Chapter Six

September 26, 1812

George sighed, and once again attempted to focus on the conversation going on around him.

"And Doctor says we're far enough along that we can tell the family," William Chance, Duke of Cothrom, and the oldest of the brothers was saying with a proud grin utterly at odds with his usually serious face. "I can't believe it. Almost on the first try, too!"

"William!" Alice Chance, the Duchess of Cothrom, cried. Her chestnut hair had slipped from its pins in her outrage, but she was still smiling.

"Oh, they don't mind, Alice."

"Perhaps not," said his wife with pink cheeks. "But I still don't think it's appropriate to tell them!"

"C-Congratulations," said the Marchioness of Aylesbury hurriedly. "A b-baby! A new Chance in the f-family, how w-wonderful."

George nodded along, hoping he would not be required to input anything at this time.

He had certainly not been surprised when Aylesbury had mentioned it, days ago, most irritatingly interrupting his time with Miss Loughty.

His kissing with Miss Loughty.

Being informed that the oldest Chance brother was going to be a father was indeed good news. But it was not any better than kissing a beautiful woman senseless, which was what George had hoped to return to doing after his brother had departed.

It had been most exasperating to find Miss Loughty prim and proper on his return… and the empty chair markedly on the other side of the card table.

"Any names?"

"No names as such," said Alice prettily as a footman stepped forward to replenish the table's potatoes. "There are some family names to be considered—"

"On your s-side as w-well, I p-presume," said the new Marchioness of Aylesbury said. Florence was a pretty enough woman, with her naturally curling hair in tendrils around her ears and a smile that was always hesitant, George thought, but shy. Very shy. "A-Alice, maybe?"

"If it's a girl," said Cothrom with a laugh, "I can think of no better name!"

Gentle laughter rang out around the table.

George took another sip of wine. He had nothing against family lunches, per se. It had been Cothrom's idea to start with. An opportunity for them to become more of a family.

He forced himself not to snort. More of a family? William, John, and George had always gone about the world supporting each other. They were already a family. And as for the fourth Chance brother… if you could call him that …

"—in the country, they must be born at Stanphrey Lacey," the Marquess of Aylesbury was saying.

"I think that would be best," said Frederick Chance, Viscount Pernrith, quietly. His hands were folded neatly, as they always were, and his jacket matched his waistcoat, his dark eyes ponderous yet guarded.

George shot him a glare but did not say anything.

This was hardly the place. Cothrom had opened up Stanphrey Hall in Bath just on the outskirts of the Crescent and the dining room was filled with late summer light. The linen tablecloth was covered with a plethora of platters, and it could have been a very pleasant lunch.

If it weren't for him.

Frederick Chance, Viscount Pernrith. It burned right into George's soul that the man even bore the name Chance in the first place, let alone had been given a family title.

Their father's bastard. At luncheon with them.

What did it matter if Cothrom had invited him? Surely, the brute knew better than to—

"George Chance, you aren't listening to a word I'm saying, are you?"

George swallowed. He hadn't been, as a matter of fact. Not that he wanted to be caught out in such inattention—particularly with Pernrith staring politely from the other side of the table.

Blaggard.

"I beg your pardon?" he said aloud, as politely as he could manage.

"I was saying, I heard about Scandal of Lancelot's loss yesterday," said Aylesbury again with a wry smile. "Most unexpected."

As though he needed another reason for his bad temper. "Someone is betting against me, the rogues—I lost almost a hundred pounds!"

Cothrom groaned.

"Not that I cannot handle such a small, insignificant loss," George added hastily.

It was not quite a lie. But his brother didn't need to know that.

Pernrith leaned back in his chair and sipped at his wine before saying quietly, "And is it true that you are courting a Miss Loughty?"

George frowned bitterly at the man. "What business is it of—"

"Courting a woman?" said Alice mildly.

"Miss Loughty?" said Cothrom, eyes wide. "I've never heard of her! Who is—"

"I am not courting Miss Loughty—I'm not courting anyone," said George hastily. Blast it all to hell, what right did Pernrith have to say such things?

Now he came to think about it, how did the man even know he had been seeing Miss Loughty in the first place? Not that he was—he wouldn't have called it courting. Not really. Would he?

"The whole of Bath is agog with it," the blaggard Pernrith was saying. "He's been asking after her, ensuring she is not welcome in certain gaming hells—"

"Lindow!"

"What?" George said defensively at Cothrom's explosion. He could not by now still be the only one who had noticed Miss Loughty's lack of a chaperone. If rumors were swirling about, even if a result of his own actions, he should not suffer, but the lady herself… "You think it appropriate for a young woman to be attending places like McBarland's?"

"Such places shouldn't be mentioned in front of certain people," Cothrom said tightly, gesturing with a nod of his head at the two ladies present.

George rolled his eyes. Cothrom always wanted to wrap those he loved in cotton wool—it was the most frustrating and most endearing of his habits. Even if it did make him want to constantly bicker with the man.

"She's nothing but a card sharp," he tried to say as nonchalantly as possible. "And I may… I may have lost a few pounds to her. A few pounds only —"

The rest of his words were drowned out by the laughter of the whole room. Even his two sisters-in-law joined in.

"A woman, and you lost?" Alice said lightly. "I must say, it is pleasant to see you taken down a peg or two."

"I've not been taken—"

"D-Does she know her h-horses?" asked Florence eagerly with a shy smile. "It w-would be n-nice to have another p-person about the p-place who—"

"Miss Loughty is not going to be about the place ," George said hotly, hating how swiftly they got under his skin. Surely, families were not supposed to be like this? They were supposed to be… He didn't know. Quiet. Supportive. Ignoring of one's defects!

Aylesbury was grinning. "You like her, don't you?"

George opened his mouth, had nothing to say, then closed it again.

"I have never, never been so insulted."

"Really? And do you feel insulted?"

Liked her? By God, he more than liked her. If she'd let him, he would have taken Miss Loughty in his arms and shown her precisely what a man could do in practice, far more than with theory. If uninterrupted for long enough, perhaps his fingers could have proven his point just as firmly—and pleasurably—as his mouth had.

George swallowed. Not that thinking such things was a good idea, here or elsewhere.

When he looked up, Pernrith— Pernrith!— was smiling. "I think you are a little smitten, brother."

Enough of this. He didn't have to sit here and take this—this slander. This presumption of his affection for—

Not that he felt anything like…

Damnit .

George rose suddenly from his seat, so swiftly, it almost fell to the floor. "I'm leaving."

"Give Miss Loughty our best wishes," said Alice with a teasing grin that was most unfair of her.

Her husband chuckled. "Yes, and invite her to next month's luncheon. We'll be back in Bath, won't we?"

"We wouldn't miss seeing Miss Loughty for the world," said the duchess, with the seriousness of a saint.

George scowled as he marched past his chuckling brothers and the two wives who had so recently joined the family. What did they know? How dare they mock him for something that was absolutely, most definitely—

And Pernrith, too!

He was in half a mind to slam the front door behind him, except Cothrom's butler managed to close it. Instead, George was forced to stand on the doorstep heaving with irritation, every movement pouring his frustration out into the air.

He needed to clear his head.

There was only one place to go in Bath to really clear one's head. There was nowhere like Hyde Park, a place he frequented whenever in London, for losing yourself in when one was truly irritated. Which happened whenever he lost money.

So, relatively frequently.

But in Bath there was no Hyde Park. There was, however, Sydney Gardens, and it was to this quiet and calm part of the city that George stomped.

When he pushed open the gate and heard the birdsong, saw the last of the summer flowers and breathed in the cleaner air, George could feel his shoulders starting to unlock.

Yes, he could calm himself here. There would be nothing at Sydney Gardens to distract him. Nothing at all. He could sit here on a bench for twenty minutes or so, maybe even half an hour. He couldn't stay too long, of course. He'd have to go to the stables at some point this afternoon and talk to his jockey, try to understand what on earth was going on with Scandal of Lancelot. And then he—

George almost fell over his own foot.

It wasn't his fault. It was the most natural reaction to seeing Miss Doris Loughty, again alone, walking toward him farther up the path.

A thundering lurch in his stomach had been what had dislodged his foot, and it appeared he was not the only one affected. The instant his eyes met hers, Miss Loughty flushed a dark crimson that was visible for at least twenty feet away.

And she halted.

George did not. This had been going on long enough. He needed to clear Miss Loughty from his mind, and his conscience, and that meant an awkward conversation that he hoped would clear the whole thing up.

And if it didn't… Well. He had already been losing at cards before he'd met her. It wouldn't be a huge change, he supposed.

Then she did something he could never have predicted.

She turned away.

"Miss Loughty!" George had not intended to call her name, but he did so as he strode toward her retreating back.

The idea of not speaking to her was just as impossible as speaking to her—but now that he was faced with the choice, he knew which he would rather have.

Pushing past a couple who stared after him and ignoring the gravel he was kicking up in his haste, George almost reached out.

Almost .

As though she could feel his intentions that had been swiftly quashed, Miss Loughty turned around. "Don't—"

"I didn't," said George hastily, lifting his hands in surrender.

They had both stopped. How, he wasn't sure. Why was it that whenever he was around Miss Loughty, he couldn't think straight?

And he couldn't keep thinking of her as Miss Loughty, for a start. That staid, restrictive, formal name? For a woman who boldly walked in a park in the daylight on her own? No longer.

"What is your name, Miss Loughty?" George said into the silence.

Miss Loughty blinked, her dark eyebrows pinching together and her color pinking. It went nicely with the sky-blue muslin gown she was wearing, mending around the hemline notwithstanding, but George attempted not to notice that. He also attempted not to notice how wonderfully she filled said gown, or remind himself how they were standing alone in Sydney Gardens.

Completely alone …

"My name," she said stiffly, "is Miss Loughty."

"Yes, I know that—I actually meant your Christian name," said George softly, wondering why on earth his hands were still up. He dropped them to his sides. "My name's George."

She stared up with bemused eyes. "You expect me to call you that?"

He hadn't, not really. He'd merely been curious. But now he did.

Oh, to hear his own name curling around those luscious lips …

As though she could hear his thoughts shouted from the rooftops of the Pump Rooms, Miss Loughty flushed. "I don't—It isn't a good idea to—We aren't… Well. Are we?"

Are we?

George swallowed.

He wasn't sure what they were, if that was what she was asking. There had been no rhyme and little reason for their encounters to date, and now with his brother's words ringing in his ears, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do next.

"I think you are a little smitten, brother."

"Doris."

George blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

He'd heard the two syllables, but they did not seem to make any sense. Doris? It was such simple, refined, but unspectacular name.

Certainly not a name to be held by a woman like this…

Miss Loughty smiled, and the sun came out and warmed him, and George was tingling all over and he barely heard what she said next.

"It's a family name, not one I particularly like, to tell the truth. My family calls me ‘Dodo.'"

Dodo .

George's smile was genial, and try as he might, he could not inject it with the typical mischievousness that kept refined ladies like this at arm's length. "A rare bird, indeed."

She blushed, furiously not looking at him, from what he could see.

But it didn't matter. Stupid Cothrom and stupid Aylesbury's words were echoing once more in his mind, causing the conscience George hardly knew he had to raise its sleepy head again.

"And is it true that you are courting a Miss Loughty?"

But she hadn't waited for him in the smoking room, had she? Not to do more than teach cards—a lesson he still hadn't grasped, so distracted he'd been by the sight of her. She—Miss Loughty, Dodo, she had obviously been offended.

"Look," George said quietly. "I am sorry. I shouldn't have kissed you."

Dodo took a step back. "You… You shouldn't have?"

It sounded almost like a question, as though she were asking him. Which did not make sense. She had been the one, after all, to point out the inexcusable liberty he had taken.

"I have never, never been so insulted."

Surely, she is absolutely clear on what should or should not have happened between us , George thought feverishly. And what did people do with their hands? Here his were, just hanging about his sides, like idiots! Where should they have been?

He placed his hands on his hips, then immediately allowed them to drop to his sides again as a bird swooped past them, chirping merrily.

No, that isn't it. How could I have forgotten how hands work?

"I may as well tell you," George said wretchedly. "Apparently, the whole of Bath… Well. They think we're courting."

He saw the surprise in Dodo's eyes, and she took a hasty step back. "But we're not!"

"I know that," he said.

"But—But they can't think that!"

"I've certainly placed us in a rather difficult situation," admitted George, his stomach twisting horribly. After so many years bedding women, he had never managed to find himself in this sort of situation.

Compromised .

It was a horrible word. He'd never truly given it much thought. He had never had to. Discretion had always been a core part of his seduction, and on the rare occasion that old Cothrom had gotten wind of one of his conquests, the eldest Chance brother had been able to swiftly make amends with the father, if there was a father, and ensure him nothing had happened. There'd been no consequences for George, anyway.

And now here he was, giving rise to gossip merely because this woman had beaten him at cards!

George's gaze swept over Dodo Loughty and his stomach lurched again.

Well . Maybe not precisely because of that. She was… different. Somehow. Unlike his previous conquests. He couldn't explain it. But he didn't have to. He could feel it, sense it in his very bones.

She was different.

"Well, you'll just have to change the gossip!" Dodo said, her cheeks pink as she dropped her eyes. A couple walked past them, staring curiously as they continued along the path. Only when they were out of earshot did Dodo take a step forward. "You have to stop this!" she hissed.

It was a welcome step forward. George had been debating whether or not to step closer to her for some time, and now that she had done so, he could feel the very tangible difference.

Something tingling along his arms. Pins and needles on his skin.

Dear God, if she could have this effect on him merely by being close to him…

"George Chance!" Dodo hissed, pulling him off the path and around the cover of a large oak tree. "This has to stop—stop it! You need to, I don't know, change their minds! Tell the ton —"

George chuckled, spirits soaring at the sudden intimacy the tree afforded. Now, this is more like it . "You must be joking!"

"I never jest," she said sharply.

And she didn't. Now he came to think about it, George could not recall a single moment in their brief acquaintance when Dodo—when Miss Loughty, he must remember to call her that, mustn't he?—had jested.

Still. She couldn't seriously think he could change the ton 's mind, did she?

Her eyes darted from side to side as she wrung her hands. "I am not unaware how things look. That I am here, in Bath, without a chaperone, will not help matters should it become more widely known."

George felt his eyes fluttering rapidly. He had guessed she had snuck out frequently from under some old spinster's watch, but to be in this city, alone, entirely alone…

Dodo was truly unlike any woman he had ever known.

"Where have you been staying?" he asked. The thought of this vulnerable woman where any sordid sort might come across her…

"A lady's boarding house." She did not look at him as she gave him an address.

He had never thought to look for her in that area of town. What was she doing, hiding among the rabble to make her lack of chaperone less apparent to those in Society who might remark on it?

"The world will think what the world wants to think," he said sternly. "It's not up to me to—"

"Does that mean there's an outside chance you'll have to marry me?"

George halted midsentence, his mouth hanging open as he stared.

Marry her?

The thought hadn't even occurred to him. Why would it? As his stomach jolted painfully and his pulse skipped a beat, George attempted to collect himself and remind himself that such a thing was most unlikely.

Most … Most unlikely. Wasn't it?

"No," he said.

He regretted the resolve of his reply immediately—but not nearly so much as he deplored the relief which immediately swept over Dodo's face.

"Good," she said heartily, her tense shoulders now relaxed.

George shifted on his feet, grateful the two of them were hidden from the other walkers in Sydney Gardens. "What do you mean, good?"

"Well, good," Dodo repeated, not quite meeting his eye.

"Would it be so bad?"

What had possessed him to say such a thing, he was not sure. The words had been out before he could stop them, unfortunately, and even more unfortunately, they'd prompted Dodo to meet his gaze.

Steadily. Calmly. Without any of the murmuring or cooing that ladies typically offered when fluttering their eyelashes. George had hardly to work at seducing ladies back in London—he was the Earl of Lindow! He was handsome, of a sort, and ladies rather welcomed his embraces.

But Dodo Loughty? "The odds of a successful union aren't good," she said quietly. "Good day, my lord."

She had turned and almost reached the path again before George caught up with her—but he was determined, this time.

This woman, this inexplicable, impossible woman, was going to carry out her side of their bargain, even if the ton took this to mean they were courting. Let Society get the wrong end of the stick. If they wanted to bet on the wrong horse, that was fine by him.

He was onto a certainty.

"You still haven't taught me anything, Dodo," George pointed out.

She halted. "You… You can't call me that."

"I'll call you what I like," he said impulsively, hunger for her roaring through his ears and making it impossible to think. "And I'll pay you."

For some reason, that caught her attention.

Dodo opened her mouth, hesitated, then said quietly, "You will?"

George swallowed.

Well, it wasn't as though he had never paid for a woman before. Money had changed hands in the past, though arguably for a very different type of lesson. Strangely, he expected it to be no less agreeable.

But there was something strange about offering money to Dodo Loughty. It shifted the terms of their… their relationship, for want of a better word, from two equals to that of customer and tradesperson.

There was something distasteful about it. Yet the thought of her walking away now, never to return into his life—George could not countenance it.

If coin was the only way to force this woman to spend more time in his presence… Well. So be it. As long as his brothers never found out.

"To be sure—as long as Scandal of Lancelet doesn't lean to the left as he always does, I will pay you for lessons," he said aloud. "Card lessons," he added hastily.

If the slight pink flowing down to her neck was any indication, the merest hint of ill repute in his words had been enough to shock the young lady.

But not to startle her. George watched her, desire building, as she considered his words.

By God, she was incredible.

"Let's negotiate terms," she said quietly.

The thrill that such words gave him was most inappropriate. George knew that. But then, none of their interactions in the past had been entirely appropriate, now he came to think about it. Why would he expect that to change now?

Glancing about to make sure their conversation—their negotiations—were not about to be overheard, George turned back to Dodo. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well… Well, I cannot have you monopolizing my time," she said softly, a light lilt to her voice. "That would be impossible."

"Impossible," George repeated, slightly dazed.

Did she have any idea what effect she was having on him? No, no, he needed to get a grip on himself. He couldn't go around thinking these sorts of things about a woman like Miss Dodo Loughty! When he married—

George caught himself just in time. Marriage? What on earth was he thinking about that for?

"—so no more than two hours a day, I think, for lessons," Dodo was continuing, seemingly unaware that the Earl of Lindow had become momentarily lost in his own thoughts. "At a crown an hour—"

"A crown an hour?"

She looked up, eyebrow raised. "You think the cost too weighty for you, my lord?"

George swallowed. He wasn't sure right now what price he could put on Dodo Loughty's company. Far more than a crown an hour. But still. It felt ridiculous to be paying such a cost merely for the woman to talk mathematics at him.

Even if she did so in such a seductive way.

He relented. "Two hours a day, a crown an hour."

"Which makes fourteen a week," Dodo said smartly. "And I would like a week's payment. That's three pounds, two crowns. Now. In advance."

It was George's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Now?"

He wasn't sure anymore if he could say no to this woman. It was a most strange position to be in, and not one he knew how to navigate. He knew cards, dice, and horses. He knew how to please a woman, and how to fence. That was all he had been expected to do, as a gentleman.

Not negotiate terms with a woman whose mind was obviously running forty miles an hour faster than his own.

"Fine," George said, exhaling slowly and wondering whether he could borrow a few pounds off Aylesbury. Just for a week or so. "We have an agreement—a proper one, this time."

He offered out his hand.

He had been wild to do so the first time, and he hadn't been sure then whether Dodo would take it. This time, however, she did. Most unfortunately, she was wearing gloves.

"And no kissing," Dodo hissed, leaning toward him to confirm no one else could hear.

George grinned. "No promises."