His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(35)
Miss Ferguson loosened the ribbons of her straw hat. “Young men can be scoundrels.”
The insult she’d been dealt in Hessian’s club came to mind. Perhaps Worth could be convinced to ruin Islington.
And all of his lordship’s drunken little friends too.
“A young man can also be gullible as hell,” Hessian said, “and competitive with his only brother. Increasingly, the young lady found comfort in my embrace—great, strapping bastion of male thick-headedness that I was. She would cry and fret, which required that even a brute such as I stroke her hair, pat her back, and lend her my handkerchief, all the while battling such thoughts as a gallant knight never admits save to his confessor.”
“You are not a brute.”
Which left great, strapping, and thick-headed. “I was a self-important prig. Worth came upon the young lady and me in an embrace that was innocent on my part and entirely calculated on hers. She’d escalated her accusations, claiming that she was with child and Worth had refused to marry her. She was begging me to save her good name, and then Worth stumbled upon us.”
“This qualifies as a painful memory all around.”
“Also as melodrama, though I could not see that at the time. Worth marched off in high dudgeon, convinced I’d dangled my title before the love of his life. Papa said to marry the girl and leave Worth to sort out his temper on his own, and I said… I said, ‘Of course, Papa.’”
“Your brother hadn’t trifled with her?”
“He’d barely stolen a few kisses. Her falsehoods became obvious in due time, and Worth and I have put it behind us, but one has regrets.”
Hessian regretted the tree root digging into his hip, so he sat up and found himself a mere foot from Miss Ferguson.
“What are they doing now?” she asked, shading her eyes. Both children were prone in the grass, the rabbits forgotten a few yards away.
“Probably looking for lucky clovers, or perhaps studying life from a rabbit’s-eye view.” The view from Hessian’s half of the blanket was pretty and thoughtful.
“Your brother apparently came right eventually,” she said. “He’s reported to have done quite well for himself.”
“Worth is arse over teakettle in love with his wife, if that’s what you mean.” Also with his daughter, his niece, his dog… his life.
“I meant…” Miss Ferguson glanced around. “Financially. Worth Kettering is a nabob. All London knows it. The rumor is, he’s even done a good turn for King George, who spends money faster than it can be minted.”
Worth had done several good turns for the sovereign, about which one was enjoined to remain silent. “My brother left Grampion Hall rich in injured pride. He was determined to make his own way, and having a full complement of Kettering determination, he achieved that end spectacularly.”
Hessian was close enough to the lady to get a hint of her fragrance—daffodils, an innocent, happy scent.
“You are proud of your brother.”
“Obnoxiously so.”
She watched the children, who were doubtless exchanging girlish confidences while enjoying the fresh air.
“You should know that my Uncle Walter seeks to do business with your brother. He hopes to curry Worth Kettering’s favor by offering agreeable companionship in the form of myself to the nabob’s older brother.”
Miss Ferguson’s disclosure smacked of intrigue, guile, and deceit, which Hessian would sort out later. If Walter Leggett sought to manipulate either Kettering brother, he was doomed to disappointment.
“What do you seek, Lily Ferguson?”
Now, she faced him. “To spend time in the company of a man whom I esteem, while ensuring an orphaned little girl whom I care about—despite all sense to the contrary—also has a pleasant outing.”
Hessian was growing to loathe the word esteem. Esteem was not liking, desire, passion, friendship… Esteem was a hedge into which shy rabbits dodged when they had no wish to be involved in drama, and yet, Hessian had used the word himself.
Miss Ferguson was on her feet without giving Hessian a chance to assist her. “Those girls will get grass stains all over their pinafores. If you’d hand me the ball, please?”
He retrieved the ball from her reticule and tossed it to her. She caught it with her left hand and marched off toward the children.
“Ladies, it’s time to work on our athletic skills!” She fired the ball across the grass with as much skill and accuracy as Hessian had encountered on the cricket pitches at public school.
The girls were on their feet, shrieking and chasing after the ball, while Hessian puzzled over a detail, probably to spare himself pondering Miss Ferguson’s revelation about Leggett’s scheme.
As a girl, Lily Ferguson had once fired a ball at him, straight at a location highly vulnerable to injury. The memory was as fresh as when she’d first offered the insult, because Hessian had moved at the very last instant and got a handsome bruise to the thigh.
Lily doubtless forgot the incident, but Hessian never would, and thus he was plagued by a question: When had Lily Ferguson become left-handed?
*
The front door clicked quietly closed, and barely audible footsteps passed Roberta Braithwaite’s parlor. She waited until those footsteps had started up the stairs—the third stair creaked—before speaking.