Page 3 of Taken to the Grave
Basil eyed him as he approached the study door and sniffed. “You will be changing, I hope.”
Hugh edged past him, into the foyer of the small townhome. “Would you allow me to exit this house if I did not?”
“Heavens, no,” he replied lightly, following as Hugh ascended the stairs.
“What is wrong with what I am wearing?” he asked, already shrugging out of his coat. “May I remind you thatyouwere the one who dressed me this morning.”
“But so much has changed since then, my lord.”
Hugh rolled his eyes. Basil had been with him several years, though his decision to employ a valet had not been made entirely out of practicality. Hugh’s father, the late viscount, had left him a generous living, one a gentleman could thrive upon. After his father’s death, he’d wanted to strike out on his own and prove that he did not need or depend upon the viscount’s money. However, when Hugh was tossed out of the ton for allegedly ruining Eloisa, and then when he permanently maimed Barty in a duel, he’d immediately leased a nice home and hired a small staff. He’d wanted to maintain a fragment of his respectable upbringing. Even more so, he’d wanted to prove that hewasa gentleman and not the degenerate society believed him to be.
“What the devil has changed so much in the last nine hours?”
Basil rode Hugh’s heels into the bedchamber and went straight to the bedside table. He picked up a small white silk box. Hugh groaned. He should have anticipated it being found and opened by his snoop of a valet.
“Thisis what has changed, my lord.” He opened the box and held it out for Hugh to see.
“I know what it is, Basil, thank you. But why would it change what I am wearing tonight?”
Hugh took the box from his valet and replaced the cover. The ring inside was a small sapphire, bedded down in a pillow of silk.
“It is only that if you plan to ask a certain question of a certain widow…” The valet trailed off, waving his hands in the air as if he couldn’t decide on his next words. Hugh tossed his jacket onto the bed.
“I am not proposing marriage to Audrey at Vauxhall.”
Basil released a breath and nearly doubled over. “Oh, thank goodness, that would have been a disaster.” He snapped up the coat and disappeared into the dressing room. “In that case, I’ll just fresh you up a bit.”
Hugh stared after him. “How would that be a disaster?”
“A proposal atVauxhall?” Basil returned with a new evening coat and a marked look of disgust. “Why not take her to a dance hall or a tavern down by the docks?”
Hugh glowered as he put on his coat. “How I ask her to marry me is none of your concern.”
Basil crinkled his forehead but said nothing as he brushed the shoulders and lapels of the midnight blue coat. Now that her mourning was finished, she would be free to marry again. The past year had seemed everlasting, and he’d longed for this moment. But how he would propose, what words he would say, and where he would say them, were nothing he had given much thought to. He’d promised Audrey a respectable and romantic proposal. Unsurprisingly, Vauxhall did not meet those standards.
Once finished, Basil stepped back to observe him. “And a walking stick, my lord?”
He took up a black cane with a silver top that Hugh had not seen resting against a chair.
“Have I developed a limp that I am not aware of?”
“It is au courant. I took the liberty of ordering one from Bealman’s,” Basil said as he displayed how the walking stick was to be held and used. After he’d struck three increasingly amusing poses, Hugh held up his hands.
“You may keep it.” He took up his hat and gloves from where Basil had lain them on the bed and opened the bedchamber door.
“Sir!” he bellowed. The boy would not be very far. Probably in the kitchen, sneaking food from the larder.
Sir was waiting for him in the foyer, a crumb of some pastry still attached to his bottom lip. He now stood nearly as tall as Hugh, after having had another growth spurt, and his voice had changed over entirely. It was rather disconcerting to hear not a squeaky street urchin whenever he spoke, but a growing young man.
“We’re leaving,” Hugh said as Whitlock opened the door for them. “You’re at the traces.”
Chapter
Two
Audrey entered the western gates to the pleasure gardens, and her stomach twisted into a tight knot. The time had come. Her first public outing with Hugh was about to commence, and only one week since the official end of her mourning period.
That day had dawned just like any other, and yet she’d risen from bed feeling lighter, freer than she had in twelve, long months. The buoyant sensation had carried her through the week, toward the planned evening out. Earlier that week, Hugh had dashed a note to her, asking her to meet him at Vauxhall for dinner and entertainment. People of all classes mixed there, and they were sure to be seen together by ton, gentry, and middle class alike. The whispers about their involvement had already started to take root, but walking arm-in-arm around the exhibits and dining in one of the supper boxes would make their attachment formally known.
