Page 19 of Too Scot to Handle
“Lord Colin! What a lovely surprise!” Lady Rosalyn offered a gloved hand, which Colin was supposed to bow over, despite being on horseback. Fortunately, Prince Charlie was a Town horse, sedate in the face of noise, traffic, or close quarters.
Colin grasped her ladyship’s hand. Miss Anwen apparently didn’t expect him to ride around to the other side of the carriage and extend a similar courtesy to her.
“I trust your ladyship has recovered from yesterday’s megrim?” Colin asked.
“Yesterday’s—? Oh, quite! I am so sorry to have missed our outing. My heart nearly broke with disappointment, just ask Win.”
“Poor creature was desolated,” Win said, “distraught, nigh hysterical. I have seldom seen her so upset short of being unable to find her new bonnet or reticule when we’re late to the opera.”
Lady Rosalyn laughed sweetly, and several other gallants along the line of carriages cast Colin envious glances. Would they envy Colin as much if they’d known her ladyship had stood him up to go tooling about with Lord Twillinger?
“Miss Anwen, I trust you are well?” Colin asked.
“I am in the pink of health, thank you. That is a very handsome gelding. May I ask how you came by him?”
“Won his dam in a card game,” Colin said, “and didn’t know she was in foal. Best surprise of a young officer’s life. I left the dam at the estate of a Portuguese officer, and the second best surprise was when I came to fetch her two years later, this little fellow was gamboling happily in the next paddock, as handsome a creature as ever cantered a fence line.”
And the Portuguese officer, having a bone-deep love of the equine, had given Prince Charlie an ideal start in life.
“He has some progeny,” Colin went on. “I didn’t geld him until—”
“I’ve asked Lord Colin to consider involving himself in the House of Urchins,” Win announced. “A gentleman of means does what he can for the less fortunate, after all.”
In mixed company, a gentleman apparently didn’t raise the topic of gelding his horse, even though Lady Anwen, at least, could discern the horse’s present reproductive limitations easily.
A lack of balls on a man was harder to spot.
“Lord Colin is taking an interest in the House of Urchins?” Lady Rosalyn cooed. “My prayers have been answered, your lordship. I was so vexed to be unable to attend yesterday’s meeting, precisely because an orphanage without benefactors soon becomes a precarious proposition. Anwen, I’m sure you agree that his lordship’s generosity could not have a better recipient.”
“I don’t think Lord Colin has made up his mind yet, my lady.”
Lady Rosalyn sent Colin an arch look and twirled her parasol. “I have faith in Lord Colin’s ability to discern a deserving charity. I also have faith in my brother’s ability to convince his lordship that the House of Urchins is such an institution.”
Anwen stilled her friend’s parasol. “You’re unsettling your brother’s horse, my lady.”
“Gracious, Win. Get the beast under control before he provokes my team,” Lady Rosalyn said.
Without the parasol whirling in its face, the horse calmed, though it might have done so sooner had Win not been two sheets to the wind.
“Shall we move up?” Miss Anwen suggested.
The coach rolled on at a funereal pace, and Colin maneuvered Prince Charlie to Miss Anwen’s side of the vehicle. His place near Lady Rosalyn was immediately taken by Sycamore Dorning, a gangly youngster who ought to be at university learning how to hold his drink.
“Are you truly in the pink of health?” Colin asked quietly. “I know you’re concerned for your orphans.”
“I have some plans in train where the House of Urchins is concerned. Don’t involve yourself solely because Win Montague suggested it.”
“I thought you might welcome my involvement.” Had expected she would, after yesterday’s discussion. His involvement, not merely his money.
“I like Mr. Montague,” Anwen said, patting Charlie’s glossy neck. “He’s good company, a fine dancer, a cheerful partner for whist.”
“His interest in my situation has been invaluable,” Colin replied. “One cannot insinuate oneself into polite society, one must be sponsored, like an orphanage. Without the right patronage, doors are mysteriously closed, invitations don’t materialize.”
Anwen twiddled the dark hair of Charlie’s mane, a sure way to get her gloves dirty. “My aunt and uncle would be only too happy to—”
Charlie turned a large, poetic brown eye on the lady. Gelded he might be, but a fool he was not.
“Some doors can only be opened by another young fellow, my dear.”
