Page 166

Home of the Earl and Countess of Livingston

Mayfair, London

L ady Alice Lister had changed her mind.

She could not think what degree of freedom nor what amount of money might be worth the torture of another Season sitting in a tiny, decidedly uncomfortable chair listening to the whispers of She’s the one and waiting for an invitation to dance that had only a slightly better chance of coming her way than her Uncle Daedalus suddenly entering the priesthood.

As her uncle, Lord Daedalus Whitcombe, heir to the Duke of Chelmsford, was the most notorious pornographer in London, Alice was fairly assured her dancing slippers were in no danger of wearing out tonight. Or any other night for that matter.

Yes, she had most decidedly changed her mind.

Now all she had to do was inform her other uncle, Perseus Whitcombe, Duke of Chelmsford, that she would not be taking him up on his offer to award her a most ridiculous amount of money and his leave to live as she wished if she would but attend the events of this Season in the hope of finding a husband.

Her first Season had ended in disaster. Her second had been a lesson in humiliation.

Here she sat at the first ball of her third Season, and already she’d begun to dread the fresh hell the Fates in the form of the young gentlemen of the ton had in store for her.

Enough was enough. She retrieved her fan and reticule from the empty chair next to her.

“Lady Alice?”

“Mister Perriton!” She leapt to her feet and met the intense blue grey gaze of her oldest childhood friend. “When did you come to Town?” She dropped her fan and reticule onto her chair and extended her gloved hands, which he clasped tightly in his own.

“We arrived only this morning,” he replied.

“I am in attendance at Frederick’s insistence.

Seeing you, I am happy for once I obeyed his edict.

” He glanced across the ballroom to where his eldest brother stood conversing with some other gentlemen of his age.

“Mister Perriton?” He fixed her with his best sternly disapproving scowl.

“Lady Alice?” She mocked his expression with one of her own.

He glanced about the ballroom and sighed dramatically. “Alas, we are no longer children running about the fields of your father’s estate. I suppose we must exercise a modicum of decorum, at least in public.” He winked.

“If you insist.” Alice squeezed his hands and indicated the vacant chair next to hers.

“The very last thing I am known for is my decorum, but I am trying for my uncle’s sake.

” He removed her things from her chair and waited for her to sit before he lowered his tall, lithe frame to sit beside her.

With a rare smile he returned her reticule and fan.

“They don’t quite match my attire this evening,” he said in dead earnest.

Alice threw back her head and laughed, the first time she’d laughed in quite some time. “Dear, Sinjin. I am so glad you changed your mind.”

“Changed my…about what?”

“Returning to Town this year. In your last letter you said you preferred to stay in Surrey.” The orchestra struck up the tune for a cotillion. Couples rushed onto the floor to form up for the figures for the dance. She leaned closer to hear him over the music and the din of dancing feet.

“And in your last letter you said you wished to travel, to Scotland of all places.” He shuddered.

“Ah, yes. Your aversion to the cold. I remember now. You prefer warmer climes.”

“I prefer my plants to rocks and snow. Are we really reduced to conversing about the weather?” His expression was so often serious, few knew when he was in jest. She always knew as only a friendship as long as theirs allowed.

“How fair your parents? Have they come with you and your brothers?” Alice took the time to peruse the crowded ballroom as the myriad couples moved in the complicated steps of the cotillion. Thus far she and Sinjin had not attracted any attention.

“Mother and Father are well, but they elected to remain in the country. Father’s health…

” He shrugged. She patted his hand. The Perriton patriarch’s health had been in a slow decline these last three years.

Sinjin often wrote of his concern and sadness, and she did her best to encourage him all would be well.

He had been as a brother to her since they were children on neighboring estates.

Her lonely existence as an only child, and worse a girl when her father had no son, would have been unbearable without him, and they had stayed close through letters when their lives and travels eventually prevented them visiting each other.

“You said you were not having another Season,” he said, his attention now on the dancers.

“You said you had no wish to find a husband.” There was a curious tone to his voice, though Alice did not quite understand precisely his thinking on the subject.

A singular state of affairs as he was not one to dissemble, especially with her.

“Perish the very thought. I am here at Uncle Percy’s request. I am to suffer through one final Season, and he will award me an obscene competence and the right to set up my own household.”

“An obscene competence from the Duke of Chelmsford? Well done, my lady. You always were the most astute of negotiators when it came to acquiring sweets and other provisions from Cook for our adventures.”

She inclined her head in acknowledgement of his praise.

“Thank you, kind sir.” The dance ended and the couples left the dance floor or changed partners for the next set.

“I had nearly forgotten our adventures. One of the true tragedies of growing older is the sad lack of adventures.” She was only half in jest. Seeing Sinjin always put her in mind of the only truly happy memories of her childhood.

“Are we so old then, Alice?” Sinjin’s voice, rich and rumbling like the gentle roll of thunder across the meadows and woods where they’d played, drew her to gaze at him and not look away. “Have we grown too aged and infirm for an adventure or two whilst we are here together in London?”

She leaned closer as the musicians began to play for the allemande. “What did you have in mind?”

“A picnic in Hyde Park, perhaps? Surely we are still fit enough for a ride in Reggie’s new curricle and a repast by the Serpentine. I can ask Beatty to prepare a basket.” He waggled his eyebrows, and Alice had to laugh.

“You persuaded Missus Beatty to come up from Surrey?”

“Frederick did. You didn’t expect her to allow anyone else to cook for Master Frederick, did you?

” He did a perfect imitation of the Perriton’s cook, who had been with the family since before even Sinjin’s eldest brother was born.

“She left her niece to cook for Mother and Father. What do you say? I shall have to call for you well before noon if we are to make off with Reggie’s curricle. ”

“Stealing Reggie’s curricle and a feast prepared by dear Beatty to celebrate our theft? How can I refuse?”

He chuckled softly though he did not actually smile.

“I should love that above all things, Sinjin.” She covered his hand with hers.

“Thank you. I don’t know how I would survive this season without your friendship.

You will stay until July, won’t you? Uncle Percy and Aunt El will not return to the country until then.

” Perseus Whitcombe, the Duke of Chelmsford and Captain El Goodrum, now the Duchess of Chelmsford, always resided in London through the Season.

She’d lived with them these last few years since her estrangement from her father, the Earl of Breadmore, and was more grateful than she could say for their care.

“I am ever your friend, Alice,” he said, his voice oddly brittle. “Of course, I shall stay if you wish it.” He patted her hand and started to rise to his feet. “However, I fear my presence has frightened away your dance partners. I think I shall?—”

“No!” Alice tugged him back into his seat by the back of his evening jacket so sharply he nearly fell to the floor.

“What the devil?” Several of the chaperones seated down the row of dainty chairs gasped and looked at him askance.

He blushed and turned to face her. “Why did you do that? Alice?” He followed her frozen gaze across the ballroom.

Three finely dressed gentlemen winded their way through the dancers, their intent and direction more than clear.

Though these three gentlemen hardly warranted the name.

Viscount Weatherly, the Earl of Stanton, and Lord Octavius Earden strolled towards her with their customary indolent grins firmly fixed, lords of all they surveyed. They were the very banes of her existence. Damn them.

“They’re the ones, aren’t they?” Sinjin murmured. “The ones you wrote of in your letters last Season.”

“It is of no matter.” Alice sat up straight, her hands in her lap.

“It matters to me.” Sinjin had gone stiff and cold. She glanced down to see his hand fisted tightly resting on his silk breeches clad thigh. When she returned her gaze to his face, his attention was riveted on the trio as they came to a halt before her.

Stanton offered her a negligible bow. The other two snickered and cast about to see who of their acquaintance was watching what they no doubt intended to be a continuation of last year’s humiliations.

“Dance, Lady Alice? Unless, of course, you expect a crush of gentlemen to appear to beg your next set?” The earl did not offer his hand, merely stood there, a sly grin creasing his sharp-featured face. He reminded her of a fox, after the hounds had been at him.

“Actually,” Sinjin drawled. “I have exercised the privilege of Lady Alice’s long acquaintance with my family to provide me with company and conversation this evening.

An old leg injury prevents me from doing my duty to the unmarried ladies in attendance.

” He shot his left leg out so precipitously the three miscreants had to leap back to avoid being kicked.

In doing so they jostled several of the couples going through the steps of the allemande.

“Oh dear!’ Alice covered her mouth with her gloved hand and fought not to laugh. “Have you injured yourself, Mr. Perriton?”

“Think nothing of it, my lady.” He made a great show of rubbing his thigh. “Apologies, gentlemen. Dashed thing has a mind of its own these days.”

“How did you injure your leg?” Viscount Weatherly asked. “Did our Lady Alice shoot you, perhaps?” The three of them guffawed like loons.

“From what I understand Lady Alice only shoots vermin.” Alice had never heard such venom in Sinjin’s voice. She had to restrain herself from turning to see if someone else had taken his place in the gild chair next to hers. “Perhaps you gentlemen had better remove yourselves out of range.”

“Here now, Perriton,” Lord Octavius Earden said, his face gone scarlet and his eyes flat and cruel. “Remember your place and to whom you are speaking.”

“I will if you will,” Perriton said as he slowly rose to his full height. “Or do I need to ask the Duke of Chelmsford to stand as my second tomorrow at dawn?”

“Sinjin,” Alice warned softly. Weatherly, Stanton, and Earden stared at her friend in disbelief.

She shared their shock and surprise. Where had her shy, reserved companion gone and who was this formidable gentleman in his place?

Without another word her three tormenters turned and skirted the edge of the ballroom until they disappeared out the French windows that led to the Livingtons’ terrace and formal gardens.

Sinjin stared after them in silence for several minutes before he finally sat back down.

“What were you thinking?” Alice demanded. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“Shhh. Someone will hear you. I was never in any danger. There isn’t an ounce of courage between the three of them. Men like that insult women because they lack the strength or honor to challenge real gentlemen.”

“How do you know that? Are you acquainted with them? You can’t be. You never go out into Society. Your sister says so, and I have never seen you in a ballroom until tonight.”

“Men like that are the reason you have not seen me in Society. I may not have a title or be heir to a great fortune, but I went to Eton and Oxford, remember?”

“Sinjin.” She’d wounded him, though she had not meant to. “I didn’t?—”

“I know you didn’t. Those three didn’t become arses overnight.

They were raised to believe they are superior creatures merely by drawing breath.

I would that I had broken my solitude last year when they were so cruel to you, but I will not allow them to abuse you further. You have my word on that, Alice.”

She sighed and bumped his shoulder with hers. “You honor me with your brave offer, but I am long past the age of needing a knight in shining armor.”

“A good thing too as I am a terrible rider, and I’m told armor chafes like the very devil.”

She laughed. “Not to mention your bad leg. One prefers a knight who does not limp.”

“You cut me to the quick, my lady.” They both leaned back in their chairs and rested their heads against the gold silk covered wall behind them. “Shall a poor limping knight be a suitable companion for a picnic tomorrow?”

“I shall endeavor to endure your escort, sir.” Alice sighed dramatically.

They watched the swirl of brightly colored gowns, modest white dresses, and elegantly garbed gentlemen move about the ballroom to the lively music of the musicians.

She had always found balls suffocating—the cloying perfumes and colognes, the din of voices raised in false merriment, the pulse of feet on the ballroom floor and the oppressive heat of too many bodies, too many candles and never enough open windows to let in the air.

Perhaps the unrelenting whispers and torment led by Wheatly, Earden, and Stanton had made her last Season a misery.

However, tonight as she and Sinjin sat and discussed the ridiculous fashions, the various foibles of the people they knew, and the unimaginable farce that was the ton at the height of the Season she found herself looking forward to the weeks to come.

She turned her head to find Sinjin studying her quite intently. “I have missed you,” she said without thinking. He blinked a few times and smiled.

“Of course you did. I am infinitely missable, you know.”

She tapped him with her fan and shook her head. Yes, she had changed her mind. Again. This was going to be a wonderful Season. “What time will you call for me tomorrow?”