Impetuous Innocent (Regencies 3)

Twisting her fingers anxiously, Bella ventured, “I had wondered whether it was Lord Edgcombe.”

“Harry?” Dominic paused, then shook his head. “Not likely. He does have to marry in the not overly distant future or risk his family hauling him to the altar themselves. But he must marry money, and I doubt Miss Hartley’s prospects fit his bill.”

“But couldn’t she have fallen in love with him anyway? He’s certainly personable enough.”

Again, Dominic gave the matter his consideration. Again, he shook his head. “Harry has no plans to marry yet awhile. I doubt he’d even mention the possibility to a young lady circumstanced as Miss Hartley is. And, certainly, he would not have suggested he’s about to do the deed.” He uttered a short laugh. “Not even to escape a snare would Harry bring up the subject of marriage.”

Bella sighed. “So you can’t guess either.” Disheartened, she stood and shook out her skirts.

Dominic hadn’t moved from his stance in the middle of the floor. Now he looked shrewdly at Bella. “What prompted you to ask for help?”

Bella shrugged. “It’s just that Georgie’s so wan and listless nowadays.”

“Listless?” her brother echoed, the vision of Miss Hartley as he had last seen her vivid in his mind. “I’ve rarely seen anyone less listless.”

“Oh, not in the evenings. She seems quite lively then. But during the day she’s drawn and quiet. Her looks will suffer if she goes on as she is. If only she would accept Mr Havelock.”

“Havelock? Has he offered for her?”

Bella frowned at the odd note in her brother’s voice. It was not like Dominic to be so insultingly disbelieving. “Yes,” she averred. “Not only Mr Havelock, but Lord Danby and Viscount Molesworth. And Lord Ellsmere, too!”

For once, she had the satisfaction of knowing she had stunned her brother. Dominic’s brows rose to astronomical heights. “Good lord!”

After a moment, his puzzled gaze swung back to her face. “And she refused them all? Even Julian?”

Bella nodded decisively. “Even Lord Ellsmere.” She looked down at her hands, clasped schoolgirl fashion before her. “I don’t know what I’m to do, for there’s bound to be more offers. They can’t seem to help themselves.”

She looked up to see her brother’s shoulders shaking. Bella glared. “It’s not funny!”

Dominic waved one white hand placatingly. “Oh, Bella! Would that all women had a sense of humour like Miss Hartley’s. I assure you she would see the oddity in such a situation.”

Bella was puzzled by her brother’s far-away smile. But before she drummed up enough courage to ask what prospect it was that so fascinated him, he came back to earth. “And, speaking of Miss Hartley, we must, I’m afraid, return to the ballroom.”

Falling into step beside him, Bella tucked her hand in his arm. “You will try to discover who he is, won’t you?”

Dominic’s eyes glinted steely blue. “Fear not, Bella mine. I’ll give it my most earnest consideration.”

And with that Bella had perforce to be content.

IT WAS WELL AFTER midnight when Dominic returned to Grosvenor Square. He let himself in with his latchkey. In the large tiled hall, shadows danced about a single candle burning in a brass holder on the central table. He had long ago broken his staff of their preferred habit of lying in wait for him to return from his evening entertainments. Picking up the candle, he stood at the foot of the stairs, contemplating the broad upward sweep. Then he turned aside and made for a polished door to one side of the hall.

The fire in the library was a glowing mass of coals. He lit the candles in the large candelabrum on the mantelpiece before crouching to carefully balance a fresh log on the embers. After a little encouragement, the flames started to lick along the dry wood.

Standing, he stretched, then crossed to the sideboard. A balloon of fine brandy in one hand, he returned to the wing-chair by the fireplace and settled his cold feet on the fender.

Georgiana Hartley. Undoubtedly the most beguiling female he had met in over a decade on the town. And she was in love with another man. Furthermore, she was in love with a man who didn’t even have the good sense to love her. Ridiculous!

Dominic stared into the flames. For what felt like the six hundreth time, he tried to make himself believe that his interest in Miss Hartley didn’t exist. But he had travelled that road before and had given up weeks ago. What he had yet to discover was what his interest in Georgiana Hartley portended.

He couldn’t believe it was love. Not after all these years. His experience of the opposite sex was as extensive as hers was negligible. And he had never felt the slightest inclination to succumb to any of the proffered lures. Why on earth should he suddenly wish to entangle himself with a young woman barely free of the schoolroom?

Yet he could not get her out of his mind. Her heart-shaped face and honey-gold eyes inhabited his thoughts to the exclusion of almost everything else. He had underestimated the strength of his distraction when he had returned from Candlewick to Brighton. The chit had unexpected depths. Her eyes, like a siren’s song, beckoned with a promise he found difficult to resist. Luckily he had realised his state before Elaine had precipitated any renewal of their intimacy. She had, predictably, reacted badly to his withdrawal.

Light from the flames gilded the spines of the leather-covered tomes on the shelves which stretched away into darkness on either side of the fireplace. Dominic took a sip of his brandy, then sank his chin into his cravat, cradling the glass between his hands. He had no regrets about Elaine. In truth, his desire for her had waned before the advent of Georgiana Hartley had banished all thought of illicit dalliance from his mind. A smile of gentle malice touched his lips. Doubtless Elaine would suffer due embarrassment as a result of her posturing. It had been her plan to use public knowledge of their relationship to pressure him into making her aspirations come true. She had been most indiscreet. Lionel, Lord Worthington, his guardian prior to his attaining his majority, had even been moved to post to Candlewick to dissuade him from contracting a mésalliance, on account of the bluster of a trollop’s long tongue. No, he had no sympathy for such as Elaine Changley.

The fire crackled and hissed as the fresh log settled. With a sensation akin to relief, he turned his mind from the past to contemplate the nebulous future. What did his feelings for Georgiana Hartley mean? Did they amount to anything more than infatuation, regrettable but harmless and, most importantly, transient? Would the lovely Georgiana fade from his mind in six months’ time, as Elaine Changley had? These were the questions that tormented him. They had forced him to return to London, to assuage a need he did not wish to acknowledge. Yet, after a week in the capital, he was no nearer the answers.

The only truth he had uncovered was that his normally even temperament was now somehow dependent on Miss Georgiana Hartley’s smile.