Page 10 of One Night with a Rake

“It wasn’t the sound I objected to,” Nathaniel said as he climbed out after her. “It was the words. Have you considered that men wish to protect women from harm and that’s why you’re kept in ignorance about certain things? Your risky sojourn into Covent Garden is a case in point.”

If he was angling for a thank-you for carting her from Madam Bouchard’s, he was destined to drown that worm. He’d treated her as if she weren’t a thinking, rational being. As if she were a child.

Except for that blasted kiss…and even that was to keep me quiet!

“I may be safer here in St. James’s, but how can I remain willfully ignorant of the circumstances of my less fortunate sisters in other places?” She strode toward the door of Yorkingham House.

The irritating man matched her pace.

“If you want to do good, no one is stopping you,” Nathaniel said, “but there are other ways besides risking your pretty little…neck.”

She decided to let his unspoken indelicacy pass, but part of her wondered what he found pretty about her. Besides her neck. “How do you suggest I help those women while sitting on my hands here in St. James’s?”

“You might take on a partner.”

“Are you offering?” She laughed mirthlessly. “You forget that your reputation precedes you, Lord Nathaniel. I rather think you’d be more likely to invest in a brothel than try to shut one down.”

Reuben trotted ahead and opened the door to Yorkingham House for her. Nathaniel Colton followed her in as if she’d invited him. After closing the door behind them, she knew Reuben would nip back to the barouche. He and Mercy would ride it around the block and down the alley to the rear of the town house in order to use the servants’ entrance off the kitchen.

She’d heard some folk with democratic tendencies objected to that separation between the help and the family they served. If Nathaniel objected to Mercy emptying a chamber pot, he was probably a secret subversive when it came to maintaining distinctions between classes.

Oh, bother the man and what he may be! He had no right to make her feel defensive about what she was trying to accomplish with Mercy and any of her friends they could rescue.

Georgette’s soiled kid soles swished on the marble entry and she avoided her reflection in the grand mirror that hung above the Chippendale hall table. One gilded calling card glared up at her from the silver tray.

“Oh, blast!” she said as Humphrey, the house steward, helped her off with her pelisse and politely offered to take Nathaniel’s garrick and hat as well. Lord Nate’s coat was spotless while the hem of hers would never be the same. Her newest bonnet was now floating down a little stream of slime while his beaver hat was flawless. Even his dark hair rumpled in waves Byron would envy while she was sure her tumble-down coiffure more closely resembled a lady-of-the-night’s than a lady’s.

Truly, there is no justice in the world.

“You’re frowning at that card as if it were the embodiment of the Seven Deadlies,” Nathaniel said. “Something else vexes you more than my presence, my lady?”

She picked up the gilt card. “Lord Winthrop, the Duke of Cambridge’s emissary, has already been here today and obviously found me ‘not at home.’”

“Ah, yes, I believe I heard you’re in the running for the Hy—”

She shot him a warning glare and he very wisely brought his lips together. If he’d said “Hymen Race Terrific” in her hearing, she’d have been obliged to box his ears. The vulgar characterization of the royal duke’s attentions toward her was a sore spot. Obviously, journalists at the Times and its poorer cousins, the ubiquitous scandal sheets, had far too much time on their hands and too little serious news to report.

“If Winthrop came to see you this early in the morning, he ought not to be surprised to be turned away,” Nathaniel said, still standing in the foyer as if he expected to be asked to stay for tea.

Didn’t the man realize he was also far too early for a polite caller?

“While it’s true that ‘not at home’ could well mean that I’m simply not receiving at that hour”—or this one, for that matter!—“one is never ‘not at home’ to the royal duke’s representative.”

She tugged off her gloves in irritation. Even though she was rarely expected to speak at those little enclaves with His Highness’s minion, she was required to present herself with every appearance of meekness. The farce of her supposed mildness was her mother’s idea. Lady Yorkingham was so certain it would clinch the royal match, Georgette hadn’t the heart to dissuade her.

“I’m sure Lord Winthrop knew I was truly not in residence and will wonder where I was.”

“I take it His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cambridge, disapproves of your noble intentions toward the city’s lightskirts,” Nathaniel said.

“I highly doubt His Highness is aware of my intentions. Noble or otherwise. We’ve never even met face to face.”

“I believe that’s the done thing when it comes to royal courtships.” Nathaniel strolled across the marble foyer, hands clasped behind his back, to inspect the large Gainsborough landscape her mother had recently installed there, opposite an equally large mirror. Georgette caught herself admiring the breadth of Nate’s shoulders and quickly darted her gaze away from his reflection. “A royal marriage is always arranged by proxy and the parties finally come sashaying together at the altar. When it’s too late for either of them to bow out.”

Georgette’s belly wriggled like a bucketful of eels. She’d never asked for this to happen. Some debutants would be in raptures over the possibility of joining the royal family, but to Georgette, the thought of becoming part of the royal family was far more daunting a prospect than wandering down Lackaday Lane had been this morning.

But her father was one of King George’s staunchest allies in the House of Lords and a champion of the Prince Regent once it became clear His Majesty would never regain his wits well enough to truly reign. It was only natural that Georgette would be first to be considered for the honor of becoming a princess of the realm.

“Georgette Frances Barclay Yorkingham,” a voice bellowed from the first landing of the stairs.