Emma said Vinnie had paid a morning call on the prince regent himself. “Lady Agatha? What does Vinnie have to do with that sad sack?”

  “You remember our dossiers, of course, and the various agreements we made with members of the horticultural society to ensure their votes?” she asked. “Our agreement with Lord Bolingbroke was that we would try to bring his daughter into fashion.”

  “But Vinnie abandoned that route in favor of a more honest approach,” he said.

  The duchess nodded. “She did, but Lady Bolingbroke refused to acknowledge our revised agreement with her husband and insisted we honor our obligation. That is why Lady Agatha and her mother joined us at the theater last week.”

  “I thought that was queer, your going to the theater with the Bolingbroke chit,” Philip said.

  “It was queer,” Emma said. “She made very few comments and spent almost the entire evening glowering at me. I don’t think she likes me.”

  Philip shrugged. “Lady Agatha doesn’t like anyone.”

  “No, and yet she paid us a social call two days ago,” she explained, remembering her surprise when she discovered
with whom Vinnie was bracketed in the drawing room. “Out of nowhere, she appeared on our doorstep to visit with Vinnie. Is that not strange? And then she ended the visit by turning Vinnie’s hose on Lord Addleson and soaking him thoroughly.”

  His eyes widened with disbelief. “She didn’t!”

  Emma giggled. “She did. Right there in the conservatory. Naturally we all broke out into peals of laughter, for it was remarkable that Addleson would get the same treatment as Huntly, though, obviously, this time the drenching was intentional and not the result of a malfunctioning prototype. After spraying the viscount, Lady Agatha made a very clever remark about his cravat—I don’t recall it exactly but something about the effects of the falling water on his waterfall—and in that moment I found her entirely likable. But then our laughter made her realize the glaring impropriety of her actions and she immediately left. The whole episode was vastly amusing from beginning to end, and I would have congratulated her on her audacity if she hadn’t run off.”

  “What does the gel have against Addleson?”

  “I have no idea. But perhaps Vinnie will find out today. Presumably, she went over there to apologize for our behavior and to avoid further conversation with me or Trent or Huntly. She is determined to martyr herself and won’t listen to anyone. If only events had unfolded differently,” Emma said, recalling the terrifying moment when she had woken in her bed to find Windbourne’s hands around her throat. In the ensuing struggle, she’d managed to grab a heavy candlestick, but before she could disable him with it, he’d pressed a knife, cold and sharp, against her neck. The terror she had felt was as sharp as the knife, but before Windbourne could do her lasting harm, Vinnie was there, a gun at his back. With chilling calmness, she’d ordered him to release her sister, and promptly he’d complied. But it was a trick, for no sooner had he lowered the knife than he spun around, pushing the knife toward Vinnie’s stomach, and Vinnie, her blood hot while her head stayed cool, pulled the trigger and the nightmare was over.