Chapter 4 #2
Finally, she nodded and Cart was thankful she seemed a chit with some semblance of smarts about her.
Too many evenings—when he’d been unable to come up with a compelling enough reason to call off—he was trapped by his mother and made to occupy her friends’ daughters.
Simpering, dull, and without knowledge of any current or historical references, though he surmised Jude would not be the same…
although she’d said little to dissuade the thought that she’d been overly interested in his chosen profession.
“Often, I am called upon to give credit to a piece or locate an antiquity someone seeks to obtain.” He ventured another sidelong look at her to confirm she wasn’t tempted to doze off at their topic of conversation.
But to his astonishment, she asked, “By historical pieces, do you mean paintings, pottery, and ancient books?” Her hold on his arm tightened with each word, as if they thrilled her as much as they did him.
“Why, yes.” His words came a little too eager to his own ears. “It is a worthwhile position that not many Londoners find curious.” He was giving her another opportunity to withdraw from their acquaintance.
“There are many who would not know an antiquity’s valuable if it grew a mouth and told them itself.
” Her interest was more than Cart could have asked for—and certainly more than he’d garnered from anyone outside other collectors and his younger sibling, Theo.
Even his mother was highly skeptical. “What is your most prized acquisition?”
Cart pondered the thought as they reached the water’s edge and started on the narrow path that would lead them full circle about the body of water and back to the far side of the garden party.
“I would think my most prized piece is a rug said to have lain on the floor in a tenth-century Buddhist temple.”
“Fascinating.”
“Do you think so?” he asked, hard-pressed to believe any enthusiasm on her part.
She was a woman of the ton, unaccustomed to seeing anything used and old as having any meaning or significance.
If a dress were worn over a handful of occasions, it was to be cast out with the dishwater.
“My mother would be happy to have the rug moved to the stables.”
She laughed, not the nervous, singsong chuckle from before, but rather a sound that radiated from deep within her.
Belatedly, he realized he’d confessed to living with his mother.
Did sophisticated women frown upon men who resided in the same household as their female relatives? He hadn’t the coin to search out a bachelor’s residence, nor should that be necessary with his father having long since passed.
They continued in silence, walking along the hard-packed dirt path. The knee-high vegetation snagged at Jude’s long skirt as shrieks of laughter came from behind them. The warm sun beat upon his face; a sensation he was unaccustomed to as he rarely sought outdoor physical activities.
Cart racked his mind for another thread of exchange, preferably one that did not include his mother.
His conversation skills were indeed rusty—it might benefit him greatly to seek out Theo or her tutor for a lesson in idle chitchat.
Surely, an afternoon’s worth of instruction would do the trick.
Unfortunately, it would not help him make it through this party without highly embarrassing himself.
Come now, he was an Eton educated man—though he’d been asked to leave his studies just shy of receiving his certificate due to non-payment of his tuition—he should be more than successful at entertaining a woman for the time it took to walk the circumference of a small pond.
By his calculations, using this stride length, it should take approximately—
“Lord Cartwright,” she asked, turning a serious expression on him. “May I ask you a question?”
Cart nodded, pushing arithmetic from his thoughts.
“Have we met before?” She looked to him with questioning eyes. “It is only that when we happened upon you and Lord Barton, it was as if I had seen you before.”
“Ah, well,” he mumbled. “I am—“
Quick as lightning, Cart felt his boot snag on something and his balance shifted.
He released Jude’s arm, assessing his trajectory and speed of motion.
His arms swung wildly in the air, attempting to regain his balance.
However, Cart already knew it was pointless and would only serve to hurt his arm when he eventually hit the ground or worse, smashed into Jude.
Still, Cart was not prepared for the most humiliating moment of his life, to date.
One second he was trying to pull his hooked boot free and the next, water rushed over his head as he fell, submerging his entire upper body in the pond.
His trouser-covered legs and boots betrayed him, refusing to follow the rest of him into the water, his knees landing in the mud bordering the once placid water.
“My lord!” Miss Jude frantically called, her words distorted to his ears. He felt a tug at his pant leg. The utter humiliation was enough to keep him below the water’s surface until he perished, or everyone departed the party. “Cart, have you been injured overmuch?”
Cart moved to push himself up and above the water, his hands sinking in the muddy pond bottom. “Only my pride, Miss Jude,” he answered, still praying the water’s floor would open and swallow him whole. Unfortunately, no such good luck was bestowed on him by the powers that be.
In fact, it sounded as if the powers that be were laughing hysterically at his major social faux pas. Turning his head toward the sound, Cart spied the gathering of people near the party, watching him with amusement as Lord Barton and Miss Samantha rushed to Jude’s side.
“My poor dear,” Lord Barton soothed a likely frazzled and mortified Jude. “I must apologize for Lord Cartwright’s abysmal behavior.”
Cart’s abysmal behavior, he wanted to shout in annoyance.
And shouldn’t the man be assisting Cart from the murky water instead of sidling up to Jude?
On principle alone, Cart felt the immense urge to turn away Lord Barton’s request for representation and acquire the antiquity the old man sought for his own collection. If Cart had the funds required for the purchase, he would most certainly do just that—and burn the thing before Barton’s eyes.
“No one fret,” Cart said, pushing himself to his knees in the sludge and reaching behind him to untangle his boot. “I fear I have beaten all the odds and have survived.”
“Cart—err, Lord Cartwright,” Jude corrected quickly. “Do allow me to help you regain your feet.”
He could hear Barton chuckle—and instantly wanted to unleash his fist on the man’s bulbous nose. What had come over him? Cart was not by any nature a man inclined to violent outbursts, nor had he ever so much as attended a boxing club or witnessed a brawl.
“Do step back, Miss Judith,” Cart called over his shoulder. “It would be highly abysmal of me to splash mud on your fine slippers or gown. I do not seek to offend you any further with my behavior.”
“Very wise, Cartwright.” Barton worked hard to suppress his mirth, but Cart could still hear his soft laughter. “I will attend the Misses Samantha and Judith to their relations while you disentangle yourself and depart.”
Cart sighed, still kneeling in the mud. “That is ever so kind of you, Barton. Again, my sincere apologies, ladies.”
He couldn’t even bring himself to face Jude. His cheeks were likely tinted red with embarrassment. All that crossed his mind was how infuriated his mother would be when she learned of his blunder—and he would never expect Jude to align herself, even in friendship, with a man as inept as he.