Chapter 11

"Georgie, how wonderful to see you!" Gabrielle flew up the steps and into the hall, arms flung wide to embrace her cousin. "What a wonderful surprise."

"I couldn't resist it," Georgie murmured into her ear as she hugged her. "Simon and Miles are as cross as two sticks."

Gabrielle gave her a conspiratorial squeeze, then drew back to greet the two men standing behind Georgie, her crooked smile faintly mocking as she saw their clear discomfort. "Simon… and Miles too. How kind of you to escort my luggage."

"We were just passing," Simon said, kissing her cheek.

"Yes, just passing," Miles agreed, taking her proffered hand and raising it to his lips. "You're looking very… um… very well," he finished somewhat lamely.

"Positively windblown," Georgie declared, removing her velvet bonnet and shaking loose her golden ringlets. "What have you been doing?"

"Sailing on the river," Gabby replied. "Nathaniel was teaching me… where is Nathaniel?" She looked around, puzzled, having assumed he would have followed her up the steps. "He must have come in through the gun room. But why would he do that when he knew he had visitors?"

Miles and Simon exchanged a dourly comprehending look just as Nathaniel entered the hall from the side corridor.

"Well, well," he drawled. "This is an unexpected pleasure. To what do I owe it? Or shouldn't I ask?"

"We were just passing," Simon repeated as awkwardly as before. "Just passing and we thought we'd drop in on our way and leave Gabby's luggage." He cast a fierce glance for support toward Miles, who was trying to be invisible.

"Yes… yes, just passing," Miles reiterated, clearing his throat.

"Passing from whence to where?" demanded Nathaniel. "As far as I know, Burley Manor isn't en route to anywhere that would entice Lord and Lady Vanbrugh or Mr. Miles Bennet in the middle of the Season. Far too countrified."

A dull flush appeared on Miles's cheekbones at this caustic statement, and he shot an I-told-you-so glare toward Simon, who pursed his lips but said nothing. Even Georgie appeared to lose some of the assurance that had so far swept all opposition aside.

"For heaven's sake, Nathaniel!" Gabrielle exclaimed. "Don't be such a miserable grouch! They're your friends and they've come all this way to visit you, the least you can do is offer them some refreshment. Besides, they were doing me a favor, bringing my luggage so quickly."

"I stand corrected, ma'am," Nathaniel said as sardonically as before. "I was forgetting your own claims on my hospitality. Of course they must extend to your friends."

Gabrielle drew in a sharp breath, but before she could come up with anything suitably cutting, Nathaniel gestured toward the library.

"I'm afraid there's no fire in the drawing room, gentlemen, since I wasn't expecting guests, but come into the library. I'm sure I can produce a bottle of decent claret. Gabrielle, I will leave you to entertain Lady Vanbrugh."

"He is so rude," Georgie declared in a fierce undertone. "How can you stand him, Gabby?"

"All in good time," Gabrielle said with a grin. "I know perfectly well that's why you're here. Let's go up to my boudoir and we can have a comfortable coze."

"I beg your pardon, my lady…" Mrs. Bailey, who'd been standing in the shadows, a silent observer of the last minutes, stepped forward. "Should I prepare bedchambers for his lordship's guests?"

"Yes, if you please." Gabrielle smiled warmly. "Lord and Lady Vanbrugh and Mr. Bennet will be staying overnight, of course. You'll know how best to accommodate them."

"So I'll tell cook there'll be five for dinner?" Mrs. Bailey still sounded a trifle hesitant.

"Yes," Gabrielle said. "And could you send Ellie up to my boudoir with some tea, please. I'm sure Lady Vanbrugh will be glad of a cup after her journey."

She swept Georgie upstairs to the Queen's Suite, closing the door firmly behind them.

"What a pleasant room." Georgie looked around the apartment with a shrewdly appreciative eye, assessing the elegance of its furnishings, the richness of the carpet and draperies.

"It's a very pleasant house altogether," Gabrielle agreed, drawing the curtains across the window, closing out the encroaching dusk. "Take off your pelisse and sit by the fire, Georgie. I know how you detest exertion of any kind, and traveling in particular, so only overriding curiosity could have brought you here. I'm deeply complimented, I assure you."

Georgie was not a whit put out by this teasing, she was far too accustomed to it. Her cousin had always been three times as energetic as herself, and the contrast between them was something of a family joke.

"Well, you really are behaving scandalously," she declared, tossing her pelisse over a chair and bending to warm her hands at the fire. "If word of this gets out, I dread to think how you'll be received in London. Why, you might be denied vouchers for Almacks." Georgie's tone invested this last hideous possibility with suitable solemnity, but her eyes, burning with curiosity and excitement, belied the tone.

"Stuff," Gabrielle scoffed. "It's no: going to get out unless you or Simon or Miles blabs about it… and I know you won't. I shall simply let it be known that I returned to France for a couple of months."

She regarded her cousin through narrowed eves. "Come clean, Georgie. You don't have a prudish bone in your body and you're certainly not here as chaperone to safeguard my precious reputation. You're here because you want to see for yourself what's going on."

Georgie laughed and sat down by the fire. "Yes, I do. So tell all, and start from the beginning."

"Listen closely," Gabrielle said in the hushed tones of one about to tell a scandalous ondit in the greatest secrecy. Georgie's benign thirst for gossip would be easily quenched with the surface truth-the actual facts were so far from her experience, she wouldn't be able to credit them anyway. Gabrielle was a past master at entertaining her cousin and knew exactly what details of her liaison with the misanthropic and utterly discourteous Lord Praed would amuse Georgie.

Downstairs, Simon took a glass of wine from his still-unbending host and coughed. "I suppose you've a right to resent the intrusion, Nathaniel. But Georgie insisted on checking up on Gabby."

"Insisted?" Nathaniel's eyebrows lifted incredulously as he took the scent of his wine.

"Insisted," Miles put in. "She's a DeVane," he added, as if this were sufficient explanation for all but the village idiot.

"You have my sympathies, Vanbrugh," Nathaniel said coolly. "And how long do you imagine it will take your wife to complete her… her checking up? An hour, maybe, two at the outside?"

"For God's sake, Praed!" Miles exploded. "You're not going to throw us out tonight, surely!"

"There's bound to be an inn in Lymington," Simon said stiffly. He stood up, placing his half-empty glass on the side table. "Forgive us for the intrusion. Perhaps you'd ask a servant to summon my wife and have the horses put to the carriage again."

Nathaniel's lips twitched and bright laughter sprang suddenly into his eyes. "If you leave in high dudgeon, Simon, that enfant terrible you foisted on me will probably string me up by my thumbs. You may be married to a DeVane, but I tell you, only those who hold their lives cheap would go in the ring with Gabrielle de Beaucaire."

There was a stunned silence as Nathaniel's visitors struggled with this abrupt volte-face. Then Simon's rigid features dissolved into their customary warm geniality.

"You bastard," he said, punching Nathaniel with some force on the shoulder. "You knew how much at a disadvantage we were, and you took shameless advantage of it."

"Habit," Nathaniel confessed with a half-smile. "I hadn't expected to be pleased to see you, but curiously, I find that I am."