I Thee Wed (11 page)

O
RION looked down at his empty hands in shock, then glanced at Francesca. She shook her head pityingly, as if to say, “I cannot believe you fell for that.” Then she hiked up her skirts and dashed after Attie as she ran for the pitiable cook. Come to think of it, he ought not to feel bad. After all, Attie had managed to nick the cleaver from the giant cook in the first place.

The big man was on his knees in a flash, holding Herbert out in a shaking fist. The black-and-white bundle of fuzz twitched its downy nose at Attie, by all evidence unalarmed by the flying tempers and flashing blades. Full white whiskers fluffed and relaxed. Rabbits didn't smile. They didn't, and Orion refused to give in to imagination.

Attie dropped the blade in the grass and gathered Herbert into her skinny arms. With her cause won and her righteous wrath eased, she gazed down at the abject chef with disdain. “And I'll bet you're a terrible cook, too.”

Orion heard a muffled snort from beside him. He looked down to see Francesca with both hands pressed to her mouth.
She could suppress her laughter, but nothing could hide the dancing light of glee in her large brown eyes.

“He's not that bad,” Orion stated, obscurely motivated to defend Sir Geoffrey's taste in staff. “And everything's always piping hot. You should try eating at my house after Mrs. P. has been at her arthritis tea.” Or when Iris whimsically took a turn in the kitchen, where one might find one's gravy flavored with a hint of linseed oil.

So it was all resolved. Attie was disarmed, the cook was contrite—or at least cowed—and young Herbert had a fine adventure to relate to all the admiring males back in the hutches, a fact guaranteed to result in a whole new generation of fuzzy, vegetable-patch enthusiasts.

Orion let out a slow breath, relieved that disaster had been averted. Now, if they could just convince the cook to refrain from mentioning anything to—

“What is the meaning of this?”
Sir Geoffrey's bellow made even Herbert's whiskers droop. “Worthington? Francesca? Ha! I should expect to find
you
at the center of any uproar! And who is this—this—this young
person
?”

Sir Geoffrey's tone implied much doubt as to the truth of that description. Orion tried not to twitch. He was never good at diplomacy. “Sir Geoffrey, may I present my youngest sister, Miss Atalanta Worthington?”

Sir Geoffrey stared at Attie. Attie, being Attie, pushed back her tangled fiery locks and glared right back, freckles still aglow with her pale-skinned ire. Judith stepped from behind Sir Geoffrey, but one glance at the impatience and irritation on her father's face moved her to stand off to one side.

Judith's behavior should have served as a warning for them all.

Sir Geoffrey turned to sneer at Francesca. “It
would
have something to do with your creatures!” he shouted. “I've been tolerant of your playing at science, and I've allowed you to house those vermin on my property long enough! You have
until the presentation to get your ‘research'”—he spat the word with enough venom to make Francesca visibly flinch—“off my grounds before I have the lot skinned for their fur!”

Orion felt Francesca's icy fear like a lance through his own body. He stepped forward, moving in front of her as if he could protect her with his larger form.

“Sir Geoffrey, it is not necessary—”

The scientist turned on Orion. His lined face and bloodshot eyes seemed very nearly demonic in his red-faced rage.

“You'll shut up and get back to the lab, you lollygagging whelp! You're here to serve me, not
her
!”

Orion heard Francesca gasp, and even Attie let out a strangled sound of surprise. He let his placating hands drop to his sides. “Sir Geoffrey, you are overwrought, so I will not demand an apology for your tone.” He let a bit of ice frost his voice. “However, nor will I allow you to threaten your daughter and your niece. If you wish to continue our association, I believe I can look past this afternoon's display—if you can.”

Sir Geoffrey was not accustomed to being calmly confronted. Orion could see the man's mind, as if he had a lens through the older man's skull, trying to decide whether to back down or to blast them all from his sight.

Orion was coming to the conclusion that the great and brilliant Sir Geoffrey was something of a bully. Normally, Orion would have cared nothing about another man's personality flaws—but this particular man had power over the women in Orion's life, power that Sir Geoffrey seemed inclined to abuse.

Orion delivered his one true weapon—or peace offering. It depended on how Sir Geoffrey chose to take it. “If we are to have something definitive to put forward in your presentation to the Royal Fraternity of Life Sciences this week, I think it best if we waste no more time on this afternoon's . . . events.”

Sir Geoffrey could not do it without him. Orion had seen enough of the man over the past few days to know that the
king was teetering on his throne. Sir Geoffrey's temper had become far too uncertain, and his energies were too sapped to do it on his own. He seemed to avoid the laboratory at all costs, apparently more inclined to rest upon his past accomplishments. Orion was not sure what illness the older man fought, but in a moment of insight, he suspected that Sir Geoffrey's finely bladed mind had lost its edge. He had very little evidence to support that theory, but he knew it was true all the same.

And as Sir Geoffrey stared at him with narrowed eyes, Orion realized that Sir Geoffrey knew what Orion had deduced. The only question was, would that chink in the older scientist's armor prompt him toward reconciliation—or revenge?

Orion waited. His future hung in the balance as well. Did Sir Geoffrey realize that?

Perhaps he ought to have placated the man somehow. However this situation resolved itself, his first concern was getting Attie out of the thick of things.

They all waited—Orion, Francesca, Attie, and even Judith, whose tension might not show in her serene expression, but Orion saw that her hands were so tightly clasped that her knuckles had gone white.

Orion was fairly certain the only one not hanging on Sir Geoffrey's next words was Herbert, who had the end of Attie's ratty braid in her mouth and was nibbling it in a leisurely, unconcerned fashion.

At last, Sir Geoffrey exhaled and jerked his hardened jaw a few times. “This is a waste of time,” he announced. “Judith, see to the cook. Worthington—”

“I shall make sure the rabbits are secure,” Orion put in, nodding as if he'd foreseen his mentor's request. “And if you don't mind, Sir Geoffrey, I'd like to request that Miss Penrose escort my sister back to Worthington House.”

“God yes!” Sir Geoffrey very nearly snarled the words.

Orion hustled Attie and Francesca into the house as
quickly as he could. He didn't want Attie walking back to Worthington House this late—or worse, jumping on the back of a hackney cab!—but he dared not venture home just now. Nor did he want to. Home meant crowding and theatrics and clutter, and he found he simply couldn't stand the notion.

When they got to the front door, Pennysmith had already summoned Eva to the front hall. The maid stood ready with Francesca's bonnet and spencer.

Attie thrust Herbert into Orion's arms after a last, sniffling embrace. “If that man hurts Herbert . . .”

Orion went down on one knee to look his little sister in the eye. “I will protect Herbert with my life,” he promised solemnly, folding the creature into his elbow. “Now, go on home. And . . . you had best keep away from Blayne House for a few days, until Sir Geoffrey has made his presentation. He is bound to be a bit—”

“Sir Geoffrey,” Francesca put in, from where Eva was stuffing her into her short jacket, “will be an absolute bear. Bears are fierce and difficult to clean up after. Hmm. I'll come and live at Worthington House for the interim, shall I? Judith, let's move to Worthington House together, right now, before supper. I shall pack us a trunk full of lemon tarts—”

“And rabbits!” Attie joined in Francesca's silliness.

“And rabbits, and perhaps some books—”

“No books!” Orion and Attie protested simultaneously.

Francesca looked at the both of them with her head tilted quizzically, one arm behind her as Eva worked her snug spencer up over her shoulder. “You
are
related, aren't you? That sounded like a single voice!”

She turned to her cousin, towing Eva with her. “Will you be all right, Judith? Truly?” Her teasing tone was gone, and real concern tinged her voice.

“Oh my, yes, Cousin,” Judith stated serenely. “Papa needs a good supper and a brandy, that's all. Eva, that will never fit her, for it is mine. Fetch the brown one. Papa takes his work most seriously, you know,” she continued seamlessly. “He'll
be right as rain once he has impressed the Fraternity with his presentation.”

Francesca slid a glance in Orion's direction as Eva jerked the ill-fitting spencer from her, and Orion knew what she was thinking.
Will there be anything worth presenting?

Not if he did not get back to the laboratory and find it!

F
RANCESCA, clad in the brown spencer, which was ugly but much more comfortable in the bodice, leaned back in the Blayne carriage and regarded the young girl sitting across from her. Atalanta Worthington took up most of the opposite bench, one arm and her head lolling out of the carriage window like a dog.

She might as well enjoy her last few months of childhood. Francesca wished she could tell the girl to be in no hurry for adulthood—although perhaps Attie already knew that. It might account for some of the ferocious protection of her family from outsiders.

Orion had been quite protective as well. Francesca had enjoyed watching her uncle sputter helplessly when Orion had threatened to withdraw his assistance if Sir Geoffrey did not discontinue his ill behavior. It had not all been for Attie's benefit, either, Francesca was sure. Orion had stood between Sir Geoffrey and her, Judith, and Attie.

Then he'd further charmed her when he'd gone down on one knee to reassure Attie and had sworn to protect Herbert.
Francesca smiled fondly at the memory. She might tease him about that later—or she might not.

“You are thinking about my brother, aren't you?”

Francesca met Attie's narrowed green gaze. “Yes,” she replied simply, then turned to gaze from her own window. Orion had smiled when he'd strolled out to meet them on the lawn.

Had she ever seen him smile before?

It had been an easy thing, that smile, as if he had smiled at her a thousand times before and would a thousand times more. Simply thinking of it warmed her again, just as it had in the moment.

Well, this is a pickle.
Her father used to say that to her when she'd flung herself about in one youthful agony or another. She'd wondered what “a pickle” meant.

Now she knew.

She liked Orion Worthington. She liked him a great deal. She hadn't wanted to, but she did.

Papa, this is a pickle, indeed
.

*   *   *

“W
E CAN'T GO
home yet.” Attie clambered up onto her seat and banged her fist on the trapdoor. The driver flipped it open, and Attie gave him an address.

The driver leaned down to exchange glances with Chessa, who simply shrugged and waved a hand for him to carry on. Not a single silly question.

Attie liked that about Chessa. It wasn't until she dropped back down to her tufted-velvet bench that Chessa raised a questioning brow at her.

“I need to see my friend,” Attie told her. “And you need a dress for the Duke of Camberton's ball.”

Chessa just blinked at her. “I do not. I have a silk gown that I brought from Italy.”

Attie grimaced. “I'll wager that it is brown.”

Chessa frowned. “As a matter of fact, it is. How did you know?”

Attie rolled her eyes. “Brown is just so—so brown!” She shook her head in frustration. “My friend will explain it better. At least, he always makes it sound sensible when he's trying to get me to wear a new dress.”

Chessa looked stubborn but curious. “And who is this friend? Why does he make you dresses?”

Attie smiled slyly. “Oh, he's just a dressmaker I know. Perhaps you might have heard of Lementeur? That is his stage name, so to speak. We call him Button.”

Chessa shrugged. “I don't follow fashion. Is he very good?”

“Well, at any rate, be very nice to him. He's sad.” She leaned forward in her seat. Chessa automatically did as well.

Attie was becoming very fond of Chessa!

“He has been
disappointed
in
Love
,” Attie whispered with dramatic flair. She leaned back and went on in a more matter-of-fact tone. “Making you a gown will be a very cheering project for him, I think. He does enjoy a blank slate.”

Chessa blinked mildly at that. “Happy to oblige, I suppose.”

Attie did not approve of Button's pain. His love for Cabot, his rather much younger assistant, was not more powerful than his ethics against taking advantage of someone over whom he might be said to have undue influence—which Attie thought was balderdash.

Because of the age difference between him and his talented assistant, Button had spent a decade pretending not to see Cabot's pining for more than a mentor/protégé relationship. Several months ago, when Cabot was offered a position as personal dresser to the Prince Regent, Button had sent him on his way, kindly but firmly rejecting Cabot's final plea. The Worthingtons all suspected that Button had broken his own heart that day, as well as Cabot's.

Button loved Cabot. Cabot loved Button right back. Attie didn't see what age had to do with anything.

Within her own household, Attie often felt conflicted as her siblings had begun to fall in love and marry—and sometimes leave! Her own family might be spreading out and growing, and she wasn't sure how she felt about it—but she entertained no such reservations when it came to Button and Cabot!

Attie had thought Chessa would go into spasms of delight at the very notion of meeting Lementeur. At first, she found Chessa's underwhelm disappointing—but then she thought that it might be rather interesting to see what happened when her dearest Button finally met someone who wasn't his instant slave.

If that didn't shake him from his melancholy, Attie didn't know what would!

*   *   *

T
HE FAMOUS
L
EMENTEUR
, dressmaker supreme and the very last word in fashion, sat in his crowded, chaotic, cluttered, littered workroom . . . and stared blankly at the sheet of paper on which he had meant to sketch out a new gown for Lady Fogarty's masquerade ball—six hours ago.

He realized that he was waiting.

Waiting for Cabot.

There came no tap on his door. There came no tall, painfully attractive assistant with tea and cakes on a tray, with questions about his mentor's plans, with pointed dry commentary upon the client's manners or habits that would make his mentor chuckle, make his mentor's eyes begin to gleam, make his mentor's fingers set to pencil in a first dynamic burst of inspiration . . .

Cabot had work of his own now, as the primary designer of His Royal Highness's wardrobes, both court finery and personal! He was far too busy and important to fetch tea and
cakes! He had people to fetch and carry for him—and perhaps people to fetch and carry for them as well!

Button applauded Cabot's decision to take that leap. His assistant was more than qualified, both in talent and in the discretion necessary to waiting upon the notoriously fickle Prince Regent.

“He's incomparable, that's what he is! Brilliant!”

Button heard his own emphatic tones echoing in the tiny chamber and frowned. “Talking to yourself is a swift and certain way to find yourself twiddling your thumbs in Bedlam, you old fool!”

He was an old fool! Too old to dream of love, too foolish to evade it! Love had found him—and when he had flinched from it, love had lost him again!

Button sighed and used his fingertips to set his pencil spinning like a dial on his large, intimidating white sheet of paper. He let out a noisy, self-pitying sigh . . .

And waited.

Button looked up hopefully as something rather catlike scratched at his office door. However, he knew that noise, and it wasn't Cabot.

“Is that you, Miss Atalanta?”

The door opened to reveal poor darling Attie Worthington, looking rather worse than usual. Button blinked back his own melancholy as concern for his strange little friend took precedence. “Heavens, pet! Have you been wrestling a bear?”

She shrugged as she wandered in. “Rabbits, butcher knives, and a giant cook.”

“No, really, what happened?”

Attie looked at him. “I told you.”

Button smiled, but his attempt to be reassured did not come to fruition. Attie's face was grimy and rather suspiciously clean about the eyes. Still, her mood seemed nearly cheerful.

Attie turned to look behind her. “Come on in, Chessa.”

Button looked up to see a very lovely girl with an
astonishing bosom and dark Latin eyes enter hesitantly. She wore a shockingly ugly frock. At once, Button's listless fingers began to twitch.

Attie gave him a knowing look. “Chessa, Button. Button, Chessa needs clothes.”

The girl's need was dire, indeed. However, Button drew back on the reins of his creative mount. Without Cabot at his side, he found himself constantly behind in his work—although whether through mournful woolgathering or simple disorganization, he could not seem to pinpoint the cause.

“Attie, I don't know, my dear. I have so much to do.” He waved helplessly at the stacks of chaos around him.

Attie looked as well, and seemed to grasp that there was a distinct difference between the chaos of “creativity” and the chaos of “overwhelm.” Still, her pointy little chin firmed relentlessly.

“I'm sorry, Button, but Chessa
must
have clothes.”

The girl behind Attie waved her hands. “Oh no. I'm fine. Please, Attie, leave the poor fellow alone. Any old gown will do for me.”

Both Button and Attie turned to gape at the dark-haired beauty. She was turning down one of his gowns? The fact that he hadn't offered her one didn't signify. He was Lementeur! The princess herself was on a waiting list!

Attie folded her arms and shook her head pityingly. “Button, it isn't her fault. She's from Italy. And she's a scientist. Hardly a normal girl at all.”

Button shared a humorous glance with the strange girl at Attie's remark—Attie, who was the furthest creature from a normal girl he had ever known. Suddenly reassured that he dealt with a benevolent sort of person, he stood up and bowed at last.

“My dear Chessa—may I call you Chessa?”

The girl held out her hand and gave a lovely curtsy. “Francesca Penrose, and yes, Chessa will do.”

Button noticed the lyrical voice and seductive accents, along with perfect diction, and the softness of her hands. A lady, surely. And Penrose . . . Wasn't Orion staying with some family with a Penrose connection? Hmm. Yes, that stuffy Sir Geoffrey, with his perpetual series of laboratory assistants—one of whom was now Orion himself.

Two young ladies in that house, if he recalled correctly. There were the Blayne girl and a cousin, Miss Penrose. Button made it his business to keep track of all the ladies of Society—both as potential clients and because some time ago he'd quite caught the matchmaking habit.

Ah. So the exotic buxom beauty in the awful dress and tumbled hair was more than she seemed.

Button leaned toward Attie with a questioning peak to his brows.

Attie quickly whispered that she had been spying on both Judith and Francesca—and that she was not sure which one Orion preferred, but if forced to it,
she
would choose Chessa.

“And you mean to stack the deck on her side?” Button pursed his lips. “This is a break from your usual forms of sabotage.”

Attie sniffed. “I'm expanding my horizons. Besides, I've outgrown bullets and laxatives.”

Button coughed. “Glad to hear it, pet,” he said mildly. Then he turned back to the attractive newcomer, whose eyes were greedily devouring the sketches pinned upon his walls.
Not interested in fashion, eh?
“What science, pray tell?”

Chessa turned and smiled at him with delight.
Oh yes
.
Stunning.

“Most people in England want to know who my father was, not who I am.” She straightened proudly. “I am a biologist, trained at the University of Bologna. I am half-English, half-Italian. And although I am delighted to meet a friend of Attie's, I did not come here to trouble you for a gown. There is no need. I have four.”

Button passed a hand over his lips. It would not do to laugh at the beautiful, intelligent, and kindly Miss Penrose—for she must be kindly to have befriended Attie, who was more adroit at making enemies than friends, poor duckling—but most ladies in London Society would not tolerate a mere four handkerchiefs, much less a measly four gowns! And if the present one was any example, very bad gowns, indeed.

“Er . . . if I may ask”—Button waved a hand at her shapeless brown gabardine covered by a deeply offensive brown spencer that sagged in the bodice—“who made this—this
creation
for you?” Who would have dreamed that two brown colors could actually clash so?

Chessa blinked and looked down at herself. “Oh . . . this was made by my aunt's dressmaker, but it came back too snug in the sleeves, so my aunt gave it to me. The spencer belonged to another aunt. She gave it to me when I realized I needed a few more warm things for England.”

Button had to clasp his fingers together to hide his horror. The high, pious neckline . . . the restricting sleeves . . . the horse-apple brown color? “Your aunt, you say? How—if I may be so bold . . . Is your aunt perhaps a lady of advanced years?”

Chessa nodded. “Yes. She is actually my great-aunt. How did you guess?”

“He's a genius,” Attie put in. “And your dress and spencer are very hideous. I wouldn't bury the cook in them.”

Button blinked. “So . . . there really was a cook? A giant cook?”

Chessa smiled ruefully. “And a butcher knife. And many, many rabbits.”

Button encouraged her with a smile, and the whole story came out. And while Chessa talked and Attie embellished with some very entertaining mime, if Button noted down a few mental measurements and doodled a charming décolletage and fiddled with a number of swatches, no one commented upon his distraction.

And if, when the presently pretty Miss Penrose and the someday stunning Miss Worthington left the establishment of the foremost mantua-maker of London Society, a certain fellow began to rifle through his fabrics with renewed inspiration and energy—well, there was no one to see.