The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown (Lady W 1) (32 page)

“Linney, dear!”

Linney squeezed her eyes shut against her mother’s strident tone.

“Oh, leave me alone,” she muttered into the down of her blanket.

The door opened. “Linney, Lord Pellering is here. You
must
get up.”

“I don’t feel well, Mother.”

“Be that as it may, Lord Pellering is here!”

Save me from Lord Pellering
. This thought popped into Linney’s head, and she really did want to run away suddenly. She could not possibly marry someone who made her so completely miserable, could she?

And it was not fair at all to Lord Pellering that he made her miserable. He was quite an agreeable man, really. But, well, he had no hair.

And he liked his hounds altogether too much. That just could not be right.

Oh Lord, she was just as pompous and horrible as Lord Darington to think such awful thoughts.

Lord Darington. A jumble of emotions made it feel like her skin was hot and cold at the same time. No, her skin
was
hot and cold at the same time. She was sick, for the love of pete.

Now she really did want to run away.

Her mother barged into her room and stood over her bed. “He is going to ask for your hand, Linney. I’m just too thrilled. I rather thought you would
never
make a match.”

“Thank you so much, mother.”

“Well, you are to be six and twenty, after all, Linney. When I was your age, I was married already with a child.”

With a long sigh, Linney peeked out from beneath her covers. “I am truly ill, Mother. Please tell Lord Pellering that I shall see him at another time.”

“I shall do no such thing.” Georgiana stripped Linney’s beloved down-filled coverlet from the bed.

Oh, it was cold.

“Linney, Lord Pellering is more than you deserve. You will get out of bed this instant and go accept his suit.”

“I can’t.”

“Fine, then, I shall do it for you.”

“No!” Linney cried.

Georgiana, halfway to the door, turned around with a frown. “Whyever not? If you are so ill, than I shall at least accept on your behalf. Really, Linney, you must make this official now, or you may just lose Lord Pellering. And then what will you do?”

Linney moved slightly, and every bone in her body ached horribly. And she was so cold.

She remembered the warmth of Lord Darington’s embrace and ached even more.

She knew her mother well. Georgiana Starling could care less if Linney ever married. Her mother just wanted Lord Pellering to provide a bit of pin money to his darling mother-in-law. At least until Mr. Evanston’s uncle died. Mr. Evanston was, unfortunately, penniless. But he was heir to a rather large fortune, assuming his ailing uncle ever stuck his spoon in the wall.

The ailing uncle had been ailing for nearly ten years, it seemed.

“Why don’t
you
marry Lord Pellering?” Linney said, only half jokingly.

“Oh really, Linney!” Her mother went to the clothespress and grabbed a gown. “I don’t know what has gotten into you lately. You have been abominable.”

“No, I am serious, Mother. Why are you marrying Mr. Evanston? You could have any man you choose. Why don’t you just marry someone who can give you what you want right now?”

Georgiana looked entirely confused.

“Dearest Linney,” her mother finally said. “Mr. Evanston does give me what I want. He gives me attention, and very soon, he will give me money. Lord Pellering, and really most of the men of society, give their attention to their paramours, their carriages or hunting dogs, but most of all to themselves.” Here Georgiana stood a bit straighter.

That last comment, Linney was sure, was directed straight to her father, wherever his soul happened to be at the moment.

Duchess meowed and moved closer to Linney, lending her warmth. Using the last strength in her body, Linney leaned up on her elbow, found the corner of her blanket, and pulled it back over her. She closed her eyes and sank back against her pillows. “I think I want attention, too, Mother,” she said. “I can’t marry Lord Pellering.”

Duchess made a sound, and Linney put her arm around her cat. Poor dear, she wasn’t going to have a barn anytime soon, it seemed. And Linney was probably doomed to spend the rest of her life a spinster, living as if she did not exist in the home of her glittering mother and her decidedly oily stepfather.

And at the moment, she did not care, since she was probably going to expire from the ache in her head at any moment anyway.

“Linney.”

“No more, Mother. I can barely think with the pounding in my head.”

There was a long, lovely silence, and then Georgiana’s silk skirt rustled. “I shall tell Lord Pellering that he should come back in a few days when you are feeling better.”

Georgiana opened the door to leave. There was a God.

“Really, Linney, I don’t know what’s gotten into you at all. You have not been this obstinate since you were two.”

Perhaps she had known more at two than she did now.

“Maybe this will teach you a lesson, though. You really should not have run away from the skating party yesterday. It is your fault entirely that you are sick.”

Didn’t some mothers kiss their children when they were sick?

“And you most definitely ought to stay away from Lord Darington. You are not pining after someone so incredibly beyond you, are you, Linney?”

Linney felt a strange anger burn in her heart. Beyond her? Ha! He was beyond the pale, was what he was!

Georgiana waited as if she expected Linney to say something. But Linney had neither the strength nor the inclination, and finally the door closed behind her mother.

Silence. Lovely, gorgeous, beautiful silence.

If she lived in the country with a husband who loved his hounds more than he would ever love her, she would be able to have silence often and most probably always.

And in that single moment, during that very thought, Linney finally understood why she had been crying the week before at the theater.

Perhaps even why she was so affected by someone of Lord Darington’s ilk.

Because what her mother had said to her today, and nearly every day of her life, was just not true. Lord Pellering was not more than Linney deserved. No man was.

She deserved to be happy and content.

And Lord Pellering could not give her those two things, not really. Some woman would deserve him, and he her. But that woman would not be Linney.

Thank God, because she really had no inkling to kiss Lord Pellering as she had kissed Lord Darington.

Oh goodness, Linney thought, as she again felt rather swoony.

Though, in all seriousness, that could have had everything to do with the fact that she was probably delusional with fever, and nothing at all to do with thoughts of a tall, dark, and gorgeous man with curling thick hair and eyes the color of a lazy summer sky.

Nothing to do with him at all.

Linney smiled softly as her foggy brain took her off into a lovely dream. Interestingly enough, Lord Darington took center stage in that dream. And it was a really,
really
good dream.

Chapter 6

Good heavens, but Lady Caroline Starling has refused Lord Pellering’s offer of marriage! Linney, my dear, you are well into your third decade! Whatever can you be thinking?

Maybe that she’d rather enter into marriage in which she was considered of greater importance than a pack of hunting dogs?

Yes, yes. That is exactly what This Author believes she is thinking.

L
ADY
W
HISTLEDOWN
’
S
S
OCIETY
P
APERS
,
9 F
EBRUARY
1814

L
inney had had one too many glasses of rum punch. But, really, it was horribly cold outside, and the rum punch did warm one to one’s very toes. Add to that the fact that she stood at the Shelbournes’ Valentine’s ball, where every single person seemed to have some special person to swan over, except for Linney, who was most positively alone. And, most importantly, Linney was terribly nervous about seeing Lord Darington again, for the last time she had seen him, she had been so gauche as to shove him into a snowbank, and since that moment she had dreamed of him every time her eyelids dropped shut.

And the dreams were far from those an aging miss ought to have.

Yes, she did think she had reasons enough to imbibe rum punch. Still, since it was imperative that she guard her tongue at all times, Linney did try to stay away from anything that loosened it.

And at the moment, she felt decidedly loose.

Probably not a good thing.

She scanned the crowd nervously. At the very least, Linney knew she would not see Lord Pellering. When she had finally been well enough to see him, two days after the skating party, Linney had refused his suit.

The earl had grumbled mightily about wasted time and informed the entire household, Annie included, that he was off to Stratfordshire to wed the daughter of some squire who knew the worth of a good hound, and whom, Lord Pellering said as he thrust on his beaver hat, he should have married in the first place and never set foot in London.

So that was the last she had seen of Lord Pellering.

And she could not say that she was sorry. No, the urge to cry at every turn of the hour had disappeared completely, and Linney felt rather more like herself in the last few days.

Of course, there was still the problem of Lord Darington.

He had come while she was sick as well. Only her mother had absolutely refused to allow Annie to inform Linney of the fact. But the maid had managed to relay the message, and even give Linney the one pristine pink rose that Lord Darington had brought for her.

The message had been simple and short: “Sorry.”

Linney was quite perplexed, of course. There were moments when Lord Darington seemed to be absolutely the opposite of what everyone knew him to be.

He seemed, really, like someone to whom she could actually tell all the strange thoughts in her head.

And he seemed as if he might understand them.

That, in and of itself, was a miracle.

The fact that the man also seemed taken with her, and that he was God’s aesthetic gift to the universe, just made it all perfect, sort of.

Still, these things were all tempered by the fact that Lord Darington had the manners of a toad.

Anyway, Linney was quite decidedly confused by it all.

A now-familiar tall and broad figure hovered into her peripheral vision, and once again Linney felt the telltale flutter of her heart.

It made her feel positively light-headed, especially since she was about half a glass of rum punch away from singing a tune at the top of her lungs and doing a dance alone across the Shelbournes’ ballroom floor.

Actually, she really ought to turn around and go home, and leave her intended mission of the evening undone until another time.

But obviously she was not really thinking right. Linney straightened her spine and keeping Lord Darington’s wide back in her sights so as not to lose him, marched around some lace-covered tables, through a bunch of pink and red streamers that had come loose of their moorings and hung lamely from a crystal chandelier, and tapped Lord Darington on the shoulder.

He turned and glanced down at her, and she had to catch her breath. The man was so unearthly handsome, in a dark jacket and white waistcoat, that her fluttering heart nearly caused her apoplexy.

Well, that would never do. She had a mission, after all.

“Lord Darington,” Linney said, and then realized that she had rather yelled his name a bit too loudly.

He frowned.

Oh Lord, he was being awful again. He had taken on his Lord of the World manners. Lovely.

“I am sorry,” she said quickly, just wanting to get this whole thing over with. The thought that Lord Darington actually fancied her danced like a taunting bully in her head. How on earth could she have ever thought such a thing?

Be that as it may, though. She did need to apologize for pushing Lord Darington into a snowbank. Even if he were the most abominable man on earth, she ought not to lower her own manners so.

“I should not have pushed you at the skating party.”

Lord Darington blinked, but said nothing at all.

“Right, then,” Linney said. She absolutely refused to be rude to him again, but she did so want to throw the rest of her rum punch in his face.

Well, that was, if she had had any more in her glass. Which, funny enough, she did not. She glared for a moment at the empty glass in her hand as if she could will it to fill up on its own.

“Dance with me,” Lord Darington said.

Did he never ask? Just order all the underlings around him to do his will?

He took the glass from her hand and gave it to a tall, thin, blond man who stood at his side. And then Lord Darington grabbed her arm and escorted her to the dance floor.

Linney hesitated. This was probably a very bad idea. She was most definitely dizzy, and trying to remember the steps and moves of a dance would not help that disability in the least.

“I really…”

Lord Darington turned toward her. “We shall dance,” he said.

God, was there anyone else on the entire earth as pompous as Lord Darington? Linney could feel her ire churning in her stomach, along with the rum punch, unfortunately.

It was terribly difficult to keep her dignity around Lord Darington. The man did tend to make her want to thump him over the head. Of course, at the same time, he made her want to jump right into his arms and demand that the man who found a sad quality in the fact that the Rosetta Stone resided so far from its home come out and play.

“I’m not feeling well, Lord Darington,” she said. “I do not want to dance.”

Lord Darington stopped, his brow furrowed in consternation. “Let’s dance.”

Linney just shook her head. “No!” She pushed away from him, even as she realized that she was about to lose her decorum again. Lord Darington was such a horrible influence on her. “Really, Lord Darington, you are such an
ass
!”