A Summer to Remember Read online

  “A fight?” Lauren’s eyes widened. “In such a public place? In broad daylight? Surely not.”

  But indeed Elizabeth was quite right. When they drew closer Lauren confirmed it with her own eyes before she could avert them and hurry decently by. Although the crowd of men and horses was really quite dense, one of those inexplicable gaps appeared for a moment, allowing her a view of what was happening in the hollow center of the square. A shockingly clear view.

  There were three men there, although she thought there might have been a fourth too, stretched out on the grass. Two of them were dressed decently, if shabbily, in the clothing of laboring men. But it was upon the third that Lauren’s eyes riveted themselves for a few startled moments. He was crouched ready for action and was apparently taunting the other two by beckoning with both hands. But it was not his actions that startled her as much as his state of dress—or rather, his state of undress. His supple top boots and his form-fitting buff riding breeches proclaimed him to be a gentleman. But above the waist he was quite, quite naked. And very splendidly and alarmingly male.

  Before she looked sharply away in blushing confusion, Lauren became aware of two other details, one visual and one aural. He was fair-haired and handsome and laughing. And the words he spoke to accompany the beckoning hands fell unmistakably upon her ears despite the hubbub of voices proceeding from the many spectators.

  “Come on, you buggers,” he said without any apparent shame at all.

  She hoped fervently, even as she felt the uncomfortable heat of a blush spread up her neck to blossom brightly in both cheeks, that Elizabeth had not heard the words—or seen the half-naked man who had uttered them. Rarely had she felt such embarrassment.

  But Elizabeth was laughing with what sounded like genuine amusement. “Poor Lord Burleigh,” she said. “He looks as if he might have an apoplexy at any moment. I wonder why he does not simply ride on by and leave the children to their play. Men can be such foolish creatures, Lauren. Even the slightest disagreement must be settled with fists.”

  “Elizabeth,” Lauren said, truly scandalized, “did you see . . . ? And did you hear . . . ?”

  “How could I not?” Elizabeth was still chuckling.

  But before either of them could say more, they were distracted by the appearance of a tall, dark, handsome young gentleman, who stepped onto the path before them, bowed with hasty elegance, and offered an arm to each of them.

  “Elizabeth,” he said, “Lauren. Good morning. And what a lovely morning it is too. It bids fair to being unseasonably warm later today. Allow me to escort you to Rotten Row and earn the envy of every other gentleman there.”

  Joseph Fawcitt, Marquess of Attingsborough, was a cousin, nephew of the Dowager Countess of Kilbourne. He had been one of the spectators of the fight, Lauren realized, but had seen them and had come to hurry them away. She took his arm gratefully. Actually, she thought, hearing the echo of his words, it was probable that therewas no other gentleman on Rotten Row. Surely they were all clustered about the brawling men.

  “How provoking it is sometimes to be a lady, Joseph,” Elizabeth said, taking his other arm. “I suppose if I were to ask you who that gentleman is who is fighting and why he is doing so, you would not answer me?”

  He grinned down at her. “Whatfight?” he asked.

  Elizabeth sighed. “As I thought,” she said.

  “For my part,” Lauren assured him fervently, “I have no wish to know.” She was still flushed at the memory of the gentleman fighter, naked from the waist up. And of his words—come on, you buggers.

  Joseph turned his head to look down at her, a twinkle in his eyes. “Mother intends to call at Grosvenor Square this afternoon,” he said. “She hasplans for you, Lauren. Be warned.”

  Some rout or concert or ball, doubtless. It was proving extremely difficult to convince Aunt Sadie, the Duchess of Anburey, Joseph’s mother, that she simply did notwish to join in any of the activities of the Season. Having seen her daughter, Lady Wilma Fawcitt, eligibly betrothed to the Earl of Sutton before the Season even began in earnest, Aunt Sadie had turned her well-meaning matchmaking eye upon Lauren.

  Joseph turned to address a remark to Elizabeth, and Lauren, despite herself, looked back over her shoulder. She had heard a loud cheer a moment before. The fight was over. The crowd had parted along her line of vision, and she could see that the gentleman with the naked torso was still on his feet. But if she had been shocked before, she was doubly horrified now. He had awoman in his arms—his were right about her waist and hers were wrapped about his neck—and he waskissing her. In full view of a few dozen spectators.

  He lifted his head just as Lauren looked, and in the fraction of a second before she could whip her head about to face front again, his laughing eyes met hers.

  Her cheeks were on fire again.

  “You are looking thoroughly blue-deviled, Ravensberg,” Lord Farrington commented late the following night, crossing the room to the sideboard and replenishing the contents of his glass before resuming his seat. “Foxed, are you? Or is it the eye? It has turned marvelous shades of black, purple, and yellow. Not to mention the bright scarlet slit through which you are peering out at the world.”

  “I tell you, Ravensberg,” Lord Arthur added, “I could scarce swallow the kidneys on my plate this morning for looking at that eye—or do I mean yesterday morning?”

  “If I could just be sure,” Charles Rush said, “that this mantel would stay upright when I push away from it, I would pour myself another drink. What the devil time is it?”

  “Half past four.” Lord Farrington glanced at the clock six inches from his friend’s head.

  “The devil!” Mr. Rush exclaimed. “Where has the night gone?”

  “Where all nights go.” Lord Arthur yawned. “Let’s see—I believe I started the evening at m’aunt’s rout—a deuced flat affair, but family duty and all that. I did not stay long. She looked over m’shoulder to see if Ravensberg was with me and then, even though he wasn’t there, read me a lecture on the company I keep and the nasty tendency rakish reputations have of rubbing off on a fellow’s companions. It seems I ought to stay away from you, Ravensberg, if I know what is good for me.”

  His friends shared the joke by roaring with hearty mirth. All except Kit, that was, who was sprawled with casual elegance in a deep chair beside the fireplace in his bachelor rooms on St. James’s, gazing vacantly with his one healthy eye into the unlit coals.

  “You won’t have to put up with my wicked influence for much longer,” he said. “I’ve been summoned to Alvesley.”

  Lord Farrington sipped his drink. “By your father? Redfield himself?” he asked. “Asummons, Ravensberg?”

  “A summons.” Kit nodded slowly. “There is to be a grand house party this summer in honor of the seventy-fifth birthday of the dowager, my grandmother.”

  “An old dragon, is she, Ravensberg?” Mr. Rush asked sympathetically. “Doyou suppose the mantel would collapse if I stopped holding it up?”

  “You are three sheets to the wind, old chap,” Lord Arthur informed him. “It’s your legs, not the mantel.”

  “I have always had a soft spot for the old girl, you see,” Kit said, “and my father knows it. Oh, for God’s sake, Rush, just look down into your glass, will you? It is still half full.”

  Mr. Rush looked with pleased astonishment at the glass in his hand and drained off its contents. “What I really need,” he said, “is my bed. If my legs would just carry me there.”

  “Egad,” Kit said, his gloomy stare back on the unlit fire. “WhatI really need is a bride.”

  “Go to bed,” Lord Arthur advised him hastily, “and sleep it off. The feeling will go away by morning—guaranteed.”

  “My father’s birthday gift to my grandmother is to be the betrothal of his heir,” Kit said.

  “Oh, I say!You are the heir.”

  “Jolly rotten luck, old chap.”

  Lord Arthur and Mr. Rush spoke simultaneously.


  “A pox on all fathers!” Lord Farrington exclaimed indignantly. “Does he have someone picked out for you, Ravensberg?”

  Kit laughed and draped his hands over the arms of his chair. “Oh, yes, indeed,” he said. “Along with everything else, I am to inherit my late elder brother’s betrothed.”

  “Who the devil is she?” Mr. Rush forgot his inebriated state sufficiently to straighten up and stand unassisted.

  “Bewcastle’s sister,” Kit said.

  “Bewcastle? TheDuke of?” Lord Arthur asked.

  “I have obliged my father by withdrawing from the Peninsula and selling my commission,” Kit said. “I’ll oblige him further by going back to Alvesley after almost three years even though I was banished for life the last time I was there. I’ll even oblige him on the matter of the birthday gift. But I’ll do it all on my terms, by Jove. I’ll take with me a bride of my own choosing, and I’ll be married to her before I go so that there will be nothing Redfield can do about it. I have been sorely tempted to pick some vulgar creature, but that would not do. It is just the sort of thing Redfield would expect of me. I’ll choose someone above reproach instead. That will gall him more than anything else because he won’t be able to complain about her. She is going to be dull, respectable, prim, and perfect.” He spoke with grim satisfaction.

  For a moment his friends regarded him in fascinated silence. Then Lord Farrington threw back his head and laughed. “Youare going to marry a dull, respectable woman, Ravensberg?” he asked. “Just to spite your father?”

  “Not wise, old chap,” Mr. Rush said, treading a determinedly straight path toward the sideboard. “You would be the one married to the woman for life, not your father. You would find such a wife insupportable, take my word on it. The vulgar wench might afford you more amusement.”

  “But the thing is that one has to marry sometime,” Kit explained, cupping one hand over his aching eye for a moment. “Especially when the death of one’s elder brother has made one the reluctant heir to an earldom and vast estates and a fortune to boot. One has to do one’s duty and set up one’s nursery and all that. Who better to do it with than a quiet, dull, worthy woman who will run one’s home competently and without fuss and will dutifully present one with an heir and a few spares?”

  “But there is a very real obstacle to such a scheme, Ravensberg.” Lord Farrington was frowning when he spoke the words, but he grinned and then chuckled outright before continuing. “What respectable woman would have you? You are a handsome enough devil, it is true, or so I understand from the way females look at you. And of course you have your present title and your future prospects. But youhave established an impressively notorious reputation as a rakehell since you sold out.”

  “And that would be stating it mildly,” Lord Arthur muttered into his glass.

  “As bad as that, is it? What a devilish stuffy world we live in,” Kit commented. “But egad, I am serious about this. And Iam Redfield’s heir. That fact alone will outweigh all else when it is perceived that I am shopping in earnest for a wife.”

  “True enough,” Mr. Rush admitted, seating himself on an upright chair after refilling his glass. “But not necessarily the sort of wife you are looking for, old chap. Parents with lofty principles and daughters to match steer clear of gentlemen who mill with foul-smelling laborers within sight of Rotten Row and then kiss milkmaids without their shirts on for all the world to witness. And men who on a wager drive along St. James’s in their curricles past all the gentlemen’s clubs, a painted doxy squeezed onto the seat on either side of them. And men whose names appear in all the betting books in connection with every disreputable and outrageous dare anyone cares to wager on.”

  “Who are the possibilities?” Kit asked, ignoring this dire prediction and returning his attention to the coals in the fireplace. “There must be hordes of new arrivals in town now that the Season has begun in earnest. Hordes of hopeful misses come shopping for husbands. Who is the dullest, most prudish, most straitlaced, most respectable of them all? You fellows will know better than I. You all attendton nish events.”

  His companions gave the matter serious thought. Each threw out a few names, all of which were rejected out of hand by the others for a variety of reasons.

  “Thereis Miss Edgeworth,” Lord Arthur said at last, when they appeared to have run out of suggestions. “But she is too long in the tooth.”

  “Miss Edgeworth?” Lord Farrington repeated. “Of Newbury Abbey? The Earl of Kilbourne’s abandoned bride? Lord, my sister was at that wedding. It was the sensation of last year. The bridegroom waiting at the front of the church, the bride in the porch ready to make her grand entrance. And then the arrival of a ragged woman claiming to be Kilbourne’s long-lost wife—and telling nothing short of the truth, by gad. The Edgeworth chit fled from the church as if the hounds of hell were at her heels, according to Maggie, who is not normally prone to exaggeration. Is she in town this year, Kellard?”

  “Staying with Portfrey,” Lord Arthur said. “The duchess is Kilbourne’s aunt, y’know. And Miss Edgeworth is connected to her too in some way.”

  “I had heard she was in town,” Mr. Rush admitted. “But she doesn’t go about much, does she? Hedged around by the Portfreys and dozens of other relatives, I daresay, all trying to get her married off quietly—andrespectably .” He snickered. “She is doubtless dull enough to set one to yawning at the mere thought of her. You don’t wanther, Ravensberg.”

  “Besides,” Lord Arthur added with what proved to be the fatal challenge, “you would not get her even if you did want her, Ravensberg. Portfrey, Anburey, Attingsborough—noneof her relatives would allow someone of your reputation within hailing distance of her. And even if you did slip past their guard, she would give you the cut direct. Turn you into an icicle on the spot, I daresay. You arejust the sort none of them would want for her, least of all the lady herself. We will have to think of someone else for you. Though why you would want—”

  But Kit was laughing gaily as he turned his face from the fire again. “Was that a challenge, by any chance?” he asked, cutting his friend off midsentence. “If it was, you could scarce have made it more irresistible if you had tried. I will not be allowed within hailing distance of Miss Edgeworth, you say, because I am the sort of rake and rogue from whom such a delicate and aging bloom must be protected at all costs? And she would freeze me with a single glance from her severe, maidenly eye, would she? Because she is incorruptible and I am corruption incarnate? By Jove, I’ll have her.” He slapped the arm of his chair with one open palm.

  Lord Farrington flung back his head and shouted with laughter. “I smell a wager,” he said. “A hundred guineas on it that you cannot do it, Ravensberg.”

  “And a hundred more of mine,” Lord Arthur added. “She is very high in the instep, Ravensberg. Someone just last week, though I can’t for the life of me remember who, likened her to a marble statue, except that she came out the colder of the two.”

  “I might as well throw in my hundred too,” Mr. Rush said, “though I should know better where Ravensberg is concerned. It was Brinkley, Kellard, who is forever scouting out prospective new mothers for his orphaned brood. That’s how I knew she was in town—I remember now. She told Brinkley right straight out as soon as he broached the subject of wedlock with her—when he was strolling with her on Rotten Row one morning, if you can imagine it—that she has no intention of marrying anyone ever. He believed her. Apparently she is not the sort of lady whose word one doubts. That was when he made the remark about marble statues. Brinkley is eminently respectable, Ravensberg.”

  “And I am not.” Kit laughed again. “Well, for three hundred guineas and to annoy my father into the bargain I’ll have to change her mind, won’t I? Shall we say by the end of June, when I have to leave for Alvesley? Amarriage before the end of June, that is. Between Miss Edgeworth and yours truly, of course.”

  “Less than six weeks? Done.” Lord Farrington got resolutely to his feet. “Now I am for my
bed, while I can still find it and convey myself toward it unassisted. Come along, Rush, I’ll steer you in the direction of yours at the same time. I would not begin the campaign for at least another week if I were you, Ravensberg. Any delicately nurtured female would swoon outright at the sight of that eye. That will give you approximately five weeks.” The thought amused him considerably.

  “A marriage to Miss Edgeworth by the last day in June, then,” Lord Arthur said, summing up the wager as he joined his friends on their way out of the room. “It cannot be done, Ravensberg. Not even by you—especiallynot by you. This will be the easiest hundred guineas I have made this year. But of course youwill try.”

  “Of course.” Kit grinned at his friends. “And I will succeed. With what event shall I begin the campaign? What is happening a week or so from now?”

  “Lady Mannering’s ball,” Lord Farrington said after a moment of consideration. “It is always one of the grand squeezes of the Season. Everybody attends it. Miss Edgeworth may well not, though, Ravensberg. I have not seen her at any balls—or any other entertainment for that matter. Not that I would recognize her if I saw her, of course, but someone would surely have pointed her out. She is still news.”

  “Lady Mannering’s ball,” Kit said, hoisting himself out of his chair in order to see his friends on their way. “I must find out if she will be there. Is she a beauty, by the way? Or is she an antidote?”

  “Now that,” Lord Farrington said firmly, “you must discover for yourself, Ravensberg. It will serve you right if she resembles a gargoyle.”

  2

  Lauren arrived at Lady Mannering’s ball the following week in company with the Duke and Duchess of Anburey and the Marquess of Attingsborough. After much initial resistance, she had agreed to attend even though she was fully aware that almost the whole of thebeau monde would be present. Or perhaps it wasbecause of that fact. She had made her decision to go for sheer pride’s sake.

  She was in London during the Season, and she was a member of theton . If she maintained her decision to live a retired life as Elizabeth’s companion, she might give the lasting impression that she was afraid to appear in public, that she was afraid of being laughed at, scorned, shunned as a poor rejected bride. She was indeed afraid, mortally so, but above all else she had been raised to be a lady. And ladies did not allow fear to master them. Ladies did not abjure society merely because they were embarrassed and unhappy, merely because they felt unattractive and unwanted. Ladies did not give in to self-pity.