Chapter 25 #2
“Not you; Ivy. I do not like how Lady Ruth spoke to her.”
“Lady Ruth and the others will remember their manners when I am finished here. In fact, I believe I owe Lord Glenwood a visit. He recently put in a request for a pair of Cleveland Bays.”
For the first time since Owen and her brother had reunited, Barnes nodded at him with something akin to respect.
“What am I missing?” Ivy asked.
“Do not worry yourself,” Barnes said dismissively.
“Do not treat me like that. I am not a child.”
Owen’s thumb swept over her arm. “I intend to visit Lord Glenwood and make it clear that if his wife continues to cut you, he will not have his horses.”
Ivy’s eyes widened. “Owen, you do not have to risk your business for me.”
“’Tis good for the men of the ton to be reminded that even though I now hold the title of viscount, I am not a man to be crossed. An insult to you is an insult to me.”
Barnes’s eyes narrowed, but he remained silent for once.
Over the next hour they were stopped so often that Ivy felt as if they were standing in place. Viscount after duke after earl gave Owen their condolences on his father’s passing and welcomed him to his seat in the Lords. They asked after his horse breeding and other business.
The third time one of the gentlemen mentioned his “other business,” Owen scowled and said sharply, “What other business?”
The man, Lord Wittle, was bone-thin with a bulging cyst on his neck that was hard to ignore.
His hair was oily, and no manner of powder was helping dull the shine.
He shifted uncomfortably at Owen’s blunt question and glanced at Ivy.
“Ah, I see how it is, Lord Brackley. My apologies.” He scurried off before Owen could question him further.
Owen stared after him, his expression thunderous. “What am I missing?”
Barnes tilted his head, thoughtful. “Mayhap visit White’s. If anyone will tell you, it will be those old gossips.”
The exclusive men’s club was supposed to be for serious discussion and leisure, but Ivy was unsurprised to hear that it was essentially a gossip club for the male sex.
“My father’s club?” Owen scoffed. “I think not.”
Ivy spotted Lord Hartford at the same time that he saw her. He quickly made his way over and dismounted from his horse, giving her such a boyishly happy smile that Ivy could not help but return it.
“You are the talk of the town,” he said, kissing the back of her glove, his silky locks falling over his forehead. “You cannot know how relieved I am to find a kindred spirit in this horrid city. Smoke and waste do not inspire the poet’s soul, do they?”
“I knew you appreciated a beautiful turn of phrase, but are you a poet yourself, my lord?”
“I confess that I am.” He dropped his chin shyly. “Would you care to hear some of my poetry?”
“Indeed I would.”
He ducked his head, pleased. “It is only fitting that their verses should first touch the ears of the muse who inspired them.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in, and when they did, she blinked at him in astonishment.
He meant her! She was his muse, which could mean only one thing: Their plan was working.
She should have been elated. What did it matter that the kind man beside her had not seen her until Owen had?
Unless she wanted a lifetime of misery with her father’s suitor of choice, Hartford was her only option.
And he really was a sweet man. She should have been flooded with happiness, so why was a pit opening in her stomach?
Ivy forced a smile to her lips. She needed to focus on the gentleman who might be her future husband, not the man who had kissed her into a quivering mess in a meadow.
She drifted closer to Hartford as they began to walk, lightly touching her fingertips to his arm as she skirted the tiniest, almost invisible patch of mud. “I do not want to slip,” she murmured.
He protectively tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and guided her around the “puddle.”
Ivy glanced up at Lord Hartford and thought of all of Owen’s subtle reactions to her over the past weeks.
How his eyes darkened when she licked or bit her lips, how he glared when she brushed her hair aside and exposed her neck, how his fists clenched when she leaned close enough for him to catch her scent.
Even though she had not understood what his reactions meant at the time, after their kiss, she had become attuned to the realization that he was attracted to her, and that those little movements drew his interest. Would they draw Hartford’s?
Ivy’s tongue darted out and wetted her lower lip, but Lord Hartford’s gaze did not drop to her mouth.
In fact, he was discreetly eyeing a young gentleman striding past in a pair of tight breeches, a giggling woman on his arm.
The gentleman had beautiful golden locks and the bone structure of a Grecian statue, and Ivy watched with interest as his gaze snagged on Hartford’s.
For one heavy, heated moment their eyes lingered, and then Hartford deliberately turned away.
His mouth was no longer smiling, and there was something akin to sorrow, or perhaps jealousy, in the lines of his face.
Ivy glanced over her shoulder at the blond gentleman, and saw his hands clutched behind his back, his knuckles white.
“You have not told me how the viscount came to court you,” Hartford said abruptly.
“He attended Harrow with my brother. We have been writing letters to each other for some years now with the intention that he would court me when he returned home. I had taken a governess position at the manor in the meantime.”
His lips curved into a smile, and she caught sight of two women across the path flutter their fans when they witnessed it. Hartford did not so much as spare them a glance. “Do you and Lord Brackley share an interest in poetry?”
“No, I do not think he enjoys poetry.” He was far more interested in horses, nonfiction, and now, because of her, gossip. In fact, his favorite book was a copy of the Arabic Book of Horses by Imru’al-Qays, which he had read so many times the spine was falling apart.
“That is a pity. I strongly believe a husband and wife should share common interests.”
Ivy felt as if they were having the same conversation over and over again, with nothing of substance being shared between them, and she wondered if he was speaking by rote.
She wondered if his attention was in fact still on the blond gentleman who had passed them, and if it was, what that could mean.
Hartford’s horse snuffled at his shoulder as he led the beast alongside them.
While Hartford’s soft lips moved, she tried to envision them on her mouth, tried to imagine feeling the same passion that Owen inspired in her, but she was almost certain that while kissing Hartford would be pleasant and nice, it would be nothing like kissing Owen, which was like setting a match to a tinderbox.
Owen and Barnes followed them at a respectable distance, but Ivy swore she could feel the heat of Owen’s eyes burning into her back.
“Common interests are lovely, but they are not all that matters,” she said.
“Indeed. One must also consider comportment and lineage.”
“Yes.” She nodded enthusiastically, even though that had not been what she had meant.
What mattered most in a relationship, Ivy thought, was respect.
The respect in the marriage between her parents had been entirely one-sided; her father had not had the slightest breath of respect for her mother.
A man who respected his wife would take into account her feelings and treat her as an equal, much how Owen did when he spoke plainly to her about topics that were considered too delicate for young women.
She glanced up at Lord Hartford, trying to fathom if he would speak honestly with her, but he must have mistaken her searching gaze for one of rapture, because he smiled down at her.
“I find my poet’s heart stutters in your presence,” he said softly. “Your beauty outstrips even that of the fairest lily of the valley.”
Ivy thought of how Owen had told her she was “all right,” and for some strange reason, found she preferred Owen’s grudging admission to Hartford’s flowery flattery.
Stop it, she scolded herself. Owen was not her future. Hartford could be, though.
Before she could reply, Owen approached.
She sensed him before she saw him, felt his heat at her side, smelled the scent of his shaving cream and the horse leather that seemed to cling to him no matter where he went.
His shadow fell across them, and he glared at Hartford like he wished to skewer him through with his riding crop.
“Lord Hartford,” he said coolly.
Lord Hartford smiled congenially, and there was no more talk of poetry.
He spoke with Owen and her brother for a few minutes about horses, and then made his excuses.
Before he swung into his saddle, he turned to Barnes and said plainly, “You should know that I have honorable intentions toward your sister.” To his credit, he did not shrink under the death stare Owen gave him.
Barnes smiled so widely his teeth showed. “I am pleased to hear that, Lord Hartford.”
Hartford gave Ivy an indulgent look. “Will you save me a dance at the ball, Miss Bennett?” When she nodded, he climbed into his saddle, touched the brim of his hat, and took off.
The air was growing chill as the sun began to sink under the horizon. Carriages were pulling out of the park, and Ivy was ready to leave and return to the house, where she could have a few moments alone with her thoughts.
“Hartford appears smitten,” Barnes commented as they headed back down the footpath. “I do believe that was a declaration of his intention to court you.”
Owen’s expression was thunderous.
They had exited the park when two gentlemen in elegant clothing and top hats stopped them. One of them was tall and dark and devilishly handsome; the other was attractive as well, but there was something conniving and malicious in his gaze. He smirked at Owen.
“Lord Brackley.” He tilted his head in a small bow. “I thought you were out of town?”
“We just arrived.” Owen’s tone was less than patient, and Ivy could tell his limit for civil discourse was nearly at an end.
“Can I expect to see you at the club tonight?”
Owen’s brows drew together. “And who the devil are you?”
Barnes made a noise in his throat that sounded suspiciously like aborted laughter. He cleared it and said, “Lord Brackley, this is Mr. Quinn, proprietor of Red’s tavern in Bethnal Green, and Mr. Jasper Jones, owner of Rockford and Turner’s golden hell.”
The tavern owner’s face had turned to stone at Owen’s insult, but Mr. Jasper Jones’s eyes had sharpened as if he had found the exchange absorbingly interesting.
“Your lordship,” Mr. Quinn said stiffly, “my apologies. I understand we are in mixed company.” He looked pointedly at Ivy. “Perhaps we might have a private discussion this evening?”
“Why?”
Mr. Quinn’s cheeks reddened. “To discuss business.”
“I have no business with you.”
Mr. Jones, who had no right being so handsome, watched the exchange with a flat expression, but Ivy could see the clever calculation in his eyes. Goose bumps lifted on her arms, and she had the distinct feeling that Mr. Jones was a dangerous creature.
Mr. Quinn’s eyes glittered. “Quite right, my lord.” He bowed stiffly and turned away, his companion joining him after one last thoughtful glance at Lord Brackley.
“That was odd,” Barnes commented as they continued toward the town house. “He certainly seemed to know you.”
“There were several veiled references to something tonight,” Ivy said. There had been an undertone from several of the men that had felt… ominous.
When she and Owen pulled ahead of Barnes, she said quietly, “I think you should arrange a meeting with Mr. Jasper Jones.”
“The owner of the gambling hell?” When Ivy nodded, he said, “Why the devil would I do that?”
She hesitated. She could not tell him about the niggling feeling she had that their odd reception today was related to the Dove’s investigation of him, so she said, “He appeared to be a clever man. If anyone knows what Mr. Quinn meant, it would be him.”
“I do not care what Mr. Quinn meant.”
She sighed. It appeared she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.