At that moment Darcy appeared. “Are you ready to go, Georgie? The bride and groom are about to leave and I thought . . .” He broke off when he saw I was standing beside Tristram. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. How are you, Hautbois?”

“Pretty fair. And yourself, O’Mara?”

“Can’t complain. Will you excuse us? I have to take Georgie home.”

“I turn into a pumpkin at six o’clock,” I attempted to joke.

“I look forward to seeing you again, Lady Georgiana,” Tristram said formally.

As Darcy turned away and attempted to fight his way through the crowd to the door, Tristram grabbed my arm. “Watch out for O’Mara,” he whispered. “He’s a bit of a cad. Not quite trustworthy.”

Chapter 7

Rannoch House
Saturday, April 23, 1932

We came out to a mild April evening. The setting sun was streaming across the park.

“There,” Darcy said, taking my arm to help me down the steps. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You survived perfectly well and you’re considerably better fed and wined than you were a couple of hours ago. In fact there are now nice healthy roses to your cheeks.”

“I suppose so,” I said, “but I don’t think I plan on doing it again. Too hair-raising. There were people who knew me.”

“Like that twerp Hautbois?” Darcy said scathingly.

“You know Tristram, then?”

“I can’t say I actually socialize with him these days. We were at school together. At least, I was a couple of years above him. He snitched to the masters and got me a beating once.”

“For doing what?”

“Trying to take something from him, I believe,” he said. “Sniveling little brute that he was.”

“He seems quite pleasant now,” I said.

“Has he asked to see you again?”

“He’s offered to show me around London.”

“Has he now.”

With a thrill I realized that he might be jealous. I grinned.

“So how on earth do you know him?” Darcy went on. “He can’t have been one of your partners at those dreary deb balls, surely?”

“We were practically related once. My mother was married to his guardian. We used to—to play together.” Somehow I couldn’t use the word “naked” with Darcy.

“I’d imagine you are probably practically related to a good many people on several continents,” he said and raised an eyebrow.

“I think my mother only actually married the first few bolts,” I said. “In those days she was conventional enough to still believe she should marry them. Now she just—”

“Lives in sin?” Again that challenging smile that did something to my insides.

“As you say.”

“That would never work for me,” he said. “As a Catholic, I’d be damned to hell if I kept marrying and divorcing. The church considers marriage sacred and divorce a mortal sin.”

“And if you kept living in sin with somebody?”

He grinned. “I think the church would prefer that, given the options.”

I glanced up at him as we waited to cross Park Lane. Penniless, Irish, and a Catholic too. Quite unsuitable in every way. If I were still being chaperoned, I’d have been bundled into the nearest cab and whisked away instantly.