Page 32 of Lady, Behave
“Ever since the little French Emperor sought to lock me away at the ripe young age of twenty, I’ve nurtured a singular irreverence for hare-brained authority.” Gyles would not share the shame of his father’s failure to ransom him from the French.
“I’ve not had the distinct displeasure of Bony’s shackles, but I have experienced the demands of my own sire. Trust me, they are as infuriating if not as debilitating.”
Gyles trod carefully on his friend’s sensibilities. “Am I right that you yourself are here in town to correct the disaster your father made of your proposal to a certain lady?”
Grey considered the depths of his coffee cup. “I gather thetonhas the word on it?”
“What say you, my friend?” Gyles would not ask which lady Grey sought. He knew the two-year-old story of Grey’s enchantment with an Irish girl. His friend had sought to marry her until his father had called him home to Amesbury and demanded he betroth himself to the young woman whose land marched along their own in Wiltshire.
“Last week, my aunt wrote to my mother,” he told Gyles. “She said that the three granddaughters of the Earl of Barry had arrived for the Season. My mother let it slip, and I had to come. I have to try to make amends to Laurel.”
Gyles pitied the man. “I wish youbonne chance, my friend. Can I help you in any way?”
“Good of you, Heath. But first, you must find a genie who can cast a spell to let me darken the door of number twenty Charles Street.”
“Surely, the lady can forgive you.”
“Can she?” Grey scoffed. “Perhaps if I come bearing myself on a platter.”
He’d thought Laurel Devereaux serene, even retiring. “She’s bloodthirsty, eh?”
“A dragon! When last we met, she breathed fire. ‘Come near me, and I’ll have your twiddle-dees for breakfast.’”
Gyles winced, expressed his sorrow, and soon left his beleaguered friend.
As Gyles settled back into his coach for the long ride to London, he vowed to solve his problems quickly and hurry back to Brighton. Regardless of his solicitor’s findings, Heath swore to collect the bride he desired above all others.
Chapter Nine
Laurel pulled Addyaside as they made their way down the stairs to receive guests for their last regular salon the day before Imogen’s wedding. “I’ve terrible news.”
“Oh, no.” Addy halted, one hand to the banister. She hoped that word of Imogen’s wedding would erase any rumors about the devilish attack by Wye and even any tidbits about the nefarious doings of Grandpapa. “What is it?”
“I had a note just now from my friend, Lady Susanna Fortescue. She’s staying with her parents over at the Old Ship Hotel. You will never guess who appeared for dinner last night at the Prince Regent’s?”
“Tell me.” If it was Wye, Cass would send a note over to Imogen’s fiancé, Martindale, who would frog march the fellow from Brighton in a minute. If the surprise visitor were someone from Dublin with intimate knowledge of Grandpapa or his activities, she would tell Cass that, too. Their cousin always had a means to put good words into the social stream. She gripped Laurel’s wrist. “Who is it?”
“Lord Grey.”
The viscount was the very man Laurel wished would die a thousand deaths. “He’s here with his new wife?”
“No. Unmarried.”
“How can that be?” Grey had met and courted Laurel when they were all in Dublin before Grandfather took ill and retired to his bed. Addy was confused. The man was to have married some girl his father decreed acceptable. “Wasn’t June to be the wedding? What happened? Did he jilt her, too?”
That seemed logical since that was precisely what he’d done when he offered marriage to Laurel and withdrew when his papa demanded he propose to another lady.
Laurel snorted. “Why not? He knows how to do that and avoid theton’s censure.”
Addy stared at Laurel, suspicious of the evil glint in her sister’s eye. “Why do you care that he’s here? You sent him packing when he came carrying the ashes of his promise. So why?”
“He is a good friend of your Heath.”
The relevance of that escaped Addy. “And so?”
“Did you invite Heath to the wedding tomorrow?”
“No. He cannot attend.” Addy rushed on, avoiding a discussion of what she knew of Gyles’s journey to London and his promises to return to court her. “And in any case, Cass has carefully chosen the guest list to a few good friends of hers. That way, word goes out that the bride was lovely and dewy-eyed, the groom besotted, and the wedding breakfast a joyful occasion. Whatever that villain Lord Wye put out about the event or its cause will be drowned in the details.”
