Page 73 of Love Wasn’t Built in a Day

Hetty laughed, but her good humour diminished somewhat as she considered Gideon. “He won’t like it.”

“Mr Bramwell?”

Hetty nodded.

Cilly shrugged. “Once you have the money, he’ll forget about that. You’ll be married, and well able to soothe any ruffled feathers or bruised male pride.”

“Cilly, you are a good deal more ruthless than anyone realises,” Hetty told her admiringly. “You even surprise me, and I know you’re not as sweet and mild as everyone thinks you are.”

Cilly smiled, and Hetty wondered if she was imagining the rather dangerous glint in her sister’s eyes but was too caught up in her own plans to consider it with the proper amount of concern.

Chapter 17

The Terms of Happiness

Gideon’s rooms – over the Cheese Shop, Little Valentine, East Sussex, 10th August 1816

Gideon flung the mangled cravat down with a curse, striding to the door. Who the devil was calling upon him here, at this time of day? He wrenched the door open to find Damian standing there. To his surprise, he experienced a rush of relief at seeing him.

“Oh, thank God!” he said, the words so fervent Damian looked suspicious, as if sensing a trap.

“Just Rivington will do. God and I are barely on speaking terms,” he drawled.

“Stop being an arse and get in here,” Gideon said, not in the mood for Damian cynical humour. “I need help.”

The suspicion in Damian’s eyes only increased, and he hesitated with his hand on the doorknob, leaving it open an inch in case he needed to make a quick exit. “What kind of help?”

“Oh, don’t look so appalled. The only sort you are good at, sartorial, obviously. I’m meeting the Dowager Duchess of Langley for tea this afternoon and I need to look… well, that’s the trouble. What do I need to look like?” he demanded, feeling his patience fraying.

“Well, preferably not like you’ve slept in a hedge,” Damian replied bluntly. “I do believe you’d be satisfied wearing a potato sack if there were enough pockets for your pencils. Where is your cravat?”

Gideon indicated the sadly rumpled cloth on the bed, and Damian blanched.

“It appears I have arrived in the nick of time,” he said, regarding Gideon with a pained expression. “Come with me, little brother. I believe you are finally ready to receive the wisdom I have been longing to impart this age.”

“Oh, don’t lark about, Damian, I’ve not got the time. I must be at the hall by four pm.”

Damian turned, glaring at him. “I never lark about where fashion is concerned. Honestly, Deon, you have the sartorial imagination of a turnip—any colour so long as it’s black.”

“This is charcoal,” he retorted, stung by the accusation.

Damian looked increasingly pained. “Do you wish to make a good impression or do you not?”

Gideon hesitated, rather impressed by the severity of Damian’s expression. “I do,” he admitted.

Damian gave a taut nod. “Then come along. There is no time to lose.”

Twenty minutes later and Gideon stood before the full-length looking glass in Damian’s elegant rooms. He had to admit, Damian had wrought a spectacular change, except, “Is it not a little—”

“No.” Damian’s voice held a note of impatience, but Gideon had to admit he had never known Damian hold on to his temper so admirably. He hadn’t cursed him above three times so far.

All the same.

“Yes, but don’t you think I—”

“No! For the love of everything holy, Deon! I know you think me a witless fribble with nothing in his head but gaming and debauchery, but I do know a thing or two about how a man ought to look, whether that occasion be duelling at dawn, meeting a mistress, or taking tea with a dowager duchess. I have been accused of many things, brother mine, but never of being poorly dressed.”

“Fine,” Gideon said meekly, having to concede that his brother always looked immaculate and turned heads wherever he went.