Henry let him lead her into a bright and airy drawing room. “But in all seriousness, Dunford,” she said, “if no one is using the house here in London, wouldn’t it make sense for you to use it? This is a lovely house. I’m sure it costs a pretty penny to lease it. You could invest those funds . . .” She broke off when she realized Dunford was laughing.
“Oh, Hen,” he gasped. “Don’t ever change.”
“You may be sure that I won’t,” she said pertly.
He clucked her under the chin. “Was ever a female so practical as you, I wonder?”
“Most males are not, either,” she retorted, “and I happen to think practicality is a good trait.”
“And so it is. But as for my house—” He bestowed his most devilish grin upon her, sending her heart and mind into a whirl of giddy confusion. “—at nine and twenty I’d rather not be living under a watchful parental eye. Oh, and by the way, you’ll want not to talk about such matters among ton ladies. It’s considered crass.”
“Well, what can I talk about, then?”
He paused. “I don’t know.”
“Just as you didn’t know what ladies talk about when they retire after supper. It’s probably dreadfully dull.”
He shrugged. “Not being a lady, I have never been invited to listen to their conversations. But if you’re interested, you can ask Belle. You’ll probably meet her this afternoon.”
“Who is Belle?”
“Belle? Oh, she is a great friend of mine.”
Henry began to sense an emotion that felt uncannily like jealousy.
“She’s recently married. Used to be Belle Blydon, but now she’s Belle Blackwood. Lady Blackwood, I suppose I should call her.”
Trying to ignore the fact that she felt rather relieved at this Belle person’s married state, Henry said, “And she was Lady Belle Blydon before that, I imagine?”
“She was, actually.”
She swallowed. All these lords and ladies were a trifle unsettling.
“Don’t let Belle’s blue blood send you into palpitations,” Dunford said briskly, walking across the room to a closed door. He put his hand on the knob and pushed it open. “Belle is extremely unpretentious, and besides, I’m sure that with a little training, you’ll be able to hold your head high with the best of us.”
“Or the worst,” Henry muttered, “as the case may be.”
If Dunford heard her, he pretended not to. Henry’s eyes followed him as he walked into what appeared to be his study. He bent over a desk and quickly shuffled through some papers. Curious, she followed him in, perching impishly on the side of the desk. “What are you looking at?”
“Nosy brat.”
She shrugged.
“Just some correspondence that accumulated while I was gone. And some invitations. I want to be careful about what you attend at first.”
“Afraid I might embarrass you?”
He looked up sharply, relief evident on his face when he saw she was only teasing. “Some of the ton events are mind-numbingly dull. I wouldn’t want to make a bad impression on you the first week out. This, for example.” He held up a snowy white invitation. “A musicale.”
“But I think I would enjoy a musicale,” Henry said. Not to mention the fact that she probably would not have to make conversation for the bulk of the evening.
“Not,” he said emphatically, “when it’s being given by my Smythe-Smith cousins. I went to two of them last year, and only because I love my mother. I believe it was said that after hearing dear Philippa, Mary, Charlotte, and Eleanor play Mozart, one would know exactly how it would sound if performed by a herd of sheep.” Shuddering with distaste, he crumpled up the invitation and dropped it carelessly on the desk.
Henry, spying a small basket that she guessed was used for discarded paper, picked up the crumpled invitation and lobbed it in. When it hit its mark, she let out a soft whoop of triumph, clasping her hands together and raising her arms in the air in a victory salute.
Dunford just closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Well, goodness,” she said pertly. “You can’t expect me to abandon all of my hoydenish habits, can you?”
“No, I suppose not.” And, he thought with a tinge of pride, he didn’t really want her to.
An hour later Dunford was seated in Belle Blackwood’s parlor, telling her about his unexpected ward.
“And you had no idea you were her guardian until Carlyle’s will arrived a week and a half later?” Belle asked disbelievingly.
“Not even an inkling.”
“I can’t help but chuckle, Dunford, to think of you as a young lady’s guardian. You, as a defender of maidenly virtue? It’s a most improbable scenario.”
“I’m not such a profligate that I cannot steer a young lady through society,” he said, stiffening his spine. “And that brings me to two other points. First, as pertains to the phrase ‘young lady.’ Well, I have to say that Henry is a trifle unusual. And second, I will need your help, and not only a show of support. I need to find someplace for her to live. She can’t stay at my bachelor’s lodgings.”
“Fine, fine,” Belle said, waving her hand dismissively. “Of course I’ll help her, but I want to know why she’s so unusual. And did you just call her Henry?”
“It’s short for Henrietta, but I don’t think anyone’s called her by her full name since she learned how to speak.”
“It has some style,” Belle mused. “If she can carry it off.”
“I have no doubt she can, but she’ll need a bit of guidance. She’s never been to London before. And her female guardian died when she was only fourteen. No one has taught Henry how to be a lady. She is completely ignorant of most of the customs of polite society.”
“Well, if she’s bright, it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. And if you like her so much, I’m sure I won’t mind her company.”
“No, I’m sure you’ll get on famously. Perhaps too famously,” he said with a sinking feeling. He had a sudden vision of Belle and Henry and God knows what other females aligning themselves into a coalition. There was no telling what they could accomplish—or destroy—if they worked together. No man would be safe.
“Oh, do not try to wound me with your beleaguered male expression,” Belle said. “Tell me a little about this Henry.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. What does she look like?”
Dunford pondered this, wondering why it was so difficult to describe her. “Well, her hair is brown,” he began. “Mostly brown, that is. There are streaks of gold in it. Well, not really streaks, but when the sun hits it just so, it looks quite blond. Not like yours, but . . . I don’t know, not quite brown anymore.”
Belle fought the urge to jump on the table and dance with glee, but ever the strategist, she schooled her features into a polite but interested mask and asked, “And her eyes?”
“Her eyes? They’re gray. Well, actually more silvery than gray. I suppose most people would just call them gray, however.” He paused. “Silver. They’re silver.”
“Are you certain?”
Dunford opened his mouth, about to say that they must be silvery-gray, when he noted the teasing tone in Belle’s voice and clamped his mouth shut.
Belle’s lips twitched as she suppressed a smile. “I’d be happy to have her stay here. Or better yet, we’ll install her at my parents’ house. No one would dare cut her if my mother gave her support.”
Dunford stood. “Good. When may I bring her?”
“The sooner the better, I think. We don’t want her over at your lodgings for a minute longer than is necessary. I’ll call on my mother immediately and meet you there.”
“Excellent,” he said curtly, giving her a slight bow.
Belle watched him as he strode from the room, then finally allowed her jaw to drop in shock over the way he had described Henry. The thousan
d pounds were hers. She could practically feel the money in her hand.
Chapter 12
Belle’s mother, as expected, took Henry firmly under her wing. She couldn’t quite manage to call her by her nickname, however, preferring to use the more formal “Henrietta.” “Not,” Caroline had said, “that I disapprove of your moniker. It is simply that my husband’s name is also Henry, and it’s rather disconcerting for me to use it on a girl of your tender years.”
Henry had only smiled and told her that that was just fine. It had been so long since she had had a maternal figure that she would have been inclined to let Caroline call her Esmerelda if she so desired.
Henry hadn’t wanted to enjoy her time in London, but Belle and her mother were making it exceedingly difficult for her to keep her spirits low. They conquered her fears with kindness, slayed her uncertainties with jokes and good humor. Henry missed her life at Stannage Park, but she had to allow that Dunford’s friends had brought a certain measure of happiness into her life that she hadn’t even realized was missing.
She had forgotten what it meant to have a family.
Caroline had grand plans for her new charge, and within the first week, Henry had visited the modiste, the milliner, the modiste, the bookshop, the modiste, the glove shop, and, of course, the modiste. More than once, Caroline had shaken her head and declared that she had never seen a young lady who needed quite so many articles of clothing at one time.
Which was why, Henry thought in agony, they were at the dressmaker’s shop for the seventh time in one week. The first couple of visits had been exciting, but now it was exhausting.
“Most of us,” Caroline said with a pat on the hand, “try to do this a bit at a time. With you, however, that wasn’t an option.”
Henry smiled tightly in response as Madame Lambert jabbed another pin in her side.
“Oh, Henry,” Belle laughed. “Do try not to look quite so pained.”
Henry shook her head. “I think she drew blood that time.”
The dressmaker choked back her indignation, but Caroline, the much-esteemed Countess of Worth, hid her smile behind her hand. When Henry went into the back room to change, she turned to her daughter and whispered, “I think I like this girl.”
“I know I do,” Belle replied firmly. “And I think Dunford does too.”
“You don’t mean to say he is interested in her?”
Belle nodded. “I don’t know if he knows it yet. If he does, he certainly does not want to admit it.”
Caroline pursed her lips. “It’s high time that young man settled down.”
“I have a thousand pounds riding on it.”
“You don’t!”
“I do. I wagered him several months ago that he would be married within a year.”
“Well, we’ll certainly have to make sure that our dear Henrietta blossoms into a veritable goddess.” Caroline’s blue eyes sparkled with matchmaking mischief. “I shouldn’t want my only daughter to lose such a large sum of money.”
The next day Henry was eating breakfast with the earl and countess when Belle stopped by with her husband, Lord Blackwood. John was a handsome man with warm brown eyes and thick, dark hair. He also, Henry noticed with surprise, limped.
“So this is the lady who has had my wife so busy for the past week,” he said graciously, leaning over and kissing her hand.
Henry blushed, unused to the courtly gesture. “I promise you may have her back soon. I’m almost done with my pre-society studies.”
John stifled a laugh. “Oh, and what have you learned?”
“Very important things, my lord. For example, if I am going up a flight of stairs, I must follow a gentleman, but if I am going down, he must follow me.”
“I assure you,” he said with an amazingly straight face, “that that is a useful thing to know.”
“Of course. And the horror of it is, I have been doing it wrong all these years and did not even know it.”
John managed to hold on to his deadpan expression for one more exchange. “And were you incorrect going up or going down?”
“Oh, going up, to be sure. You see,” she said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “I am vastly impatient, and I cannot imagine having to wait for a gentleman if I want to go upstairs.”
John burst out laughing. “Belle, Caroline, I think you have a success on your hands.”
Henry turned and nudged Belle with her elbow. “Did you notice I managed to use ‘vastly’? It wasn’t easy, you know. And how was that for flirting? So sorry I had to use your husband, but he was the only gentleman about.”
There was a loud “ahem” from the head of the table.
Henry smiled innocently as her eyes flew to the face of Belle’s father. “Oh, I beg your pardon, Lord Worth, but I cannot flirt with you. Lady Worth would kill me.”
“And I wouldn’t?” Belle asked, laughter dancing in her bright blue eyes.
“Oh, no, you’re much too kind.”
“And I’m not?” Caroline teased.
Henry opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again to say, “I believe I have gotten myself into a bit of a bind.”
“And what bind is that?”
Henry’s heart lurched at the achingly familiar voice. Dunford was standing in the doorway, looking breathtakingly handsome in buff-colored breeches and a bottle-green coat. “I thought I’d drop in and check on Henry’s progress,” he said.
“She’s doing superbly,” Caroline replied. “And we are delighted to have her. I haven’t laughed so much in years.”
Henry smiled cheekily. “I’m very entertaining.”
John and the earl both coughed, presumably to cover their smiles.
Dunford, however, didn’t bother to hide his. “I was also wondering if you’d like to go for a walk this afternoon.”
Henry’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I would like that above all else.” Then she spoiled the effect by nudging Belle again and saying, “Did you hear that? I managed to use ‘above all else.’ It’s a silly phrase, to be sure, but I think I am finally beginning to sound like a debutante.”
No one was able to hide his smile that time.
“Excellent,” Dunford replied. “I shall come for you at two.” He nodded to the earl and countess, saying that he would see himself out.
“I’ll take my leave now as well,” John said. “I’ve much to do this morning.” He dropped a kiss on the top of his wife’s head and followed Dunford through the door.
Belle and Henry excused themselves and retired to the drawing room, where they planned to go over titles and rules of precedence until the midday meal. Henry was not in the least excited about the prospect.
“How did you like my husband?” Belle asked once they were seated.
“He was lovely, Belle. He is obviously a man of great kindness and integrity. I could see it in his eyes. You are very lucky to have him.”
Belle smiled and even blushed just a little. “I know.”
Henry tossed her a sideways smile. “And he is quite handsome, too. The limp is very dashing.”
“I have always thought so. He used to be frightfully self-conscious about it, but now I think he barely notices it.”
“Was he injured in the war?”
Belle nodded, her expression growing dark. “Yes. He’s very lucky to have the leg at all.”
They were both silent for a moment, and then Henry suddenly said, “He reminds me a bit of Dunford.”
“Dunford?” Belle blinked in surprise. “Really? Do you think so?”
“Absolutely. Same brown hair and eyes, although perhaps Dunford’s hair is a bit thicker. And I think his shoulders might be a trifle broader.”
“Really?” Belle leaned forward interestedly.
“Mmmm. And he’s very handsome, of course.”
“Dunford? Or my husband?”
“Both,” Henry
said quickly. “But . . .” Her words trailed off, as she realized it would be unforgivably rude to point out that Dunford was obviously the more handsome of the two.
Belle, of course, knew her husband was obviously better looking, but nothing in the world would have pleased her more than to hear that Henry disagreed. She smiled and made a soft murmuring sound, subtly encouraging Henry to continue speaking.
“And,” Henry added, obliging Belle fully, “it was just lovely of your husband to kiss you good-bye. Even I know enough of the ton to know that is not considered de rigueur.”
Belle didn’t even have to look at Henry to know she was wishing that Dunford would do the same to her.
When the clock struck two, Henry had to be dissuaded from waiting on the doorstep. Belle managed to get her to sit in the drawing room and tried to explain that most ladies chose to remain upstairs and keep their callers waiting for several minutes. Henry didn’t listen.
Part of the reason she was so excited to see Dunford was that she had discovered a newfound appreciation for herself and her qualities as a woman. Belle and her family seemed to like her tremendously, and it was her understanding that they were very well respected among the ton. And although Caroline’s constant fussing with her hair and wardrobe could be most vexing, it was beginning to give Henry hope that she just might be pretty after all. Not ravishingly beautiful like Belle, whose wavy, blond hair and bright blue eyes had inspired sonnets among the more poetically minded of the ton, but she was certainly not wholly unattractive.
As Henry’s self-esteem inched upward, she began to think that she just might have a tiny chance of inducing Dunford to love her. He already liked her; surely that was half the battle. Maybe she could compete with the sophisticated ladies of the ton, after all. She wasn’t really certain how to make this miracle occur, but she did know that she was going to have to spend as much time as possible in his presence if she was going to make any progress.
And that was why, when she looked up at the clock and noticed it was two o’clock, her heart began to race.
Dunford arrived at two minutes past the hour and discovered Belle and Henry studying a copy of Debrett’s Peerage. Or rather, Belle was trying very hard to force Henry to study it, and Henry was trying very hard to toss the book out the window.