My Fair Groom (The Sons of the Aristocracy) (4 page)

Chapter 5

A Ride in Hyde Park

Alistair donned the livery Mr. Grimes had given him that morning, the man shaking his head a bit as he handed over the deep blue and green breeches, waistcoat and stockings. “Be sure your boots are shined,” he said before adding, “And there’s a hat here somewhere. Don’t know how well it will fit you, though.”

Checking his chronometer, Alistair wondered if Lady Julia would even be on time for her ride to Hyde Park. She had apparently requested a horse and groom yesterday, saying she wished to ride during the fashionable hour. It was nearly four o’clock; if they left by half-past, Alistair figured they would be at the entrance to Rotten Row right at five.

He glanced at his image in the small looking glass he used when shaving, wincing when he saw the ridiculous livery.
At least it isn’t pink,
he considered, remembering some of the colors displayed on the footmen who rode on the back of the carriages and other equipage in Hyde Park.

He tried on the hat and then worked to loosen one of the seams around the band. With any luck, the wind wouldn’t whip it off his head whilst they were in the park. Although he wasn’t concerned about being recognized if he wore a hat, he wasn’t so sure what would happen should he appear without one. At least the livery would keep the other gentlemen from looking at him as one of their peers. “The
ton
only see what they expect to see,” his mother had once said. Well, he’d be testing that theory in very short order.

He had to suppress a wince when he noticed the condition of his hands. Although he’d never had the perfectly manicured hands of a gentleman, he had at one time prided himself on how he could at least pass for one when necessary.
Well, that won’t be necessary, perhaps ever again
, he considered before making his way down to the stables below.

Lady Julia took a quick glance at her reflection in the cheval mirror, rather liking the rakish angle at which her bonnet had been pinned onto her elaborate coiffure.

Her maid, Susan, was quite adept at hairdressing. She also seemed to know exactly when such coiffures were important. Today Julia would be riding in Hyde Park with the new groom as an escort. If the man seemed able to learn the finer points of being a gentleman, she thought she might ask if he would be willing. She still hadn’t decided just
how
she would approach him with the query. Greet him, certainly. Then introduce herself. A bit of chit-chat about the weather and the horses. And then she could broach the topic.
Have you ever wondered how life would be if you were a gentleman?
No, that wouldn’t do. What if he had never wondered? What if he was perfectly satisfied with his lot in life and had no interest in being seen as a gentleman? Julia thought for a moment. “You, sir, look as if you could be a gentleman. If you’d like, I can arrange a dance master and a speech instructor and have a tailor lined up within the week and have you ready to attend a ball in three weeks.” Julia stared into the mirror. “Am I a candidate for Bedlam?” she asked out loud, noting her reflection made her look as if she might be.

Three weeks?
How could she ever have agreed to Lady Samantha’s terms?

Pride
.

That’s what it was, she decided.
My damned pride got me into this.
Well, she might have to swallow that pride if she had any hope of convincing the groom to agree to her scheme. She rather doubted she could tell him what she really wanted.

To dance with the man.

She imagined him on the dance floor at her mother’s ball, his hair perfectly trimmed in a Titus cut, his black evening clothes fitted to perfection, his cravat tied into a perfect knot with a diamond pin blinking from within the folds, his calves silhouetted in his stockings, his thighs barely contained in the satin breeches, his gaze only on her ... Julia shook herself from her reverie.
Damnation!
What was she imagining? He was a
groom!
Which brought her back to her original dilemma. How to convince him to undergo the rigors of becoming a gentleman.

She could always just tell him the truth. “I accepted a dare from a friend. A dare that I could turn you into a gentleman in time for my mother’s ball at the end of the month. Are you game?”

Her reflection stared back at her, not looking a bit like a candidate for Bedlam. “Oh,” she mouthed silently, wondering how the groom would respond.

“My lady, I would be honored.” Or, “My lady, I am flattered, but I am otherwise engaged.” Or, and this was probably the response he would give her, “My lady, have you considered a future in Bedlam?”

Giving her reflection a sour look, she turned and made her way to the bedchamber door.
I’ll think of something
, she thought hopefully.
I always do.

Alistair carried the step box to where Lady Julia’s mare stood, and just beyond the horse was the lady herself. Looking rather bored but very regal in a riding habit of hunter green worsted wool, Lady Julia might have been any daughter of the aristocracy. A ridiculous hat, sporting some poor bird’s plumage while forgoing the typical wide brim, was pinned at a rakish angle. At least it didn’t cover the lady’s golden blonde hair completely, Alistair thought absently, rather pleased to discover the chit was fairly pretty. Even without having to study her face, Alistair was quite sure she was the one of the young women who had been watching him the day before from a second-story window.

He placed the wooden box on the ground next to the mare and held out his hand to Julia, a gesture he would have made with any woman who was about to mount a horse. “My lady,” he said with a half-bow.

Julia hesitated before placing her gloved hand on his. Not since she was a child had a groom offered this kind of assistance – she was an accomplished horsewoman, after all, and only needed help if a horse was as large as her father’s mount. And did she detect just a hint of a northern county lilt to the groom’s voice? Or did she just imagine it because she expected the worst?

She stepped onto the box and turned to place her left foot in the stirrup, conscious of the groom watching her every movement. Her right hand on the front pommel, she pushed up on her left leg and managed to get her right leg up and bent around the pommel in a continuous, smooth move that left the majority of her riding habit splayed evenly on the left side of the horse with the hem covering the tops of her half-boots.

“Excuse me, sir, I did not catch your name,” Julia spoke once she was in the saddle and her right leg was wrapped around the pommel. She had to admire the way the groom watched her every move, as if he was holding himself personally responsible for her safety.
Which he should, I suppose
, she realized.

“I did not give it, milady,” the groom replied, handing her the reins as he continued to check her saddle’s fit. He never once looked up at her, instead concentrating his attention on the saddle and the horse upon which she was perched.

“Then, what should I call you?” she wondered, thinking she should feel at bit offended by his response.

Alistair paused in his perusal of her saddle. “Comber, milady,” he replied, thinking it was doubtful anyone would connect the name back to the Earl of Aimsley. And he would answer to it. If he gave her a fake name, he feared he wouldn’t respond, and it would be more obvious he wasn’t who he claimed to be.

“So, Mr. Comber, have you been in Hyde Park? During the fashionable hour?” Julia asked, thinking she had never noticed him, although she rarely noticed the grooms that accompanied her friends when they rode together. They seemed to blend into the background, or at least, went unnoticed because the girls’ attentions were always on the gentlemen dressed in riding habits with tall top hats and shiny boots made by Hoby, or Hessians, their tassels swishing with every step of the their horse. Though, on further reflection, she wondered how she could have overlooked a groom dressed like Mr. Comber.
How could my mother subject her footmen and grooms to this color of livery?
she wondered. Apple green and bright blue.
My second cousin would wear such colors
, she considered,
and he’s an earl
. But that was really no excuse.

Sighing, she remembered the last time she had heard about apple green being worn by the Earl of Trenton. He was at Lady Worthington’s ball, before Lady Adele Worthington married Julia’s godfather and became Lady Torrington. According to her mother, Wellingham’s evening clothes had been apple green satin! When she first spotted him on the dance floor, Lady Mayfield thought the curly blond man to be a lady, for she had only seen him from the waist up. What manner of gentleman would wear an apple green topcoat and breeches to a ball?
A peacock
, Julia thought with a grin.

“Really, Mr. Comber, I am fine,” Julia said as she wondered how much longer the groom was going to check her mount.

“Then, if you’re ready, milady, we’ll be off,” Alistair replied as he gave Julia’s mount, Buttercup, a firm pat on its neck. He turned around and regarded his own mount, a smaller gelding that was obviously the oldest horse in Lord Mayfield’s stable.
Blossom
, he thought with a bit of derision.
Who named a horse, Blossom?
He almost put voice to his question and realized Lady Julia had probably been at fault. Or perhaps Lady Mayfield.

Either way, it would do him no good to voice his opinion. Instead, he moved to the front of the horse, gave it a quick swipe up the middle of its head and moved to the left side. He ran his hand along its flank and, from a standing position, jumped up and swung his leg over the horse, landing perfectly in the saddle. After watching Lady Julia hoist herself up and get seated in a move that looked effortless, Alistair thought he should at least be able to do the same given he didn’t wear a riding habit. At least he didn’t have to hook his knee around the pommel and make sure his livery was perfectly splayed out along one side of his mount.

Julia had to suppress a gasp at the sight of the groom’s move, his posture perfect and his command of the gelding apparent. “Easy,” she heard him say as Blossom moved a bit to the right upon being mounted. Blossom held perfectly still as his rider hooked his boot into the stirrups. The man had probably been born in a stable! She had never seen someone so comfortable around the beasts, so assured as he took up the reins and led his horse through a few moves before urging Blossom into a canter. Julia didn’t have to do anything as her own mount, Buttercup, simply followed Blossom down the alley and out onto Park Lane.

Well, anything other than admire the backside of Mr. Comber.

She nearly blushed as she realized she had never before noticed the backside of any of the other grooms who had escorted her to Hyde Park. The mans’s buttocks filled out his livery, nearly straining the silk.

A sudden something-rather-pleasant sensation passed through her belly, and she was nearly forced to pull back on the reins.
What had just happened?
Julia wondered, urging her mount to move closer to her escort when she realized they weren’t the only riders on Park Lane making their way toward the park.

Lady Evangeline Sommers, Lord Everly’s sister and newly wed wife of Lord Sommers, and her groom, were just ahead of them, and Lord Devonville and his wife, the former Lady Winslow, greeted her as she merged into the horse-and-rider traffic on Park Lane.

“We missed you yesterday,” Lady Devonville said as she pulled her mount alongside Julia’s. “I do hope you were not ill,” she added as she gave the younger woman a raised eyebrow.

Julia gave the marchioness a brilliant smile. “I was not. I was hosting Lady Samantha for the afternoon. The Fitzsimmons were in Kent for a house party, and I couldn’t abide her being alone when the weather was so unpredictable.”

Indeed, the afternoon before had been so unsettled, but then, just as she had spied her current escort from her bedchamber window, the sun had appeared and brightened an otherwise dull afternoon.

As had the sight of the groom.

Lady Devonville’s attention had moved to the groom just in front of Lady Julia. “How kind of you. I was hoping Lady Samantha would be settled by now, seeing as how she has been out for two Seasons,” she commented, her voice indicating concern.

Julia pondered how to respond before finally saying, “But Lady Samantha is not. I rather imagine she will wait until she has an offer from a gentleman with whom she feels affection. Even if she has to wait a Season or two more.”

One of Lady Winslow’s eyebrows arced up in surprise at hearing the news that Lady Samantha was willing to wait for affection before agreeing to marry.

“And she has a project to which she is quite devoted at the moment,” Julia added. Samantha had shared the news about her lady’s maid in a note to Julia only that morning; apparently, after Samantha returned to her uncle’s home the day before, Gabriel Wellingham had paid a call on Lily and informed her she was his illegitimate sister. Samantha didn’t seem the least bit upset at the news, for she wrote that she would see to Lily Harkins’ preparation for the Mayfield ball.
While you see to your groom, I’ll be seeing to Lady Lily’s come-out
, she wrote, with a postscriptum that mentioned she had contacted an agency about procuring a new lady’s maid.

Lady Lily?

“Oh?” Lady Devonville prompted, hoping for an explanation of Samantha’s project. Lady Samantha wasn’t considered a beauty among the
ton
, and with her dowry rumored at being on the low end in terms of value., it was rather doubtful the chit would receive any offers of marriage, let alone from someone who might feel affection for her.

The former Lady Winslow was about to respond to Julia’s comment when Lord Devonville pulled up alongside his wife.

“Come, my sweeting,” he said without a hint of embarrassment. “Lord Morganfield is up ahead in his phaeton, and he has his marchioness with him this afternoon.”

Lady Devonville gave Julia an apologetic shrug and urged her horse to hurry on.

Julia knew better than to feel offended by the sudden departure of Lady Devonville. The woman had afforded her a moment of conversation she appreciated given she was alone on today’s ride. But she did feel a hint of satisfaction knowing she had left the lady wondering about Samantha’s
project
when her husband, William Slater, suddenly appeared.

Had the marquess overheard her comment to Julia?
Was the marchioness about to say something about Samantha that was less than complimentary?
Julia thought she was.