That tickled Jasper to no end, and he laughed at Geoffrey’s expense. After a minute, however, he spoke again.
“Maybe you had best throw them off the scent.”
“What do you mean?” Geoffrey asked, then drained his brandy, gesturing to the server for another.
“Escort some other young lady about Town. In fact, dance with everyoneexceptLady Caroline, don’t even try to speak with her. Laugh and chat with the other females instead so your parents and hers suspect nothing of your heart.”
“You dolt! That will make me look like a rake, especially to Lady Caroline. And how will that help me get closer to her?”
“I may be a dolt,” Jasper said, “but I am a willing one who would carry your messages to her in your stead.”
Geoffrey gaped at him. “You really do think I am Romeo come to life. That makes you Juliet’s nurse, by the way, as she was the one who carried all the messages.” He saw his friend smile again. “And you are liable to get me poisoned or stabbed after all.”
Besides, Geoffrey didn’t want to play games and pretend to care for other ladies.Why bring more people into it?He wanted to be frank. On the other hand, he could use Jasper’s help in communicating with Lady Caroline if necessary.
As it turned out, at the next assembly in a grand house on St. James’s Square, Lady Caroline was there with her indomitable mother. The woman’s head appeared to be upon a swivel, and she didn’t let her daughter out of her sight.
And thus, he needed Jasper after all.
“Dance with Lady Caroline,” Geoffrey instructed from a position behind a column. “And please tell her I’ll be waiting in the vestibule, next to the vase of flowers.”
Jasper, who had made sure to gain an introduction to Caroline early during the evening, saluted rudely. “As you wish, sire.”
After watching his friend take the coppery-haired Caroline as his partner, Geoffrey left the room just before the dancing ended. He waited for half an hour, but she never appeared. Eventually, forced to give up, he returned to the main hall and spotted her dancing with another gentleman, Lord Mangue.
Jasper intercepted him. “Your Juliet was willing, but there was no way for her to leave the room without her dear mother at her side.”
“Then we shall have to find another way. Will you dance with her again later in the evening?”
Jasper grinned. “People will start to linkmyname with Lady Caroline’s.”
“I shall risk it,” Geoffrey said. “Find out if she goes anywhere without her mother. With another chaperone or, better yet, with her aunt. If there is such a place, find out the time and I shall go there, too.”
It couldn’t have workedout better. Geoffrey met Lady Caroline at Hatchards bookshop on Piccadilly with her maid two days later. Jasper told him Lady Chimes considered it to be, in Caroline’s words, “a dull outing.” And therefore, safe.
Upon entering the shop at number 187 between the bay windows, Geoffrey spied Lady Caroline at once by her hair. Although under a cream-colored bonnet with a yellow ribbon, enough of her glorious locks showed like a beacon. What’s more, she had claimed a space in the middle of the ground floor, perhaps in order to see him easily. Dressed in a lemon-colored gown of fine cotton, with a matching short satin spencer, she was the epitome of femininity, and he would have noticed her even if she’d been in a dark corner.
Her face lit up with a smile. He nodded, seeing her maid beside her.
Now what?
Moving closer, he browsed the books on the round tables, not actually seeing anything, too aware of her nearness.
“Keep an eye on these books,” he heard her say to her maid when he was a mere few yards away. “I am going to see if they have the latest Waverly novel.”
“Yes, miss.”
Geoffrey waited a few moments, moving toward the bookshelves that lined the walls, keeping his back to the maid. He picked out a thick volume, inspected it, and returned it before starting to hum quietly.
Sauntering along in the direction Lady Caroline had gone, he increased his pace as soon as he was out of the maid’s view.
“Here,” Lady Caroline said when he nearly passed her hiding place, squeezed between two bookcases.
Grasping her hand, he pulled her along behind him farther into the back of the shop.
“That was a good ruse,” he commended, “gathering up so many books your maid would have to stay put.”
“It wasn’t a ruse,” she said. “I really shall buy them or at least some of them, with my allowance, and the Waverly novelSt. Ronan’s Well, too, if I find it.”
