“Only because of her hair, my love. Obviously, she can’t hold a candle to you. If she could, then I would be with her instead.”
He laughed hard at that, but by her scowl, Geoffrey’s mother didn’t think her husband the least bit amusing.
“I’m only teasing,” the earl reminded his wife, draping his arm along the back of the sofa and around her slender shoulders. “Remember, once I saw you, I had to have you, despite how you were ill-advisedly keeping company with Chimes.”
“Hardly that,” she grumbled. “He and I had barely enjoyed a few dances.”
“That’s not how I recall it,” Lord Diamond said, his tone growing serious for the first time. “I believe there was riding and a dinner party or two, as well.”
“Excuse me, dear parents, but while this stroll through your memories is as fascinating as waiting for bread to rise —”
“When have you ever done that?” his mother demanded.
“Never,” Geoffrey quipped. “Because it would be boring and tedious and not worth my time, precisely like this entire discussion. All I want to know is whether either of you or both of you perpetrated some wrong upon the Chimes and if I can do anything to fix it.”
His parents looked at one another and then back at him.
“We have always acted with the utmost decorum,” his mother said, “except for what I told you before.”
“What did you tell him?” Lord Diamond asked.
“Just that you stole me from Lord Chimes and also beat him in a wager at your club.”
His father nearly spat out his brandy, which expensive as it was would have been a damn shame.
“How did you know about that?”
His mother smiled with satisfaction. “We wives have our ways of knowing what goes on at those gentlemen’s clubs.”
The next thing Geoffrey knew, his feisty parents were arguing loudly about “interfering, nosy-poke harpies” and “depraved, pompous bucks.”
Sighing, Geoffrey downed his brandy and rose to his feet. They didn’t even notice. In any case, he doubted they would ever be the least bit helpful.
After Vauxhall, Carolineendured a series of frustrating experiences. Inside the new National Gallery, at number 100 Pall Mall, she was with her mother when she spied Geoffrey, as Caroline now dared to think of him. He saw her nearly at the same moment. They both pretended to look at the works by Raphael and Hogarth while surreptitiously sneaking glances at one another.
Finally, Caroline’s mother caught sight of him, and they left without her getting to exchange more than a smile with him.
Then there was the night at the theatre when she and her parents had been in the same audience as the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands. Despite the impressive six-foot king and his exotic queen, she’d noticed Geoffrey in his family’s private box and soon had his attention. When the theater was darkened and the performance began, she still stared in his direction. And when the lamps were litonce more, they practically had a conversation across the expanse of the theatre with smiles and nods. She even risked the smallest of waves.
Finally, they were both at the same ball, and she prepared herself for another exasperating experience. Recalling what she’d said to Geoffrey, she wondered what her parents would do if he boldly came over and led her to the dance floor.
She sighed. It would be a disaster, and she couldn’t pretend otherwise. Caroline’s mother was not above grabbing her daughter by the ear and forcibly removing her. It would be humiliating. And despite being twenty, she imagined her father could and would confine her to their home for the rest of the Season.
Daphne, who was also at the ball, knew her sorrowful situation but had no suggestions. When Lord Hollidge was around her, as he was that night, her best friend was so madly in love, she only half-listened. Moreover, Daphne kept her eyes upon her husband, who gazed at her in return with equal ardor.
Geoffrey stayed on the opposite side of the room until Caroline accepted a partner. Each time she did, he would quickly ask a lady to dance and thus be nearby.
Shaking her head at him, she wished he would give up. While she wasn’t jealous of each and every pretty miss whom he took for a partner, she was dreadfully envious.
And then Daphne, bless her heart, with her cheeks in full bloom from having danced with her husband, announced a dinner party at her home. By the sparkle in her friend’s eyes, Caroline guessed Geoffrey would be invited, too.
“I shall send out the invitations over the next couple of days,” Daphne told Lady Chimes just before the ball ended. “Naturally, we will have musicians and perhaps some other entertainment.”
“We shall be pleased to come,” Caroline’s mother agreed.
“Oh, I am sorry, my lady. My husband and I are hosting this dinner only for unmarried people. No chaperones are needed nor allowed as there will not be even one unsupervised minute.”
“It’s a modern notion,” Lady Chimes said, “but I understand the fun of young people gathering together without their parents. I wonder if I can request any particular bachelors. My daughter is becoming fond of Lord Mangue. Isn’t that right?”
