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she wishes to associate.’
George stared at him a moment. ‘Meaning, you do intend to pester her with your attentions?’
‘I have never “pestered” a woman,’ Giles retorted. ‘If a lady indicates she is uninterested in my company, I am not so boorish as to inflict it upon her.’ That shot flying entirely over his brother’s head, he added, ‘As I said, it is the lady’s choice.’
‘Excellent!’ George said, a self-satisfied look replacing the hostility of his expression. ‘I may be easy, then. Her father would never allow an association so detrimental to her good name and the regard in which she is universally held. That being all I wished to ascertain, I will bid you goodnight.’
Avoiding, as he always did, using either Giles’s last name or honorary title, George nodded and walked back towards the card room.
Leaving Giles staring after him incredulously.
He should be happy, he told himself as he gathered up his papers again, that his half-brother’s incredible arrogance spared him the necessity of wrangling with George over his intention to seek out Lady Margaret. Apparently, his half-brother thought the lady a puppet who moved at her father’s command. And he was certain the marquess would command her to stay away from Giles, and marry George.
Fortunately, Giles already knew the first assumption was unlikely—Lady Margaret had told him plainly that her father respected him.
As for the latter, Lady Margaret seemed sincerely attached to her father, and probably would not willingly displease him. However, Giles doubted the independent lady he’d seen joking with voters on the hustings would let her father compel her into a marriage she did not want.
That conclusion cheered him almost as much as avoiding an ugly confrontation with his half-brother.
Nothing George had told him altered his intention to seek out the lady, at least until George or—he frowned at the thought—his watching minions discovered Giles had seen her again. By then, he should have confirmed whether or not his attraction to her—and hers to him—was strong enough for him to justify navigating the tricky course around his half-brother’s presumptions.
He had no clear idea what sort of relationship he envisioned. Not marriage, certainly—his tenuous position and his past were too chequered to inflict that association on any woman. But the lady was a widow, and perfectly able to indulge in a discreet dalliance, if their respective desires led that way…
Tantalised by the thought, Giles set off for the hackney stand, eager to report back to his friends at the Quill and Gavel. As he climbed into the vehicle, it suddenly occurred to him that he had another pressing reason to seek out Lady Margaret, whether or not the powerful connection between them recurred.
Giles felt the lady ought to know that his half-brother was keeping her under surveillance.
At Lady Margaret’s probable reaction to that news, he had to smile.
Shortly after the opening of Parliament two weeks later, Lady Margaret climbed the stairs to the Ladies’ Gallery in the upper storey of St Stephen’s Chapel. The odd arrangement in that chamber—a round bench surrounding a wooden lantern at the centre of the room, whose eight small openings allowed a limited view down into the House of Commons below—would make watching the debates difficult, though she would be able to hear all the speeches.
And she’d heard that Giles Hadley was to give an address on behalf of the Reform Bill today.
She claimed a place, thinking with longing of the unobstructed view that, seated right on a bench beside the members, she enjoyed when she attended the Lords to listen to her father. The best she could hope for in this room, if she were lucky and the gentleman stood in the right place, was to catch a glimpse of Mr Hadley’s head. Remembering that gentleman’s magnificent eyes and commanding figure, seeing no more than the top of his head was going to be a great loss.
Would his voice alone affect her? Her stomach fluttered and a shiver prickled her nerves, just as it had each time she’d thought of the man since their meeting several weeks ago. And she’d thought of him often.
Doubtless far too often, for a man she’d met only once, who did not appear at any of the ton’s balls or parties—where she’d looked for him in vain—and who did not frequent the same political gatherings she attended.
But oh, how even the thought of him still stirred her!
She would certainly try to meet him today. After spending the last several weeks finding herself continually distracted by recalling their encounter, sorting through possible explanations for the magic of it, and wondering whether it might happen again, she was tired of acting like a silly schoolgirl suffering her first infatuation. She wanted her calm, reasonable self back. For even if he did seem as compelling upon second meeting as he had upon the first, at her age, she should be wise enough not to lose her head over him.
Besides, seeing him again in the prosaic light of a Parliamentary anteroom, it was far more likely that he would cease being the stuff of dreams and turn into just another normal, attractive man.
Soon the session was called to order and a succession of speakers rose to address the group, met by silence or shouted comments from the opposing bench, depending on how controversial the subject being addressed. After several hours, stiff from sitting on the hard bench, Maggie was about to concede defeat and make her way out when the voice that had whispered through her dreams tickled her ears.
Shock vibrating through her, she craned her head towards the nearest opening, hoping for a glimpse of him.
The light dancing on the wavy, blue-black curls sent another little shock through her. Nerves tingling and breathing quickened, she bent down, positioning herself to catch even the smallest glimpse as he paced below her.
His voice held her rapt—oh, what a voice! Her father was right—Giles Hadley was a born orator, his full, rich tones resonating through the chamber. As he continued to press his points, even the disdainful comments of the opposition grew fewer, and finally died away altogether.
When the rising volume and increasingly urgent tone indicated the approaching climax of the speech, Maggie found herself leaning even further forward, anxious to take in every word.
‘For too long,’ he exhorted, ‘we have allowed the excesses of Revolutionary France to stifle the very discussion of altering the way our representatives are chosen. But this is England, not France. Are we a nation of cowards?’
After pausing to accommodate the chorus of ‘no’s he continued, ‘Then let nothing prevent us in this session from doing what all rational men know should be done: eliminate these pocket boroughs that give undue influence to a few voters or the wealthy neighbour who can sway them, and restore to our government a more balanced system of representation, a fair system, a just system, one that works in the harmony our noble forebears intended!’
As his voice died away, he came to a stop right below her, his head bowed as he acknowledged the cheers and clapping from the Whigs, the mutter of dissent from the Tories. Then, as if some invisible force had telegraphed her presence, he looked up through the opening, and their eyes met.
The energy that pulsed between them in that instant raised the tiny hairs at the back of her neck. Then an arm appeared in her narrow view, pulling him away, and he was lost to her sight.
Straightening, Maggie found herself trembling. Thrilled by the power of his oratory, she remained seated, too shaken to move.
Papa had said everyone expected great things of him, and she now understood why. How could Lord Grey resist adding so compelling a Reformer to his staff? Even the Tories had fallen silent under the power of his rhetoric.
When he spoke with such passionate conviction, she suspected that he’d be able to persuade her to almost anything.