“Oh, good God,” Theo muttered, as the duke choked on his drink and Lord Tolliver thumped him heartily on the back.
Georgie, unmoved, lifted her chin. “If you must make a scene, Lottie, make it a spectacular one. But remember: you havemyname behind you now.”
Lottie’s grin was wicked. “Darling, I intend to make it asensation.”
Chapter 4
As readers well know, Lady Malverne’s garden party marked the unofficial beginning of the London Season, and it did so with all the requisite fanfare: a quartet tucked beneath the south terrace, liveried footmen bearing trays of chilled punch, and enough embroidered parasols to shade the entire Peerage. The lawns were in their prime, green as emerald, freshly rolled and dotted with marquees strung with ribbons.
Lottie stood at the edge of the gathering with her fan half-open, surveying the crowd with mild amusement.
She could scarcely believe that she had once thought Society would be dreadfully dull. Oh, how mistaken she had been! The Season was glorious, a riot of schemes and possibilities. One only needed to know where to look for the mischief, and Charlotte Tolliver always knew where to look.
“Do smile,” Georgie murmured beside her, adjusting her gloves. “You are not here to terrify the eligible gentlemen.”
“I most certainly am,” Lottie replied, scanning the crowd. “They ought to be alarmed. I am far too charming to be safe.”
“If you were any more pleased with yourself,” came Theo’s voice as he joined them, hands clasped neatly behind his back, “you should float off the lawn like a balloon on a breeze.”
“Hetty is attending today?” Lottie asked with a raised brow.
“Heavens, no,” he replied. “She is eight months along, in full command of her drawing room, her servants, and my every waking moment. I was dispatched with a list of instructions which I have already, to my peril, disregarded.”
“She shall know,” Georgie observed mildly.
“She always knows,” said Theo. He turned his gaze upon Lottie. “You are to keep your gloves on, Charlotte, remain in plain view, and refrain from discussing duels, trousers, or theology.”
“And what if my theology is correct?”
“I am not here to debate the nature of Providence,” Theo said dryly, though his eyes gleamed with amusement. “I am here to avert catastrophe.”
“You were once tolerable company, you know.”
“I was once unmarried and unburdened by a household teeming with Tolliver women.”
Lottie grinned. “I can imagine worse fates.”
He gave a long-suffering sigh. “Perhaps—but marrying one Tolliver and inheriting four more as sisters-in-law has robbed me of what little amusement I once possessed. It is rather like residing in a particularly fashionable lunatic asylum.”
“How flattering,” Georgie said dryly, without looking at him.
“Present company excepted, of course,” Theo added, straightening his cuffs. “You are every inch the duchess now.”
Behind them, the Duke of Morleigh stood with the expression of a man who would clearly prefer to be inspecting drainage improvements upon one of his estates. His presence here, Lottie knew very well, was not owed to pleasure. He had come forGeorgie—lending weight to her authority as Lottie’s sponsor—and had not spoken a single word since their arrival.
That, Lottie suspected, was entirely deliberate.
Between them, Morleigh and Langley had removed her from London last Season with the efficiency of men disposing of refuse from a stable yard. Now they stood here again, solemn as magistrates presiding over the return of a repeat offender.
At last, the duke cast a glance at Lottie. “Let us hope your sister’s reign survives your entrance to the Season.”
Lottie fluttered her fan lazily, though the smile she gave was all sharp edges. “How unkind, Your Grace. I should loathe to disappoint. Now tell me—will your cousin, Lord Gainsford, be in attendance today?”
Theo coughed into his glove, and Georgie went perfectly still.
The duke’s mouth thinned. “He is abroad.”
“Such a pity,” Lottie said, with an innocence so artful she knew it bordered upon criminal. “We shared the most spirited conversation last Season. And the claret was divine.”
