Jack lifted a finger for quiet, brow furrowing.
God dammit.
“Get me Gribson,” he ordered, naming his valet. “My room. Now. And thank you, Dalcher,” he shot over his shoulder, already halfway up the stairs. “It’s good to be back. But dinner will have to wait.”
Then he went to fling off his riding clothes and practically ran from the house.
Almack’s. Of all the places. Would he get there in time to avert disaster?
He hadn’t stepped foot in it since he’d been forced there by his mother on Nell’s debut. Now he paused before the front step, taking a readying breath that was strongly flavoured by animadversions of the existence of sisters, before striding up to the door at his usual brisk pace.
The porter welcomed him, greeting him by name, though Jack was sure he’d never seen him before in his life, but recognising every notable person was as much a part of the man’s job as the efficient way he helped Jack out of his overcoat.
“Has my sister arrived? Lady Ashburton?”
The man opened his mouth to reply, but, catching sight of a familiar elaborately plumed head through the inner vestibule doorway, Jack cut the man off with a polite, “Never mind, I spy the party myself.”
He entered and found his elder sister, exquisitely overdressed, his younger sister, only just managing to pull off a debatable effusion of salmon pink, and, next to her, an odd little thing all in brown.
He stared for a moment, then, “Good Lord, Min,” he exclaimed, rapidly advancing. “Aren’t you supposed to havechanged? Or at least grown a bit taller? How do you still look exactly the same mad scamp you always did? And what the deuce is this dress?” He cast a horrified look towards his sister. “Are you mad, Nell?Brown?It should be cream!”
“Jack!” hissed Nell, with a fretful look around the crowded vestibule. “Keep your voice down!”
“Well! What have you gone and dressed her like an ageing widow for? Or a governess?”
“Ilook the part, though, don’t I, Jack?” said Nora, plucking at his elbow. “This dress—”
“Ought to be burnt, but I’m not sure I can think of a punishment fit for yours, Min.” He looked up from the offending item and smiled widely on encountering those silver-grey eyes, an odd little kick going through his chest. “Hello. Been a devilish long time, hasn’t it?”
He was, with the benefit of hindsight and Nell angrily bleating something or other in his ear—and Nora choking back an anguished sob—becoming aware that his opening sentiments might not have been the most tactful. Devil take it, though, it was beyond strange! Min, standing there, looking exactly like the remembered friend of his childhood.
Only being in company checked his urge to sweep her up into the tightest of hugs. Perhaps he looked daft, grinning at her as he was. He felt daft, suddenly a child again, beaming like a boy with a frog, but if there was anyone in the world he could be daft with, it was Min. His smile deepened, anticipating the familiarhorrible boy, said in her usual stout but quiet way.
Instead… Instead he found himself confronted with a slim, gloved hand, held coolly out to him.
“Lord Orton.” With chilling politeness, she gave him the smallest of curtsies. “How do you do?”
He stared, long habit prompting him to press her fingers and make a very correct bow over them. And he kept staring as shewithdrew her hand and turned to Nora, taking the tearful girl’s elbow and whispering what he assumed were consoling words into her ear. They departed, arm in arm, for the ladies’ private room.
Yes. He felt daft alright. He felt a damn sight more than daft.
“Jack!” hissed Nell again, still seething. “What are you doing? I wanted you here to help launch Nora, not make us all a laughingstock.”
“No one’s laughing,” he replied irritably, glancing around the pillared vestibule to check whether this was actually true. Lady Weeton was definitely staring but not laughing. He smiled at her, perhaps more forcibly than he’d intended because she visibly started, then hurried away up the stairs to the main room. His irritation deepened. “And this is all your fault anyway, Nell.”
“Mine! Why?”
“What were you thinking bringing them to Almack’s when they’ve only just arrived in London? You don’t put a cold horse straight at the gallop. They’ve got no town polish. They’re as green as…as that extremely ghastly dress over there. Good Lord, whatisMrs Pontham thinking?” Blinking away the bilious vision, he turned back to his sister. “Especially Min! Has she even been in society before? Nora’s had the benefit of frequent parties and visitors at home, and she’s visited you in London before. But Min’s as countrified as…as a newborn lamb. In a field. Of, erm, grass.”
Nell blinked at this unprecedented linguistic feat, Jack not being known for his poetic turn, but her surprise disappeared beneath her usual scowl. “May I remind you that it’s your sisterNorawho I’ve been tasked with bringing out? Who gives a fig about Lucy?”
“So that’s why you’ve dressed her in your housekeeper’s old castoffs, is it? I thought you said you were going to take her shopping? You wrote and told me—”
“I did! She chose that dress herself. Though it was hard enough to get her to do that much when she spent most of the time at the modiste’s staring out of the window.”
“Then maybe the shop across the street had clothing more to her taste.”
“It was an artist’s supply shop!”
