His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(60)

A son often learned life’s lessons best from anybody other than his father, but Leggett’s recitation had the quality of a speech, an oration delivered to convince.

“Some of my fondest memories,” Hessian said, “are of riding Grampion’s metes and bounds with my father. He knew every tenant, every acre of the land, and every fox in every covert. I saw firsthand the standard I was to aim for, and the example has stood me in good stead.”

The cushion beneath Hessian was lumpy to the point of causing discomfort, if the conversation weren’t already making him uneasy. The set-piece parlor, the innuendo regarding Oscar’s choice of bride, the speechifying about why Oscar wasn’t to learn his family’s finances from the only person who could instruct him on the matter…

An ill-fitting boot of a social call.

“I’m sure you miss your father very much,” Leggett said, “but the aristocracy will regret clinging to the land as its sole source of wealth. Mark me on this, my lord, for I know of what I speak.”

“Perhaps young Oscar would benefit from your thoughts on that subject,” Hessian said, rising. “I am expected elsewhere, though you may anticipate a dinner invitation from my household to yours in the near future.”

Was that relief in Leggett’s eyes? Satisfaction?

“If you’d rather not go to the bother of hosting company, Oscar and I could meet you and your brother for dinner at my club,” Leggett said. “The ladies find talk of business and politics tedious, just as we fellows find talk of balls and millinery a trial.”

“I must disagree,” Hessian said as his host escorted him down to the front door. “The company of the ladies, with their poise and graciousness, is preferable to a lot of pontificating men and their stinking cigars. Hosting your family for dinner will be my pleasure.”

Provided Lily was among the guests.

Leggett hovered, smiling and chortling, until Hessian was physically out the door.

The entire encounter had been disappointing and disquieting. Was Lily engaged to her cousin?

Was Leggett rolled up?

Hessian turned at the street corner and took himself into the alley that ran between two rows of town houses. A mews sat near one end, along with a carriage house likely shared by several households. The alley was a quiet, shady stretch of cobbles, just like hundreds of other alleys in London. Hessian sauntered along, a gentleman who preferred quieter environs than the main streets, until he’d counted enough back gardens to find himself behind Leggett’s town house.

The garden was another theater set—a sundial in the middle, a small patch of overgrown grass between walkways and hedges—but not as well maintained as the rest of Leggett’s property.

“Can I help you, sir?”

The question came from a slight fellow in workingman’s clothes. He smelled of horse, and his hair needed a trim.

“If I and a few other fellows wanted to toss a note onto the balcony of Mr. Oscar Leggett, or perhaps serenade him with a humorous ballad some night when the rest of his family was out, which window might we assemble beneath?”

The man’s smile revealed a total of six teeth. “Mr. Oscar Leggett has that room above the terrace, sir. His pa’s to the right, and the young miss is on the left-hand corner. They’d both hear you and your mates, if you chose the wrong evening.”

Hessian passed the man a coin. “We’ll choose carefully.”

The groom returned to the stable, while Hess visually measured the distance from the top of the gazebo to Lily’s window. A bow window beneath made the climb reasonably safe, though where was a handy balcony when a fellow needed to turn up swainly by moonlight?

Hessian consulted his watch—he’d promised Daisy a midafternoon picnic if she finished letters to her brothers—and went upon his way.

The meeting with Leggett had not gone as planned, not at all, but Lily would pay a call tomorrow at Worth’s, and Hessian would then ascertain if her question about eloping had been idle curiosity or a broad hint.

*



“You leave me thinking the worst, Oscar Leggett, the very worst, then take yourself off to sleep the morning away in the stables.”

Lily was still angry with him for that, for spending the past two days hiding from her, pretending a megrim, then sneaking out of an evening rather than dispelling the nasty, outlandish implications of their last conversation.

She’d risked confronting him at his midday meal, which for him was an early breakfast.

“If you must scold, at least cease racketing about while you do,” Oscar said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “I was giving you time to reconcile yourself to your good fortune. Honestly, Lily, you could do much worse.”

No, she could not. “Why are you awake and dressed before sundown?”

“You informed the stables that you’d need the carriage for a two o’clock call. If we’re to be married, we must comport ourselves like a couple, and that means we pay calls together.”

That was Walter Leggett’s logic, also an excuse to tighten the noose of surveillance Lily had lived with since the age of fourteen.

“I’m going hat shopping.”

Oscar slurped his coffee. “Mustn’t lie, Lily. That’s not what you told the butler.”

And the coachman would disclose any and all locations Lily had visited. “I’m going hat shopping after I pay my call.”