Kasey Michaels - How to Beguile a Beauty

“Wonderful. Lydia, do you hear that? You now have an escort, unless you wish my company instead. I really do need to work on my speech for Parliament, the one that will most probably earn me a few whistles and catcalls when I again mention that it’s time we began taking care of our poor soldiers.”

Lydia looked from Rafe to Tanner, confusion clear in her eyes. “I shouldn’t wish to take you away from such an important speech, just to squire me. But, Tanner, there is no reason for you to sacrifice yourself in the role of chaperone, either. I have no crushing desire to attend the ball in any case.”

Tanner offered her his arm and walked her toward the foyer, throwing a silent thank you back over his shoulder at Rafe. “What? And miss out on those wonderful Gunther Ices I hear are to be served in the supper room? I’ve been looking forward to them all day, now that I think of it. And I also heard that her ladyship has commissioned an ice sculpture in the form of a pair of extremely long-necked swans. Ten feet high, I’m told. In this heat? We really should want to be there for the moment those long, delicate necks melt and the whole thing comes crashing down. Hugh Elliot has promised me he’ll be there, watching, just so that he can shout off with their heads at just the correct moment.”

Lydia looked up at him and smiled with those marvelous blue eyes of hers, clearly unaware that he immediately felt a figurative kick to his stomach. “You’re making that up as you go along, aren’t you, just so that I’ll agree to the evening?”

They walked outside, to his waiting curricle. “Ah, and that you won’t know unless you allow me to escort you to the ball, will you?”

“True. All right then, I accept your kind offer, sir. But there had better be swans.”

“I admit I can’t guarantee that, but at least I’m sure of the Gunther Ices. Lady Chalfont always has Gunther Ices, as they’re her husband’s favorite. Right after brandy, cigars, Faro banks and, rumor has it, a fiery redheaded opera dancer in Covent Garden. And here we are—up you go.”

Tanner vaulted around the rear of the curricle once Lydia was seated, and climbed up, taking the reins from the groom.

“Rafe informed me that your chaperone is suffering from the gout,” he said as they left Grosvenor Square for the short ride to Hyde Park. “And, as Nicole has left the city, I was thinking just now that you might miss her company at the ball.”

“I miss her company at all times,” Lydia corrected quietly. “But you’re correct.”

Tanner nodded, again, just as if he’d only this moment realized the problem, and the solution. “In that case, since my cousin is in town, and her chaperone is not suffering with the gout, what do you say I ask Jasmine if she wants to accompany us this evening, to bear you company now that Nicole is not here? I would not wish to have you feel alone in the ballroom.”

Lydia turned her head to look toward a knot of ladies just then crossing the street, heading for the entrance to the park. Was she intrigued by them, or just avoiding his gaze? “I’ve never met your cousin. But, yes, that would be very nice, I’m sure.”

If Lady Chalfont’s swans could be kept in close proximity to Lydia this evening, there would be no danger of their necks melting through. The sudden unexpected chill in Lydia’s voice was that evident, and strangely out of character. Lydia was never cross.

“Now I’ve upset you in some way,” Tanner said as he deftly eased his curricle into the line of coaches, phaetons and other showy equipages all jockeying for position on the broad sandy track that wound through the park.

She shifted on the plank seat, to face him. “Oh, I’m sorry, Tanner. I’m—well, let me just say that it has been a rather strange day. It’s not that I mean to be ungrateful. But it’s also so…well, so obvious. You’re being kind. Am I such a pitiful wreck, that people feel this need to be kind to me?”

“I wasn’t being—”

“Oh, but you were, and I really should thank you, even while in my heart I know I should not have to apologize for voicing my feelings in the matter,” Lydia interrupted, her smooth pale cheeks taking on a hint of color, of fire. “So, please, allow me to say what I feel. Everyone is so kind to me. Be careful around Lydia, they must tell each other, tiptoe if at all possible. Poor Lydia, now that Nicole has gone away. Poor Lydia, the bluestocking, the dull one, who only dances when Nicole’s card is already filled and the gentlemen hope to impress her by squiring her insipid, forgettable sister. Poor sad Lydia, still mourning her lost—”

She clamped her gloved hands to her mouth, her eyes now wide as saucers.

Tanner didn’t know if he should apologize, or cheer. “Lydia? Are you all right?”

She slowly lowered her hands, to reveal a small but growing smile. “My goodness. I think I’ve just had a tantrum.”

“Are you sure?” Tanner would have thought a tantrum involved a good deal more anger, some shouting, and possibly some general tossing and smashing of fragile china. But for a first effort, if that’s what it had been, she had done rather well. She certainly had his attention.

“I am, yes. And Nicole’s right. I do feel better. Tanner, since you say you are my friend, you will oblige me now by no longer treating me as if I should be packed up in cotton wool. Is that agreed? Wait, before you speak—and in turn, I will oblige you by not being such a…such a…well, whatever it is I was being that has had you all behaving as if I’m some delicate ice swan’s neck apt to melt and topple at any moment.”

Tanner felt a nearly overwhelming desire to pull her into his arms. But he was also aware that the opposite of coddling her in cotton wool was not an invitation for an all-out frontal assault and baring of his emotions.

“I’m sorry, Lydia, if we’ve all been tiptoeing around you. And, to prove it, I’ll ask you this time, and not tell you or attempt to cajole you—would you care to accompany my cousin and myself to Lady Chalfont’s ball this evening? Or would you much rather tell me to go find a pump and soak my head?”

“I would never say anything like that! At least I don’t think I would.” She then nodded her head twice, rather decisively. “Yes, thank you, I believe I should like very much attending the ball with you and Miss Harburton. And I’m certain I will enjoy meeting your cousin.” Then she gave him another smile, and another figurative kick to the gut. “But you think it was a good tantrum?”

“Tolerable, yes. You might need a little more practice before you’ve perfected it, but it was a good beginning.”

“I’m usually considered to be a good student. I’ll apply myself. Oh…someone is attempting to get your attention. Over there,” she said, pointing with her chin—how he delighted in the way she did that.

“Tanner Blake, it has been too long. How good to see you again,” the man called out, waving his hand in the air as he approached on horseback. “It was one thing to be long-ago chums, and to crack a few bottles with you in Paris a few years ago, but now that you’re the duke, I suppose I should take great care to cultivate your newly esteemed self.”

Tanner quickly took in the finely set-up grey stallion and the even more perfectly set-up gentleman in the saddle, still doing his best not to appear shocked at his friend’s sudden appearance. “Justin. Nobody told me you were in town. Did Vienna finally pall on you?”

Baron Justin Wilde, who had worn many hats during the last years in the fight against Bonaparte—many of them not known to any but the most highly-placed in the War Office—eased his mount around so that he was now riding alongside the curricle. The two men shook hands, no mean feat as both curricle and horse were still on the move.