Gilded Lily Read Free Page A

lewd speculation. Freddie knew he teased to cover his genuine adoration of Sophie, a poignant longing that society would always make it impossible to requite. A footman could love a gentlewoman from afar all he liked, but the emotion could never bring him anything but empty daydreams and misery.
    Freddie didn’t know why Dan subjected himself to it, but she tried to be sympathetic while at the same time subtly discouraging him. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever seen her before her maid was through with her in the morning.”
    She also didn’t understand the embarrassed laugh and cough Dan hid in his glove, much like he’d done at old Armintrout’s earlier. But that was Dan, he’d always had inscrutable moments as long as she’d known him. All her life, in fact. He was the big brother she’d never had, except that she’d more or less always had him.
    A heavier-than-usual patch of traffic and slow-moving pedestrians held them motionless for a few minutes, long enough for Freddie to grow anxious. The nearest walker, a youngish gentleman, had stopped alongside them. He stared in bewilderment from his map to the surrounding scenery, then in dismay at the cobbled road beneath their carriage.
    â€œHaven’t they ever heard of asphalt?” she heard him say into the lull, apparently to no one in particular. Clearly the street noise was too much for him. Delicate sensibilities, perhaps. Or he was a tourist; he had a foreign look about his clothes, an accent that hinted at time spent in the American Dominions.
    â€œThey’ve started it north of the river,” Dan remarked to him, leaning down sociably from his seat. “But it’ll be a cold day for Lucifer before the nobs this far west allow that much change. Not to mention the smell when they lay it down. Nah, here it’ll be cobbles and setts until they die, I’d wager.”
    Unheard-of cheek, especially coming from Dan, who was usually so sober and proper. The tourist was obviously no commoner. But it was safe enough, Freddie supposed. The next moment the steam coach ahead of them lurched forward, and all was noise and motion once again. The puzzled, fresh-faced gentleman was lost in the crowd, left alone with his map to speculate on road surfaces and how to find his way through London. Freddie forgot him the moment he was out of view.
    Wallingford House loomed ahead of them for a moment, before Dan diverted the pony down another side street to the mews. They would enter as two rough tinker-makesmiths, then Dan would reemerge in his livery and return with the trap to Rutherford Murcheson’s stately Belgravia residence several streets away.
    Miss Frédérique Murcheson would return home again only after attending a ball under the watchful eye of her friend and frequent chaperone, the Lady Sophronia Wallingford. With her mother now settled resolutely in France, and her father in London only occasionally for business, Freddie was able to get away with quite a lot—but sometimes even she couldn’t weasel her way out of an important social occasion.
    After all, when the Queen called . . .
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    B ARNABAS STARED AT the map, then at the street in front of him, wishing for the dozenth time that he’d opted to unpack his dirigible and fly to his employer’s home, instead of taking the Metropolitan railway from the air ferry stop in Hillingdon, then walking to his final destination. It had seemed like a foolish waste of time to launch himself instead of taking advantage of the local transportation, but now he eyed the individual airships above with envy. He could have at least taken a taxicab, but he had the ridiculous notion that he knew the town well, and he’d judged the cab not worth the expense for such a short distance.
    London was not as thickly populated as New York, but it sprawled for what seemed like endless miles. Ancient, meandering