So could Della. She went up on her toes and kissed Mr. Dorning on the mouth, knowing she’d ambushed him. He tasted good, of peppermint and promises, and his arms around Della felt like home.
“Mischief,” he said, pulling on his gloves when Della had stepped back. “I have no immediate prospects, I come simply as a friend, and I find myself subject to irresistible mischief. For shame, my lady.”
He kissed her nose, and went whistling into the stables.
“Why is it,” Della asked the lovely spring day, “Lord Effington’s conceit and condescension, his title and all his silly manners, appeal to me not at all, while Mr. Dorning, who has a good heart and no immediate prospects, has stolen my fancy?”
She twirled once, for the sheer joy of making her skirts bell around her ankles, then scampered off to rejoin Susannah in the garden.
*
Effington’s horse was a plodder, but because his lordship’s afternoon had started with a jaunt to Knightsbridge, and the next errand after proposing to Lady Della would take Effington all the way to Bloomsbury, Effington was on horseback as he came up the alley behind the Haddonfield town house.
In Knightsbridge, he’d negotiated a tidy sum to be paid to him upon delivery of several big, nasty dogs who could take on the nasty job of regularly worrying a big, nasty bear. The expense of keeping the dogs in Bloomsbury would be eliminated for the nonce. Jasper and Horace, a disgracefully greedy pair, could then—at Effington’s direction—find or steal more big, nasty specimens for eventual sale in Knightsbridge.
A profitable day thus far, and marriage settlements would go even further toward relieving the monetary anxieties that played such havoc with Effington’s nerves.
Effington’s horse chose that moment to relieve itself, and being a plodder who did not appreciate a day spent dealing with London traffic, this equine trip to the jakes meant coming to a complete stop. The horse grunted, lifted his tail, and deposited a steaming pile of manure on the cobbles.
The gelding was not the sort to hurry even that indelicate process, and thus Effington was standing in his stirrups in the shade of a plane tree when up ahead, across the next intersection of alleys, Lady Della emerged from a back garden on the arm of Mr. Ash Dorning.
Her ladyship was affixed to Mr. Dorning in a most familiar manner, though Effington didn’t begrudge any woman her flirts. Life was tedious, and flirting was harmless.
Mr. Dorning looked rather well put together for a morning call, and he certainly wasn’t objecting to Lady Della’s presumption. Perhaps the fool didn’t understand that her ladyship could compromise his honor with a word.
Though, of course, she wouldn’t. Della Haddonfield tried to hide it, but she was a shrewd little baggage. She knew the value of a title, and did not expect hearts and flowers from a prospective spouse beyond what was required by appearances.
The horse grunted again, and dropped one last, damp, stinking addition to the pile on the cobbles. The innocuous scents of a shady Mayfair alley acquired an acrid pungence.
Rather than urge the horse forward, Effington let the beast stand a moment, for a bit of spying was in order, and neither Lady Della nor her caller had taken notice of Effington—of anything, save each other.
She said something, then plastered herself against Mr. Dorning and kissed him. Mr. Dorning kissed her ladyship back, and because the horse had stopped groaning and shuffling about, Effington caught the last few words.
“Mischief,” Dorning said smugly. “I have no immediate prospects, I come simply as a friend, and I find myself subjected to irresistible mischief. For shame, my lady.”
Dorning kissed her nose on that towering understatement, and strutted into the stables whistling a snippet of the Hallelujah Chorus.
Dorning had no prospects at all, as every member of Polite Society knew, so perhaps he’d simply humored a forward young woman.
Effington was about to signal his horse to walk on—the lazy beast usually ignored any command the first three times it was given—when Lady Della turned her face up to the dappled sunshine pouring from the heavens.
“Why is it,” she asked nobody that Effington could see, “Lord Effington’s conceit and condescension, his title and all his silly manners, appeal to me not at all, while Mr. Dorning, who has a good heart and no immediate prospects, has stolen my fancy?”
She twirled, her words twisting a dagger into the belly of Effington’s future, and flitted away, back to the garden from whence she’d come.
Ash Dorning emerged from the stables a few moments later, blew a kiss across the alley, mounted his horse, and trotted off, probably to steal kisses from other men’s fiancées, all the while claiming mere friendship.
Effington sat in the saddle for some minutes, sorting alternatives, debating whether he might that very instant confront her fickle ladyship with an offer of marriage.