Will's True Wish Read online

  “I’ll see you out,” Susannah replied, because that was her role, as quasi-chaperone, and having Barrisford tend to that task would have been marginally unfriendly. Mr. Dorning, as the son of an earl, was her social equal, after all.

  “Georgette, come.” Mr. Dorning did not snap his fingers, though Effington, the only other dog lover in Susannah’s acquaintance, snapped his fingers constantly—at dogs and at servants. He’d snapped his fingers at Della once, and Susannah had treated Effington to a glower worthy of her late papa in a taking.

  Georgette padded over to her master’s side, and Susannah quit the parlor with them, leaving Della to attack the biscuits remaining on the tea tray.

  “You didn’t used to like dogs,” Mr. Dorning observed.

  “I still don’t like dogs,” Susannah replied, though she didn’t dislike them. Neither did she like cats, birds, silly bonnets, London Seasons, or most people. Horses were at least useful, and sisters could be very dear. Brothers fell somewhere between horses and sisters.

  “Georgette begs to differ,” Mr. Dorning said as they reached the bottom of the steps. “Or perhaps she was making amends for her trespasses against your parasol by allowing you to pat her for fifteen straight minutes.”

  Susannah took Mr. Dorning’s top hat from the sideboard. “Georgette ignored the new parasol. I think my wardrobe is safe from her lapses in manners, though the day your dog snacks on one of my books will be a sorry day for Georgette, Mr. Dorning.”

  Despite Susannah’s stern words, she and Mr. Dorning were managing, getting through the awkwardness of being more or less alone together.

  “You’re still fond of Shakespeare?” Mr. Dorning asked as he tapped his hat onto his head.

  A glancing reference to the past, also to the present. “Of all good literature. You’re still waiting for your brother to produce an heir?”

  Another reference to their past, for Mr. Dorning had confided this much to Susannah during one of their interminable turns about Lady March’s music parlor. Until the Earl of Casriel had an heir in the nursery, Will Dorning’s self-appointed lot in life was to be his brother’s second-in-command.

  “Casriel is as yet unmarried,” Mr. Dorning said, “and now my younger brothers strain at the leash to conquer London.”

  He exchanged his social gloves for riding gloves, giving Susannah a glimpse of masculine hands. Those hands could be kind, she hadn’t forgotten that. They’d also apparently learned how to give the dog silent commands, for at Mr. Dorning’s gesture, Georgette seated herself near the front door.

  “I’m much absorbed keeping Cam and Ash out of trouble,” he went on, “while allowing them the latitude to learn self-restraint. Apparently, I must add my loyal hound to the list of parties in need of supervision.”

  The dog thumped her tail.

  Did Will Dorning allow himself any latitude? Any unrestrained moments? He’d been a serious young man. He was formidable now.

  “We’ll doubtless cross paths with your brothers, then,” Susannah said, “for Della is also determined to storm the social citadels.” Once Della was safely wed, Susannah could luxuriate in literary projects, a consummation devoutly to be wished, indeed.

  “You have ever had the most intriguing smile,” Mr. Dorning observed, apropos of nothing Susannah could divine. “Thank you for accepting my apology, my lady. I look forward to renewing our acquaintance further under happier circumstances.”

  Having dispensed such effusions as the situation required, he bowed over Susannah’s hand and was out the door, his dog trotting at his heels.

  An intriguing smile? Susannah regarded herself in the mirror over the sideboard. Her reflection was tall, blond, blue-eyed, as unremarkable as an earl’s daughter could be amid London’s spring crop of beauties. She was smiling, though…

  And her hands smelled faintly of Georgette. Perhaps she had stroked the dog’s silky ears a time or two. Or three.

  “Though I don’t even like dogs.”

  * * *

  “Our younger brothers are in awe of you,” Grey Dorning, Earl of Casriel, said as Will’s mare was led out. “Over their morning ale, they ridicule me, a belted earl with the entire consequence of the house of Dorning upon my broad and handsome shoulders. You, they adore for strolling down Park Lane swinging a purple parasol as if it’s the latest fashion edict from Almack’s.”

  Rather than reply immediately, Will took a moment to greet his bay mare. He held a gloved hand beneath her nose, petted her neck, and before Casriel’s eyes, the horse fell in love with her owner all over again.

  “I took Georgette calling with me,” Will said, scratching at the mare’s shoulder. “She can be both charming and menacing, which is why Cam and Ash like to take her to the park. She impresses the fellows and attracts the ladies, rather like you’re supposed to do.”

  The stable lad led out Casriel’s gelding, a handsome black specimen whose displays of affection were reserved for his oats. The groom gave the horse a pat on the quarters, and the horse wrung its tail.

  “Don’t scold me, Willow,” Casriel said, climbing into the saddle. “The Season is barely under way, and an earl must tend to business. The impressing and attracting can wait a few more days.”

  “Your only prayer of avoiding matrimony evaporated when Jacaranda married Worth Kettering,” Will said, taking a moment to check the fit of the bridle and girth before mounting. “Without a sister to serve as hostess, you are doomed to wedlock, Casriel. Marry for the sake of your household, if not for your lonely heart. Dorning House needs a woman’s touch if the staff isn’t to continuing revolting twice a quarter.”

  “You are such a romantic, Willow,” Casriel replied as their horses clip-clopped down the alley. “I can barely afford to educate our brothers, and that rebellious household must eat. I will marry prudently or not at all. How did the visit to the Haddonfield ladies go?”

  That question ought to deflect Will from sermonizing on the need for every unmarried earl to take a wife posthaste, though like many questions put to Will, it met with a silent reception.

  They reached the street, where the surrounding traffic meant Will would remain civil, despite an older brother’s well-meant goading, so Casriel tried again.

  “Did Lady Susannah receive you? She has an entire litter of siblings, doesn’t she?” Casriel did too, but lately he felt like a stranger to even his only full brother.

  “Lady Susannah was most gracious,” Will replied, “as was Lady Della. Lady Della has the misfortune to be the only petite, dark-haired Haddonfield in living memory.”

  “A runt, then, in your parlance. If she’s a pretty, well-dowered runt, nobody will bother much about her shortcomings.” Will was partial to runts.

  Perhaps he’d marry the Haddonfield girl.

  “Our own runt has taken to gambling,” Will said. “Though if Cam keeps growing, he might soon consider a career as a prizefighter.”

  Sycamore, for shame. “All young men attend cockfights.”

  “No, Grey, they do not. Duchess of Moreland coming this way.”

  Casriel tipped his hat.

  The duchess waved.

  Her Grace—a pretty, older lady with a gracious smile—probably knew Casriel’s antecedents back for six generations, but without Will’s warning, Casriel would have forgotten that he’d seen the woman at the previous evening’s musicale.

  Financial anxiety played havoc with any man’s concentration. No wonder Papa had retreated to the conservatory and the glasshouse rather than take the earldom in hand.

  “How do you keep it all organized, Will?” Casriel asked. “How do you keep track of Cam’s mischief, the duchesses, the purple parasols, the stewards?” Will didn’t run the earldom, but he made it possible for Casriel to run it and still be head of the family.

  “A purple parasol is rather difficult to lose track of,” Will replied, possibly teasing. One could never tell for sure when Will was being deep and when he was being ironic as hell.

  “Am
I to worry about Sycamore’s gambling?” Casriel would worry, of course, about the sums lost, and about Sycamore, who well knew the family had no coin to spare.

  “Yes, you should worry,” Will replied, “though not about the money. I’ve bought Cam’s vowels, and will deduct a sum from his allowance from now until Domesday. You should worry because he was at a bear-baiting, because Ash could not stop him, because last week it was the cockfights. The company to be had in such locations is abysmal.”

  Cam should be at university, in other words. All young men in the awkward throes of late adolescence should be at university, though finding tuition for such an undertaking was three years of a challenge, when yet more younger brothers were busily inspiring insurrection among the maids back in Dorset.

  “What does Ash say?” Casriel asked.

  “That he can’t control Cam, so he simply keeps an eye on him. This is how young men become spoiled or worse. My Lady Heathgate, her sister-in-law Lady Fairly beside her, with the matched chestnuts.”

  “Wasn’t there some scandal involving Lady Fairly?” Casriel asked, when his hat had been dutifully tipped.

  “She was a vicar’s daughter taken advantage of by a scoundrel,” Will said in the same tones he’d report on a Drury Lane play seen last Tuesday. “She managed Fairly’s brothel, though she never entertained clients, and he’s since divested himself of that business. The titled ladies in the family treat her as respectable, though she and Fairly live very quietly.”

  “Willow, no wonder the boys are in awe of you. Thank God our papa forbade me to buy any commissions, or Wellington would have turned you into an intelligence officer and shortened the war considerably.”

  Will drew back, allowing Casriel to ride first through a gap between a stopped curricle and the walkway.

  “I would never have managed in the military,” Will said. “Bad enough they kill boys who’ve barely learned to shave, but they also kill horses by the thousands.”

  This was the problem with Cam’s bad behavior. Not that the youngest Dorning brother was wasting money, for an earl’s younger son was bred to waste money, and not that he was making friends in low places.

  Earls’ sons did that too.

  From Casriel’s perspective, the problem was that Cam sought entertainments involving harm to animals. Blood sport was supposed to be part of a young gentleman’s diversions, true, but Will had no patience for entertainment based on inflicting misery on animals.

  Cam had known that from the cradle.

  Will did not have friends, though he knew everybody and was well liked. He had his brothers and his dogs. Casriel could not have said which Will would choose to save, if the choice were forced upon him.

  “I can send Cam back to Dorset,” Casriel said, “but we’re better off keeping him where we can supervise him.” Where Will could supervise him.

  “He might be trying to get sent back to Dorset,” Will replied as the green oasis of Hyde Park came into view. “One of the Dorset housemaids had her eye on our youngest brother, and has had her hands on him too.”

  “Angels deliver me,” Casriel muttered. “We don’t dare leave him in Dorset without one of us to watch over him, and yet I’m not about to turn off a housemaid simply because Cam can be lured into the butler’s pantry.”

  “Younger siblings grow up more quickly than heirs and spares,” Will said. “I’ll think of something.” He tipped his hat to a flower girl and tossed her a coin.

  The girl was plump, plain, and her apron was streaked with damp and dirt, but her smile was radiant as she passed Will a bouquet of violets.

  “Thank you, Miss Allen,” Will said, bringing his mare to a halt. “Can you spare a posy for his lordship too? He must make himself agreeable to the ladies who are thronging the park.”

  The flower girl shot Casriel a dubious look, then selected a nosegay of lily of the valley. She handed the flowers to Will, who passed them over.

  “Excellent choice,” Will said. “Good day to you, Miss Allen.”

  The mare walked on, while Casriel dealt with holding a batch of delicate blossoms in addition to four reins.

  “What am I to do with these, Willow? Carry them between my teeth? Why does that flower girl look familiar?”

  “I’ve hired her to supply flowers for the house. She rarely speaks because of a stammer, but she’s quite bright, and has the best prices. An earl’s home must be maintained according to certain standards, which of course a countess would see to.”

  Oh, of course. The fate of the earldom rested on flowers Casriel probably could not afford, but stammering street vendors would have a fine Christmas. Whatever was amiss with Will, it was getting worse.

  The closer they drew to the park, the more crowded the streets became, so the horses could move only at the walk. Willow deftly braided his batch of violets into the mare’s mane, where they somehow did not look ridiculous. Casriel, by contrast, felt the veriest fool riding through Mayfair, flowers in hand, and horse likely to turn up mischievous at any moment.

  “The Duchess of Moreland’s two nieces,” Will said quietly. “Miss Bethan and Miss Megan Windham. Their cousin, Lady Deane, the duchess’s youngest daughter, at the ribbons.”

  “How in God’s name do you keep them all straight?”

  “Flowers to the elder,” Will murmured. “Miss Bethan, sitting on the outside.”

  Miss Bethan Windham was a lovely little creature with whom Casriel had not danced. He would have recalled that red hair, and those green eyes, and the smile that blossomed when he passed her the flowers. The ladies flirted and teased and generally made a man forget which direction the park lay in, and then traffic shifted, and Will cleared his throat.

  “Ladies, good day,” Casriel said, for he was as well trained to Will’s cues as any hound. “My regards to your family.”

  “You can be charming,” Will said when the carriage had pulled away. “Don’t pretend you can’t. Those flowers will end up pressed between the pages of the lady’s journal, and the scent of lily of the valley will always make her think of you.”

  “Is that how it works?” Will seemed very convinced of his theory, and yet to the best of Casriel’s knowledge, Will had never fancied a specific lady. “How is it, Willow, you know the names of all the women, right down to the flower girl? You earn the undying loyalty of horses and dogs, both, and impress our brothers daily, but the females never seem to notice you?”

  Willow had the knack of becoming invisible, in other words. Of disappearing without going anywhere, just another tree in the hedgerow on a still spring day. He’d had this ability since boyhood, had slipped through university on the strength of it, and still used his invisibility to good advantage in ballrooms and gentlemen’s clubs.

  “My objective is to ensure the ladies notice you,” Will said. “One of them might even notice Ash, who is a good-looking, friendly devil, and knows his way around figures. Once I get you two married off, I can enlist your wives to assist me in finding ladies for our other brothers.”

  Papa had despaired of Willow, though the late earl and his second son had had much in common.

  “As usual, Will, you have an excellent plan, though I detect a serious flaw in your scheme.”

  They crossed Park Avenue at a brisk trot, and not until they were well within Hyde Park did Will take the bait.

  “What is the flaw in my plan?” he asked. “You and Ash are both handsome and sons of an earl. I see to it that you’re well dressed when it matters. You’re passable dancers and considerate of women. With all the bankers’ daughters looking to marry into the nobility, all of the viscounts and baron’s daughters or even widows—what?”

  Willow had doubtless made lists of these women, another worry added to Casriel’s endless supply.

  “I know you mean well, Will, but Ash and I can find our own ladies. The flaw in your plan is that you’ve made no provision for finding a lady of your own. Give me those violets. This park has become overrun with women, and an earl-withou
t-countess must defend himself with whatever weapons he can find.”

  “The park is always overrun with women at the fashionable hour,” Will said, “but as it happens, I have my own use for these flowers.”

  Will cantered off in the direction of a gig driven by a blond woman with a petite brunette at her side. The Haddonfield ladies?

  Casriel trotted after him, for this moment would go down in Dorning history as the first encounter with a proper woman to which Willow Grove Dorning would arrive bearing flowers.

  Two

  “Delilah Haddonfield, if you don’t stop twirling my parasol,” Susannah said, “I will smack you with it. You’ll scare some gallant’s horse, and he’ll be ridiculed, and then talk will start that you like men to notice you.”

  The parasol slowed. “I am in my first Season, Suze. I am a legitimate by-blow, and my name is Delilah. If I encourage the notice of the men, I’m fast. If I don’t encourage the notice of the men, I put on airs. As it happens, I am trying to attract the notice of somebody.”

  Effington often rode in the park at the fashionable hour, else Susannah would never have subjected herself to two outings in a single day. After the morning’s debacle, Delilah was doubtless nervous of his lordship’s regard.

  “It’s early in the Season¸” Susannah said, maneuvering around a parked phaeton. “You needn’t attract anybody’s notice. Simply enjoy a pleasant outing in the company of your devoted sibling.”

  “I love that about you,” Della said. “Behind your spectacles and sonnets, you’re tenacious and loyal.”

  When Susannah wanted to slap her hand over Della’s mouth, she instead nodded cordially to the Duke of Quimbey, a jovial older fellow who could still gracefully turn a lady down the ballroom.

  “You will please not mention my spectacles.” Spectacles were for the elderly, for clerks, and men of business. For people who had trouble reading, not for ladies who devoured literature by the hour.

  “Mr. Dorning,” Della said, snapping the parasol closed and resting it against the bench. “A pleasure to see you again. What a lovely mare.”