‘If you’d like help sorting them all,’ she said, throwing caution to the wind, ‘I’d be happy to act as your social secretary until you get your town-legs. Go riding with me in the morning, and we’ll sort them out afterward.’
His assignation made, Ivo grudgingly acquiesced to the eager young lieutenant who had been waiting impatiently for a chance to return to George’s side.
Puppy. It wasn’t as if his adoration was going to get him anywhere.
While the lieutenant reclaimed his place on the settee, Ivo strolled over to the window and joined the men scanning the street below for women sporting particularly ghastly headgear.
While he watched, a door across the street opened and a woman almost dwarfed by a portrait bonnet trimmed with an enormous number of glass cherries and feathers walked down the steps and set off in the direction of Grosvenor Square.
‘Cherries and feathers!’ the dandy in the blue-spangled coat called out and the room erupted into laughter and bets.
‘Don’t forget, she’s my entry. I claimed her sight unseen,’ George said from behind him.
The door opened as she spoke and Bennett wandered in, accompanied by her missing bulldog and her brother-in-law. All three of them were magnificently outfitted in suits of striped silk or lightly braided stuff and lavishly embellished waistcoats. Bennett swept his hat from his head, revealing an elaborately curled wig worn au chasseur.
‘Georgie,’ he said, ‘do you mind if I steal Somercote here and take him off to Tattersalls? Nye is selling off Triton, and I think he should take a look at him.’
‘Absolutely. But if neither of you buys Triton let me know. I might talk to Nye about buying him myself. He’s out of the same dam as Mameluke.’
Once they were out of the house Ivo turned to his friend, his brows raised, his mouth silently questioning.
‘It’s a madhouse, that’s what,’ Bennett informed him, settling his hat firmly back on his head. ‘George has been playing hostess to that lot since she came out of mourning three years ago. At all hours the place is filled with men making do with George’s instead of White’s or Brooks’s. Brimstone is forever complaining about it, but there’s no gainsaying George on the matter, and it is, after all, her house.’
Ivo curled his lip and nodded in sympathy. There’d be changes ahead if he had anything to say about it, and he had every intention of having that right.
Chapter Nine
Who can be seen running up the steps of Mrs E—’s house but the mysterious Lord S—. One is forced to wonder how many gentleman the lady can accommodate at once?
Tête-à-Tête, 18 October 1788
When Ivo arrived at George’s early the next morning, invitations in hand, he discovered her ensconced over tea and muffins in her boudoir with a handsome, battle-scarred colonel.
Her dog was pressed up against the man, drooling all over his once-white breeches with vapid dog devotion. The man looked up as Ivo was announced, and George turned to greet him with a joyous smile that went right through him.
‘Somercote, I’m terribly sorry that I’m not yet quite ready, but Charles here just landed on my doorstep, and I’m plotting what to do with him.’ She motioned Ivo to a chair and asked if he’d like tea.
What he’d like was to strangle the relaxed colonel who George familiarly referred to as Charles. Instead he accepted the offer of tea and tried to mask his irritation. Judging by the amused smile hovering on the other man’s face, he wasn’t succeeding.
She’d never used his first name. Not even in bed. It was Somercote in public, and Dauntry in more private moments. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with the need to hear her say Ivo. To fuck her until she couldn’t stop herself sobbing his name. Shouting it loud enough to crack the plaster of the ceiling.
Her colonel had thick, dark blond hair that fell into his eyes and a disfiguring saber scar that ran from his hairline down over his right eye, ending at his jaw. He’d obviously been lucky to keep the eye. Just the sort of man most likely to appeal to a woman such as George. A battered hero.
‘Colonel Staunton was a close friend of my husband,’ George said, her expression disturbingly soft. ‘He’s just sold out and arrived home.’ She smiled again and lightly pressed the colonel’s hand. ‘I’m so glad you’re home safe, Charles. After Lyon’s death, and then Langley’s, I don’t think I could bear to lose another one of you.’
The colonel smiled back warmly and squeezed George’s hand in return. Ivo gritted his teeth and gulped down his tea, scalding his tongue in the process.
‘I’m going to make him the rage of the season. You can stay with the Glendowers—they won’t even notice, the house is so large—between the countess and I, we’ll have you ready in no time.’
Her eyes were sparkling with plans, and Ivo noted with growing annoyance that the colonel almost absently retained her hand in a light clasp.
‘We’ll have a little dinner party—very select—invite all the really influential hostesses and—oh,’ she gave what in any other woman Ivo would have called an excited little squeal, ‘we’ll have it at the Morpeths’ house. Everyone will be clamouring to get you to their events before I’m done.’
The colonel chuckled and replied that he was entirely at George’s disposal. ‘But for now, I think I’ll take myself off to find Layton or Pomeroy. I’m in desperate need of clothes if I’m to fall in with your schemes, witch.’ He brushed a hand across his threadbare and patched breeches and pushed the mastiff off his foot. ‘And while I’m willing to be your slave in all things, I do think that they’ll be better companions for what I need today.’
‘I don’t think so at all,’ she replied. ‘I imagine I know quite as much about the Bond Street shops as they do. Besides, what you need most is a wife,
