“I’ve no doubt you deserved it!” she said, indignant.

He smiled. “You grew out of that, too, thank goodness.”

“I’m beginning to think that I should not have invited you for this ride,” she said. “It’s not nearly so rewarding as I thought it would be.”

“Then I have achieved my goal.”

She scowled at him before her attention turned to two ladies riding ahead of them, heads bent in the telltale sign of gossip. “Now shush. Those two look like they have something to say.”

“You realize that your brother has the line on all the significant gossip of the ton? You receive at least three gossip rags to the house a week.”

She waved away his words. “It’s no fun reading it with the rest of the world. Get closer. And pretend as though we are conversing.”

“We are conversing.”

“Yes, but if you’re talking I can’t hear them. So pretend.”

The dirt path was packed with aristocrats and gentry, all here for the same reason Cynthia was here, and so the whole damn group was moving at a snail’s pace, which made it perfectly easy to eavesdrop. The gossip shared on Rotten Row was never very valuable, in part because everyone on Rotten Row had heard it already. Nevertheless, he slowed to a creep so his sister could listen to the ladies, now next to them, despite lacking any semblance of interest in their conversation.

“I heard that she’s got her eye on Langley,” one said.

“He’d be a tremendous catch for her, but I don’t think he’d marry into such a family,” the other opined.

“‘Such a family,’” came the unconvinced reply. “She’s the Duke of Leighton for a brother, and Ralston through the duke.”

Suddenly, West was very interested in the conversation.

“They’re speaking of Lady Geo —”

He raised a hand and Cynthia stopped speaking. For once.

“They may have titles, but they shouldn’t matter when you consider the rest of the story – Leighton’s duchess has been a scandal from the start.”

“She’s received everywhere,” the first pointed out.

“Of course she is. She’s a duchess. And a rich one at that. But it doesn’t mean people wish her presence. Italian. Catholic. And a bastard.”

“What a horrible woman,” Cynthia whispered, leaning closer.

It was only years of practice that kept West from doing the same. The woman in question was Lady Holborn, a wicked gossip and a terrible person if talk was to be believed. The other was Lady Davis, not the most prized guest at a gathering, but in comparison, a veritable saint, it seemed.

It was important that he hear what they were saying about Georgiana, of course. After all, he had promised to get her married, hadn’t he? Any reconnaissance he could do as far as societal opinion of her would help get his part in the play done.

That was the only reason that he cared about what the ladies were saying.

Still, when the Countess Holborn said, “The point is, the girl is ruined. Name or no, she’s loose. What man could be assured his heir is his? And the fact that she parades the daughter around Hyde Park as though she weren’t a bastard and just as cheap as her stock is… offensive. Just look at them…”

She was here.

“What a horrible woman,” Cynthia repeated.

The ladies’ conversation trailed off as they picked up speed. West no longer cared, as he was too busy searching for the subject of their conversation. They’d said she was here. With her daughter.

And suddenly, West wanted very much to make the girl’s acquaintance.

He did not see them on the path, but the throngs of people made it difficult to find anyone, he supposed, even as he resisted the thought. Even as he told himself that he would notice her. That if she were here, in either of her costumes, he would know her.

He kept looking, turning to see if she was behind. That was when a flash of deep, sapphire blue caught his eye, away from the throngs of people. He released the breath he had not known he’d been holding. Of course she wasn’t here with the rest of the ton. She didn’t wish to be a part of their world.

She stood on a slow rise beyond the trees, a young girl at her side, two horses trailing behind them, and the Serpentine their backdrop. They were deep in conversation, and he watched for a long moment, until the girl said something and Georgiana laughed. Bright. Bold. As though she were in private and not in full view of half of London.

The half of London that she required for her acceptable marriage.

West found himself wondering what had been so amusing.

And then wondering what it would take to amuse her himself.

He did not take his gaze from her as he pulled the curricle to the edge of the path and dismounted, speaking to his sister. “Would you like to meet the subject of their gossip?”

From high atop the conveyance, Cynthia’s surprise was clear. “You know her?”

“I do,” he said, wrapping the reins around a hitching post and stepping off the dirt path and onto the grass. He moved up the slope toward where Georgiana walked. He willed her to stay, to keep off those beautiful horses and remain in the grass a little while longer. Until he could reach her.

Cynthia was with him, having rushed to keep up. “I see.”

He cut her a look at the words. “What do you see?”

She smiled. “She’s very pretty.”

She was more than that. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“You hadn’t.”

“No.” There had been a time when he’d been able to lie much more effortlessly. A week ago.