“Galloway and the girl are coming soon too?” Sir Gerald asked.
“They are all going to be here within the week,” Lord Severn said. “And I have the feeling that they are all going to act as if Frances and I have that tacit understanding, whatever it means. I know what it means, actually. It means that we are going to be planning a wedding at St. George’s before the month is out, and I am going to be done for.”
“Shall I find out what ships are in dock?” Sir Gerald asked.
“The trouble is,” the earl said, “that I will feel honor-bound.
I hate honor, Ger. It always means having to do something one does not wish to do, usually something painful as well as unpleasant. I won’t even have to open my mouth to be trapped. I have less than a week of freedom left.”
“I still think you ought just to say a firm no,” his friend said. “As soon as your mama sets foot in your house, Miles, just say to her straight out, ‘I am not marrying Frances.’ Nothing could be simpler.”
“The very simplest thing would be to marry someone else,” the earl said. “Run off with her or marry her by special license before my mother even gets here. That’s what I ought to do.”
“How did you describe her?” Sir Gerald chuckled. “Plain? Dull? Very ordinary? Is that what you said? Why not a beauty while you are at it, Miles?”
“Because beautiful women are invariably vain,” Lord Severn said, “and think that men were created to fetch and carry for them. No, Ger, my ideal woman is someone who would be nice and quiet, who would be content to live somewhere in the country and be visited once or twice a year. Someone who would produce an heir with the minimum of fuss. Someone who would make all the matchmaking mamas, including my own, fold up their tents and go home. Someone who would quickly fade into the background of my life. Someone I could forget was there. Does that not sound like bliss?”
“Better still to have no one even in the background,” Sir Gerald said.
“That seems not to be an option.” The Earl of Severn got to his feet. “I should be going. It must be fiendishly late. I had better go to Jenny and enjoy myself while I still can.”
Sir Gerald frowned. “You don’t mean you are going to give up Jenny when you marry Frances?” he said. “Miles! You are the envy of the whole membership of White’s and probably that of the other clubs too. There aren’t many who could afford her, and not many even of those that she would cast a second look at.”
“Let’s not talk any more tonight about my marrying Frances,” the earl said, picking up his hat and cane from a chair by the door. “Perhaps I will meet that woman of my dreams within the next week, Ger. Perhaps I will be saved yet.”
“It’s all very well to talk,” his friend said, yawning loudly and stretching. “But you wouldn’t marry such a creature, Miles. Admit it.”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” Lord Severn said. “A nice, quiet, demure female, Ger? She sounds far preferable to what I am facing. Good night.”
“Give Jenny my love,” Sir Gerald said.
IT HAD BEEN VERY LATE when the earl arrived at the house where he kept his mistress. And Jenny, having been woken from sleep, had been warm and amorous and had kept him busy until dawn was already lighting her bedchamber. He had slept until well into the morning.
This was the part of having a mistress that he always liked least, he thought as his steps took him finally onto Grosvenor Square and to the door of the house he had inherited with his title more than a year before. He hated walking home in crumpled evening clothes, feeling tired and lethargic, Jenny’s heavy perfume teasing his nostrils from his own clothes and skin.
He looked forward to having a hot and soapy bath and a brisk ride in the park. But no, it was too late to ride in the park at more than a walk. He would go to Jackson’s boxing saloon. Perhaps he would find someone worth sparring with, someone to put energy back into his muscles.
He handed his hat and cane to his butler when he entered the house and directed that hot water be sent up to his dressing room without delay. But his steps were halted as he turned to the staircase.
“There is a lady in the yellow salon waiting to speak with you, my lord,” the butler said, his voice stiff and disapproving.#p#分页标题#e#
The earl frowned. “Did you not tell her that I was from home?” he asked.
His butler bowed. “She expressed her intention of waiting for your return, my lord,” he said. “She says she is your cousin. Miss Abigail Gardiner.”