flocked around the vehicle were several of his cronies. Lord Darby approached, not averse to making the acquaintance of yet another accredited beauty.
Lady Barbour wore a walking dress of jaconet muslin with a ruff, a delicious confection of a bonnet and a blue levantine pelisse; and it was patent after mere seconds of observation that she was a beautiful peagoose. As quickly as it had been attracted, Lord Darby’s attention strayed. Like Dr. Kilpatrick, he had become inured to beauty, and particularly to beautiful peageese. He glanced at the other occupants of the cabriolet. The youngest he immediately disregarded, shy young misses not being a rakehell’s preference. The other he eyed curiously.
He knew who she was, of course, even though their paths had not previously crossed; the ton, to which they both belonged, was very largely a closed community. So this magnificently disordered creature was the seditious Morgan Phyfe. Lord Darby had no eye for fashion, and thus noted not that Miss Phyfe’s raiment was unstylish, but instead that in her careless disarray was a strong quality of déshabillé. Long familiarity had not dulled Lord Darby’s appreciation of lovely ladies en déshabillé. He edged his horse closer, his intention to eavesdrop.
No current on-dit animated the lady’s classic features, he discovered; no crim.con. tale accounted for the flush on her delicate cheeks. Instead she was going on at great length about the sad inequities of the English political system. How passionate she was, and on so odd a topic—and how that passion made her listeners squirm. Lord Darby was a man appreciative of passion in all its myriad guises. He was as well not a man accustomed to squelching impulse. And so he laughed aloud.
Thus interrupted once more in mid-speech,tion’s source, on her face a distinct annoyance. That face Lord Darby contemplated with all the interest of the connoisseur. Quixotic was the word for Miss Phyfe, he decided, diverted by the combination of perfect oval features with a zeal for parliamentary reform. Almost, he envied her purpose and commitment, the intense enthusiasm she felt for her subject. It had been a long time since Lord Darby had felt enthusiasm about anything, he realized, as his contemplative gaze lingered on Miss Phyfe’s seditious and eminently kissable lips. He continued his assessment and found her complexion flawless, her nose perfectly straight, and her brown eyes remarkably handsome.
Currently those eyes were fixed on his person. In them was an unmistakably unappreciative expression. So unaccustomed was Lord Darby to this reaction—at least from a chance-met female, though the gentlemen of his acquaintance were prone to such—that he began to wonder how he had unwittingly caused offense.
Though she would have thrown herself into the Serpentine before making so lowering an admission, it was not offense that Lord Darby had caused Morgan Phyfe. No female alive could gaze unaffected upon the dark and dissipated countenance of this most devastating of rakehells. Morgan felt as if she had been turned upside down and inside out.
Naturally this sensation made her very cross. “Hah!” she uttered. “Lilies of the field!”
This comment was not at all what Lord Darby had come to expect of chance-met females. Though he was no coxcomb, diverse members of the fair sex had been running mad for him since his salad days. Here was no woman to toad-eat a man, hang upon his lips and half-smother him with her caressing ways.
A smile lurked in his lordship’s disenchanted eyes as, ruthlessly, he forced several other gentlemen out of his pathway. “Lilies of the field?” he repeated, when he reached the cabriolet. “Do you refer to my little peccadilloes, Miss Phyfe? I personally would not deem it a proper topic of conversation between virtual strangers, but you must know best. Not that I care a button about propriety, so you may please yourself.”
So taken aback was Miss Phyfe that
Lady Barbour wore a walking dress of jaconet muslin with a ruff, a delicious confection of a bonnet and a blue levantine pelisse; and it was patent after mere seconds of observation that she was a beautiful peagoose. As quickly as it had been attracted, Lord Darby’s attention strayed. Like Dr. Kilpatrick, he had become inured to beauty, and particularly to beautiful peageese. He glanced at the other occupants of the cabriolet. The youngest he immediately disregarded, shy young misses not being a rakehell’s preference. The other he eyed curiously.
He knew who she was, of course, even though their paths had not previously crossed; the ton, to which they both belonged, was very largely a closed community. So this magnificently disordered creature was the seditious Morgan Phyfe. Lord Darby had no eye for fashion, and thus noted not that Miss Phyfe’s raiment was unstylish, but instead that in her careless disarray was a strong quality of déshabillé. Long familiarity had not dulled Lord Darby’s appreciation of lovely ladies en déshabillé. He edged his horse closer, his intention to eavesdrop.
No current on-dit animated the lady’s classic features, he discovered; no crim.con. tale accounted for the flush on her delicate cheeks. Instead she was going on at great length about the sad inequities of the English political system. How passionate she was, and on so odd a topic—and how that passion made her listeners squirm. Lord Darby was a man appreciative of passion in all its myriad guises. He was as well not a man accustomed to squelching impulse. And so he laughed aloud.
Thus interrupted once more in mid-speech,tion’s source, on her face a distinct annoyance. That face Lord Darby contemplated with all the interest of the connoisseur. Quixotic was the word for Miss Phyfe, he decided, diverted by the combination of perfect oval features with a zeal for parliamentary reform. Almost, he envied her purpose and commitment, the intense enthusiasm she felt for her subject. It had been a long time since Lord Darby had felt enthusiasm about anything, he realized, as his contemplative gaze lingered on Miss Phyfe’s seditious and eminently kissable lips. He continued his assessment and found her complexion flawless, her nose perfectly straight, and her brown eyes remarkably handsome.
Currently those eyes were fixed on his person. In them was an unmistakably unappreciative expression. So unaccustomed was Lord Darby to this reaction—at least from a chance-met female, though the gentlemen of his acquaintance were prone to such—that he began to wonder how he had unwittingly caused offense.
Though she would have thrown herself into the Serpentine before making so lowering an admission, it was not offense that Lord Darby had caused Morgan Phyfe. No female alive could gaze unaffected upon the dark and dissipated countenance of this most devastating of rakehells. Morgan felt as if she had been turned upside down and inside out.
Naturally this sensation made her very cross. “Hah!” she uttered. “Lilies of the field!”
This comment was not at all what Lord Darby had come to expect of chance-met females. Though he was no coxcomb, diverse members of the fair sex had been running mad for him since his salad days. Here was no woman to toad-eat a man, hang upon his lips and half-smother him with her caressing ways.
A smile lurked in his lordship’s disenchanted eyes as, ruthlessly, he forced several other gentlemen out of his pathway. “Lilies of the field?” he repeated, when he reached the cabriolet. “Do you refer to my little peccadilloes, Miss Phyfe? I personally would not deem it a proper topic of conversation between virtual strangers, but you must know best. Not that I care a button about propriety, so you may please yourself.”
So taken aback was Miss Phyfe that
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