Кейси Майклс – A Scandalous Proposal (страница 14)

She’d just put her hand on the railing when a footman called up, “Mr. Timmerly, sir, the hero baron has pulled to the curb. Miss shouldn’t keep such a fine pair of bays standing.”

“Miss Foster,” the curmudgeonly old family retainer intoned gravely, “if you’ll excuse my boldness, the foyer lies the other way.”

“You enjoy this, don’t you?” she accused as she headed for the curving staircase leading down to the foyer.

“You might wish to be more gentle with the countess, miss, now that she’s in a delicate condition.”

Dany halted with one foot already hovering over the first step, her right hand thankfully clutching the iron railing or she would have pitched face forward to the marble floor below. “My sister is not— Dear God, perhaps she is. It would be just like Mari not to know.” She looked at Timmerly. “What do you know?”

“It isn’t proper to discuss such things with young ladies.”

Dany’s mostly unpleasant day was growing worse by the moment. “It isn’t proper for young ladies to plant butlers a facer, either, but if you were to apply to any of my family they would inform you I’ve never put much stock in proper.”

The butler cleared his throat, clearly fighting a blush. “It is sufficient to say that Mrs. Timmerly is certain we’ll be welcoming the Cockermouth heir before the king’s birthday.”

Dany counted along her top teeth with her tongue until she got to nine (she might be young, but she wasn’t entirely stupid). “Oh, that isn’t good. That isn’t good at all.”

Timmerly straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest. “I beg your pardon!”

“Oh. Sorry. It’s the greatest of good news, isn’t it? The earl will be over the moon when he returns.” Unless he believes his wife had taken a lover. “I’ll be going now, not that you care a button what I do. Mustn’t keep the horses standing.”

The footman was just opening the door for the baron when Dany went flouncing past him. “You’re late,” she told him before he could say the same to her, which the briefest glance at his expression warned her he was about to do. “We’ve a new problem to discuss.”

“O happy day,” Cooper said, following after her, and then standing back to allow his tiger—really, the livery wasn’t so bad—to assist her up onto the seat of an admittedly fine yet sober curricle. No yellow wheels for the baron Townsend, clearly. And the bays were near to extraordinary.

“You’ve a lovely pair,” she admitted once he’d gone around the equipage and boosted himself onto the seat.

His look was nearly comical. “I beg your pardon?”

“The bays are lovely, perfectly matched,” she expounded further, wondering if the baron had possibly drunk away his afternoon. It wouldn’t do well for either of them if she had to explain everything twice. “You haven’t been drinking, have you?”

“If I have, clearly not enough. Shall we be off?”

“I suppose so. The sooner we’re off, the sooner we’re back, which should please you enormously.”

“How well you know me, on such a short acquaintance,” Coop said as he set the curricle in motion, his tiger still standing on the flagway.

“I think you forgot someone,” Dany said, watching as the boy, no more than twelve, headed for the alleyway beside the mansion.

“Harry will go to the servants’ entrance and someone will feed him a cake or something. It’s all arranged. We’ve no need of a prepubescent chaperone, Miss Foster. We’ll be far from alone in the park.”

“Yes, I’d wondered about that. We’d look rather silly having to speak across my maid, plopped between us, her hands clapped to her ears. I really must read that book.”

“Whatever book it is, yes, please do tend to the task posthaste. I know you’re fresh from the country, but hasn’t your sister explained anything to you?”

“She’s been rather fully employed weeping into her pillow,” Dany said, at the moment not caring what the baron thought of her, or her sister. It was enough that he was here, apparently still willing to play the hero for them. Why, she’d nearly forgotten all about his green eyes. Nearly. “Which brings us to our new problem. The butler’s wife believes the countess may be increasing.”

He made an expert but not showy turn into Hyde Park, having executed the tricky maneuver of inserting the curricle into the line of various equipages without muss, fuss or banging wheels with anyone. The man was not flamboyant, not in his speech, his dress, his deportment. He was the unlikeliest hero she’d ever imagined in her daydreams. He was simply a man who stood up when necessary, and did heroic things. Perhaps it was not only his eyes...and blond locks, and strong chin line, and...and all the rest that drew her to him. She’d like to think so, or else that would make her no more than one of the giggling, sighing throng of females who probably chased him everywhere. How he must hate that!

“Really. Increasing what— Oh. Miss Foster, I don’t think this is anything you and I should be addressing. I’ll correct myself. I know it isn’t anything we should discuss. But since I have no doubt you’ll address it, anyway, is there a problem of...timing?”

“Oh, good. I was wondering how I might gracefully get around that part. Yes, I think so. Probably only Mrs. Timmerly knows for sure, since I believe Mari only just figured everything out today. So you see, my lord, it is now doubly important we seek out this blackmailer and recover her letters. Oliver must never know, can never so much as think he may have been, um...”

“Usurped? I can think of other words, although I’d rather not.”

She refused to blush. “I suppose that’s as clear as we need make that, thank you. I felt you should know, since we are working together.”

“We are? I don’t believe I’ve agreed to a partnership of any kind.”

Apparently men could be maddeningly thick. “Do you really have a choice?”

“I don’t? Please, enlighten me.”

“Yes, I should. In the interests of fairness, I feel it only fair to add that I don’t like you. I may admire you, and even find you somewhat attractive, but I don’t like you. You clearly resent that I’ve come to you for assistance, and you enjoy making me feel uncomfortable.”

“Tit for tat, Miss Foster. I haven’t had a comfortable moment since you threw yourself at me in Bond Street.”

“I did not—oh, now you’re smiling. I probably should look at you more often.”

“And be in my company far less,” he shot back. “What are you looking at, anyway? Clearly you aren’t paying attention to our fellow travelers on this road to nowhere, or you would have commented on something by now. There are many finely feathered birds taking the air today.”

“There are? Oh, goodness—is that man on the large gray actually sporting a parrot on his shoulder? How bizarre.”

“You have no idea, Miss Foster. One day I might tell you a rather amusing tale about the tethered and caged birds still being seen around Mayfair by those not clever enough to have realized the joke. Our feathered friends are no longer in fashion.”

“Yes, you do that.” Dany really didn’t much care either way about fashionable or unfashionable birds. “But no, I suppose I’m not really paying attention, am I? I suppose I thought the experience would have more to it than following everyone as they follow everyone else. What is the point, do you know?”

“The point, my fine country miss, is to see. And to be seen. You, for instance, are being seen in the company of the hero of Quatre Bras and a dozen wholly fictitious escapades of derring-do here in London. Even now, people are whispering to their companions. Who is she? Did he rescue her? Is she an heiress? Should we stop and ask, or would the hero take offense at our blatant curiosity? What to do, what to do.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Most things are, Miss Foster. But remember, this was your idea.”

Dany thought about that for a few moments. “You’re right. It was my idea. I thought it would be interesting. I thought I would get to show off my new bonnet, which I couldn’t do because I cut my hair and now even this shako had to be stuffed with paper so it didn’t fall down over my ears. I used to have tons of it, you know.”

“Paper? Or hair?”

“Hair, of course. I grew it for years, on my mother’s orders. Do you have any idea how much trouble hair can be?”

“Not exactly, no. Is it as much trouble as having to stuff your bonnets with paper?”

Dany looked at him and grinned. “The bonnets are temporary. The hair was permanent. Or at least it was. By and large, I think what’s left is rather fetching. Certainly different.”

“Ah, yes, different. I believe that relieves me from having to ask why in blue blazes you hacked it all off. The color wasn’t enough?”

“You don’t care for the color?”

“Over the centuries, man has learned there is no safe answer to that sort of question, so I’ll pretend you didn’t ask it. Look here, Miss Foster, this is getting us nowhere, and we’ve much to discuss. For my sins.”

His voice had rather trailed off on his last few words, but Dany heard them. “And what sins did you commit? I know I didn’t commit any. Well, at least not connected to the pot my sister is boiling in at the moment. I’m not declaring myself free of failings.”