Anthony cocked his head, regarding her with a quizzical gaze. “I say, Miss Sheffield, are you feeling all right?”
“Fine!” she practically barked. “Never better. You were saying?”
“You look a bit flushed.” He leaned in, watching her closely. She really didn’t look well.
Kate fanned herself. “It’s a bit hot in here, don’t you think?”
Anthony shook his head slowly. “Not at all.”
She gazed longingly out the door. “I wonder where Mary is.”
“Are you expecting her?”
“It’s unlike her to leave me unchaperoned for so long,” she explained.
Unchaperoned? The ramifications were frightening. Anthony had a sudden vision of being trapped into marriage with Miss Sheffield the elder, and it made him break out in a cold sweat. Kate was so unlike any debutante he’d ever met that he’d quite forgotten that they even needed a chaperone. “Perhaps she’s not aware I’m here,” he said quickly.
“Yes, that must be it.” She sprang to her feet and crossed the room to the bellpull. Giving it a firm yank, she said, “I’ll just ring for someone to alert her. I’m sure she won’t want to miss you.”
“Good. Perhaps she can keep us company while we wait for your sister to return.”
Kate froze halfway back to her chair. “You’re planning to wait for Edwina?”
He shrugged, enjoying her discomfort. “I have no other plans for the afternoon.”
“But she might be hours!”
“An hour at most, I’m sure, and besides—” He cut himself off, noting the arrival of a maid in the doorway.
“You rang, miss?” the maid queried.
“Yes, thank you, Annie,” Kate replied. “Would you please inform Mrs. Sheffield that we have a guest?”
The maid bobbed a curtsy and departed.
“I’m sure Mary will be down at any moment,” Kate said, quite unable to stop tapping her foot. “Any minute now. I’m sure of it.”
He just smiled in that annoying manner, looking terribly relaxed and comfortable on the sofa.
An awkward silence fell across the room. Kate offered him a tight smile. He just raised a brow in return.
“I’m sure she’ll be here—”
“Any minute now,” he finished for her, sounding heartily amused.
She sank back into her chair, trying not to grimace. She probably didn’t succeed.
Just then a small commotion broke out in the hall—a few decidedly canine barks, followed by a high-pitched shriek of, “Newton! Newton! Stop that at once!”
“Newton?” the viscount queried.
“My dog,” Kate explained, sighing as she rose to her feet. “He doesn’t—”
“NEWTON!”
“—get along with Mary very well, I’m afraid.” Kate moved to the door. “Mary? Mary?”
Anthony rose when Kate did, wincing as the dog let out three more earsplitting barks, which were immediately followed by another terrified shriek from Mary. “What is he,” he muttered, “a mastiff?” It had to be a mastiff. Miss Sheffield the elder seemed exactly the sort to keep a man-eating mastiff at her beck and call.
“No,” Kate said, rushing out into the hall as Mary let out another shriek. “He’s a—”
But Anthony missed her words. It didn’t matter much, anyway, because one second later, in trotted the most benign-looking corgi he’d ever seen, with thick caramel-colored fur and a belly that almost dragged on the ground.
Anthony froze with surprise. This was the fearsome creature from the hall? “Good day, dog,” he said firmly.
The dog stopped in its tracks, sat right down, and…
Smiled?
Chapter 4
This Author was, sadly, unable to determine all the details, but there was a considerable to-do Thursday last near The Serpentine in Hyde Park involving Viscount Bridgerton, Mr. Nigel Berbrooke, both the Misses Sheffield, and an unnamed dog of indeterminate breed.
This Author was not an eyewitness, but all accounts seem to indicate that the unnamed dog emerged the victor.
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 25 APRIL 1814
Kate stumbled back into the drawing room, knocking arms with Mary as they both squeezed through the doorway at the same time. Newton was seated happily in the middle of the room, shedding on the blue-and-white rug as he grinned up at the viscount.
“I think he likes you,” Mary said, somewhat accusingly.
“He likes you, too, Mary,” Kate said. “The problem is that you don’t like him.”
“I’d like him better if he didn’t try to accost me every time I come through the hall.”
“I thought you said Mrs. Sheffield and the dog didn’t get along,” Lord Bridgerton said.
“They don’t,” Kate replied. “Well, they do. Well, they don’t and they do.”
“That clears things up immeasurably,” he murmured.
Kate ignored his quiet sarcasm. “Newton adores Mary,” she explained, “but Mary doesn’t adore Newton.”
“I’d adore him a bit more,” Mary interrupted, “if he’d adore me a bit less.”
“So,” Kate continued determinedly, “poor Newton regards Mary as something of a challenge. So when he sees her…” She shrugged helplessly. “Well, I’m afraid he simply adores her more.”
As if on cue, the dog caught sight of Mary and bounded straigh
t over to her feet.
“Kate!” Mary exclaimed.
Kate rushed to her stepmother’s side, just as Newton rose on his hind legs and planted his front paws just above Mary’s knees. “Newton, down!” she scolded. “Bad dog. Bad dog.”
The dog sat back down with a little whine.
“Kate,” Mary said in an extremely no-nonsense voice, “that dog must be taken for a walk. Now.”
“I had been planning to when the viscount arrived,” Kate replied, motioning to the man across the room. Really, it was remarkable the number of things she could blame on the insufferable man if she put her mind to it.
“Oh!” Mary yelped. “I beg your pardon, my lord. How rude of me not to greet you.”
“It is of no concern,” he said smoothly. “You were a bit preoccupied upon your arrival.”
“Yes,” Mary grumbled, “that beastly dog…. Oh, but where are my manners? May we offer you tea? Something to eat? It is so kind of you to call upon us.”
“No, thank you. I’ve just been enjoying your daughter’s invigorating company while I await Miss Edwina’s arrival.”
“Ah, yes,” Mary answered. “Edwina’s off with Mr. Berbrooke, I believe. Isn’t that so, Kate?”
Kate nodded stonily, not sure she liked being called “invigorating.”
“Do you know Mr. Berbrooke, Lord Bridgerton?” Mary asked.
“Ah, yes,” he said, with what Kate thought was fairly surprising reticence. “Yes, I do.”
“I wasn’t sure if I should have allowed Edwina to go off with him for a ride. Those curricles are terribly difficult to drive, aren’t they?”
“I believe that Mr. Berbrooke has a steady hand with his horses,” Anthony replied.
“Oh, good,” Mary replied, letting out a much-relieved sigh. “You have surely set my mind at rest.”
Newton let out a staccato bark, simply to remind everyone of his presence.
“I had better find his lead and take him for a walk,” Kate said hurriedly. She certainly could use a bit of fresh air. And it would be nice to finally escape the viscount’s fiendish company. “If you’ll excuse me…”