He nodded. Although poor Sharon still hadn’t recovered from the devil’s nuts, and had been scratched as of that morning. If he’d been more observant of his stables, he could have prevented that. It should never have been allowed to spread through his horses. He had only one unaffected.

“Shall we make up a party? Sylvie,” she called, “shall we make up a party? They have the prettiest boxes at the Ascot. You must see them. The Feltons have a box the size of the royal one, and Tess told me yesterday that they will have to miss the race. It would be a pity to let it sit empty.”

Sylvie wrinkled her nose. She hated the dust and the bother of racetracks, she’d told him once.

“The Ascot is not like a normal race,” Griselda said. “The Queen will be there. And the Duke of Cambridge, with his new bride.”

“All right,” Sylvie said, not happy, but accepting it. Then she waved excitedly in the other direction.

“Who is it?” Mayne asked.

“Darlington.”

Mayne scowled.

“Never fear,” she said as Darlington wove his way through the tables toward them. “Your sister has stopped him in his tracks.”

“How do you mean?”

“He won’t insult Josephine again.” Darlington was a tall fellow, with a face that Mayne had to suppose women found interesting. On the whole, he looked decent, for all he had the reputation for having a snake’s tongue. Not that Mayne would ever forgive him for mocking Josie. He looked at him with murder in his eyes, and Darlington recoiled slightly, but bent over Sylvie’s hands.

Before Mayne realized it, she was asking him to join their party for the Ascot.

“Bloody hell,” Mayne said as soon as the man walked off. “We don’t need that blackguard with us.”

“You don’t understand,” Sylvie said, patting his hand as if he were five years old. “It’s always better to have someone just under your eye if they’re a bit of a problem. With Griselda keeping him busy, Darlington wouldn’t dare to make an untoward remark about Josephine.”

“Josie has taken care of that herself,” Mayne remarked. “No man in his right mind would call her a sausage. She looks ravishing and Skevington is groveling at her feet.”

“We’d better invite Skevington as well,” Sylvie said. “If we have enough people, perhaps we’ll have a small soirée in the box, and it won’t be as tedious.”

Mayne loved races. He loved the pounding excitement, the crowds, the swirling energy, the horses, the smell of the stables…The only racehorse he had who hadn’t caught the devil’s nuts was a nervy filly named Gigue. She had an oyster-gray coat and sensitive ears. If he’d spent more time with her, or he had a better trainer, she might even have won tomorrow. She loved to race, loved to slip past the other horses with a flip of her tail.

But she hadn’t had the training she needed, he knew that. She needed someone to work with her, day after day. It would probably be better if it wasn’t him, but he still needed to be on the estate, watching, making sure it was going well.

He pushed his lobster around his plate a bit more while Sylvie invited two more passersby to join them in the Feltons’ box.

Josie smiled at Mayne from the far table. He managed a smile, but it was a flat one. She narrowed her eyes at him. So he turned back to his lobster as if it were a cream trifle that he longed to eat.

20

From The Earl of Hellgate,

Chapter the Sixteenth

I was now determined to find a wife, Dear Reader. The passions I had lived through were making me old before my time: too much passion and too little tranquility. But such is the fate of my life that when I sought tranquility, in the bosom of the Church…yes, I fear to say it! But the truth must be told. Dear Reader, I took myself to the Church one morning and threw myself at the altar, when a soft and delicate hand lifted me, and a gentle voice said, “Sir, what ails you?”

S ylvie knew the moment their carriage entered the grounds of the Ascot that this was an event she would enjoy. Mayne had gone early in the morning, of course. He was endearingly serious about this horse he had running, and Sylvie had tied a pink ribbon about her wrist that clashed slightly with her costume, just so that every time she noticed it she would remember to watch the race with Mayne’s horse in it.

“How on earth will we know when his horse is running?” she asked Griselda. “I believe its name is Gigue.”“Oh, there’s a book sort of thing,” Griselda said absently. Sylvie loved that about Griselda. While Mayne made her feel prickles of guilt because she wasn’t interested enough in his horses, his absurd crise existentielle, his absurd declarations of passion for her…Griselda understood precisely the importance of these things in relation to a new promenade dress.

In fact, Sylvie thought to herself, without Griselda, Mayne might not be as desirable a parti as he was. Although she hadn’t encountered another man who fit as many of her requirements as did Mayne. But there were moments when he was gruelingly tiresome.

All men are, Sylvie reassured herself.

“I wonder whether this hat is better slightly farther back on my head,” Griselda said, surveying herself in a little gilt mirror. She was wearing a hat as large as an entire wheel of Stilton and an enchanting promenade dress that was the precise pale blue of a delphinium.

“I like it as it is,” Sylvie said, after giving the matter serious consideration. “Wait! Turn to the side. Yes, as it is. That pale blue color makes your hair shine like sunlight, Griselda. Is Darlington meeting us at the box?”

“Yes, he is. But I do wish you hadn’t invited him. I’ve already taken care of the other thing.”

“I know,” Sylvie said, “and I’m so sorry that I unnecessarily invited him. I didn’t realize, and then I saw him look at you.”

“Indeed,” Griselda said wryly.

Darlington did look at her. And she couldn’t help it; she kept looking at him as well. That had never happened before. In the case of the trysts she’d had since Willoughby died, she had experienced a reasonable frisson on deciding to engage in the evening’s pleasure, had enjoyed herself during the appointment, and felt absolutely no desire to repeat the experience.

It was different with Darlington. She woke up in the middle of the night, her body tingling with a dream that she couldn’t remember, although she instinctively knew the subject. It was embarrassing. She had to excise this uncomfortable reaction and devote herself to finding a spouse. After all, she wanted a child, didn’t she? Of course she did. She wanted a little Samuel of her own.

She’d never lacked for confidence, but her affaire with Darlington had steadied any nerves she might have felt in that area. After all, she’d seduced one of the most handsome young men in the ton.

“What is Darlington’s age?” Sylvie asked, as if she could read her thoughts.

“I have no idea,” Griselda managed, shrugging as if the question was of little interest.

“We can look in that book of people,” Sylvie said.

“You meant Debrett’s?” Griselda had thought of that, and discarded it as conventional and anxious. As if she were a young girl, pining for a duke’s son and looking up his birthday.