She looked away. “No, you are wrong, Joseph,” she said. “It was not for today. And you certainly do not need a chaperone when riding in an open carriage with your betrothed, Wilma. Perhaps some other day, Mr. Bartlett-Howe? Thank you, Lord Ravensberg. That would be very pleasant.”
He had the other members of the group to thank, of course, Kit realized as he rose to take his leave. He was quite certain she had been going to refuse him until they had all rushed in so gallantly to rescue her from the horror of being obliged to drive out with a notorious rakehell. She might be cold and imperturbably self-contained, his intended bride, but she was not immune to a challenge.
It was an intriguing thought.
“Until later, then, Miss Edgeworth,” he said, bowing to her, nodding affably to the group at large, and then strolling across the room to take his leave of the Duchess of Portfrey.
He grinned as he ran down the steps outside the house a few minutes later and summoned his tiger, who was walking the horses about the square. Breaching the formidable defenses of Miss Lauren Edgeworth was going to be a challenge worthy of his best efforts. He must hope, perhaps, that all her relatives and friends would come to his assistance by persistently warning her against him and attempting to shield her from him—the idiots.
But for a while at least later in the afternoon he would have her all to himself.
Lauren sat straight-backed beside Viscount Ravensberg, holding her parasol over her head with both hands to shield her complexion from the harmful rays of the sun. She was unaccustomed to riding in a sporting curricle, and she felt very far above the ground and alarmingly unsafe. But it would be unladylike to show a lack of trust in the skill of the gentleman plying the ribbons by clinging to the rail beside her.
The gloved hands that held the ribbons were slim. They were also demonstrably capable of controlling his high-spirited and perfectly matched pair of grays. His legs, encased in tight, biscuit-colored pantaloons and supple, highly polished Hessian boots, were slender but shapely and well muscled in all the right places.
Shocked at the direction her thoughts had taken, Lauren flexed her hands on the handle of her parasol and looked determinedly away from him as he turned his team with effortless skill between the gateposts into the park. It was the fashionable hour, the time of day when the beau monde turned out in large numbers to parade on horseback, on foot, and in a variety of different carriages, intent upon seeing and being seen, upon imparting and ingesting all the latest gossip.
Lauren was about to provide them with a new topic, if Wilma was to be believed. She had raised a number of eyebrows by consenting to waltz with the infamous Viscount Ravensberg last evening. Yet now, just the day after, she had agreed to drive with him in the park. In a sporting vehicle, no less. Without a maid. Wilma had quite untruthfully declared herself speechless and had called upon Joseph, Lord Sutton, and Elizabeth to talk sense into Lauren. Only Lord Sutton had complied with her request. Miss Edgeworth must invent some indisposition and send down her regrets when Viscount Ravensberg came to fetch her, he had advised. She would not, after all, he was certain, wish to put her spotless reputation in jeopardy simply because she was too courteous to give a rogue the cut direct.
“If anyone has anything to say on the subject of Lauren’s reputation,” the Duke of Portfrey had said with languid hauteur, directing his quizzing glass at Wilma’s betrothed, “he may address himself to me.”
Lauren’s lips quirked with unexpected amusement at the memory. But really, would she be here now if everyone had left her alone to make her own response to Lord Ravensberg’s invitation? She had never thought of herself as a willfully stubborn person. Was she? Certainly she had avoided the parade in the park since her arrival in London. But there was no need to continue to do so. She had faced the ton last evening. And it was unexceptionable to drive out in public places with a gentleman who had been properly presented to her, even if he was a notorious rake.
“Well, Miss Edgeworth.” Having negotiated the tricky turn into the park, the viscount turned his head to look at her. “We seem to have exhausted the topic of the weather.”
Lauren twirled her parasol. She had been unmannerly enough to allow their conversation to lapse. She wondered briefly if he had practiced that particular look before a glass until he had perfected it—that laughter-filled expression that started in his eyes and sometimes did not even reach his mouth to become a proper smile. It was quite disconcerting and interfered considerably with her thought processes. It was one of those things that made a rake appealing to women, she supposed.
“Your father is the Earl of Redfield, my lord?” she asked.
“I am his heir,” he replied, “the elder of his two surviving sons. My elder brother died almost two years ago.”
“I am sorry,” she said.
“So am I.” He flashed her a rueful glance. “The last time I saw Jerome I broke his nose and my father banished me from Alvesley and told me never to return.”
Gracious! Lauren was intensely embarrassed. That it might be true was shocking enough, but why would he air such very dirty linen before a stranger—and a lady, at that?
“I have shocked you.” The viscount grinned at her.
“I believe, my lord,” she said with sudden insight, “you fully intended to do so. I ought not to have asked about your father.”
“Let me return the favor,” he said. “You have lived most of your life at Newbury Abbey, but you have no blood relationship to the family there. Who is—or was—your father?”
“He was Viscount Whitleaf,” she said. “He died when I was two years old. Less than a year later my mother took me to Newbury and married the Earl of Kilbourne’s brother.”
“Indeed?” he said. “And does your mother still live?”
“They left on a wedding journey two days after their nuptials,” she told him, “and never returned. There were occasional letters and packages for a number of years and then . . . nothing.”
The smile was gone from his face when he glanced at her this time. “You do not know, then,” he asked her, “whether your mother lives or has died? Or your stepfather?”
“Certainly they are both dead,” she said, “though where or when or how I do not know.” It was something she almost never spoke of. She had locked away the hurt, the sense of abandonment, the feeling of incompletion, a long time ago.
They were drawing closer to the press of carriages and horses and pedestrians that were making the slow circuit of the daily parade.
Lauren determinedly changed the subject. “Do you come here often?” she asked.
He laughed across at her. “You mean apart from the mornings,” he asked in his turn, “on or close to Rotten Row?”
She could feel herself flush and twirled her parasol again. More and more, she was convinced that he was no gentleman. He had seen her, then? And was not ashamed to admit it? No gentleman . . .
“You ride there in the mornings?” she asked.
But he was unwilling to have the subject turned. “That kiss,” he said, “was a milkmaid’s way of thanking me for felling the three thugs who had accosted her and demanded certain favors she was unwilling to grant.”
Was that what the fight had been all about? He had taken on three men in order to defend a milkmaid’s honor?
“It was ample reward,” he said before she could frame the words with which to approve his motive even if not his actions. He was deliberately trying to shock her—again, she realized. Why? He touched his whip to the brim of his hat as two ladies rode by with their grooms, their eyes avid with curiosity.
“A gentleman,” Lauren said with prim reproof, “would not have asked any payment at all.”
“But how ungallant,” he said, “to refuse a reward freely offered. Could a gentleman do such a thing, Miss Edgeworth?”
“A gentleman would not so obviously enjoy himself,” she said and then glared at him indignantly when he threw back his head and laughed—just when they were close enough to a vast crowd of their peers to draw attention. She twirled her parasol smartly, but there was no chance of further conversation on the topic. Why had she allowed herself to be drawn anyway?
The following fifteen minutes were spent driving at a snail’s pace around the circuit taken by other carriages and riders, smiling and nodding, stopping every few yards to converse with acquaintances. Wilma and Lord Sutton were there, of course, as was Joseph. There were a few other people Lauren knew, Elizabeth’s friends whom she had met during the past three weeks, and others to whom she had been presented at the ball last evening. And there were a number of Lord Ravensberg’s friends, who rode up beside the curricle to exchange pleasantries with him and to be presented to her.
It was not a difficult occasion to endure. Having made a public appearance last evening, she no longer felt the dread that had kept her in virtual hiding for over a year. It was a bright, sunny day and she was enjoying herself far more than she ought—and far more than she would have in Mr. Bartlett-Howe’s company, she thought treacherously. But how could the viscount have openly referred to that scandalous fight in the park when he should be properly mortified to realize that she had witnessed it? He had fought in a woman’s defense—in a milkmaid’s defense. Most men would not even have noticed the distress of a woman so far beneath them in rank.
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