Royal Regard

Chapter 2, Part 2

Lady Holsworthy's chin jutted out, shoulders straightened, and voice resonated across the ballroom, "I don't give a tuppenny damn for the way of things in London!"

Nick choked on his laugh and almost spilled his champagne, interest growing by the minute. If not for His Majesty openly pondering whether Lady Holsworthy should be made a countess in her own right, she had just ruined herself utterly. An assignation with Nick could hardly make things worse.

Someone in her foursome must have said something amusing, for Lady Holsworthy's distinctive laugh rang out like a too-loud clock chime ringing just slightly earlier than the hour, causing another ripple of turned heads and titters across the ballroom.

Lines were forming for a contredanse, but Lords Firthley and Holsworthy left their wives alone, presumably to find the card room. Lady Holsworthy glanced longingly toward the ladies' retiring room, but as she took a step toward the hall, Lady Firthley latched onto her wrist. Nick watched them battle it out beneath feigned good humor.

"You must have been abroad when she had her come-out," Still at his elbow, Nockham imparted a tasty morsel. "I heard fifteen years ago three times on the way across the ballroom, so I assume it's true."

"Is that your standard?" Nick asked, smirking. "I had wondered." He thought for a moment, reminiscing. "I think I was in... India? Perhaps Russia." He had spent more than ten years travelling extensively during his youth; the reason Lady Holsworthy had piqued his interest even before he laid eyes on her.

"Not a suitor to be found," Nockham continued, "but a few days after her presentation, the biggest wallflower of the Season was betrothed to a newly minted baron with an independent fortune larger than most peers. Soon after, they left England on a ship provided by the Prince of Wales. Since then, huge quarterly dividends and any number of settled treaties, but no Holsworthys."

"He will shortly be made a Privy Councillor and styled Earl of Huntleigh." Glancing around, Nick lowered his voice. "Which is confidential. I doubt Holsworthy has yet been informed, and I'll not break the king's confidence."

"'Tis a poor-kept secret. Now that Prinny can grant peerages without Parliament, seven-to-one at White's Holsworthy will be the first."

"His Majesty, King Prinny, to you, my boy," Nick quipped. "It will never do for a mere viscount to be so familiar with the most recent King George."

"She'll be a dowager countess soon, and a wealthy one at that. He's come home to die, I heard." Nockham indicated Lord Holsworthy with nothing but a shrug of his shoulder, continued disdain for a merchant, even a titled one.

"When His Majesty confers a title 'for a lifetime of service to the Crown,' the recipient is likely to expire before long. Had he stayed in England, this might have happened years ago." Of course, they both knew—everyone in London knew—if Lord Holsworthy had stayed in England, he would never have amassed such a fortune or so advanced the interests of England, so there would be no earldom at all.

"If he had stayed, he would never have had the money to buy his barony," Nockham pronounced.

Nick refuted this with a snort. "Holsworthy's barony, with his appointment to the diplomatic service, was conferred by the late king after he 'liberated' a huge tract of South American timberland from under Spain's nose."

Nockham tilted his head, questioning any facts he hadn't made up himself, so Nick obliged. "A peaceful treaty with some unheard-of heathen tribe." Nick had listened to the tale just that afternoon, punctuated with Prinny's laughter and pithy commentary about vanquished enemies of the Crown. "Eight thousand tons of mahogany and rosewood stripped and shipped back to England before the Spanish even knew it was there—at fifty pounds sterling a ton, mind you—and he left the natives with enough guns and powder to slaughter every Spaniard on the continent. So, Mister Clewes became Baron Holsworthy, married the first girl he found with a yen for travel, and sailed away with a brand-new ship and a tea plantation in India as a royal wedding present."