Page 4 of Unmasked by the Marquess
“Of course not! But then she came around herself—”
“To your rooms?” The image of Aunt Pettigrew, swathed in furs and shawls, calling at Gilbert’s bachelor lodgings at the Albany was too absurd to call to mind.
“She sat in her carriage and waited by the entrance to my building until I came out, if you can believe it.”
“A siege, then. You have my pity.” Here they were, talking nearly like a normal pair of brothers despite the decade that lay between them. “What the devil did she want?”
“She asked if you were holding a come-out ball for Amelia Allenby. I told her of course not, that you’re far too snobbish—” He checked himself. “I told her you have nothing to do with the Allenbys, or balls, or debutantes,” he amended.
“And so I don’t.” A ball for his father’s illegitimate child. What a revolting notion.
“She went on for a while about harlots and jezebels and the sins of the father and all the rest of the usual rot.” Gilbert paused to tip his hat at a passing acquaintance Alistair did not recognize. “Oh, and something about how the hallowed halls of Pembroke House would be defiled by the spawn of sin.”
Alistair was stunned. “She actually said that? Hallowed halls and whatnot?”
“Hand to God.” Gilbert’s eyes were shining with merriment.
“She’s madder than I thought.” One might have thought that the late marquess’s own sister would have known better than anybody that there was nothing hallowed about the halls of Pembroke House.
“I daresay she’s annoyed that you didn’t engage her grandson when you were looking for a secretary.”
Of course she was. There was always somebody who wanted something.
But it rankled Alistair to find that he was in accord with his aunt about the Allenbys. Being allied with such a one as Lady Pettigrew was enough to make one doubt one’s convictions.
“Have you thought about my proposal?” Alistair ventured, wanting to change the topic to something he felt surer of. But he saw right away that he had bungled things. He always did where Gilbert was concerned. He watched the smile vanish from his brother’s face like the sun disappearing behind a cloud. Damn it. But what was he supposed to do? Let Gilbert carry on in this decadent, aimless manner? Surely not. Indeed, when Gilbert had called at Pembroke House today, Alistair had thought it meant his brother was ready to listen to reason regarding his future.
“I didn’t call on you for a lecture,” Gilbert said tightly, as if reading Alistair’s thoughts. “I thought we’d get some air, behave civilly, refrain from airing grievances or cataloging my faults for a quarter of an hour or so, but evidently I was mistaken.”
Oh, for God’s sake, did he have to carry on like that? “The living is a good one.” It was no less than a sinecure, a comfortable rectory in Kent with a curate already there to attend to the more menial tasks. Gilbert had been disinclined to serve in the army or navy, and that left him with the church, as far as Alistair was concerned. It had been two years since Gilbert had finished at Oxford, but still he had not taken orders. Alistair was beginning to worry that his brother would take after their father in laziness and dissipation.
“I don’t think I’m cut out to be a clergyman.” Gilbert spurred his horse ahead.
Alistair suppressed a groan and nudged his own horse to catch up. They had been through this at least two dozen times. “But then what will you do? You can’t mean to go on in this manner, I hope.” Drinking and gambling and going through his quarterly allowance in the span of six weeks. He could marry, but it went without saying that he’d have to marry an heiress, the Pembroke estate being stretched to the limit.
A horrifying thought occurred to him, likely inspired by Mrs. Allenby’s visit the other day. “You don’t mean to be a poet or something, do you?”
Gilbert let out a crack of laughter, his sullenness evidently gone as quickly as it had come. “God, you make it sound as bad as being an opium eater or a highwayman. No, dear brother, I don’t intend to write poetry. Mainly because I’m bad at it. But let your heart rest easy on that score. Nor do I intend to take to the stage or become a prize fighter.”
Now Alistair laughed too, despite his better judgment. “A dancing master, then?”
“No, a smuggler. We need the money.”
Gilbert was like a toddler, his bad mood forgotten with a bit of silliness. “Why not cast your sights higher, then? Have some ambition, man.” Alistair adopted a stern expression that he feared was a near caricature of his usual self. “You could take to the seas as a privateer.”
“Or perhaps a...” The younger man’s voice trailed off. “Who the devil is that girl over there?”
Alistair was about to ask where to look when the answer became immediately clear. A few yards ahead stood the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was hatless, of which Alistair could not approve, but that afforded them a better view of her perfect features. There was some commotion surrounding her, and her bare head was soon explained when a gentleman ran over to her with a bonnet. If she had let her bonnet loose in an effort to attract notice, she had succeeded. Half a dozen gentlemen were now approaching the man who had retrieved the errant object.
Only then did Alistair realize that the man was none other than Robert Selby. Without thinking, he brought his horse to a stop, joining the cluster of onlookers.
He could hear the clear ring of Selby’s laughter as he adjusted the bow under the girl’s chin to a rakish angle. She was blushing prettily and seemed flustered by the attention.
“That, I believe, is our father’s goddaughter,” he said, watching his brother’s jaw fall open in astonishment.
Charity could hardly keep from bouncing on her toes. They had done it. After all those futile weeks of angling for invitations and paying afternoon visits to all the decent connections she could scrape together from Cambridge, all it had taken was one badly tied bonnet.
A dozen well-heeled gentlemen gawped at Louisa, likely wishing for an introduction. If even a quarter of them brought cards tomorrow, if even one saw fit to invite Louisa to any sort of gathering, that would repay every farthing they had spent on coming to London.
