“What--?”
But before Fitz could even finish the thought, his stern, unbending, always-proper father was leaping down from the driver’s seat of his curricle and rushing to the water’s edge.Fitz gawked like a bumpkin at the impossible sight of the Marquess of Huntingdon sloshing directly into the water to offer his arm to the lady.
“Oh, sir, you are too kind,” she said, somewhat muffled by the sodden feathers drooping from her sadly crumpled bonnet, which had fallen forward over her eyes.“I can’t think how my daughter lost her balance; I’m only grateful that I took the tumble instead of her!”
A prickle of intuition had Fitz glancing at Caroline in time to see her bite her lip guiltily.Disbelief filled him, along with something perilously close to delight.“Tell me I didn’t give you the idea for this when I mentioned that dare I took,” he begged in an undertone.“I cannot be the reason you pushed your poor mother into the Serpentine.”
She hissed him quiet and Fitz allowed Caroline to tug him a short distance away as the older generation struggled up the embankment.
“Of course you didn’t give me the idea,” she informed him crossly, eyes fixed on her mother.“Oh, goodness, I hope she’s all right.I didn’t mean to push her quite so hard!”
“You are a menace,” Fitz informed her, light and warmth spreading through his entire body like the effects of a sip of the best brandy.“An actual disaster.I cannot believe this was your dastardly plan all along.”
“Will you be quiet?I’m trying to hear!”
Fitz glanced back at the older pair, who had made their way onto dry ground.The lady was laughing at herself, a nice, musical sort of laugh that made Fitz want to smile.She pushed at her misshapen bonnet, fighting the wet ribbon until she was finally able to shove the thing back into place atop her dripping curls.
The moment the upper half of her face was uncovered and she blinked her lashes open to reveal exactly where Caroline had gotten her unusual violet eyes, Lady Quick’s laugh died in her throat.She stared at Fitz’s father as though she’d seen a ghost—and not the charmingly atmospheric kind, either, but the extremely grim, unwelcome sort.
For his part, Fitz’s father appeared transfixed.“Helena,” he croaked, then cleared his throat.“That is, Lady Quick.I thought that must be you.”
“Why, because I am the only ninny you’ve ever known to fall into the Serpentine?”
Her tone was brittle, well on its way to being cold, and it almost distracted Fitz from the fact that clearly these two had met before.Things began to come clear.
“Not at all,” Lord Alfred was saying quietly, attempting to help Lady Quick up the embankment and being shrugged off for his trouble.“I only meant that I should have recognized you anywhere, under any circumstances.”
Fitz felt his eyebrows wing skyward like a brace of grouse startled from cover.At his side, Caroline’s grip on his elbow tightened, but if she was hoping her mother would swoon into the marquess’s arms at that bit of shockingly romantic fluff, she was doomed to disappointment.
Lady Quick drew herself upright, as dignified as it was possible to be while picking bracken from her hair.“Well.I thank you for your kind assistance, sir, but I assure you I’m entirely recovered.Good day to you.Come, Caroline!”
“Blast,” muttered Fitz’s dainty companion.“I was hoping for a little more from this encounter.”
“Yes, when one goes to the trouble of dousing an aged relative in the Serpentine, one naturally wants to see results from those efforts.Would you permit me to introduce you to my father?”
Giving him a narrow look, Caroline stepped forward and duly allowed herself to be presented to the marquess while Lady Quick stood stiffly by, staring into the middle distance with a tiny frown line notched between her brows.
A gust of wind blew, rattling the naked branches of the willow tree.Lady Quick gave a sudden, convulsive shiver.The blue tinge to her lips gave Fitz an idea.
“I say, Father, hadn’t we better offer these ladies a ride home?I would hate to see Lady Quick catch a chill while walking.”
Caroline brightened at once.“Oh yes, what a good thought!”
“No!”Lady Quick flushed a bit at her own vehemence, but nevertheless stood her ground.“That is, I’m sure Lord Alfred has many demands on his time and cannot possibly spare an hour to deliver us back to Portman Square.The Marquess of Huntingdon is a very important personage, Caroline.”
To Fitz’s surprise, his father visibly winced, even though Fitz had personally heard Lord Alfred espouse a nearly identical view on the importance of their family’s ancestral title.
“I would be delighted to escort you home,” the marquess said firmly.“Nothing could give me greater pleasure.”
“Mama, please,” begged Caroline shamelessly.“It would be a great shame if you took sick, and entirely due to my own clumsiness.I should never forgive myself.”
“It’s not the least trouble,” Fitz hastened to add when Caroline trod pointedly on his boot.“Here, let me assist you into the curricle.Oh dear, my apologies but I believe there’s only room for one lady!I will put Miss Quick up on Arion and walk them behind the carriage, all right and proper as can be.Up you go!”
Lady Quick’s flush deepened along with her frown line, but she was no match for their combined efforts.Fitz had her settled in the curricle in a trice, a lap blanket tucked cozily around her by his father, who was generally behaving like a protective mother fox with a wayward kit.
Their motley band set out up Rotten Row in the direction of Portman Square, where the ladies evidently lodged.Caroline declined to ride Arion, preferring to walk, so they kept to the outer edge of the crowded road and did their best to keep the curricle containing their parents in view.Fitz relished the warmth of her lithe figure at his side and the curl of her slender, gloved fingers in the crook of his elbow, and wondered what the hell was happening to him.
“Damn and blast, I can’t see a thing over all these people,” Caroline grumbled, craning her neck.
