Chapter Ten #3
“I hate to spoil the party,” Willoughby mumbled in his usual earnest way.
“But has it not occurred to you all that Miss Amelia will most likely be wearing the parure? There’s an odds-on chance that it won’t be in the safe at all.
It will be hanging from my beloved’s swanlike neck and dangling from her dainty earlobes.
And, as I think I made quite clear earlier on in this discussion, if any man tries to wrench it from her, I’ll… I’ll…”
Realising he was indirectly threatening a duke’s brother, Willoughby reined himself in a little. “All I’m saying is that I’ll have her be no part in this. She must be a totally innocent bystander. She is a totally innocent bystander.”
“Perhaps she’ll choose to wear a gown that doesn’t suit the parure?” suggested Ashington hopefully.
“Last time I checked, diamonds as big as boulders and sapphires the size of grapes complemented everything,” drawled Fitzsimmons. “What blushing young debutante wouldn’t choose to wear them?”
“One wearing jewels gifted to her by the man she truly and secretly loves?” Rossingley flashed his small, pointy teeth. “Kit and I already have a solution to this tiddly obstacle. Forgive me. I should have mentioned it at the start.”
“And?” said Ashington testily. “Let’s hear it, or…or does it involve me? In which case, keep it to yourselves.”
“Most definitely not, dear man. Two central roles are quite enough for even the bravest, most valiant, most intrepid of dukes.”
“I hate all of you,” Ashington declared. “Just so you all know.”
Rossingley patted his eldest, more timid son’s arm. “Willoughby, my darling. If Miss Amelia truly loves you as you love her, then, as a secret sign, how about she wears something you have given her?”
Willoughby remained unimpressed. “I have several sets of sleeve buttons, umpteen cravat pins, and a silver fob. She’s hardly going to drape those around her neck, is she?”
“But you have heaps of pretty things, don’t you, Papa?” Rollo struck his head as if hit with a flash of inspiration.
“Yes!” chimed in Willoughby. “For instance, she…she could wear the Rossingley pearls! They are most splendid! And seeing as they have spent most of the last few years dangling from the corner of your bedpost, Papa—a ridiculous place to keep a set of such magnificent pearls, incidentally, seeing as no one wears pearls to bed—we can finally put them to good use.”
In the silence that followed, the earl gave a little cough. At least Mickey thought it was a cough, yet it was matched by a similar one from Kit behind his hand, which, now Mickey considered, was more of a guffaw. Kit’s face turned pink, too, which was most unlike him.
Aah. The myriad uses of a sturdy string of pearls.
From the shuffling of feet and bitten lips, the whole room had cottoned on, apart from Willoughby.
“My…ah…pearls weren’t part of the plan, my darling,” Rossingley murmured. “I find they serve a…um…convenient purpose precisely where they are.”
Fitzsimmons snorted.
“And there was me believing this couldn’t get any worse,” muttered Ashington. “I’m…well, not as worldly as I’d believed, clearly.”
As the penny dropped, Willoughby’s face turned crimson as a ripe tomato. “Oh,” he said, “I see. You…you…ugh.”
“How about my lovely emeralds though?” Rossingley hurriedly suggested.
“Your Miss Amelia would look extremely fetching in green, and they haven’t been seen in public for around twenty years or more.
Nobody would recognise them, and they are sufficiently modest that Miss Amelia could pass them off as her own, even to her father, if anybody paused to admire. ”
“Excellent idea,” agreed Kit, looking relieved.
“Then that’s settled.” Tommy cast his gaze around. “Or…er…perhaps it isn’t. You still don’t seem very happy, Willoughby.”
“I’m…it’s…dash it. I’m not lying to her. Whilst I can accept this scheme to steal the parure, I shall not and cannot present my beloved with the emeralds. If I give Miss Amelia a gift, it must be wholly from the heart, not with trickery in mind.”
“Willoughbyyyy.” Rollo let out a long groan.
“You really are the most ridiculously, stubbornly, principled ass I know.” He threw his arm around his beleaguered brother.
“And I adore you for it. Listen. I’ll do it for you.
I’ll meet Miss Amelia for a stroll in Hyde Park or something—whatever you think is best—and I’ll pretend to be you for an hour. ”
“You shall not kiss her hand,” retorted Willoughby fiercely. “That hand is mine, and mine alone. It’s bad enough knowing Talybridge puts his whiskery lips against it.”
“I’d rather chew glass,” Rollo promised ungallantly. “Why would I want to, when I have Fitz to slobber over whenever I choose?” Leaning into his brother, he whispered into his ear. “Fitz has a string of pearls, too, Willoughby, just so you know.”
“Ugh. To all of you. May you all rot in your own…seed and stickiness and…” Willoughby paused when Ashington raised his fuzzy dark eyebrows, causing him to stutter, “E-excepting you, of course, Your Grace.”