“Why, thank you, James,” she said, resisting the smile that was tugging at her lips. “I
am
famished, actually, though I can’t image why. It’s not as if I’ve been very…energetic this morning.”
The outright lie was designed to cajole him back to a more agreeable mood, since they had both exhibited an abundance of energy this morning before they even left their bed. But she should have known better than to attempt word games with James Malory.
“You should always be so lazy, George,” he replied with one of his more devilish smiles, and there was absolutely nothing that could have stopped her cheeks from going up in flames.
“I don’t know why she’s blushing,” Anthony said into the ensuing silence. “It’s not as if we
should
understand the implications there. Not that we don’t, but we shouldn’t. Had a hard time getting out of bed myself this morn—”
Roslynn’s napkin hitting him in the mouth ended that round of teasing. “Leave the poor girl alone, you rogue. Hell’s teeth, being married to a Malory is—”
“Bliss?” Anthony prompted.
“Who says so?” she snorted.
“You do, sweetheart, most frequently.”
“Moments of madness surely.” She sighed, gaining a chuckle from her husband.
By this time Georgina’s cheeks had cooled down, but she was still grateful to Roslynn, who managed to steer the conversation into subjects nonpersonal after that, or at least nonembarrassing. She learned that a seamstress would be visiting her that very afternoon to provide a complete new wardrobe, that there were several upcoming balls over the winter season that she
must
attend—both Malory men groaned at that point—as well as routs and soirees by the dozen, where she could be introduced properly to the
ton
. Taking into account that these things implied she had a future here, which wasn’t an established fact by any means, she’d looked at James with an is-all-this-necessary? look, and had gotten back total inscrutability.
Georgina also found out that there was to be a family gathering tonight, which was when Anthony admitted, “By the by, I didn’t visit the elders last night after all. Got detained.” Here he wiggled his brows and kissed the air toward his wife, while she looked for another napkin to throw at him. Chuckling, he added to James, “Besides, old boy, I realized they simply wouldn’t believe the news unless they hear it from you, and you have such a unique way of telling it, without actually saying it, that I didn’t want to
deprive you of the opportunity to blunder through it again.”
To that, James replied, “If you’re visiting Knighton’s Hall today, I’ll be delighted to join you.”
“Well, if I’m damned anyway, I might as well ask it,” Anthony said, and asked it. “What the devil did you tell her family that you can’t tell your own?”
“Ask George.” James grunted. “She’s the one who doesn’t want it repeated.”
But when those cobalt-blue eyes turned on her in inquiry, Georgina’s lips closed stubbornly, prompting Anthony to say with a blinding smile, “Come on, sweetheart, you might as well ’fess up. I’ll only bring up the matter at every opportunity, in whatever company, until you do.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“He bloody well would,” James put in sourly.
Thoroughly vexed, Georgina demanded of her husband, “Well, can’t you do something about it?”
“Oh, I intend to,” James said with distinct menace. “You may depend upon it. But that ain’t going to stop him.”
“’Course it wouldn’t.” Anthony grinned. “No more than it would you, old man.”
Georgina sat back in a huff and said, “I’m beginning to have the same sentiments toward your family as you have toward mine, James Malory.”
“I’d be surprised if you didn’t, George.”
With no help for it, she gave Anthony a fulminating glare and snapped out, “I was his cabin boy. That was what he told my brothers; that and the fact that I’d shared his cabin. Now are you quite satisfied, you odious man?”
“I don’t suppose he knew they were your brothers?” Anthony inquired mildly.
“He knew,” she grouched.
“Perhaps he didn’t know there were so many of them?”
“He knew that, too.”
Anthony then turned a very knowing and maddening look on James. “Sort of like pulling the trigger yourself, ain’t it, old boy?”
“Oh, shut up, you ass,” James snarled.
To which Anthony threw his head back and laughed uproariously. When he slowed to chuckles, he said, “Didn’t think you’d go so far to fulfill my hopes, old man.”
“What hopes?”
“You don’t recall my remark that when you get one of your own, she be as sweet as the little viper who kicked you instead of thanking you for your help? Didn’t mean for you to get
the
very one.”
James did recall the remark then, and the fact that it had been given when Anthony was in a black mood because he’d had no luck the previous night in wooing his angry wife back to his bed. “Now that you mention it, I do recall your saying something to that effect…and why you said it, and that you were drowning your miseries in drink that day. Foxed by five o’clock, and the wife wouldn’t even put you to bed, would she?”
“Bloody hell.” Anthony’s expression was now quite sour, while James was now smiling. “You were foxed yourself that day. How the devil d’you remember all that?”
“You have to ask, when you were being so bloody
entertaining? Wouldn’t have missed a moment of it, dear boy.”
“I do believe they’re about to go at it again,” Roslynn told Georgina. “Why don’t we leave them to it. They might kill each other if we’re not around to watch,” and with a pointed look at her husband, she added, “which will save
us
the trouble.”
“If you leave, he won’t be nearly so annoyed by my digs,” Anthony protested as both women left the table.
“That’s the point, darling.” Roslynn smiled at him, then said to his brother, “By the by, James, I sent off word to Silverley last evening, about your return. So you might want to keep yourself available today, since Reggie isn’t likely to wait until this evening to show up. And you know how devastated she’ll be if she misses you.”
Georgina paused upon hearing that to demand, “And just
who
is Reggie?”
“Regan,” James told her, grinning with the memory of her jealousy, and what looked to be a return of it.
But Anthony added, with a baleful look passed on to James, “It’s a longstanding point of disagreement, what we call her, but she’s our favorite niece. The four of us raised her, you know, after our sister died.”
Georgina could not, by any means, picture that. But as long as this Regan-Reggie was merely related to James, she lost interest in her. Still, even if Georgina wasn’t going to be around long, she really ought to make a point of learning a bit more about this large family of his, if just to keep her dander from rising each time she heard a female name in connection with
his. It would have been nice if he had bothered to sort it all out for her before they got here, but he had been very closed-mouthed about his family—possibly to make sure she was closed-mouthed about hers. Fair was fair, after all.
“M
en
do
get married, you know,” Georgina said reasonably, if a bit sarcastically. “They even do it on a regular basis, same as women do. So would someone mind telling me why the first and so far unanimous reaction to James’s getting married is shock, followed closely by disbelief? For God’s sake, he’s not a monk.”
“You’re absolutely right. No one could
ever
accuse him of being that.” And the speaker went into a round of giggles.
Reggie, or Regan, as the case were, turned out to actually be Regina Eden, viscountess of Montieth. But she was a very young viscountess, only twenty years old, and no bigger than Georgina. And no one could deny that she was a member of the Malory clan, at least Anthony and Jeremy’s side of it, for she had the same black hair and cobalt-blue eyes that they’d been born with. But Georgina was to learn that they were the exceptions, along with Amy, one of Edward’s daughters. All of the other Malorys resembled James, being blond and mostly green-eyed.
Georgina also found, to her relief, that Regina Eden was immensely likable. In quick order she found her to be lively, charming, open, teasing, and quite, quite outspoken. She’d been bubbling with good humor ever since she’d arrived earlier that afternoon, but espe
cially after she’d asked James, “And which mistress did you lend my clothes to?” since she hadn’t been home for the borrowing of them. And while James was mulling over the easiest way to break the news, Anthony simply couldn’t resist answering, “The one he married, puss.” Fortunately, the girl had been sitting down at the time. But Georgina had heard at least nine times, “I don’t believe it”—she was counting—and there’d been a good ten times, “Oh, this is famous!” and that in the space of only a few hours.
Georgina was upstairs now having her hair artfully arranged by Roslynn’s maid, Nettie MacDonald, a feisty Scot of middle years whose soft brogue and softer green eyes had Georgina thinking how Mac would really like this woman. Roslynn and Regina were also present, supposedly to make sure she was turned out just right to meet the elders, James’s older brothers, but actually they were making sure she didn’t get nervous by regaling her with amusing anecdotes about the family and answering all her questions.
“I suppose it does seem a bit strange to someone who isn’t familiar with Uncle James’s history.” Regina had quieted down enough to answer Georgina’s question. “This is a man who swore he would never marry, and no one doubted he was absolutely serious. But to understand why, you have to realize he was a…well, he…”
“Was a connoisseur of women?” Georgina supplied helpfully.
“Why, that’s a splendid way to put it! I’ve said the same myself.”
Georgina only smiled. Roslynn rolled her eyes.
She’d heard her Anthony described the same way by this minx, but she preferred to call a rake a rake.
“But Uncle James wasn’t just a connoisseur,” Regina went on to explain. “And if I may be blunt…?”
“By all means,” Georgina replied.
But Roslynn warned first, “Now don’t try to make her jealous, Reggie.”
“Of past peccadilloes?” The girl snorted. “I for one, am eternally grateful for every one of my Nicholas’s past mistresses. Without the experience—”
“I think we get your drift, m’dear,” Roslynn cut in, and couldn’t help grinning. “And we might even agree,” she added, seeing that Georgina was smiling, too.
“Well, as I was saying, Uncle James was a bit more than just a connoisseur of women. For a while after he first embarked on what was to be a very jaded career, you might have called him a glutton. Morning, noon, and night, and never with the same woman.”
“Oh, bosh,” Roslynn scoffed. “Morning, noon,
and
night?”
And Georgina nearly choked, holding her breath, waiting to hear that ridiculous “never with the same woman,” questioned, too, but apparently that part wasn’t in doubt.
“It’s perfectly true,” Regina insisted. “Ask Tony if you don’t believe me, or Uncle Jason, whose misfortune it was to try and curb James’s wildness while he was still living at home—unsuccessfully, I might add. Of course, half of what Uncle James ever did was just to rile Jason. But James
was
wild. From the youngest age, he always went his own way, always
had to be different from his brothers. It’s no wonder he had his first duel before he was even twenty. ’Course he won that one. He’s won them all, don’t you know. Jason was a superb marksman, after all, and he taught all his brothers. Anthony and James, though, developed a fondness for fisticuffs, too, and many of their challenges were seen to in the ring rather than the dueling field.”
“At least that’s not so lethal.”
“Oh, he never actually killed anyone on the field of honor, at least not that I recall hearing about. It’s the angry challenger who usually tries to kill his opponent.”
“Anthony used to ask his opponents where they would like to receive their wounds,” Roslynn put in. “A question like that really undermines a chap’s confidence.”
Regina giggled. “But who do you think he picked that habit up from?”
“James?”
“The very one.”
Georgina was beginning to wish she hadn’t started this. “But you still haven’t really answered my question.”
“It’s all part and parcel, m’dear. By the time Uncle James moved to London, he was already a disreputable rakehell. But he no longer chased everything in skirts, because he didn’t have to. By then, they were chasing him. And most of the women throwing themselves at him were married women.”
“I think I’m beginning to understand,” Georgina said.
“I thought you would. Most every challenge issued
to him was quite legitimate, all from husbands. The irony is, James might have taken what was offered, but he never kissed and told. Those batty women were so impressed with him—well, he
was
a devilish handsome man when he was younger, too—that
they
did the bragging if he so much as looked at them. So it stands to reason that he wouldn’t have much respect for the married state, seeing firsthand nothing but constant infidelities.”
“Which he contributed to,” Georgina said a bit testily.
“No one can deny that.” Regina grinned. “He was, after all, the most notorious rake in London. He even put Tony to shame, and Tony was quite scandalous himself in his day.”
“I’ll thank you to leave Anthony out of this,” Roslynn said. “He’s a totally reformed rake.”
“Well, so is my Nicholas, I’ll have you know. But as for Uncle James, after so many years of seeing only the worst side of marriage, it was no wonder he despised the hypocrisy of it, and unfaithful wives in particular, with which the
ton
abounds. He swore he’d never have one of his own, and we all thought he meant it.”
“I’m sure he did mean it. He didn’t ask to marry me, after all.”
Regina didn’t question that. She’d already been told that James had been forced to marry, and by James himself—before Anthony could. But she did question the “forced” part.