He stepped close and bent over her hand, pitching his voice low. “I shall make good on my promise and help you decide what to wear.”
They both looked down at her plain, worn riding habit. He was beginning to find that frown adorable, the one that indicated irritation with him.
“I can do that myself, thank you,” she said.
He gave her a smile he had not yet given any woman, one meant to remind her he was a notorious rake and she ought to be on guard for her virtue. “But wouldn’t you like someone todressyou?”
She snatched her hand away. “Good day, Lord Darien.”
He watched as she ascended the steps with a furious swish of skirts. She was supposed to shiver and melt at the blatant innuendo that he was thinking not about dressing, but rather undressing her. Instead she was miffed that he had insulted her frock.
Darien told himself to focus on his goal. He ought not divert himself with provoking Henrietta Wardley-Hines. It would take far more than flirtatious hints and seductive charm to win her over. Providing assistance was a start, but Henrietta had a knack, it seemed, for roping people into her causes. He had to find a way to make her need him. Trust him.
He looked forward to the challenge.
CHAPTER NINE
It was well he had moved at once to approach Sir Pelton. Visiting his club the next day for a midday cold collation and a drink, Darien learned the marquess had been seen consulting with the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Ancaster, and the Marquess of Buckingham. His father, too, was setting the board. And his allies were far more powerful than Darien’s.
“Took my advice, I see.” Perry, chuckling, brought the broadsides to his study that afternoon as Darien worked on a design. “A tradesman’s daughter! That’ll send his lordship round the bend. Told you a Long Meg was the way to go.”
The cold cuts turned in his stomach as Darien saw that London’s prolific and remorseless satirists had gotten Henrietta in their sights. One cartoon lampooned her presentation, showing her in an awkward curtsy with an idiotic smile on her face as she extended a paper entitled “Petition” while burying the Queen’s face in an enormous ostrich feather.
Beside them, another man, a knight’s badge prominent on his chest, slipped a bag full of coins to a greedy King George. The caption contained some doggerel verse about Sir Grasping presenting his daughter, a Miss Hop-Higher, while the girl inher enormous, dilapidated gown resembled nothing so much as a fatuous stork.
The second was worse. It depicted Daring with wolfish fangs, paws hanging from the sleeves of his evening coat, facing the stork girl among the pillared displays of Ellesmere House. A banner of speech extended from his mouth: “Miss Hop-Higher! Do you suppose your father might buy some good graces for my poor self?”
In answer, a fatuous Miss Hop-Higher, in another odious dress, proclaimed, “Lord Daring! I fear your excesses are beyond even the scope of my infamous talents for reform!”
He’d made her a target, without wishing to. More than the wrath that her family might display over the ridicule, he feared how Henrietta might receive the cruel taunts. She had seemed to take pride in being thought eccentric, but no woman would appreciate being made to look a fool.
Darien’s dark mood had his valet sweating as the poor man dressed him for dinner, and it took five tries before Darien was satisfied with the way his neckcloth was tied.
His ire deepened as he drove into Manchester Square, Rufie beside him, to find a knot of people on the sidewalk before Hines House. Two men in the working man’s fustian leaned against the iron rail that led to the kitchen steps, but as Darien pulled up in his dashing whisky and handed the ribbons to a waiting boy, one of the men straightened and tossed his cheroot onto the pavement.
“Statement for the press!” he called. “What can you tell us about the fire? Do you agree that the topic the Minerva Society proposes is treasonous?”
The second man elbowed his friend in the ribs. “I say, you’re no cit! That’s Lord Daring, you sapskull.” Both took out small notebooks and started scribbling, the first man glancing up as he drew a quick sketch.
Darien resisted the urge to throw the man’s notebook into the street. Manchester Square being new and expensive, street sweepers kept it free of dung and filth, but the gesture would be satisfying.
“Lord Daring nobbing with cits now?” the first man inquired.
“Or Sir Jasper’s handing out loans to the nobles,” the second said around his cheroot. “Buying a title for the reform girl, is he? Did as much for himself.”
It was too bad swords were out of fashion everywhere but at court; Darien wished he had his on hand. “You’d best move along,” he told the men.
The front door burst open, and the two footmen who had accompanied Henrietta to the workhouse hurtled down the steps. They formed a guard around Darien and Rufie while the butler shouted.
“There is no news, you ruffians! There is nothing remotely treasonous in the topic Miss Wardley-Hines has proposed for the upcoming debate of the Minerva Society. You will permit the family’s guests to enter the house!”
“What recourse falls to the dependent when those in power fail to protect those they govern?” one of the reporters asked, chortling. “That don’t reek o’ treason? What’d be your answer in that debate, milord Daring?”
Despite an elbow to the stomach from one of the footmen, the newsman broached the top step to lean into the butler’s face. “What’d beyourreaction, pops?”
“You will please disperse!” the butler shouted and slammed the door.
Shouts followed. “Open up! Send someone out! The press has a right to know!” Small stones pattered against the door, and the butler shook his head.
