Chapter 10

Letty waited in the gallery of the British Museum, wondering which of the people she'd invited would be the first to arrive.

She had invited three—Vander, Bertie Strickleton, and Miss Mathilda Seymour. Letty had thought long and hard about which young lady best met Vander's request for someone both clever and beautiful, finally deciding upon Mathilda. Mathilda was the granddaughter of the Duke of Harrowgate. Her father, one of the duke's younger sons, had been granted a lucrative church living near the family seat in Yorkshire. The area was apparently riddled with artifacts, both Viking and Roman, and Mathilda had a reputation for being a keen student of both archeology and history.

She was also lovely, with curling brown hair and fine, dark eyes. Mathilda wasn't generally considered to be a diamond of the first water, but Letty thought this was only due to her reserved nature. As the granddaughter of a duke, her social connections were impeccable, but as the daughter of a younger son, her dowry was small, which was a barrier to many men who might otherwise have been interested.

But, of course, that was no obstacle for the likes of Vander.

As if she had summoned him, Vander appeared in the doorway to the gallery, looking heart-stoppingly handsome in a midnight-blue coat and cream silk waistcoat, his dark silken hair fashionably rumpled atop his head. He smiled lazily as he crossed the gallery and Letty felt as though she might melt into a puddle upon the floor.

He gave an elegant half-bow. "Letty."

She curtseyed in return. "Vander."

He offered his arm, and they began strolling the length of the gallery. It was one of the handful of days each month when anyone who was "respectably dressed" was permitted to look around the museum without one of the museum's officers rushing them through the exhibits.

"How was your morning?" Vander asked.

"Fine. Uneventful," Letty replied. "How was yours?"

Vander pursed his lips, thinking. "Not nearly as bad as I feared. I've been at my father's offices."

"Ah. And how are you enjoying the world of insurance?"

Vander drew them to a halt before a headless statue of Zeus. "That's the thing—the insurance part of it is surprisingly interesting. It's all the rest of it that's intolerable."

Letty tilted her head, studying him. He looked genuinely troubled. "What do you mean by ‘all the rest of it?'"

"My father spends upward of twelve hours a day at the office," Vander said, resuming their progress. "That's including Sundays. More, when things are busy. And the office in question is a glorified closet whose few windows look out on a view of a gloomy alley."

Letty hummed sympathetically. "It doesn't sound as if I would want to spend my days there, either. But you could move the business to a different location. Do you think your father would consider it?"

Vander frowned. "I don't know. I've never asked him. Certainly, he could afford to rent some nicer offices."

"If you find it so dismal, surely his clerks do, too. A move would boost morale. You could frame it for him that way."

"You know, I believe I will. A better view would make the whole prospect less grim." He drew them to a halt and nudged Letty with his elbow. "Speaking of impressive views, how do you fancy this one?"

He had stopped before a Roman statue depicting a discus thrower winding up to make his toss. A completely naked discus thrower. His arms were sculpted in more ways than one, and rows of muscles stretched across his torso. Why, there was even a dimple in his… nether regions!

Letty felt her cheeks flushing, but she lifted her chin. "Do you find this view impressive? Why, Vander—I had no idea."

He chuckled. "Well played, Letty. It is finely executed." A wicked gleam came into his eyes. "Even if I would prefer for the subject to be—"

"I have a fair idea what subjects you prefer," Letty said crisply. "We all do, after reading the Rake Review."

"There goes my air of mystery." Vander gave a theatrical sigh, then looped his arm through Letty's and resumed their stroll. "So. Who will I be meeting today?"

"Miss Mathilda Seymour." Letty gave him a quick summary of Miss Seymour's situation and interests. "I think you will find that she is precisely what you have requested."

Just then, Letty spied Miss Seymour in the doorway to the gallery. "Ah, here she is."

Vander made a hum of interest. "She looks promising."

Tamping down the stab of jealousy that shot through her, Letty led Vander down the gallery. They met Miss Seymour halfway.

"Miss Seymour," Letty said, "may I present Mr. Evander Beauclerk?"

Vander took her hand and gave her a charming smile. "Miss Seymour, what a pleasure."

Mathilda blushed ferociously as he bowed over her hand. Although her material situation was not as desperate as that of Miss Peabody, if she hoped to marry, she needed a man rich enough that her minuscule dowry was no impediment, which constrained her options considerably. She had therefore responded with a stammering sort of enthusiasm when Letty offered to introduce her to Vander, asking with a touch of wonder if he had really been third wrangler at Cambridge.

They made small talk for a few minutes. The topic moved to the archaeological digs Mathilda had seen in Yorkshire. "In fact," Mathilda said, "some Roman artifacts from Ribchester have recently been put on display. I would quite like to see them."

This, of course, was Letty's signal to take her leave. The clock had already chimed the quarter of an hour. Where could Bertie be? Of all the times to be late…

Miss Seymour's smile encompassed both Vander and Letty. She seemed to be under the impression that they would be making up a party of three. "Shall we?"

Letty held up her hands, taking a step back in alarm. "I wouldn't want to intrude." She wasn't about to make a gooseberry of herself. "I'm actually meeting someone."

Vander, who had already offered one arm to Mathilda, held the other one out toward her. "It's all right, Letty. Join us."

Watching Vander spend the next hour charming another woman was about the last thing Letty wanted to do. Why couldn't Bertie be on time for once? "No, really, the person I'm waiting for is—"

"Letty! There you are!" Bertie chose that moment to come bounding into the gallery. "I'm not late, am I? What time is it?"

Up and down the gallery, heads swiveled in their direction in response to Bertie's enthusiastic tone, which would have been fine at the pall-mall game the other day but reverberated down the length of the quiet gallery.

Unaware of the censorious looks he was attracting, Bertie seized Letty's hand and pressed three lingering kisses to its back. Embarrassed, Letty sought to extract her hand without making it look like a reproach.

Burying her hands in her skirts to prevent Bertie from seizing them again, she turned to her companions. "Mr. Strickleton, I believe you are acquainted with Miss Mathilda Seymour and Mr. Evander Beauclerk?"

"Course I am." Bertie nodded to Miss Seymour, then seized Vander's hand and pumped it. "Miss Seymour. Beauclerk."

Miss Seymour looked startled by Bertie's whirlwind entrance. Vander was openly scowling at him, not that Bertie seemed to notice. He seized Letty's arm so suddenly that he pulled her off balance. She chuckled weakly in an attempt to cover her discomfiture.

"Right," Bertie said, nodding to the other couple. "If you'll excuse us, then."

"Bertie," Letty whispered as he propelled her down the gallery. "Do slow d—"

"You'll never believe who called on me this morning," Bertie interrupted. "Figgy Ganderton! I haven't seen old Figgy in three whole weeks, on account of him going to visit his aunt up in Norfolk. As you can imagine, we had loads to discuss."

Letty smiled apologetically at a matron who was glaring at Bertie through her lorgnette. "How wonderful, that you were able to catch up with your friend," she said, pitching her voice at a whisper. She considered their destination. If Vander and Mathilda were heading to the rooms containing Roman artifacts, she didn't want to go within a thousand yards of them. "Could we head toward the Egyptian rooms? I would quite like to see the Rosetta—"

"And then," Bertie boomed, "who should walk in but Hugo Chegwidden! Why, I haven't seen Cheggers in at least five days, quite possibly six! Naturally, a celebration was in order."

"Naturally." As Bertie did not appear to be picking up on her cues, she decided a change in strategy was called for. "Would you like to see the gardens? I quite fancy a stroll around the gardens."

Bertie gave no sign of having heard her. "We rounded up Batty McCorkindale and Frances Ditherington and set out to make a day of it."

The one good thing about Bertie's lack of awareness about their general surroundings was that he allowed her to steer him down the stairs, out the door, and into the museum's gardens. It took eleven circuits of the garden's graveled path for him to work his excitement at having spent the morning with his friends out of his system. "And once we finished fencing, I said, crikey, would you look at the time—I'm due to meet Letty at the British Museum! And that is why I was a few minutes late. So." He gave her a lazy grin. "How are you?"

Before Letty could respond, an elderly woman wearing an emerald green turban marched up to Bertie. "Young man! Do keep your voice down. There was a great spotted woodpecker in that pear tree that we were observing. Then you came along, all but shouting, and frightened it away!"

Bertie's face fell. "Did I truly?" He looked to Letty for confirmation, and she nodded. He turned back to the woman in the turban. "Gosh, I'm terribly sorry."

Letty sighed as Bertie submitted contritely to the woman's lecture. This was his redeeming feature. Bertie truly meant well, and he didn't have a cruel bone in his body. But he was oblivious to the point that the outcome was the same—a casual discourteousness for those around him that left Letty feeling embarrassed.

He reminded her of a beagle she'd had as a child—a boundless well of enthusiasm that often led to disaster and broken crockery.

Of course, Patches had grown out of it after a couple of years.

Bertie was now two and twenty, and he showed no signs that he was heading in a similar direction.

Still, no one could have a better nature than Bertie, who even now was bowing deeply to the lady who had reproached him. "I apologize most sincerely. Thank you ever so much for bringing it to my attention. I will endeavor to do better, I promise."

It was impossible to maintain an angry mien in the face of such sincerity. "Yes, well… See to it that you do." The woman patted his hand firmly. "Good day, young man."

Bertie turned to Letty, rubbing the back of his head. "I can't believe I did that. I tell you what—if I start to get too loud again, I want you to stomp on my foot as hard as you can to get my attention."

Letty didn't much relish the image of herself doing something so uncouth in public. "How about if I just tell you?"

Bertie screwed up his face. "I suppose that could work."

"Very good." Letty gave him a tight smile. "Would you like to go inside and look at the Egyptian antiquities?"

"A wonderful suggestion," Bertie said, offering his arm. As he led her back inside, he bent his head close to her ear. "You'll never believe who I bumped into last night…"

Letty's smile was drawn as Bertie launched into the story. Well, at least this time he was whispering.