Vixen

Chapter 17

Hugo Lattimer, isn't it?" At the quiet question, Hugo looked up from the shelf of music books he was perusing in Hatch-ard's. He frowned for a second at the black-eyed man who'd addressed him, then his expression cleared as recollection came.

"Carrington," he said, holding out his hand to Marcus Devlin, Marquis of Carrington. "It's been many years."

"At least fourteen," Lord Carrington agreed, shaking hands. "We were both a pair of striplings. You joined the navy, I believe."

"Yes, for the duration. I sold out after Waterloo."

"And what brings you to Londoa7 The joys of the Season?" Carrington's voice was faintly sardonic. He was not an aficionado of Society's social whirl.

Hugo shrugged easily. He remembered some old story about a broken engagement that had soured Marcus Devlin's view of Society's pleasures. "I've acquired a ward," he said with a smile. "And it seems orchestrating a come-out lies within the duties of a guardian."

He glanced around the crowded bookshop. "She's here somewhere, searching for Miss Austen's posthumous publication; Persuasion, I believe it's titled."

"An interesting lady, Miss Austen," Marcus observed. "A painfully sharp wit and no patience with fools and their foibles."

"No," Hugo agreed. "Pride and prejudice…"

"Sense and sensibility," Marcus continued promptly.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, Lattimer… I'll see you in White's or Watier's perhaps?"

Hugo inclined his head in vague acknowledgment. He was still a member of both clubs, but he had neither the resources nor the inclination for gaining-the major activity in the exclusive clubs of St. James's-and no desire to draw attention to himself by refusing to join in the heavy drinking that accompanied social intercourse in those bastions of male privilege.

The marquis left the bookshop and stood on the street, looking up Piccadilly, waiting for his tiger to bring the curricle whose team he'd been walking while his lordship made his purchases.

He barely noticed the raucous commotion from a group of lads on the comer of an alley behind him, until a slight figure hurtled out of the bow-windowed shop, racing past him with a cry of outrage. Curiously he turned to watch, and suddenly the figure spun around and ran back to him.

"Your whip?" she demanded, her eyes crackling with passion. "Please, quickly." Impatiently, she extended her hand for the long driving whip he held loosely at his side.

Marcus didn't think he'd ever beheld a more exquisite countenance or an angrier one. She blazed with the pure fire of righteous rage. Before he could say anything, however, she had snatched the whip from him without further ceremony and was racing back to the noisy group on the corner.

He watched in stunned amazement as she plunged into the middle of the group, slashing savagely from side to side with his whip with a complete indifference to the shrieks' of those she struck.

"What the hell… Chloe!" Hugo Lattimer appeared on the pavement. "I do not believe this," he exclaimed.

"I turn my back for two minutes and she's embroiled in some melee again."

"Happens often, does it'" Marcus inquired, as amused as he was intrigued.

"When it comes to abused animals," Hugo replied shortly. He strode over to the disintegrating group, where quite a crowd was gathering.

Fascinated, the marquis followed.

Chloe Gresham emerged victorious from the melee as the whipped youths slunk away into the alley. She held something clutched to her breast. Her hat was crooked, her skirt muddied, a streak of dirt down one cheek. Her eyes blazed with a mixture of fury and triumph.

"Just look!" she demanded of Hugo, the catch in her voice as always accentuated by emotion. "They were baiting him with pointed sticks."

"Dear God," Hugo muttered, staring at Chloe's prize. "It's a bear!"

Marcus could well understand the other man's dismay. Nevertheless, his shoulders shook slightly as Chloe said, "It's a baby… it can't be more than two months old… and they were torturing it. I thought bear baiting was against the law."

"It is," Marcus said. "I beg your pardon, but I don't seem to have had the honor…"

"My ward," Hugo said with a sigh. "Chloe Gresham. Chloe, allow me to present Lord Carrington."

"Enchanted, Miss Gresham." Marcus bowed, his black eyes brimful of amusement and more than a little admiration. For some reason, the streak of dirt seemed to accentuate the peaches and cream complexion, emotion darkened her eyes to an indescribable depth of blue, and the angrily quivering lip merely served to underline the full perfection of a lovely mouth.

"Oh, your whip, Lord Carrington. Thank you, and I

beg your pardon if I snatched it from you." She held it out to him.

"Not at all," he murmured. "I would have offered to help, but such an offer seemed somewhat superfluous." He cast a glance of complicit amusement at Hugo Lat-timer, who returned it with a resigned shake of the head.

"Come here, lass. Your hat's crooked." Careful to avoid the bundle in her arms, he straightened the chip straw hat, affording Marcus a more thorough glimpse of a lustrous golden head.

Taking out his handkerchief, Hugo licked the corner and wiped the streak of dirt from her cheek. "Now, would you mind telling me what you intend doing with a bear cub. I doubt Dante will appreciate him… it… not to mention Beatrice."

"Dante?" queried Marcus, fascinated. "Beatrice?"

"Oh, my household resembles a circus," Hugo informed him. "So far we have seven cats, a massive, obsessively devoted mongrel, a one-legged parrot with the foulest mouth you've ever heard, and now, it appears, a bear… oh, and in the past we've also had a barn owl and a much-abused nag liberated from a turnip seller. They all rejoice in the most erudite of names."

"You exhibit much fortitude, my friend," Marcus commented.

"You're laughing at me," Chloe accused, looking between them.

"Heaven forfend." Hugo threw up his hands. "What could be less amusing than a bear?"

"It's only a baby," she said again, bending her head to look at the mangy bundle of fur in her arms. A pair of bright eyes looked out at her and a black snout snuffled.

"But what are you going to do with it?"

"I wonder if bears can be housebroken-"

"No!" Hugo exclaimed.

"You don't think they caa'" She looked up, frowning, her head on one side.

"I should think it's highly unlikely." Marcus weighed in on the side where fellow-feeling seemed to place him. "The stables seem the most appropriate place… at least until he… it… grows up." His voice quavered as Hugo groaned audibly, and they both envisaged a fully grown brown bear in situ in a London establishment.

"Well, I'll see," Chloe said. "When I've had a chance to see if he's badly hurt and how undernourished he is. I may have to keep him inside for a while."

"I wish I didn't have to go," Marcus murmured, "before you resolve the issue, but unfortunately I have an appointment." He extended his hand again to Hugo. "You must be blessed with remarkable forbearance, Lat-timer. I don't know whether to offer you my congratulations or my condolences."

"I'll accept either or both," Hugo said wryly. He barely knew Marcus Devlin, but there was something about his reaction to the situation that created an easy familiarity. But then, Chloe tended to have that effect on most people. "I only wonder which Society will offer."

"With that beauty," Marcus said, softly enough for Chloe not to hear. "She'll bring the town to its knees, my friend."

"And eighty thousand pounds," Hugo said as softly, although Chloe was far too intent on her new acquisition to pay attention to this low-voiced conversation.

Marcus's lips pursed in a soundless whistle. "You'll have to beat them from your door, Lattimer."

He turned back to Chloe. "Miss Gresham, pray accept my compliments, you are quite out of the common way. I know Lady Carrington will enjoy meeting you. I shall suggest she call upon you… in Mount Street, isn't it'" He looked inquiringly at Hugo.

Hugo confirmed it, reflecting that Chloe seemed to have done herself some good by this unlooked-for meeting. If the Marchioness of Carrington interested herself in Chloe, then her entrance into the first circles was assured. However, he was aware that embroiling herself in a street brawl could have had the opposite consequences. If Marcus Devlin had chosen to be disgusted by such an outrageous display from a debutante, she could have found herself ostracized by all but the most inveterate fortune hunters.

Marcus climbed into his now-waiting curricle and drove home to Berkeley Square. He found his wife in the nursery.

"I have just encountered the most exquisite little rogue," he said. "But not as exquisite a little rogue as my Emma." With a soft smile he bent to pick up his daughter, clamoring at his knees. He swung the toddler into the air, and she squealed excitedly, grabbing at his nose with a dimpled fist.

Judith Devlin leaned back in her chair, cradling her infant son, smiling as she watched her husband with the little girl. Marcus was a devoted father.

"So?" she prompted, when he'd stopped playing with the child and settled her on his hip. "What about this encounter?"

Marcus bent to examine his son, who lay placidly, sucking his thumb in his mother's arm. "Edmund looks bigger today."

"Nonsense," Judith said with an indulgent laugh. "He's no bigger this morning than he was last night." She lifted her face for her husband's kiss. "Are you ever going to tell me?"

"Oh, yes. Rarely have I been so richly amused." He described the bear's rescue and, as he'd expected, the ready amusement sprang to his wife's tawny eyes. It was

a story to appeal to the unconventional, and Judith had ever been that.

"Hugo Lattimer and I came into Society at the same time," he said, setting his wriggling daughter on her feet. "But he ran with a wild set in those days… oh, that is a splendid house, Emma." He took the sheet of paper she was pressing at him.

"There's Mama." She jabbed at a stick figure. "Wiv' your horse."

"Very lifelike," he said solemnly, critically comparing his wife with the facsimile. "Anyway, lynx, I engaged that you would call upon the girl. She must be Stephen Gresham's daughter. Lattimer was much involved with his set." He grimaced. "The Greshams are bad blood, if all the rumors are true, but it's hard to imagine bad blood running in the veins of such an exquisite creature. And she struck me as quite without artifice."

"She's closer to Harriet's age," Judith said. Her sister-in-law was five years younger than herself.

Marcus shook his head. "True enough, but you know as well as I, my love, that Harriet's tastes don't run to the unconventional. She wouldn't know what to make of Miss Gresham."

Judith laughed slightly. "No, I suppose you're right. Anyway, Sebastian tells me that she's expecting again. She always suffers so badly from nausea, poor love, I don't know why they keep having babies."

"Because it suits them," Marcus said. "Your brother is even more besotted with his children than I am."

"Yes, and he spoils them abominably. And Harriet is incapable of saying no. little Charles created havoc in here yesterday, and as for young Peter…"

"Well, you're the only person Sebastian will listen to, including his wife," Marcus pointed out with perfect truth.

"I've told him," she said. "And he won't listen. I sup-

pose he wants to give them all the things he never had. A childhood spent racketing around the capitals of the Continent in the train of an impoverished gamester left out a lot."

"It didn't do either of you any harm."

"Oh, you were not always of that opinion," she said, her eyes narrowing. "There was a time when you expressed yourself most vehemently on the subject."

'A lot of water's flowed since then," her husband said equably. "If the girl's Gresham's daughter, why isn't her half brother her guardian, I wonder? Lattimer's no relation… although…"

"Although?" Judith prompted when he paused.

"Well, there was something about the way he treated her," Marcus said slowly, remembering how naturally Hugo had straightened her hat and wiped the smear on her cheek. "A rather particular intimacy…"

"Ohh…" Judith said. "What do you suspect'"

"Nothing." He shrugged. "Lattimer's all of thirty-four and the girl's barely out of the schoolroom. I expect he was being avuncular… Anyway, will you call on her?"

"I can hardly wait."

Two days later, Lady Carrington drove herself in her high-perch phaeton to Mount Street.

It was clear from the moment the door was opened to her by a sturdy man in leather britches and waistcoat, sporting two gold earrings, that she was in no ordinary household.

"Is Miss Gresham in?" She drew off her gloves, looking around the square hall. The smell of fresh paint hung in the air.

"Aye, I reckon so," the unusual butler said. "Last I knew, the lass was pesterin' that Alphonse in the

kitchen. Mind you, what we want wi' a cook, I don't know, specially one what calls 'imself some fancy Frenchie name when it's as plain as day he's no more of a Frenchie than I am. What's good enough in Lancashire ought t' be good enough 'ere, I says."

Judith was somewhat at a loss as to how to respond to this confidence, when a swinging baize door at the end of the hall flew open and a brown bundle exploded into the hall, followed by an enormous dog.

"Dante! Come here!" A slight figure whirled through the door on their heels, brandishing a wooden spoon. "You are the worst-behaved animal! Leave Demosthenes alone."

Judith jumped out of the way as the brown fur bundle lumbered past her at a surprising speed, the dog yapping at its heels.

"Miss Gresham?" she inquired.

"Yes," Chloe said distractedly. "I beg your pardon, but I must catch Demosthenes. If Hugo finds him loose in the house, there'll be terrible trouble."

"Demosthenes?" Judith said feebly. She rarely felt feeble.

"Well, Bruin's rather boring, don't you think," Chloe said, lunging for the bear cub. "Samuel, can you catch Dante?"

Samuel grunted and grabbed Dante by the collar. The dog sat down, panting. The bear had retreated beneath an inlaid console table and a pair of bright eyes gazed out from the shadows.

Judith sat down on a chair and burst into a peal of laughter. "Marcus said you were refreshing," she gasped. "But I don't believe he knows the half of it."

"Marcus?" Chloe, who was on her knees in front of the console table, looked over her shoulder.

"My husband, Lord Carrington. I understand you met him the other day."

"Oh, yes, he was kind enough to lend me his whip." Chloe dropped forward onto her hands and knees, sticking her nose under the table. "Come on, you silly animal. I only want to dress that cut."

It was at this moment that Hugo sauntered into his house through the still-open front door. Dante greeted him exuberantly, and he didn't at first see their visitor on her chair by the wall. His attention was immediately caught by Chloe's upturned rear as she peered under the table.

"What are you doing?" He swung his crop lightly at the inviting behind.

"Ouch!" Chloe backed out hastily. "I was hoping you wouldn't come back until I'd captured Demosthenes. Dante jumped at him while I was stirring the poultice in the kitchen and all hell broke loose."

"All what'"

"Oh, well you know what I mean. Oh, this is Lady Carrington. She came to call." She gestured toward Judith.

"I seem to have picked a rather inconvenient moment," Judith said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. "Sir Hugo."

"Lady Carrington." He bowed formally over her hand but his eyes twinkled at the ready laughter in the golden-brown eyes of his guest. "Sometimes I wonder if there is ever a convenient moment in this circus. Allow me to give you a glass of sherry to restore your shattered nerves." He gestured toward the library, saying over his shoulder, "Chloe, you will remove that wild animal forthwith, and if I ever catch him in the house again, it will be very much the worse for both of you."

Chloe watched the two of them disappear into the library and muttered one of Falstaff s more inventive phrases.

It was twenty minutes later before she was able to

join her guardian and his guest in the library. Lady Carrington and Hugo were laughing as she entered and seemed to be getting on famously. For some reason, this made her feel put out. She examined the visitor with more attention and saw a vibrant, beautiful woman in her mid-twenties, radiating assurance and confidence, conversing with Hugo as if she'd known him all her life.

Hugo's public rebuke still stung, and Chloe, feeling uncomfortably young and rather grubby, had the sense that she'd wandered uninvited into an adult's domain.

"May I have a glass of sherry?"

"Of course, lass." Hugo poured her a glass and refilled Lady Carrington's. "Where's the beast?"

"In the stables." She took the glass and sipped. "I must apologize, Lady Carrington, for not welcoming you properly."

"Oh, don't apologize," Judith said, chuckling. "An escaped bear is more than sufficient explanation."

"Where's your chaperone?" Hugo inquired of his ward, explaining to Judith, "My late mother's cousin, Lady Smallwood, resides with us as Chloe's duenna."

"She's lying upon her bed with her smelling salts," Chloe said, her eyes suddenly sparkling with mischief. "I'm afraid Falstaff upset her again."

Judith demanded to know the identity of this character and left soon after, still laughing. "I am having an evening party on Thursday," she said. "You will come, both of you… and Lady Smallwood, of course."

That evening, as Judith was dressing for dinner, she remarked to her husband, "You're right about Harriet, Marcus. She won't be able to make heads or tails of Chloe Gresham. But Sebastian will enjoy her enormously. Her beauty is astonishing, of course, but it's that roguish personality that really appeals. She's completely without artifice; I don't even think she knows that she's

beautiful. I intend to make her the toast of the Season. What do you think?"

"I don't see how you can fail, if you've a mind to." Marcus took the emerald necklace from the maid, fastening it himself around the slender column of his wife's throat. "With a fortune of eighty thousand pounds and a face and figure to rival Helen of Troy, all she needs is the right patronage."

"Then she shall have it. She'll need a voucher for Al-mack's, so I'll introduce her to Sally Jersey on Thursday. She's so good-natured, she won't disapprove of Chloe's easy ways, where Princess Esterhazy might."

"I still wish I knew why Hugo Lattimer has her in charge and not Jasper Gresham." Marcus shrugged. "Did you notice anything about them?"

"Only that she can clearly twist him around her little finger," Judith said. "For all that he plays the exasperated guardian on occasion."

"Intriguing."

"Very. There's a Lady Smallwood in residence as chaperone. His late mother's cousin."

Marcus nodded. "Lattimer's mother's family were Beauchamps. Impeccable background. Lady Smallwood will have the right cachet… although I understand she's not entirely sensible."

"Since when has that mattered to Society?" Judith asked tartly.

Her husband laughed. "Never. And perhaps the less sensible she is, the more it suits Hugo and his unconventional ward."

"He certainly runs an unconventional household."

"Intriguing," Marcus said again.

"Very," Judith agreed.