How to Impress a Marquess(10)
George had to make a decision of national importance in a matter of a few seconds. Stay, introduce Lilith, and put the tax bill in jeopardy, or hurry along and pretend not to see them.
He seized her elbow and spun her around. “Time to go back.”
“Afraid to be seen with me?”
“Not at all,” he lied, affecting a pleasant voice while trying to drag her along.
“Hello there, Lord Marylewick,” Lord Charles called. “Wait up, my good man.”
“Fuckery,” George growled under his breath.
Lilith giggled. “I didn’t know you were capable of such vibrant language. I rather like it.”
“This is no laughing matter,” George hissed under his breath. “I need their votes for an important bill. I’m begging you, Lilith. For once in your life, behave.”
He affixed an amiable expression on his face and waved at Lord Charles. “Fine day, is it not?”
“You think I can’t behave?” Lilith asked.
“I really don’t have the time for this discussion,” George growled through his pleasant countenance. “Don’t ruin this bill for me, Lilith. Or you will regret it.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Yes.”
What happened next took on that odd sensation George always experienced when tumbling from a horse. Time slowed so that he could notice every detail: the mischievous smile that snaked over Lilith’s lips. The father’s and son’s expressions as the dazzling lady turned her mesmerizing gaze on them. The guile darkening Lord Charles’s eyes. The burning fist twisting in George’s gut when he bowed and the fatal words fell from his lips. “Your Grace, Lord Charles, may I present my…er…cousin, Miss Lilith Dahlgren.”
Time returned to its normal speed as the conversations collided.
“Miss Lilith Dahlgren!” Lord Charles stopped in his tracks. His predatory expression was momentarily knocked away before returning stronger than before. “We meet at last.” He bowed, a head-flinging, hand-sweeping act worthy of the stage.
“At last?” She blinked and performed a graceful curtsy.
“You attended school with my sister, Evangelina. For years, all we heard was Miss Lilith Dahlgren said this, Miss Lilith Dahlgren wore that. You made quite an impression on her.”
“I had no idea.” Lilith smiled, a gracious, polite one that George hadn’t seen before.“Miss Evangelina certainly didn’t require my fashion sense. She is quite the beauty. And so thoughtful and kind.” This last compliment she addressed to the father, melting his usual grave countenance.
“Ah, she is but a slave to society’s whims, a mere follower, not a leader such as yourself,” Charles said. “All these last months, I’ve walked into art galleries to find to my dismay you had just been there. In fact, we missed each other by mere minutes at Paris last summer. I met your cousins instead—Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Dahlgren, no? I hope I don’t put your nerves on edge when I admit I’ve been quite desirous to meet you. But you know, the more you desire something, the more elusive it becomes. I was beginning to believe that you were a dream.”
“But now you have met me,” she said, a bright twinkle in her eye. “Do you not think our dreams are far better than harsh reality?”
“Even in my dreams I could not imagine such magnificence as you.”
Lilith laughed, a musical sound.
George was offended. He would never dream of being so fast with one of his sister’s classmates whom he had just met. But the duke only chortled at his son’s outrageous behavior, clearly as bamboozled by Charles as the rest of London society.
“Ah, I’ve made you blush prettily, which was really my objective,” Charles said. “How has it escaped my notice all these years that you were Lord Marylewick’s dear cousin? Marylewick, I demand that you meet me at dawn. You, my lord, must eat grass for this unpardonable offense of omission.”
The man needed a proper set-down, but damned if George could deliver it.
“You are deliciously absurd,” Lilith told Lord Charles. How easily she slipped into his breezy urbanity.
“Absolutely absurd,” Charles assured her. “I once tried sense and rationality, but I stuck out like a sore thumb in society.”
“I, for one, don’t understand a word of sense and rationality. Lord Marylewick keeps trying to teach me, but alas, it is going as poorly as the time I tried to teach myself Siamese. However, I’m quite fluent in absurdity, and proficient in ridiculous, should I find myself traveling there.”
“Ridiculous is my favorite holiday spot,” Charles declared. “The views are stunning and the locals utterly charming.”
George wished they would stop this silly conversation at once. He hated when people talked in this nonsensical manner. Say something of value or say nothing at all.
“My dear, I see that you have a book,” Charles observed. “I must know what it is so that I might purchase it immediately.” He slid it from her hands and examined the cover. “Ah, Keats. And well-loved, if I may judge from the worn condition.” He began to quote: “‘O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung / By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, / And pardon that thy secrets should be sung / Even into thine own soft-conched ear: / Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see / The winged Psyche with awaken’d eyes?’”
“Very nice,” Lilith said of his recitation.
“What is your favorite Keats poem?” asked Charles. “I must learn it by heart.”
George expected her to break out in quotes as she usually did. But she remained elusive, drawing her book back and cradling it to her chest. “I do not give away such things so easily.”
“You leave me a mystery that I cannot resist,” Charles said. “I must endeavor to solve it at Lord Marylewick’s annual house party.”
“House party?” She blinked and then raised a brow at George. “Annual house party?”
“The zenith of the season, of course,” Charles answered for George. “Politicians and young debutantes alike swoon to receive an invitation. It’s all political and romantic intrigue, and lawn tennis.”
Lilith continued to gaze at George. The words “why have I never been invited to this party?” hung in the air. George tugged at his tie. He had always assumed she knew about the party but would rather lose an eye and limb than attend. And his mother had made it clear that she would sooner be laid in her cold grave before that “atrocious, recalcitrant girl” Lilith Dahlgren would cross the Tyburn threshold again. Thus he never mentioned it.
But he could tell from her expression she now included “omitted from family annual house party” to her list of perceived injustices he committed against her.
Charles’s glance flickered between Lilith and George, a realization lighting their shallow depths. “Father and I have been looking forward to it with great anticipation,” he said slowly. “We are having our gowns done up, so to speak. But this year, let the other guests chase balls with racquets or sticks. I shall monopolize Miss Dahlgren’s company until I discover her secrets, for I am an intrepid detective.”
Blooming Hades! Lord Charles’s little political maneuver was insidious. He knew full well that Lilith wasn’t invited, and he subtly moved his bishop and knights, boxing in George’s king.
Lilith couldn’t go to the house party. He hadn’t properly educated her yet. In her current feral state, she was capable of single-handedly destroying the entire Tory party’s agenda, not to mention killing his mother.
George had to be subtle, protect his king with the few pawns he had left. “I’m afraid that Miss Dahlgren has a prior en—”
“Why, of course I shall be there!” Lilith cried. “After all, it’s the annual Marylewick house party and family is family. I take my familial obligations very seriously,” she assured Lord Charles. “I should never want a Maryle member to feel shunned by me. How it would break my heart.” George received a hurt flash of her eyes.
“It shall be a fine party,” the duke said. “Come, let us walk and enjoy the day. You look anxious, Lord Marylewick. You are far too serious, my boy. It will do you a world of wonder to relax in God’s creation, listening to the birds chirping and bees buzzing.”
If the birds chirped and bees buzzed, George didn’t hear them. The duke immediately dove into a deep political conversation about the war in Afghanistan, which George, and Samuel Johnson, would hardly define as relaxing. Behind him, Lilith and Charles were engaged in violent flirtation.
If Charles had been George’s son, he would be mortified by his offspring’s outrageous conduct. The duke only laughed indulgently and waxed about the short, bright days of youth. Whenever George tried politely to check her behavior, Lilith would say something such as, “Lord Marylewick, you are a darlingly old-fashioned chaperone,” or “Yes, Papa, dearest.” The duke would chuckle.
The small, private path turned out to be a tiny tributary trickling to hell. It merged into a larger lane that was clogged by the cream of society out sunning themselves. The duke was knee-deep in a discussion of the proposed rectification of a boundary between Greece and Turkey, leaving George no room to wedge in a polite How interesting, but we really must be going. Stuck in the conversational mud, he was powerless to stop Lord Charles from dragging Lilith into the crowd. She glanced back at George, and her smile widened to its full gravitational force. He knew she was putting on a little production to vex him. A tiny revenge. She turned around and allowed Lord Charles to present her.