“Ready?”
Carys tied the ribbons of her bonnet under her chin and smiled at Frances’s excitement. “Absolutely. Gryff says this one isn’t as big as the Bartholomew Fair, but I can’t wait!”
She stepped up into the carriage and settled on the seat opposite Rhys and Morgan.
The three youngest Davies had elected to stay in the town house on Hanover Square when Gryff had bought a new home just around the corner for himself and his new wife, Maddie. Close enough to keep an eye on you, Gryff had joked, far enough away for my sanity.
Since Carys was effectively living in bachelor lodgings with her two unmarried brothers, Gryff had arranged for a nominal chaperone to live with them—their ancient spinster aunt Judith—to add a necessary veneer of respectability.
Judith was a wonderfully lax caretaker. Vague and shortsighted, she always had her nose in a book and rarely noticed or cared what Carys was up to. She’d refused today’s outing on the grounds that she “didn’t want to see people.”
“We’re following Gryff and Maddie’s carriage to Hampstead so we don’t lose them,” Morgan explained, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He let out a jaw-cracking yawn and Carys sent him an amused look.
“I’m impressed to see you out of bed before noon,” she teased. She pretended to study him like some strange new species of animal. “Look, Frances! The elusive, nocturnal Morgan-beast. It’s said to be grouchy and extremely hard to tame. Few have ever seen one in daylight.”
Morgan sent her a good-natured growl.
Rhys elbowed him in the ribs. “Somebody didn’t get home until just before dawn.” He chuckled. “You must have had a good night.”
Morgan shot him an evil look. “I did, actually. I won a hundred pounds at faro, got drunk at White’s, and ended the night with a charming young lady from Drury Lane who did the most amazing thing with—” He noticed Carys’s and Frances’s rapt attention. “Never mind what she could do,” he finished quickly.
Carys laughed. “Oh, don’t stop there. It was just getting interesting.”
Rhys shook his head. “Definitely not, minx. Some things are not for a lady’s ears.”
Carys’s heart clenched in her chest at his brotherly teasing. It was sweet, but also a little poignant that they still thought to shield her from such bawdy topics. She would never be their unsullied little sister ever again.
That thought flashed her back to another carriage, and her conversation with Tristan, and her face heated. She hadn’t been able to think of anything else for days. He’d implied that he found her attractive. She didn’t know whether to believe it or not, but her sinful imagination kept wondering what would have happened if he’d been serious.
And what would have happened if she’d said yes …
“I’ve arranged to meet James,” Frances sighed happily. “At the hot-air balloon ride at one o’clock. It should be easy to find.”
Rhys and Morgan both rolled their eyes at her besotted expression. Since Frances had been their London neighbor and Carys’s best friend for most of their lives, they considered her an honorary, extra sister.
The two girls had both attended Miss Wickerstone’s School for Young Ladies, and their friendship had been the only good thing to come out of the whole miserable experience; Carys had had no desire to learn embroidery, flower arranging, or household management.
Perhaps if Miss Wickerstone had offered instruction on interesting subjects, like the care of exotic animals, or piracy, or treasure hunting, then she might have applied herself to her studies more diligently, but as it was she could only look back on her two years at the academy with profound dislike.
“James said he was bringing Tristan Montgomery.”
Frances’s sunny expression belied the sly sideways smile she slid at Carys.
Rhys groaned. “Ugh. Not just a Montgomery, but a cavalryman too. Those boys are insufferable. They think they’re single-handedly responsible for winning every battle they’ve ever been in.”
Morgan chuckled. “Said like a true fusilier. But you can’t blame Tristan if he prefers horses to blowing things up.”
“I happen to like both.” Rhys sniffed haughtily. “Just not at the same time.”
Carys bit back a smile. Gryff and Rhys had both seen action in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, an infantry regiment. Morgan, just to be perverse, had joined the navy. Tristan and James, on the other hand, had both been dragoons: mounted cavalry.
Considering the terrifying number of battles they’d all been involved in, it was a miracle that none of them had been killed or seriously wounded. She’d prayed every night for their safe return. Now, with Bonaparte on the rampage in Europe again, the possibility that they might be called upon to fight once more was a looming specter she didn’t want to contemplate.
Not today. Today was a day to have fun.
Was that even possible with Tristan Montgomery in the vicinity?
The thought of seeing him again had her stomach in knots. How should she act when she saw him?
She’d spent an unusually long time trying to decide what to wear. The fair was being held on the notoriously windy Hampstead Heath, but the weather was mild, the perfect spring day, so she’d settled for a pretty sprigged muslin and a matching spencer jacket. Nothing too expensive that would make her an easy target for the gangs of thieves and cutpurses who abounded wherever there were crowds.
When the carriage pulled up at the entrance to the fair they all jumped down, and Carys grinned with anticipation as they joined the throng heading toward the maze of covered stalls and sideshows. Fairs like this were popular with people from all walks of life, from aristocrats to slum dwellers, all glad of a distraction from their daily lives.
A cacophony of conflicting musical tunes floated over the laughter and conversation. There was an air of palpable excitement as friends hailed one another and vendors hawked their wares.
“Oysters! Get your fresh oysters ’ere!”
“Step this way, ladies! See the Tall Dutchwoman!”
“Baby crocodiles hatched from their eggs by steam!”
A miasma of roast pork and spiced wine enveloped them as sellers of beer and tobacco shouted for custom. Stalls selling everything from mousetraps to puppies, purses to singing birds, lined the temporary “streets.”
Rhys pointed toward a brightly painted hot-air balloon that was rising majestically over the top of the stalls. “That way.”
They skirted around a fire-eater but paused to watch a Scaramouche on a rope, who somehow managed to push a wheelbarrow containing two children and a dog along before him.
Frances tugged at her sleeve. “There’s James and Tristan!”
Carys’s heart gave a foolish jolt. Tristan in daylight was just as attractive as Tristan in a candlelit ballroom. He was dressed with his usual precision, in tight buckskin breeches, shiny black leather top boots that seemed to scorn the very idea of mud, a white shirt, and a perfectly fitted dark-navy jacket.
He would probably look just as good if it were streaming with rain and the field was a muddy quagmire.
As always, she was seized by the urge to grab his cravat and muss up his hair. To see him all scruffy and befuddled. She clenched the handle of her parasol. Stop it.
He acknowledged their approach with a bow, and as he greeted her brothers she decided to behave as though their conversation in the carriage had never happened. The group started forward, with Rhys and Morgan at the front followed by Frances and James, so she and Tristan fell into step together.
“I suppose the tightness of your coat is an antitheft measure,” she mocked, by way of greeting. “So you’d feel if someone tried to slide a hand into your pocket to relieve you of your watch.”
His amused glance liquefied her insides. “I’m gratified you’re paying such attention to my tailoring. Would you care to test your theory? Try and rob me. I’ll say if I can feel your touch.”
The thought of sliding her hand over the silky satin of his waistcoat, or inside the lining of his jacket, made her feel faint.
“No thank you.” She cleared her throat and took a cooling step away from him. “I’m surprised to see you here, actually. All this rowdy frivolity is hardly your style. Wouldn’t you rather be designing an orangery or something?”
“You don’t think I know how to have fun? I assure you I do. If you’d taken me up on my offer the other evening, you’d have been left in no doubt.”
His gaze dropped to her lips and a fizzle of excitement shimmered through her blood. The devil! Why was it that she could flirt with a hundred other men and feel nothing but faint enjoyment, but every interaction with Tristan left her singed? It made no sense. She was the flame-haired, passionate one. He was as calm and collected as a glacier.
Except for the heat in his eyes when he looked at her.
She bit her lip.
“What offer’s that?” Frances asked brightly. She’d been eavesdropping shamelessly.
Carys’s heart pounded in alarm, but Tristan sent Frances an easy smile. “Oh, nothing really. I … just offered to help Carys find a husband.”
Carys’s mouth dropped open in shock at his unexpected improvisation.
Frances looked no less surprised. “You did?”
Tristan nodded, completely unruffled by his monstrous falsehood. “I offered my services in vetting potential suitors. To provide a gentleman’s perspective.”
Carys glared at him, but he met her look with a bland smile. She ground her teeth. Oh, he was thoroughly enjoying her discomfort.
Frances beamed, oblivious to the scalding undercurrents. “Why, that’s a marvelous idea. How kind.”
“Indeed!” Carys growled. “Almost unbelievably so.”
Tristan nodded graciously. “It makes sense, if you think about it. I’m about the only man in the ton who doesn’t want to marry her. Which means I can be completely impartial.”
Carys laughed to cover her mortification. Hearing him reject her so clearly was like a knife to the heart. “I told him how ludicrous it is! How could he be impartial? Our families have been enemies for centuries. He’d shackle me to someone dreadful just for his own amusement.”
Tristan had the gall to look offended. “You don’t trust me?”
“No! And I certainly don’t require your dubious help. I’ll find my own husband, thank you.”
Frances shook her head, as if Carys was being unreasonable, and Carys feigned interest in the stalls and sideshows, glad of the distraction.
A glassblower in a glass wig was blowing teacups for three pence apiece. Vendors of miraculous medicines promised to cure everything from baldness to “love fever.” They stopped to buy some still-warm gingerbread, then watched a troupe of acrobats tumble and balance to riotous applause.
“Look at that!” Morgan laughed, pointing to a sign that advertised “Wallace the learned pig.” “It says he can tell the time to the minute, and pick out any specified card in a pack, while blindfolded!”
He was interrupted by another cry. “Step up, step up, ladies and gents! Come see Wombwell’s famous traveling menagerie! See the fearsome lions and leopards! Gaze in wonder at the mighty rhinoceros—the true unicorn of scripture!”
The jolly music of a brass band was coming from within a huge cloth tent, beyond which a semicircle of fifteen or so wagons was arranged, the cages filled with dark shapes.
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to see a rhinoceros!” Frances clapped her hands, her face aglow with excitement. “Even you don’t have one of those, Carys.”
“Come see the zebra that once belonged to Louis the Sixteenth!” the man shouted. “Taken from Versailles in the revolution. Rescued from Paris last year!”
“I’m not sure I believe that,” Carys muttered. “I heard all the poor King’s animals died of starvation, like half the populace of Paris.”
Tristan sent her an amused glance. “Oh, come. Let’s take a look. I’ve never seen a rhinoceros either. Unless you count my friend Seb’s aunt, the Dread Dowager Duchess of Winwick; she’s terrifying and impossibly thick-skinned too.”