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‘Have you kissed the chit yet?’ Yes, that is what he expects.
‘I am hardly likely to discuss a young lady in those terms with anyone, Father, even you.’ Giles found it was easy to keep a perfectly expressionless face. That kiss had been both memorable and disturbing.
The Marquess grunted. ‘So you have kissed her and it was not a great success.’
His father could obviously read him more accurately than he had hoped, although he would have described the experience as confusing rather than unsatisfactory. Giles checked his pockets, found his worry piece and began to turn it between his fingers.
‘Confound it, Giles—enough of these namby-pamby attitudes. Get on and seduce the girl if that’s what it takes.’
‘I will do no such thing,’ he snapped back. ‘Do you think I want to begin married life having entrapped my bride into wedlock?’
The Marquess erupted from his seat, fetched his bandaged foot a sharp blow on the edge of the toppling gout stool, swore violently and subsided back into the chair. ‘Get down off your high horse. I am not suggesting you ravish the girl. Damn it, in my young day we managed our courtship with rather more verve and considerably more finesse.’
Giles resisted the urge to enquire if, by verve, his father recommended throwing a lady over his saddle bow and riding off with her. He picked up the gout stool, set his father’s bandaged foot on it with sufficient emphasis to provoke a muffled curse and sat back. ‘I am courting Laurel and moving as fast as honour will allow,’ he said, contriving to sound infuriatingly starchy, even to his own ears.
‘So why are you still here, damn it?’
‘Dancing attendance on you, sir, as ordered,’ Giles said. Provoking his father seemed to do the older man the world of good. It certainly stopped him brooding about his investment losses.
His father narrowed his eyes dangerously, then barked, ‘In!’, when there was a tap on the door.
‘The post, my lord.’ It was the landlord, silver salver in hand.
‘I’ll be off then, Father.’
‘No, wait. There should be something about the Home Farm—yes, here it is.’ The Marquess thrust a thick document at him. ‘See what you think. It’s about time you involved yourself with estate matters.’
‘Sir.’ Giles took the papers to the table and began to read a complicated tale of leases, under-leases, collapsing field drains and uncooperative tenants.
On the other side of the room his father rustled papers, muttered, swore and occasionally gave a snort of laughter as he scanned the rest of his correspondence. Then he said, ‘Aha!’
Giles looked up. ‘Everything all right, sir?’
‘Hermione Wilborough’s back in Bath and she is throwing one of her receptions tonight. Do you no harm to attend, get back into the swing of things. She’s up in Royal Crescent. Make a call as soon as you’ve finished with those documents and she is certain to invite you.’
‘She has written to you?’
‘No, a mutual acquaintance mentioned it.’ He folded up the letter. ‘Now, what do you think to that under-lease? Renew or not?’
Chapter Nine
Phoebe bent to check her appearance in the mirror of the ladies’ retiring room set aside for the reception. She patted a curl into place with an expression of some complacency. ‘We both look very fine, do you not think, Laurel? What a marvellous evening this will be.’
‘I agree that you have worked a miracle in two days, Aunt.’ Laurel squeezed in next to her to study her own reflection. ‘Your dressmaker has rescued my gowns from complete countrified dowdiness—and to be able to produce this one at such short notice is incredible—and your hairdresser has certainly given me a new touch, but I cannot be quite as relaxed as you about a reception at a duchess’s mansion.’
Laurel viewed her new gown with approval and her new hairstyle with some wariness. It did seem exceedingly short in places but that, she had been assured, was all the crack. Prodding at it was not going to make her any more comfortable with the effect. She moved to the window and looked out over the spectacular view across Bath, not quite believing that Phoebe had managed to secure her an invitation to such a select gathering.
‘Nonsense. Dear Hermione keeps the most welcoming of establishments. It will merely be a friendly soirée, you will see.’
* * *
An hour later Laurel had to agree with her. The reception was lavish but the tone light-hearted and she found that she could cope perfectly well on simple good manners and common sense. No one had laughed at her for being a country mouse who had never had a Season, or even travelled to London, and she had managed not to make any dreadful faux pas when introduced to a dowager duchess, a
bishop and a general in rapid succession.
It was all very elegant and novel and she had eaten several delicious lobster patties and drunk at least one too many glasses of champagne, but Laurel could not help but feel remarkably flat despite the glamour of the occasion. Perhaps she had overtired herself and had not yet recovered from the journey. Or perhaps it was a night of broken sleep and uneasy dreams.
Or perhaps I am missing someone, she admitted to herself.
