“Or meet them in a hotel,” Annabel put in. She curled back in the chair, watching as Griselda snuggled a sleepy Samuel.

“I can’t go to a hotel,” Griselda half whispered, looking appalled.

“Where did you meet your other indiscretions?”

“I was living in my own town house, of course.”

“Has chaperoning us put a damper on your personal life?”

“Oh, no! It’s been wonderful. Before you girls appeared, and Rafe asked me to chaperone you, my life was…quite silly, I’m afraid. It has been eye-opening, to say the least, to see three of you fall in love. And I’m quite sure Josie will find the right person as well.”

“Do you have anyone in mind to marry?”

Griselda shook her head. “I fully intend to take the matter seriously in hand, after…” Her voice trailed off.

“After one last unmarried indiscretion!” Annabel said, giggling madly.

“Hush! You make me feel like the veriest light-skirt,” Griselda said.

“Wait! I think I know who Darlington is! Does he have blond hair and hollowed cheekbones—a rather madly dissolute look? Griselda!” Griselda was looking distinctly guilty, so Annabel laughed so hard she almost choked. “You’re right. The man is utterly delicious—and completely off-bounds. Just the person to meet in Grillon’s Hotel.”

14

From The Earl of Hellgate,

Chapter the Fourteenth

By now, Dear Reader, my limbs were yet young, but my sensual appetites were growing tired and old. I began to thirst for something I could find in no place, a tenderer and sweeter emotion than I had known so far. But alas, I was not to find it…instead, a young lady whom I shall term Helena…have you discovered my foibles yet, Dear Reader? Do you know why I name these ladies as I do?

E liot Governor Thurman had been having a difficult week. Neither Darlington, Wisley, nor Berwick had appeared at the Convent, though he waited there until two in the morning. In one blow, he’d lost all three of the people he counted his friends.

There’d been others at the Convent whom he had believed to be friends, but when Darlington didn’t appear, they gave him their shoulder. By midnight he was well aware that without Darlington’s comments, and Berwick’s wit, and Wisley’s acid little nods, he was worthless. To these supposed friends, he’d been nothing more than an open purse.With all his heart he hoped that Darlington wouldn’t find a wife. Who’d want him? Penniless and sharp-tongued as they come.

He was wandering disconsolately around his rooms, wondering if invitations would stop, once it was clear that he was no longer part of the entourage surrounding Darlington. He couldn’t give up the life of the ton now. A ball would have no flavor if he was not around Darlington. Part of the most exciting gossip in the room.

He kept drifting from room to room, wondering what to do with himself. It had been miserable at the Convent. He wasn’t a man who hungered for silence or private thought. He wanted to roar with laughter, thump the table, and order another round that he would gladly pay for.

Finally he decided that he had to go to Lady Mucklowe’s ball on the morrow. Darlington would be there. He couldn’t stay at home and have Darlington think that his feelings were hurt. No, he would go to Mucklowe’s ball and—he fingered his cravat in the mirror over his mantelpiece—he would go to Mucklowe’s ball and he would find the Scottish Sausage.

She was the reason why Darlington had dropped him. She was the reason Darlington had started thinking about morality and didn’t want the comfort of the Convent anymore.

He wouldn’t do it so as to tell Darlington later either. He’d do it for himself, because he was just as clever as Darlington ever was. In fact, maybe he’d do something really witty, like make the Sausage think that he was courting her. As if he would ever do such a revolting thing. But he could trick her into it with a few compliments. Maybe he’d even kiss her, so that she would look at him with stars in her eyes, thinking that a man of substance had finally decided to court her. And then he’d spurn her. And finally he’d go to the Convent and gather his own group of friends, tell them what he’d done and how funny it was.

He could see her plump cheeks right now, quivering with the pleasure of his kiss.

Perhaps he could find her in Hyde Park, and start his courtship now.

“Cooper!” he howled.

His man came running out of his bedchamber.

“I’m going to the park. Order my carriage; I’ll wear the puce waistcoat. With the sage-colored costume.”

Cooper opened his mouth but caught his master’s eye. Thurman was in no mood to be told what colors did and didn’t go together. Darlington dressed with a casual flair and often put together colors that weren’t as conservative as Cooper’s choices. Now that he, Thurman, was going to be a leader of the ton, he must needs develop a style of his own.

It wasn’t until Thurman was knotting a cravat with a casual violence that crushed most of the starch that he realized precisely what he meant to do.

He meant to be the new Darlington.

Darlington had retired, suffered a change of heart, turned pansy, weak-kneed, however one wanted to say it.

He, Thurman, hadn’t lost his nerve, and he never would. He’d been standing in Darlington’s shadow so long that people didn’t realize that he could be just as clever, if he wished. That was clear at the Convent last night. They thought no one but Darlington had a witty comment to make.

They were wrong.

Either he’d use the Sausage or he’d find some other thing to be clever about. It was that simple.

15

From The Earl of Hellgate,

Chapter the Fourteenth

I know you are literate, you are well-read, you are all that is admirable…I have endowed each of my all-precious ones by the names of characters in the incomparable Shakespeare’s most beloved play…a work that, like this memoir, is about dreaming and beautiful women…If the incomparable Bard wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then I, poor I, am writing of Midsummer Nights’ Affaires…

T he best suite at Grillon’s Hotel had a large bed and a number of charming seating arrangements. There wasn’t a hard-backed chair in the place. Darlington wandered about, touching the marble mantel to make sure there was no dust. The hotel was the opposite of the Bedrock estate, where he was raised. Bedrock Manor was made of a pinky-golden stone, and stood on a hill, so that in the summer the grass all around burned brown, and it took on an almost Italian aspect, like a Tuscan house dreaming in the sunshine. It hurt to think about those days, running about in the vale with his two brothers, never knowing that there was nothing for him, that it was all for his brother Michael.

They don’t tell you, when you’re sprouting, that you’re nothing more than a spare in case the eldest doesn’t make it. They let you run free around the estate, in and out of stables, up and out of trees that would never belong to you. Because not even one tree would belong to you. They give you only two choices: go into the army and kill people; go into the church and bury them. Well, three choices. You could fix on a way to support yourself that disgraces the family honor, at least from the family point-of-view.It’s my failure that I didn’t find a respectable third way, Darlington thought to himself. Instead I sank into a rage that apparently lasted for years. Father would never have considered raising me to a business, and yet no one—but no one—seemed to have noticed that doing nothing leads to no income.