Lady Margery's Intrigues by Marion Chesney Read Free Book Online Page B

on the social scene. This enchantress, who had not only bowled over three of his misogynist friends but had captivated the great Brummell himself, could not be the dowdily dressed little girl who had graced the walls of Almack's so many times.
    “Remember last season, Freddie? Remember the last ball at Almack's, I asked you for the name of the girl who was sitting out with a plump lady and I subsequently asked her to dance? You told me then that that was Lady Margery Quennell, daughter of the Earl of Chelmswood.”
    Freddie racked his feeble memory. “Can't be the same girl,” he said at last. “I would have noticed.”
    “Whoever she is,” said the marquess smoothly. “Has it ever occured to you, Freddie, that you are a very wealthy young man and that she may be setting lures out to trap you into marriage?”
    Freddie looked at him for a long minute while he digested this piece of information. He began to get angry. “Look here, Edgecombe,” snapped Freddie, “just because you fancy yourself as a bit of a ladies’ man, there's no reason to sneer at me. I liked the little lady, ‘pon my soul I did, and if you cast ... cast...”
    “Aspersions.”
    “Aspersions at her, I'll have to call you out.”
    And, tucking the fan carefully into his waistcoat, Freddie stalked out, walking between the tables of Watier's without stumbling for the first time in his life.
    The marquess sat for a long time lost in thought. He was very fond of his cheerful, innocent friends. They had all been in short coats at Eton together. He did not want to see them duped by an adventuress.
    At last he came to a decision. He would find Lady Margery's address and pay a call. The marquess was well aware of his attraction for the opposite sex. If Lady Margery hoped to trick one of his friends into marriage, then she would have the Marquess of Edgecombe to reckon with. He would make her fall in love with himself. And that would teach the designing minx a well-deserved lesson.
    CHAPTER FOUR
    “Must you do that?” said the marquess crossly.
    He was sitting patiently in Beau Brummell's drawing room, waiting for the leader of London fashion to finish his toilette. It was not the extensive barbering that so annoyed the marquess but the fact that George Brummell, not content with Robinson's meticulous shaving, was carefully going over his face with a pair of tweezers to make sure that every single hair was gone.
    “My face is my fortune,” remarked the Beau, unmoved. “Also my mannerisms, my dress, and my ability to stare duchesses out of countenance. You, dear Charles, are not normally a devotee of my levees. I can see from the martial glint in your cold blue eye that you are excessively put out. What is the cause?”
    “Lady Margery Quennell. You promised to reduce her to an unfashionable wreck and instead all London is buzzing with the news that the great Brummell took her to supper and seemed to be enchanted with her company.”
    “I was,” said the Beau, tying his cravat in the tròne d'amour , a very well starched style, with one single horizontal dent in the middle; color, yeux de fille en extase . “She is not an adventuress, Charles, for I know the breed well. She told me she collects originals."
    “That's a damned insulting way to refer to my friends."
    The Beau cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him. “Take a damper, Charles. It is not like you to take the opinions of any lady so seriously. I shall not cut her, you know. She has great charm.”
    “Then I shall deal with her myself,” said the marquess, striding from the room and leaving his friend to stare after him in amazement.
    It was easy for the marquess to find that Lady Margery was resident in Berkeley Square. An aged butler ushered him into the drawing room and departed to inform Lady Margery of his visit.
    The marquess looked round the small but tastefully furnished drawing room and wondered why Lady Margery had not taken up residence in her father's great barracks of a place