“I should cut you? In public?” She looked shocked.
“Well, not too badly since I will still bring you home and escort you to the upcoming picnic on the grounds of Syon House. Just rump me,” he advised, and immediately he conjured a notion of her sweet bottom tucked against him as they lay together in tangled sheets.’Zounds!
He was rewarded with her laughter, and strangely, he was happy in turn to have caused it.
“You do put me in a good humor, my lord. And I believe I can return the favor. My father drafted a note which his clerk will have written up today. It insists on your behalf that Miss Waltham has inadvertently involved you in a case of mistaken identity, for such it surely is, and that it must come to a swift resolution. It was well written,” she added.
“Did you write it?” he asked, for something in her tone bespoke of pride.
Her hazel eyes twinkled. “I may have had a suggestion or two,” she allowed.
The rustling of paper caught his attention. He’d all but forgotten the maid, which was one reason servants weren’t good chaperones. That and the fact their employer could simply force them to lie. They weren’t credible vanguards of a ladies’ reputation in the least.
With that in mind, Philip rose to his feet.
Miss Bright also stood and followed him to the door. “I must say, I am thrilled to be going to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.”
He nearly brushed it off, but then a thought struck him.
“Don’t say you’ve never been before?”
She hesitated long enough to know her next words were going to be something of a fib.
“Of course I have,” she said, tilting her chin before adding, “but never at night.”
He nearly laughed in her face, but that would have been rude. He couldn’t get himself to take her to task for lying, nor tell her the owners no longer opened it to visitors during the day.
Instead, he let her save face. “Then we are a perfect pair, Miss Bright, for I don’t think I have ever been there in the light of day.”
Her expression was priceless, and he stared at her wide eyes and rosy cheeks a moment. Then he explained.
“While some might go there for a breath of fresh air as you did, when I need such, then I go to Hyde Park upon my horse. And if I need more, then I go to Richmond Park or leave the area for my estate in Guildford. Do you know of that area? In Surrey?”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
Philip knew a sudden impulse to invite her to visit his family’s country home, but a young lady at a house party was what got him into trouble in the first place. He needed to keep his attention on the task at hand, and that meant giving her a successful and uneventful Season.
“Knowing Vauxhall as I do, I cannot help but think of its evening activities as the sole purpose for existing,” he said. “Accordingly, I would hate to go when the sun is up and be disabused of its magical qualities.”
She smiled. “I’m sure I shall not recognize a blade of grass at night, and you must show me everything.”
“I will,” he promised and took his leave.
Actually, he would not. Certainly not the Lovers Walk or the Dark Walk or any of the covered walks, either. They all spelled trouble, especially if she were seen to be strolling along any one of them with him. In fact, he had no intention of letting her go beyond the Supper Boxes in the Grove or see anything more exciting than the Turkish Tent and the fireworks. She would encounter nothing to which her father could object.
Obviously, he couldn’t do anything about the caliber of other visitors. Anyone who could pay the three shillings admission price — or jump over one of the walls — could get in. Some of his friends, both lords and ladies, enjoyed Vauxhall for the very titillating experience of rubbing elbows with those whom they normally wouldn’t come into contact. It seemed a benign environment to interact with all walks of life, including merchants and thedemi-reps, and the price of such titillation was coming across the occasional pickpocket and hearing bear-garden jaw from the seediest sorts.
MIRANDA DIDN’T HAVE to knock at the Beaumonts’ door, for it opened effortlessly as she approached the four-story, five-bay brick house on Grosvenor Square. A stern butler took her card, which was in fact her father’s with her name scrawled across the top.
“You may wait here, miss,” he said and mounted the stairs.
Miranda hardly had time to admire the expensive furnishings and the pretty wallpaper before he returned and asked her to follow him. Up the staircase, he led her into a formal drawing room, the pale yellow walls of which stretched high above to a white plaster ceiling with crown molding.
“Miss Bright to see you, my lady,” and then he bowed and left her.
Miranda was surprised to find she was the only guest. The invitation had been vague as to what sort of a get-together this would be.
Lady Harriet Beaumont stood to welcome her and even held out her hands as if they were firm friends instead of new acquaintances.
