Suzanne Robinson (7 page)

The walk down the curved stairs, past the Italian fountain with its unicorn centerpiece, gave her time to master her fury. Contrariness had always been one of Threshfield’s most annoying traits. Once he fastened on an idea, he rarely abandoned it. Knowing that there was nothing Ross could do to hinder his marital plans, he’d invited the man just to upset Evelyn and Prudence. It was now up to her to make Mr. Ross so uncomfortable that he would abandon his charge and quit Threshfield. Doing so would afford her great satisfaction.

Georgiana hesitated as she neared the canopy, for Evelyn and Prudence were already seated. Enduring them would test her already burdened patience. She could see Prudence’s rings flash in the late-afternoon sunlight. The lady was short, like the queen, with a body that tended to run to fat. Her features all repeated the roundness of her body—circular eyes, bulbous
nose, and a mouth that pinched into a tight, round little button.

Glancing over her shoulder, Georgiana saw the infamous Mr. Ross walking beside the earl’s wheelchair as Threshfield’s attendant pushed him across the lawn. Four hefty footmen trailed behind. They always lingered within calling distance, ready to pick up the chair and transport their master up or down stairs.

“Do hurry up, Georgiana,” Prudence called to her in her customary sniping tone. “I’ve poured your tea, and it’s getting cold.”

Georgiana seated herself as far away from Evelyn as she could. This put her next to the disgruntled Prudence. Perhaps her moodiness was due to the fact that she surely knew that her marriage to the heir to an ancient earldom had depended upon her immense marriage settlement.

In spite of the lack of sympathy between them, Georgiana felt compassion for this dumpy little person married to the handsome Evelyn. She was sure Prudence sought consolation by drenching herself in jewelry, especially rings, and dressing herself in the height of fashion in the most luxurious of materials. Today she wore a gown of an unfortunate mustard color that sallowed her complexion and failed to complement her oak-brown hair.

The earl and Mr. Ross arrived, and there was a great fuss to get Threshfield settled comfortably next to Georgiana. She was grateful for the distraction, because Ross had regained his smirk, possibly because Evelyn and Prudence had heard of his arrival and looked as if they’d swallowed soap.

Mr. Ross sat on a wrought-iron chair between the earl and Evelyn. Evelyn, a younger, more energetic
replica of the earl, perched stiffly, sipping his tea and saying as little as possible to the new guest. Prudence wasn’t so reticent.

“Mr. Ross, I don’t believe I know your people. Are they from Scotland?”

Georgiana darted a quick glance from Prudence to Ross. The question was deliberate. Prudence already knew Mr. Ross’s background.

Ross took a cup and saucer from Lady Prudence, stirred his tea calmly, then looked directly into his hostess’s bean-colored eyes. “As Threshfield must have told you, Lady Prudence, I have no people. I was born in St. Giles in one room of a filthy tenement. Having made my fortune, I am engaged in improving myself and seeing the world.”

In disbelief Georgiana watched Ross subject Prudence to a coy, wide-eyed regard that reduced the woman to a simpering, giggling fluster. One moment Prudence was the picture of an outraged hostess, the next she was cow-eyed and red in the face.

The earl sucked tea noisily and said, “Young Nick here used to be a thief.” He cackled at the squawk this produced from Prudence. “What’s that word you used for ‘thief,’ Nick?”

“Prig, sir. And as a youth I practiced the kinchin lay, which is robbing children sent on errands to various merchants. I had a snug little business.”

Evelyn choked. His cup and saucer rattled, and Nick caught them before they fell. He slapped Evelyn on the back while the earl chortled. Georgiana hadn’t moved, for she was beginning to feel a twinge of conscience. Whatever his transgressions, Mr. Ross must have had a terrible childhood. She had never had to steal from children to survive. She vowed that in
her quarrel with him she wouldn’t throw that in his face.

In her forbidden forays into newspaper reading, she’d discovered the squalor in which so many lived in neighborhoods near her own luxurious home. After that she no longer ignored the women in the Strand who sold violets, the children who offered to carry her packages. Father had been livid when he’d discovered her giving away her small allowance for things like wilted bouquets. However, Mr. Ross was a grown man. There was no excuse for his continued indelicacy. Indelicacy. Did she indeed use too many
I
-words? She hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation.

“Really, Uncle,” Evelyn was sputtering. “To entertain someone in trade is one thing, but to countenance the presence of a criminal. And one who behaves in such—such a debasing manner to your betrothed.”

The earl’s watery blue eyes sparkled, and he leered at Evelyn. “Can’t say I’ve noticed your worrying about Georgiana lately. I’d think you’d be glad to have a handsome young man around who might catch her eye and cut me out.”

“What!” Georgiana exclaimed, nearly spilling tea down the front of her gown. Prudence froze with her teacup halfway to her lips. Nick threw back his head and laughed while Evelyn made fists and bit the inside of his cheek.

“Really, Uncle, you’re most improper,” Prudence said as she set down her cup and fussed with the teapot while ogling Mr. Ross.

Georgiana closed her opened mouth. She happened to look at Evelyn, who was staring at her with a
peculiar expression. He hadn’t even noticed his wife’s ambivalent reaction to Nick Ross. She gave him her most stately and chilling regard. The look seemed only to intrigue Evelyn. His gaze seemed to grow unfocused for a moment, and his lips curled into a most disgusting, slack-lipped smile. She was certain he was remembering their encounter in the drawing room. His hands had wandered to the top of her corset before she could plant her fist in his stomach.

Turning her head sharply, she encountered the quizzical scrutiny of Mr. Nicholas Ross. No doubt he thought the worst if he’d been watching that exchange with Evelyn. Jutting out her chin, Georgiana took a finger sandwich from a porcelain server, bit into it, and chewed furiously. Her mood lightened when Mr. Ross uttered a wordless exclamation, dropped his spoon and stared as Ludwig trotted up to the group, out of breath and perspiring.

“I’m late, I know,” said Ludwig. “Oh, my heart, yes, terribly late, but I began to translate the inscription on the new sarcophagus, and I forgot everything else.”

Georgiana smiled at her friend, for he had indeed forgotten everything. At some time during his work in the Egyptian Wing he’d donned a uraeus, a gold diadem with a cobra mounted on the front. The diadem encircled his balding head, with the serpent jutting out of his forehead. He was carrying an alabaster statue of Toth, the baboon god of wisdom. The stone image was lifelike down to the depiction of the creature’s private anatomy. Ross inspected the object in horrified fascination while the earl introduced him to Ludwig.

Ludwig sat down, placing the statue on the
ground beside his chair. “Do you know anything about ancient Egypt, Mr. Ross?”

Nick watched the cobra on Ludwig’s forehead and shook his head wordlessly.

“I would be glad to show you the collection and tell you something about it. Always glad to share the amazing things I’m learning. And Georgiana knows a great deal as well, oh, my heart, yes.”

“I’m sure Mr. Ross isn’t interested,” Georgiana said swiftly.

Ross gave her that infuriating smirk. “But I am interested, Lady Georgiana. Jocelin was most anxious to learn what you’re up to—your occupations, that is. May I call upon you in the Egyptian Wing, Mr. Hyde?”

“A pleasure, sir,” Ludwig said with a dignity spoiled by his headdress.

“Ludwig,” Georgiana said through her teeth, “we will bore Mr. Ross.”

Nick leaned over and patted the baboon statue on its head. “Not at all. I find such studies uncommon jolly.” Turning a brilliant smile on Ludwig, he said, “I shall be the gainer in this exchange, if you will allow me the privilege of learning from you.”

“There,” Ludwig replied with a triumphant look at Georgiana. “You see? Mr. Ross is delighted to share our little interests.”

Mr. Nicholas Ross was gloating. If she looked at him, he would smirk at her in that infuriating way that made her want to shriek at him like a harpy. For the third time that day Georgiana found herself outmaneuvered, routed. Setting down her cup and saucer, she rose, causing the gentlemen to leave their seats.

“You will please excuse me,” she said quietly.
“Aunt Lavinia has missed tea, and I want to inquire if she is feeling well.”

“Oh, Georgiana, if you’re going to the house, would you take this inside?”

Ludwig picked up the baboon statue and shoved it into her hands before she could protest. Georgiana found herself clutching the animal so that its anatomically realistic organs faced outward. Evelyn gave her a leer. She stumbled over a chair leg in her hasty retreat from him and backed into someone. Swinging around, she came face-to-face with Mr. Ross. Steadying her with a hand to her elbow, he said nothing but glanced from the statue’s attributes to her face. She yanked her elbow free and marched past him, hissing under her breath so that only he could hear.

“Leave Threshfield, Mr. Ross. Poison my sight no longer.”

He whispered as well, using that disreputable drawl he knew annoyed her. “Dang, George. Looks like I better stay put and see what other scandalous things you and Ludwig got in that old Egyptian Wing. Yep, looks like it was a good thing I showed up.”

He was a guest in bedlam. Nick struck a match and lighted a thin cigar as the butler passed around port to the gentlemen. The ladies—Prudence, Georgiana, Aunt Lavinia, and the fey Lady Augusta—had retired to the drawing room. Dinner had been amazing in that no one had found it odd that Lady Augusta objected to several dishes on account of Georgiana’s having poisoned them. Georgiana had protested her innocence, but not vehemently. No doubt she knew the futility.

And there was mischief afoot. Not from poor Lady Augusta or from the vitriolic earl, but from Evelyn Hyde. When he’d thought himself unobserved, the bastard had given Lady Georgiana looks of brazen familiarity. Nick knew that look. He’d used it himself when he’d thought it would work, and it had worked with certain ladies with too much time between calls and the dinner gong.

But Evelyn had the subtlety of a warthog. There was an undercurrent of tension between him and
Georgiana that crackled like the noise of a telegraph wire. Nick took a sparing sip of port from a heavy crystal snifter and listened to Evelyn argue with his son about Ludwig’s immersion in his Egyptian studies.

“As a Hyde you have a duty to uphold the traditions of an ancient lineage. It’s shooting season. You should have invited lots of friends. Next month pheasant season will begin, and I suppose you won’t even be able to find your guns.”

Ludwig slouched in his chair and mumbled, “I don’t like shooting. Why should I get up before dawn and slog through the mist until I’m wet and chilled near to freezing just to slaughter hundreds of harmless birds?”

Nick eyed Evelyn with a blank expression that concealed a dislike that had sprung full-blown within him the moment he’d seen the fellow. He could stomach most aristocrats, but Hyde—with his air of entitlement, his assumption that he was superior due to an accident of birth—made Nick want to puke. And if he continued to leer secretly at Georgiana, Hyde was going to find himself strung from the earl’s magnificent Corinthian portico.

The earl wheeled his way over to Nick’s chair. “How do you find my family, Ross?”

“Individual, sir.”

“They’re a pack of useless leeches. Georgiana is worth a hundred of each of them. Don’t blame her brother for wanting to watch over her. But you’re daft if you think you’re going to push her into changing her mind.”

“You’ll pardon me, sir, if I say the match is inappropriate. Lady Georgiana should marry more suitably.”

“Georgiana and I have remarkably similar opinions about marriage, Ross, and you don’t know her. She may look all lace and trimmings, but she’s got a steel spine, like her aunt.” Finishing his port in one gulp, the earl handed Nick his glass. “I’m going to retire. Late hours disagree with me. Evelyn and Ludwig will show you the way to the drawing room. Good night, Ross. I’ll show you my paintings tomorrow.”

Nick rose as the attendant turned the earl’s chair and began pushing it out of the dining room. “Thank you, sir. Good evening.”

With frigid civility Evelyn led the way to the drawing room. Nick was disappointed to find that Georgiana had retired, pleading fatigue. He paid for having toyed with Prudence at tea, for the lady descended upon him, fluttering her pudgy, beringed hands and asking him dozens of questions about his friendship with Jocelin, whom she took pleasure in referring to as “the marquess.” He shouldn’t have provoked her, but it had been too tempting to entice the lady and thus scandalize Georgiana. Unfortunately, Prudence was the type of woman to gush over him one moment, then eschew his low company the next. Lady Lavinia rescued him, but he soon grew uneasy when she subjected him to her own barrage of incisive questions.