Free Vivian Roycroft by Mischief on Albemarle Page A

day's dullness.
    But try as she might, she couldn't hold onto that depression. There'd been that moment, that sudden surge of anger in his twisting face, the heat in his voice. Those sharp, jerky movements, so lacking in his usual grace. As if by sending him away, she'd finally touched his heart. Finally communicated with him in a way he could hear and understand.
    Without smacking him across the face with her riding cane. Still a tempting thought, that.
    And no matter how many times she ordered herself to quit being silly, she couldn't quite convince herself that he hadn't been…
    …perhaps just a little bit…
    …a teensy, weensy bit…
    …jealous.
    He'd seemed so. He'd certainly behaved so. And if he was…
    But she really, truly had to cease being so silly. Before she drove herself mad. And not temporarily, this time. Her emotions were plummeting to the depths of misery, then moments later soaring to ecstasy. One or the other clearly was a product of her deluded imagination, as Dr. Battie defined madness in his learned treatise. If only she could figure out which one.
    If she could, then she'd know which man to pursue: the one her sense accepted, or the one her sensibility yearned for.
    "What a beautiful image you make, my girl."
    Papa stood in the doorway, the personification of kindliness. The candlelight lit his smile, flashed from his loving eyes, gleamed in a soft glow from his bald pate. Just the man to soothe her quivering nerves, and she smiled a relieved welcome as he crossed the sitting room. He'd sit beside her and she'd bathe in his warmth; he'd advise her, and everything would be better.
    He didn't sit beside her.
    "I hear young Fitzwilliam visited this morning."
    Her heart began hammering, more loudly than the rain or the crackling fire. This was not a conversation she wanted to have, especially not with her thoughts so horribly unbalanced. "Only briefly."
    A brooding shadow fell across her embroidery. Gentle fingers stroked her hair, tugged on one curl and played with it, entwining it around as Belinda had toyed with the ribbon before the assembly. That wonderful, horrible, excruciating assembly. "I hear there was another argument."
    Not fair. In public, he'd said; he'd specifically said, in public . "No one else was here. Except for Benson and Paul, of course, and they'd never tell." Of course, someone had told Papa, most likely one of them, and the tension in her shoulders squeezed her neck like a cold fist.
    "Perhaps—" he started to say.
    And someone pounded on the front door.

Chapter Six

    Wednesday, March 17, 1813 continued
    As yesterday's brilliant sunshine had created crowds, so the unhappy drizzle encouraged empty streets, with anyone disposed for venturing forth not making it past the closest coffee house, the nearest bookstore or haberdashery. Sassenach's steady trot carried His Grace past the Corinthian columns of the Royal Institution, north from Piccadilly, the groom's horse puffing a half-stride behind. Not even a face at the windows they passed, merely grey brick, grey stone, grey skies, grey pavement, grey rain.
    And a claret-colored tailcoat. Darkened by the drizzle. Chestnut hair plastered across a broad forehead, and a decent pair of white breeches ruined. No topcoat, no hat, no gloves; someone was not having a good day.
    Excellent.
    Fitzwilliam splashed through a spreading puddle in the road's center, finishing off the breeches, and pounded on the door of the first townhouse beyond the Royal Institution's final column. It seemed safe to assume who lived there and what his errand entailed, which meant this wasn't the young man's first visit of the day to that house. One might also presume that his first visit had not been a peaceful nor successful venture, if he'd departed without his outerwear. His Grace drew rein and dismounted as a young footman opened the black-painted door, the red trim of his livery startlingly bright in the dullness.
    "Mr. Fitzwilliam—" the footman began,