Shall We Dance?

Sir Willard blew out his cheeks. “I’ve stopped thinking when it comes to you, Nevvie. It does me no good, anyway. Just don’t bollix it up, hear me?”

“GEORGIANA? Georgiana, don’t you hear me? Answer me, girl!”

Georgiana Penrose blinked twice and lifted her gaze from the morning newspaper that had at last been discarded in his study by her stepfather, Mr. Bateman. Mr. Bateman wasn’t the sort of gentleman who believed women couldn’t read; he simply was of the opinion they should confine their reading to fashion and sermons, and the occasional housekeeping guide. “Yes, Mama? I’m so sorry. I was just reading—”

“I am not at all interested in what you were doing, child,” Mrs. Bateman said, speaking what Georgiana knew to be exactly the truth, but she’d known it long enough that her mother’s lack of affection no longer had the power to sting.

“Of course not, Mama. The affairs of our country are not at all of interest.”

“We leave that to the gentlemen, yes.” The woman brushed past Georgiana on her way to the couch. “What interests me is this. Whatever possessed you to order round my carriage?”

“Oh. Is it out there already?” Georgiana lowered her blond head and poked her spectacles back up on the bridge of her nose. She’d hoped to be long gone before her mother left her bedchamber, something the woman rarely did before noon. “I, um, that is, I didn’t think—”

Mrs. Bateman rolled her eyes heavenward. “Is this your answer? That you didn’t think? My word, Georgiana, have I left you in the country so long that you’ve turned imbecilic? Answer the question posed.”

“Yes, Mama,” Georgiana said quietly, still averting her gaze. What could she say? No, Mama. You left me in the country so long, I grew a brain and learned how to survive on my own. But that would only begin an argument she had no hope of winning, and had no great desire to win, now that she thought of the thing. “I had hoped to pay a visit to my friend, Miss Fredericks, this afternoon.”

“Fredericks? I don’t know the name. You have a friend here in London?”

Georgiana chose her words carefully. “Yes, Mama. Amelia Fredericks. We were at Miss Haverham’s together for a term. You remember? You had sent me there when you and Mr. Bateman were courting? Amelia and I have kept up a correspondence of sorts, but I hadn’t known she’d returned to England after a considerable time spent abroad. I should very much like to see her again.”

“Without my permission? Honestly, Georgiana, you have all the common good sense of a turnip. I need to know much more about this Amelia Fredericks before I’ll give my permission for anything remotely resembling a giggling, schoolgirl reunion between the two of you.”

“Well, yes, Mama, I understand that,” Georgiana said, pleating the skirt of her morning gown between her fingers. This was going to be fun; rather like tossing a fox into the middle of one of her mama’s hen parties. “Amelia is, um, she’s companion to Her Royal Majesty, the queen.”

“Queen Charlotte? But she’s dead. I distinctly remember that.”

“No, Mama, not that one. Queen Caroline,” Georgiana said, silently berating herself for believing, if even for an instant, that her mama ever got the straight of anything, at least not on the first go.

Still, in the end, her mama did not disappoint.

“Queen Caroline! You know an attendant to the new queen?” Mrs. Bateman collapsed against the back of the couch, fanning herself with her handkerchief. “My God, girl, this is magnificent!”

Ah. And now to play the silly little girl who doesn’t understand anything, the simpleheaded, country-raised twit with no notion of how Society worked, how her mother’s brain worked. Georgiana did her best to frown, look stupid. “It…it is? But isn’t Mr. Bateman a Tory, Mama? I don’t think they like her.”

Mrs. Bateman, obviously recovered from her near swoon, sat up once more, an almost predatory gleam in her narrow blue eyes. “Tory, Whig, they’re all just stupid men who like nothing more than to strut about pretending they’ve the consequence of a flea. But you? You have entry to the queen’s residence. My dear little Georgiana.”

Georgiana, who didn’t remember ever being her mama’s dear little anything, quickly got to her feet, mission accomplished, and eager to be on her way. “Then I’m to be allowed the carriage?”

“Yes, yes, of course. But not that dreadful gown. Don’t you have anything better?”

Georgiana looked down at her sprigged muslin, the gown her mother had, days earlier, decreed more than suitable, even if it was a good five years old. “No, Mama.”

Mrs. Bateman got to her feet. “We shall have to remedy that, won’t we? You’ll be running tame with your little friend in Hammersmith. That’s where she is, you know. Hammersmith. There will be social gatherings. Subdued, of course, what with the old king dead, rest-his-soul, but I don’t see such a trifle interfering with the queen’s love of gaiety. Yes, yes, new gowns, at least three. And I’ll need at least three myself, if I’m to accompany you at these gatherings.”

Oh, no. No, no, no. This was not a part of Georgiana’s plans. “You, Mama? You’d go to Hammersmith? Mr. Bateman might not bother to object to my visiting Amelia, but would he want his wife socializing with the woman about to go on trial?”

“Damn,” Mrs. Bateman said under her breath, so that Georgiana pretended not to hear.

“I’m sure I can locate a suitable companion to accompany me on my visits, Mama,” Georgiana said quickly, knowing she knew no one. No one. And where would she find a suitable companion?

“Miss Penrose?”

Georgiana turned, to see the butler standing in the doorway. “Yes, Simmons?”

“The carriage is outside, miss, and the horses become fretful if left standing.”

“Oh, of course,” Georgiana said, gathering up her bonnet, pelisse and reticule from the couch where she’d laid them, then turned to curtsy to her mother. “I shan’t be above a few hours. But I sent round a note, and Amelia is expecting me.”

Mrs. Bateman waved a hand distractedly. “No, no. No hurry. I wonder if Mr. Bateman would be agreeable to just one trip to Hammersmith? He knows I can be quite grateful…”

Georgiana escaped the room as her mother plotted her next move, eager to be on her way.

SIR NATHANIEL RANKIN took the land route to Hammersmith, unwilling to maneuver his way through all the assorted boats moving back and forth in front of the queen’s residence like bees buzzing around a hive.

He still could not quite believe he was on a mission commissioned by, of all people, his dotty aunt Rowena. But here he was, sitting in his curricle, looking at the entrance to the queen’s residence, cudgeling his brain for a reason to knock on the door, ask admittance.

“Hallo. I’m here to offer my services to the queen. What service? Bodyguard. You know, in case Prinney comes tiptoeing around with a hooded man toting an ax?”

“Sir Nathaniel Rankin, baronet, to see Her Royal Majesty. Announce me, man!”

“Sir Nathaniel Rankin to see the queen on a matter of some urgency.”

“Hallo there, beautiful day, isn’t it? Would you care to buy some apples?”

Nate dropped his chin onto his chest. He’d gone mad, that was it. Stark, staring mad. He had no way of gaining admittance to the queen’s presence. And even less idea of what he’d say if he somehow managed to get within earshot of the woman.

An elderly town coach bearing yellow wheels but no crest moved past him and into the circular drive, just to have the off wheels all but tipping the thing into a ditch alongside the drive.

“Cow-handed idiot,” Nate mumbled, mildly interested as the driver set the brake—an unnecessary precaution, as the coach would go nowhere until it was lifted out of the ditch—and opened the door, extending a hand to his passenger.

Nate saw an arm emerge, a hand taking the coachman’s hand, to be followed by the remainder of a female who then paused half in and half out of the coach, desperately trying to keep her skirts at a modest level, her spectacles on her nose and her frankly unbecoming bonnet on her head, all while looking a long way down to the ground.

The coachman struggled one-handed, to put down the steps.

“Putting down the steps won’t help, you twit. She’d have to go uphill to go downhill,” Nate said to himself, tossing the reins to his snickering tiger and heading off across the road, to the rescue.

Actually, the young woman could be said to be rescuing him from having to return to Aunt Rowena and admitting he’d failed in his mission.

“No, no,” he heard the young woman pleading as he neared the coach. “Stop pulling, please. I’ll manage myself somehow.”

Nate snapped his fingers and the coachman, still holding on to the woman’s wrist—cowhanded with more than the reins, obviously—turned to look at him. “There you go, my good man, you’ve got your orders. Unclench your paw and step back. I’ll assist the lady.”

Whether he recognized Nate, or just his finely cut clothes, or if he was simply relieved to hand over responsibility for the young lady, the coachman stepped back sharply.

“Hallo?” Nate called out, keeping his distance even as he leaned forward to smile into the coach, for the young woman had disappeared again—falling back inside once the coachman had let go of her. “I say, may I be of assistance?”

“Good God, yes,” said a muffled voice from the dimness inside the coach, and Nate suppressed a chuckle as one slippered foot appeared, followed by two gloved hands that grasped at either side of the doorway. “If it weren’t for these dratted skirts and this dratted bonnet, I could—who is that?”