Bexley-Smythe Quintet 01 - Flight of Fancy (4 page)

Moira’s face dropped in dejection. “This may be more difficult than I thought.”

Much as Georgie’s plan to meet Haworth and fly in his gas balloon seemed to be. Gracious, why had she decided on
this
as her planned adventure for the Season? Surely there were other things she could do to escape the overwhelming knowledge taking over her mind. Simpler things to accomplish, at least.

Moments later, Moira’s brother came along and collected her, and then Pippa and Patience were each claimed by various acquaintances as well. Georgie was left entirely alone.

She took a look around her, searching first for Monty and then for Haworth. Finding neither, she set off.

Just what was she off to do? Cedric had to stifle a laugh at the secretive manner in which Georgie was bustling about the Davenport ballroom. She’d take a furtive glance around her, then dash off into a quiet alcove hidden behind potted plants, and then steal another look. After a moment or two, she’d repeat the process, only this time ending up trying to somehow blend her white gown in with the gold and rose-colored walls of the ballroom. Once, she even darted behind a group of servants and tried to make herself unnoticeable—even going so far as to take a tray of lemonade glasses from a bewildered maid and carry it with her to her next destination, depositing it on a table as calm as may be.

A successful spy, his Georgie would never be. He was having a far too easy time of following her every movement, perplexing though they may be.

Truly, he ought to be more disconcerted by Georgie’s dismaying behavior. Indeed, if Haworth were here tonight, Cedric would be far more concerned. As things stood, however, he couldn’t help but be highly amused at her antics.

Not to mention curious. And while it might be true that curiosity killed the cat, Cedric was not presently a cat, nor had he ever been, if memory served.

What could he do but attempt to assuage his curiosity?

So when Georgie sneaked behind a potted fern, cast her eyes about briefly, and then dashed down an abandoned corridor, Cedric had no choice, really, but to follow her.

Once he’d made his way through the throng of people near the refreshment table and out into the corridor, however, she had disappeared from sight.

Damn and blast, where had she gotten off to? Perhaps she was stealthier than he’d initially thought.

Taking great care to keep his boots from echoing along the marbled floor, he hurriedly searched every inch of the corridor, listening at doorways for any sign he might find of Georgie’s whereabouts.

At one closed door to the right, he heard the unmistakable sounds of an illicit tryst. She’d damned well better not be behind that door.

No, Georgie might be a bit naïve, but she wasn’t an imbecile. She wouldn’t allow herself to be ruined in that way. Cedric shook his head to clear the image from his mind and moved on.

A few feet down the way on the opposite side of the corridor, he pressed his ear up against the door. The deep rumble of gentlemen’s laughter came his way, so he moved on.

After passing several more doorways with similar results, finally, Cedric caught sight of a scrap of white fabric peeking out into the corridor from an alcove.

“
Caught you,” he mumbled to himself, not loud enough for the sound to reach Georgie’s ears. Moving on little more than the tips of his toes, he gradually moved closer to her, inch by inch, step by step…until he could reach out and grab her.

Yet startling her might not be his best course of action. If he were to grab her, she might very well scream—and he didn’t know what she was eavesdropping on or why, though he could hear the slightest hint of masculine voices coming from within the chamber.

No, instead of pulling her away from the alcove bodily, Cedric made certain he was close enough she would hear him and then cleared his throat quietly.

Slowly, Georgie spun on her slippers and faced him, her rich, brown eyes as wide as he’d ever seen them in her shock.

How in God’s name had Monty found her? Georgie had been supremely diligent in making certain no one had seen her as she’d followed Lord Northwood and Lord Sackville into the corridor. She’d overheard them speaking about Lord Haworth in the ballroom, so what choice did she have but to sneak after them and glean what little information she could from their conversation?

Not that she’d learned anything about Haworth. After the gentlemen’s one brief mention of meeting him at their club earlier in the day, they’d moved on to the incredibly exciting discussions of crop rotation (a subject which had, quite literally, bored Georgie to tears ever since she’d read
Observations on a Tour Through Almost the Whole of England
by Mr. Dibdin, when she was all of ten years old) and politics (which
could
at times be interesting, if two opposing viewpoints were in play—but Lords Northwood and Sackville were in perfect agreement on every political matter, thereby nullifying any sense of interest).

In fact, she was just about to give up on discerning where she might find Lord Haworth from these two gentlemen when Monty pounced on her from behind.

She opened her mouth to tell him just what she thought of him sneaking up behind her, but he silenced her by placing his forefinger over her lips and whispering, “Hush.”

The brief contact set her head to reeling and sent a trail of shivers coursing down her spine, leaving her fully unnerved. How was it possible for him to so thoroughly disarm her, with just the simplest touch? Georgie blinked in dismay.

He gestured towards the door, shook his head, and took hold of her elbow, pulling her away from the alcove and further into the corridor. The heat of his hand left an unfamiliar tingling sensation on her skin, which then traveled all over her arm all the way to the tips of her fingers. What on earth was happening to her?

They came to the end of that hall and Georgie was certain he would come to a stop, but Monty tugged her around the corner and kept walking. Even though her legs were longer than those of the average lady, she was huffing in her efforts to keep up with him.

Finally, when he turned yet another corner, Georgie dug her heels into the flooring and forced him to stop. “Where could you possibly think you’re taking me?”

He faced her with a frown, his blue eyes boring into her. “Away from there, where we’d be overheard by whoever it was you were eavesdropping on. Not that I owe you any sort of explanation. I have to wonder what you thought you were doing, however. It’s impolite to listen in to private conversations, and it is about the furthest thing from what you’d normally do as I can imagine.”

She pulled her arm free from his grip, and then crossed both arms over her chest. “Oh? About as impolite as it is for a gentleman to trap a lady alone somewhere, I’d wager.” The fact that he knew it was unlike her left her unsettled. He was right. She never did anything improper.

Well, never before this Season.

Blast him for knowing her so well.

Monty frowned, the effort of it forming a crease between his eyebrows. “You’re not trapped, and given the relationship that I have had with your family for nearly two decades—one which is well known amongst the
ton
—no one would think twice about the two of us being somewhere alone together. I’m practically your brother.”

Something tugged at the side of his mouth and a jerking twitch tugged his eye at that last statement, but he set himself to rights before Georgie had more than a moment to wonder why such a sentiment would be bothersome to him.

“
But you’re not my brother.” She put more emphasis than was necessary on the word
not
, but he needed to understand that the world didn’t see things quite the way he was choosing to see them. Being
almost
her brother was far from the same as
being
her brother.

“
No,” he said on a long exhalation, “I’m not. But your brother isn’t here, so I’m doing what I can to protect you.”

“
I don’t need your protection.” She didn’t
want
it, at any rate. His attempts to
protect
her were making her life miserable. He was always in the way, even when she thought she’d escaped his attention for a moment.

“
That, my sweet Georgie, is up for debate.”

She scowled at him with enough force that she could have burned him to ash if she could throw flames through her eyes. Come to think of it, that was a rather delightful prospect. Perhaps someone ought to someday write a treatise on the physics involved in making such a thing happen. She’d send Percy to the bookstore with her pin money to purchase it for her straightaway, should it happen. Now
that
was a subject she found fascinating. At least she did once it had occurred to her.

They stood there for a long moment, neither willing to give an inch to the other.

Finally, Monty dragged a hand through his hair and let out a ragged breath. “I know you think you’re all grown up now and don’t believe you need my assistance—”

“
Hovering, I might call it, rather than assistance. Or perhaps interference might fit better.”

He frowned but pressed on, staring resolutely into her eyes with undiluted fervor for his message, whatever that may be. “But you’re only eighteen, and London is full of people who would…”

But then his gaze slid away, fading off into the distance even as his shoulders slumped forwards.

“
People who would what?” Georgie finally asked, throwing her hands up into the air in exasperation. The silence that had fallen between them was heavy with tension to the point she could no longer hold it aloft.

His head shook slightly, as though he was warring with himself over what to say. “I need to know what you were doing, Georgie. I need you to tell me who you were skulking after and listening to, and why.”

She bit her lower lip while she debated her options. He already knew she wanted to meet Lord Haworth, though she’d not informed him why she had such a desire. Would it really hurt to tell him this, just because he’d refused to introduce her to the viscount?

No matter how she racked her mind, she couldn’t sort out a good excuse to lie to him, blast it all.

Eventually, she screwed up her courage and went for it, sucking in a massive gulp of air before beginning. “That was Lord Northwood and Lord Sackville. I followed them because they were discussing Lord Haworth. Since you won’t help me to meet the man, I thought to learn what I could about him, in whatever way I could.”

It took a decided effort not to heed the rising sense of panic taking over Monty’s expression at her confession, but she determinedly ignored it.

“
Now,” she continued, staring at her slippers in order to avoid the censure she knew would be in his eyes, “if you don’t mind, I should be getting back to the ballroom before someone misses me.”

Georgie didn’t wait for his response. She sprinted through the corridors in the direction of the ballroom, with as much haste as she could muster short of resorting to running.

Running would be supremely unladylike. That would never do.

Four days.

For four solid days since the start of the Season, Georgie had hardly been able to get herself out of Monty’s sight for even a few minutes, save those blessed moments when she was shut away in her chamber, supposedly sleeping.

Supposedly
, she should note, because she’d scarcely been able to sleep a wink since the Season had started. Lud, but she hadn’t been able to stop her mind from working other than for a few dratted moments at a time…and even those moments were few and far between, to say the least.

At every turn, she was trying to determine just how, precisely, she was going to escape Monty’s attention for long enough to discover which events and soirees Lord Haworth might attend. From there, she was still at a loss as to how she would gain an introduction to the man, since typically gentlemen sought to gain introductions to ladies and not the other way around. And even after she
did
manage to meet him, it would still be necessary to convince him to take her up in his gas balloon.

None of this seemed all that easy.

Particularly not with Monty about constantly. His hovering had only increased since the Davenport ball two nights ago. Since then, he was at their house on Berkeley Square before she arose in the morning, and he stayed until after she retired in the evening, and she couldn’t fathom how to breathe without him there to watch and make certain she was doing it properly, or how to blink without him darting to her side to offer a handkerchief in case she was crying—let alone how to meet Lord Haworth.