Page 11 of Snowy and the Seven Doves
Margaret was unaccountably disappointed. Or perhaps, not so unaccountably. She would not at all mind being seen on the arm of such a specimen of manhood, with or without the Snowden streak. If nothing else, it would definitely be entertaining. “Is that your way of telling me you do not want my help to enter Society?”
“Iwouldlike your help. May I escort you? Just to a few events?”
She took a sip of her own tea to give herself time to compose a response. “What sort of events? Whom do you wish to meet, and with what goal? If I am to help you, I would like to know what it is I am helping you toward.”
Mr. White considered that, gravely. “You are not at all as I expected, Lady Charmain. I have been told I am too quick to judge those of the upper classes. In your case, I believe my initial prejudice to have been wrong, and I apologize if I’ve given any offense.”
That was unexpected. Margaret inclined her head. “Apology accepted.”
His smile this time was full and genuine.Gracious.He was handsome when he was stern. When he smiled, he was devastating. Perhaps this was a bad idea.
But before Margaret could back away from her semi-commitment, he answered her questions.
“I will let you choose the events, my lady. Just give me a list of when I am to be at your door and the sort of event for which I am to dress. I wish to be seen by as many of your class as possible. And I would particularly like to meet the gentleman you referred to earlier. That is, I believe you meant Edmund Snowden? I should also like to meet his father. My goal is to be noticed. Aunt Lily believes, and I agree with her, that my resemblance to the Snowden family will prompt a reaction.” He frowned, just a little. “If I may continue to speak frankly?”
“I think you should,” Margaret said.
He was grave as he availed himself of the invitation. “Rumor has it that the Snowden men have aspirations for your hand, my lady, though it is unclear whether the father or the son is the would-be groom. However, that being the case, my advisors and I think they will be wary of offending you. If there are negative consequences to this game of charades, that should keep you free of them.”
Margaret felt her eyebrows shoot up as her eyes widened. “Goodness. What sort of negative consequences are you expecting?”
“One can only speculate. You know the two men. How do you think they will react to my foray into Society, looking as I do?”
Margaret thought about that. Lord Snowden seldom showed much of a reaction, but she did not think he would be pleased if a base-born relative suddenly turned up under his nose in front of all of his peers. He had no reason to blame Margaret, however. His son Edmund was less predictable. Margaret suspected he might think it a bit of a lark.
Mr. White clearly didn’t share the younger man’s irresponsible attitude to life, and the wry sense of humor Mr. White occasionally displayed had little in common with Mr. Snowden’s enjoyment of pranks and escapades. The half-brothers, if they were half-brothers and not merely cousins, were not much alike.
“Are they your family?” she asked Mr. White.
He looked down into his cup, the first time he had avoided her eyes. “My family are the ladies at the House of Blossoms,” he replied, firmly.
Which was not a ‘no’. Margaret contemplated the stir he would make, not just with the Snowdens but with all her suitors. And, in fact, with every participant in the aptly-named marriage mart. A mysterious and handsome young man with the body of a god and the eyes of a wolf?
Could he play the part, though? She waved a hand to indicate his clothes. “I see you have appropriate dress for afternoon visiting and the like. What of evenings?”
Something about that amused him, but he answered promptly. “I can be suitably costumed for any event you choose Lady Charmain. Also, if it concerns you, I am competent on the dance floor, can ride a horse, and have been schooled in appropriate table manners.”
Those wolf eyes twinkled.
She refused to rise to his baiting. She had been wondering precisely that, and her doubts had more to do with his behavior since she met him than his origins. “Very well, then. We have a bargain. Shall we look at the invitations I currently possess and decide on which to accept?”
*
Gary and Drewhad come to witness his transformation and, as Snowy dressed for his grand entrance at a ton ball with Lady Charmain on his arm, his conscience was bothering him.
“I believe the countess thinks of this as a merry prank,” he announced to the room, when the valet that Lily insisted he needed had gone off to find another stack of cravats. “Perhaps I should have told her that I have made a claim for the viscountcy.”
“We discussed this after we met with your grandfather’s solicitor,” Gary pointed out. “I said then, and I say now, that your plan to provoke Snowden into illegal behavior requires him to be unsure about your identity and your intentions.”
Drew shook his head. “I still don’t think the lady would repeat anything you told her in confidence.”
He was probably right, but that wasn’t Snowy’s chief reason for keeping her at arms’ length. He had almost backed away from Lily’s plan for him to enter Society in her company when he discovered that Lady Charmain was unwed. Without a husband to act as a brake on his attraction to the lady, he really could not afford to get to close to her.
Besides, Drew might be wrong. Snowy hadn’t been raised in the lady’s class, and Snowden had. Perhaps, like many of her kind, she would not count a promise to a slum-raised brat as having any significance. He could not have her running straight to Snowden with anything Snowy told her, and gossiping to the rest of Society about it, besides.
Gossip, of course, was one of Snowy’s aims, but all his advisers agreed that uninformed speculation would serve better this early in the game, rather than the facts. The less polite Society knew, the more they would wonder.
Fortescue had confirmed what Gary had already told them. “The evidential gap is the issue. Snowden’s legal advisers will argue that the boy kidnapped from the garden was not the boy Mistress Lily found in the alley. Unless we can find your mother’s maid, who saw you before and after the abduction, we have no one who can confirm that you are one and the same.”
