Dawn In My Heart. Ruth Axtell Morren

You can’t make me believe it was such a sacrifice for you to pull yourself away from the Indies. It certainly hasn’t done anything for you.”

      “Oh, I don’t know.” His cravat finished, Sky stood and eyed it in the glass. “I had quite a comfortable life on my sugar plantation.”

      His father harrumphed. “Tending a plantation in the backwater of the kingdom, a job any good steward could do?”

      Tertius’s glance crossed Nigel’s before his valet began silently putting away the morning’s toilet articles.

      “Well, what do you think, Father? Has Nigel mastered the trone d’amour?” He turned for his father to inspect the white neck cloth.

      His father stepped closer and peered at his neck. “Not bad. Nigel, is it?” For the first time since entering his rooms, his father gave his attention to the manservant. “Got him in the Indies?”

      “It would appear so,” Sky replied.

      “Don’t be impertinent. Almost everyone these days in London has a blackamoor footman—but this is the first time I’ve seen one for a valet. Did it take you long to train him?”

      “Nigel was an amazingly quick study,” Tertius drawled. “From the cane fields to the intricacies of folding white linen, in what? Six months, Nigel?”

      His valet’s muddy green eyes met his. “Yes, sir, that would be about the time.”

      “What a fine specimen,” his father remarked, as he took a turn around the West Indian. “Look at that brawn. He’d make a fine boxer. He reminds me of Cribb. I saw him spar it out with Tom Molineaux back in “10.” Lord Caulfield stood in front of Nigel and eyed the breadth of his chest. “Your man makes ‘the Black Diamond’ look like a dwarf. Sure you wouldn’t want to put him in the ring?”

      “He’s played Apollo for me at an evening’s festivities, but I haven’t as yet had him take up pugilism. It’s an idea…” Sky mused.

      “Apollo? Why not Atlas?” Caulfield asked, continuing to admire the valet’s physique. “I imagine he looked splendid draped in a white toga.”

      “Splendid indeed. I chose Apollo because of the loftiness of his thoughts. Atlas represents brute strength, and I believe Nigel has a bit more than that in his skull, eh?” he asked his valet with a smile before turning to shrug on the coat Nigel held out to him. He took his watch and fobs from him, along with a pocket-handkerchief.

      “Thank you. You may go,” he told Nigel.

      Lord Caulfield waited until the servant had left the room carrying an armful of linen. “Now, back to your affianced. You must make yourself agreeable. Take her out for a nice ride in Hyde Park. There are a dozen victory celebrations planned with Wellington’s arrival. The first thing you can do is meet her at Almack’s tonight and pay her court.”

      Tertius stopped listening to his father’s instructions. Instead he thought about the young lady’s angry tone and frosty green eyes. He admitted how deliberately unflattering his remarks had been. She’d had a right to take offense. He had nothing against her personally. If he was easily irritated, it wasn’t due to Lady Gillian Edwards.

      “Very well, Father, I shall see her tonight and endeavor to ‘woo’ her as you so quaintly put it.”

      Tertius scanned the company assembled in Almack’s ballroom. Things hadn’t changed much in his ten-year absence, he concluded as he took in the assortment of muslin-clad young ladies, most in white bedecked with pastel ribbons and flowers, standing amidst the gilt columns, their mamas and chaperones closely in attendance. The young misses simpered at the young gentlemen hovering around them. His attention went to the dancers and he finally spotted Lady Gillian. She was in the middle of executing a tour de main with her partner in the quadrille.

      “She’s a dandy little filly,” his longtime friend, Lord Delaney, opined, quizzing her through his glass.

      “She’s accomplished in the quadrille, at any rate,” observed Tertius dryly.

      “From what I hear, she’ll bring you ten thousand per annum. It makes little difference, in that light, I suppose, how well she dances,” Lane added with a chuckle.

      “She strikes me as a bit lively.” Tertius narrowed his eyes, watching Lady Gillian laugh and bat her eyelashes at her dance partner.

      “A tremendous flirt,” Delaney informed him.

      Tertius’s frowned deepened.

      “But no one has ever been able to take the least liberties with her,” his friend added hastily, “on account of the dragon lady.”

      Tertius raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

      Delaney nodded across the room. “Miss Templeton. See the dark-haired lady with the pursed lips?”

      “The one who looks as if she’s swallowed sour wine?”

      “The very one. That’s Lady Gillian’s companion. She appeared soon after her first season, and she hasn’t let Lady Gillian out of her sight since then.”

      Tertius felt a twinge of pity for the young lady if that disagreeable-looking lady was her watchdog. Miss Templeton looked like the typical spinster past her prime. “Let me guess, she’s probably a distant relation living out some cheerless existence on too little.”

      “Yes, who knows where the Duchess of Burnham found her, but she never hesitates to tell anyone willing to listen how she is accustomed to better things. I believe she’s a third cousin to the late Duke.”

      It crossed Tertius’s mind to wonder how Lady Gillian would behave once her bodyguard were removed.

      “Lord Skylar!” a lady exclaimed. “When did you arrive back in town?”

      “Lady Jersey.” Tertius bowed over her kid-encased hand. “The prodigal has returned, as you can see.”

      “My, yes.” She stood at arm’s length, surveying him. “It has been years that you’ve been away.”

      “A decade, to be precise.”

      “A decade!” Her eyes opened wide. “You were a young man about town then, quite a rake as I recall. So, you have come from making your fortune in the Indies, I presume?”

      He sketched another brief bow. “That was the purpose.”

      “Dear Lord Caulfield was at his wits’ end, I recall.” She peered at him more closely. “I don’t know how that climate across the Atlantic agreed with you. You’re awfully brown and thin.”

      He shrugged. “The sun is to blame for the one and a plaguey fever for the other.”

      She patted his hand. “London will soon put you to rights.”

      “One can but hope.”

      “Well, I trust you will find some pleasant amusement here tonight. Still unmarried?”

      He nodded. “A state shortly to be remedied.”

      Lady Jersey, smiling delightedly, asked, “Is that what brought you here tonight? What think you of our pretty young ladies? There will surely be one to catch your eye.”

      “One already has.”

      “Oh, I’m all aflutter with curiosity. Tell me who it is, and I shall arrange an introduction.”

      Things had certainly not changed at Almack’s. “In point of fact, my dear Lady Jersey, the introductions have already been effected. Our two families came to an understanding ere I set foot on British soil. It but remains for the betrothal to be announced.”

      Her mouth formed a small circle of astonishment. “Oh, my. When is the good news to be made known?”

      “Within the week, I’m certain. Apropos of it, I would crave your indulgence on something touching this engagement.”