my head?”
“I would never say anything like that! At least I don’t think I would.” She then nodded her head twice, rather decisively. “Yes, thank you, I believe I should like very much attending the ball with you and Miss Harburton. And I’m certain I will enjoy meeting your cousin.” Then she gave him another smile, and another figurative kick to the gut. “But you think it was a good tantrum?”
“Tolerable, yes. You might need a little more practice before you’ve perfected it, but it was a good beginning.”
“I’m usually considered to be a good student. I’ll apply myself. Oh…someone is attempting to get your attention. Over there,” she said, pointing with her chin—how he delighted in the way she did that.
“Tanner Blake, it has been too long. How good to see you again,” the man called out, waving his hand in the air as he approached on horseback. “It was one thing to be long-ago chums, and to crack a few bottles with you in Paris a few years ago, but now that you’re the duke, I suppose I should take great care to cultivate your newly esteemed self.”
Tanner quickly took in the finely set-up grey stallion and the even more perfectly set-up gentleman in the saddle, still doing his best not to appear shocked at his friend’s sudden appearance. “Justin. Nobody told me you were in town. Did Vienna finally pall on you?”
Baron Justin Wilde, who had worn many hats during the last years in the fight against Bonaparte—many of them not known to any but the most highly-placed in the War Office—eased his mount around so that he was now riding alongside the curricle. The two men shook hands, no mean feat as both curricle and horse were still on the move.
Justin Wilde was now, as Tanner always remembered him to be, dressed in the first stare of fashion, the cut of his jacket accentuating the natural breadth of his shoulders, the buckskins molded to his strong thighs above high, close-fitting black Hessian boots sporting natty leather tassels and shined within an inch of their lives. But it was the lace at collar and cuffs that most firmly lifted him above the ordinary, as well as a face too handsome to allow anyone to feel threatened by him and his considerable muscles.
In fact, many would at first blush of meeting the Baron think him a smooth-speaking, faintly air-headed fop. They would look into those laughing green eyes beneath brows as dark as his boots and his hair, be disarmed by the frequent smile, and believe themselves in the company of a none-too-bright jewel of the ton. Which would be their mistake.
“I escaped Vienna nearly a month ago, slowly making my way home. Diplomacy can be boring, even when we’re carving up empires like bakers cutting a cake.” He half-stood in the stirrups as he tipped his curly-brimmed beaver at Lydia. “Forgive him, ma’am. The boy never did learn his manners. I am Justin Wilde, and you are the most delightful creature I’ve ever been privileged to see. Please tell me this scoundrel is only squiring you, and has no prior claim to your affections now that my heart hangs in the balance on your answer.”
Tanner’s laugh brought a small, hesitant smile to Lydia’s face. “Lady Lydia Daughtry, please forgive me for being forced to introduce to you Baron Justin Wilde. Soldier and statesman, wit and fool. And he plays all of those roles better than most. I suggest you avoid him at all costs.”
“Oh, foul, Tanner. Foul. You’re twice the fool I am, and so I tell everyone. Lady Lydia, again, I implore you. Tell me your heart is not as yet bespoken, most especially to an unnamed rogue bearing a rather canny resemblance to the gentleman now looking so uncomfortable beside you, else mine own heart will surely break.”
Tanner waited for Lydia’s answer, realizing that he had no idea what she would say. Yesterday, he would have known she’d be polite, rather shy, and most definitely exceedingly proper. But today? He looked at her curiously, his heart jumping when she revealed a small, rather wry smile that made him see, perhaps for the first time, a resemblance to her mischievous twin.
“I most seriously doubt my words hold such power, sir,” she said after a moment, “but if it eases your endangered heart at all, I will say that his Grace and I are friends out merely to enjoy the air and, of course, the present foolish company.”
Wilde swiftly removed his hat and pressed it to his chest in mock admiration. “My God, Tanner, she speaks in complete sentences. And without simpering or stuttering or feigning light-headedness at my crude attempts at flattery.” Once again he leaned his head forward, to look around Tanner. “Lady Lydia, please be so kind as to picture me figuratively at your feet. I had no idea beauty such as yours could exist, most especially in concert with a functioning mind.”
Tanner put out his arm, pushing Wilde back on his saddle even as he maneuvered the reins and the curricle moved forward slowly, thanks to the crush of other vehicles. “You should take yourself back to Vienna, Justin, if your opinion of London ladies is so poor.”
“Nonsense, Tanner. My opinion of all ladies is that they are delightful creatures. As long as one isn’t so unfortunate as to have to engage them in conversation for more than a few minutes, of course. Which, fortunately, I usually don’t. But Lady Lydia seems to be a wonderful exception to the rule.”
Now it seemed to be Lydia’s turn to push—politely—Tanner back on his seat as she leaned forward to question the Baron. “Exception though you have deemed me, I feel I must now ask you a question. Are you then a misogynist, sir? Or perhaps a misanthrope, and your distaste extends to all creatures who are not you? Are you Alceste?”
Tanner now sat back on the bench seat all by himself, without further direction from either Wilde or Lydia. He figured it was safer.
“Alceste, you say? That woeful cynic? Then you are familiar with Molière and his masterpiece, Le Misanthrope? Tanner, did you hear that? Wait, wait, this can’t be. Lady Lydia, indulge me by completing this line. He’s a wonderful talker, who has the art…?”
Tanner laughed out loud. “God’s teeth, Justin, you’d quiz her?”
“No, no, it’s all right. Shall I?” Lydia looked to Tanner, who merely nodded. “Very well, then. He’s a wonderful talker, who has the art of telling you nothing in a great harangue.”
“Ha! I can see why that line is one of your favorites, Justin. Sounds just like you. Are we done now? I brought Lady Lydia here to see the sights, not to amuse you. Although I’ll admit to being quite well amused myself.”
“I’ll leave you now, yes,” Wilde said, his considering gaze still on Lydia, who seemed to have suddenly remembered that she was the shy twin, the one who never put herself forward. “But perhaps we can meet again later, Tanner? It has been too long.”
Tanner agreed, because he did truly enjoy Justin Wilde. He told him that he and Lydia would be attending Lady Chalfont’s ball later in the evening, and then finally watched as Wilde rode off, probably already planning on whom he would next harass with his perfect—and yet unexpected, almost bizarrely so—presence.
“What a strange man,” Lydia said as Tanner moved the curricle forward only a few feet, the crush of equipages now reaching a multitude on this rare sunny afternoon. “Does he really think women are so…useless?”
“I’d say I wouldn’t know, except that I like the man, and feel he may have made a rather odd first impression. Justin was once married to an extraordinarily beautiful young woman, Lydia, and it ended badly. He has told me that he chose her for her beauty, which, again, according to him, is a mistake made too often by vain and foolish gentlemen.”
“I believe
