He was trying to make some point, but Iris grasped only the first part of his declaration. “You have not yet made your choice. You aren’t devoted to anybody yet.”
“Precisely.” He took off his gloves, a curious thing to do when the supper was still a set of dances away. “I am free to behave as I please, and I please to make your one, honest wish come true—if I may?”
A peculiar sensation welled from Iris’s middle, part glee, part terror. “You’d like to kiss me?”
“That was your wish.”
Her wish had involved a particular kind of kiss, which Clonmere couldn’t possibly deliver.
She nodded.
He framed her face in the warmth of his hands. “Then… as you wish, my lady.”
Iris braced her hands on his shoulders and braced her heart to be swept into a maelstrom of sensation, but the buffeting never came. Clonmere touched his mouth to hers, another request for permission.
She stepped nearer, letting him have her weight. “Again, please.”
He smiled against her mouth, and as the violins began a lilting introduction in the distance, Iris embarked on the kiss of her dreams. For a big man, Clonmere was delicate about his intimacies. He stroked Iris’s face, feature by feature, then kissed the terrain his fingers had explored. He teased, he flirted, he bit her earlobe and made her laugh.
And then he grew serious, wrapping Iris close and letting her feel every masculine, muscular, aroused inch of him.
Some inconvenient voice was trying to warn Iris that she’d regret this. The kiss wasn’t wrong—Clonmere was not spoken for, Iris wasn’t either—but it was stolen against all the years when such a kiss would be impossible. Long, lonely years, made more difficult by this intimacy.
As Iris tasted Clonmere’s mouth, explored lips and teeth and tongue with him, she found a thread of peace with her future: In the coming years, she could keep a distance from Clonmere, and being a gentleman, he’d understand and allow that.
But at least she’d have this kiss. This wonderful, perfect, cherishing, happy kiss, and for that she would never, ever be sorry.
If a woman could say, “Yes, please court me!” in a kiss, Lady Iris was saying that very thing. She had a grip on Clonmere’s hair at the nape of his neck that spoke of possession and passion. She pressed close to him, breast to chest, hips to happiness.
Had not somebody tittered, loudly, from the direction of the terrace, Clonmere might have borne the lady away to his coach, there to follow kisses with even greater intimacies.
Lady Iris broke the kiss but remained in his embrace and kept her arms about him.
“What are you thinking?” Clonmere asked, stroking her hair.
“I cannot think. I cannot even think about thinking.”
That makes two of us. “We would suit, Lady Iris.” He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to be so graceless about his intentions.
She drew back and fluffed his cravat. “I fear we would, Your Grace, but if I were to marry you, my father would be wroth with all four of his daughters. He’d say I stole you from the other three, he’d claim they didn’t exert themselves hard enough to win your notice. I am the one daughter you cannot marry.”
Merely straightening his linen, Iris addled his wits. “And if your sisters found suitable spouses?”
“That they cannot do that until you’ve chosen your duchess.”
“My prospective papa-in-law wants a stern talking to.”
Lady Iris wandered back to the fountain as the quartet began a fortissimo restatement of the waltz melody.
“To be honest,” Iris, said, “I suspect Falmouth is in want of coin. My brother has gambling debts, my father has little sense where to profitably invest the rents. I’ll be retiring to the country this summer lest Falmouth make designs on my competence.”
No you will not, not without me. “Perhaps Falmouth will allow me to assist my duchess’s sisters to find suitable situations.”
Lady Iris turned, arms crossed. “You will arrange nothing for me, Clonmere. I am provided for, thanks to my late mother’s settlements, while my sisters must marry well.”
“How can you kiss me like that, and then announce you’ll decamp to damned Lesser Sheep Byre, wishing me well as I court a lady of whom I am not enamored? Your sisters are lovely women, Iris, but they aren’t you.”
She was quiet for so long, the waltz had come to an end before she spoke. “You are a duke, you understand responsibility and the importance of family. If Papa thinks I have interfered with your choice of bride to further my own interests, he will exact a toll. He will refuse me the company of my sisters. He will forbid my brothers to contact me, and they very much need a lady’s civilizing influence. He will interfere with my funds, which would be all too easy for him to do as long as I remain unwed. I must tread very, very lightly, Your Grace, or others will pay should my course be guided by selfishness.”
Truly she was more a duchess than Clonmere was a duke. “And the urgency to decide the matter within the month of April?”
“Falmouth cannot afford the expenses of a full Season for all of us. His circumstances approach embarrassed.”
Well, good. An earl without means was an earl who could be managed. “You dreamed of a cherishing, ardent kiss, Lady Iris. I hope I’ve made that dream come true.”
“You have.” No blush, no smile, no quarter of any kind.
“I have a dream too. I dream of a woman whose trust is precious, a woman of surpassing sense and generosity of spirit, one who has soldiered on without companionship for too long. I dream of that lady entrusting her heart to me. I want—I yearn—for such a lady to take her place at my side, not because I’m a duke, not because I am a competent kisser, not because I can damned waltz by the hour, but because I have earned her tender, lasting regard.”
Lady Iris cupped his cheek against her palm. “You deserve such a lady. I dearly hope you find her.”
She left him by the fountain, half-aroused, half-bewildered, all in love. She would doubtless sit among the dowagers or wall flowers at supper, then dance with the shy bachelors and friendly widowers. She’d keep an eye on her sisters, she’d leave as soon as Cousin Hattie showed signs of tiring.
“But who looks after Iris?” Clonmere asked the darkened garden.
“I was hoping you would.” Cousin Hattie stepped out from behind a lilac bush that had yet to bloom. “The job is getting to be rather too much for me.”
She came up to about Clonmere’s ribs, but in a fair fight, his money would be on her. “Were you spying on us?”
“How droll. You are attempting to look intimidating.”
“Is it working?”
She went up on her toes and batted at Clonmere’s hair. “I heard that last speech, Your Grace, the one about winning the lady’s tender regard. I nearly swooned, and I haven’t swooned since Noah set sail. What Iris says about Falmouth is the sorry truth.” She left off smacking at his hair and stepped back. “You are a handsome devil. You’ll age nicely too.”
“Would you care to count my teeth?”
“Not if I’d like to remain in possession of all ten fingers. I wasn’t spying. I was standing guard.”
“Thank you. I have the matter in hand, or nearly so.”
“Mr. Everhart will do for Lily, Amherst for Holly, Dersham for Hyacinth. Cleverly done, but what will you do about Falmouth? He can keep Iris’s brothers from ever seeing her again, he can refuse to dower her sisters, he can—”
“I’ll dower the lot of them.”
“And how will you prevent Falmouth from denying Iris access to her brothers? They show every sign of turning into wild young nincompoops, and Iris is their only hope of salvation.”
Clonmere sank onto the edge of the fountain. “I thought I had matters sorted out. I hadn’t known Falmouth would be so dastardly. Iris would blame herself if her brothers went astray, though they are probably hellbent on that very objective, regardless of her influence.”
“They are
n’t bad boys—yet.”
More people were spilling onto the terrace, some of them carrying plates, all of them laughing and chattering. The newspaper would declare the gathering a sad crush, while for Clonmere, victory was turning to defeat.
“Falmouth wants me to choose my bride as if I were drawing lots. As if any one of his three youngest would make me a suitable wife.”
Cousin Hattie bent to sniff the potted daffodils. “They would.”
“No, they would not. They would all three look very fetching in the Clonmere tiaras, they would be gracious and loyal duchesses, but the only one suited to becoming my wife is Lady Iris.”
She snapped off a yellow trumpet. “You could elope. Scotland is lovely in spring.”
“Falmouth would cut her. Iris has spent too much time dodging his poison arrows to hand him victory at this stage.”
“So what will you do?”
The answer popped into Clonmere’s head just as ladies Lily, Holly, and Hyacinth emerged onto the terrace with their respective swains.
“Falmouth wants me to choose my duchess by lot, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
The rest of the week was a fog of conflicting emotions for Iris. She was alternately pleased with herself for having kissed Clonmere—really, truly kissed him, and he’d kissed her right back—and despairing, because he’d asked for her trust, but presented no solution to the conundrum Falmouth posed.
Time was running out, the earl’s disposition had deteriorated from grumpy to vile, and Hattie had begun to pack for a remove to Surrey.
“Iris, you must come too!” Lily stood at the door to Iris’s sitting room, waving a hand toward the corridor. “This instant, you must come. Papa said.”
“Come where?”
“To the parlor. A footman in Clonmere’s livery has brought a box.”
Iris rose, though hope and despair weighted her equally. “A box of chocolates?”
“Not chocolates, it’s too big for that, and another footman came with him, which means the box wasn’t full of mere sweets.”
Iris nearly tripped over Puck, curled on the hearth rug. “An engagement ring, then?”
“Much bigger than that. Will you please bestir yourself to move?”
Lily said little all the way down to the family parlor, where Holly, Hyacinth, and Cousin Hattie were already waiting.
“There are four boxes,” Holly said. “One for—”
“Each of us,” Hyacinth added. “They are all wrapped in printed paper—bouquets of flowers, from our four names—and there are labels on each box.”
“Four,” Cousin Hattie said, very firmly.
The Earl of Falmouth stepped out of his study across the corridor. “You should hear this,” he said to Iris. “One of my daughters is about to marry a lunatic. Too bad it won’t be you.”
“John, that is enough,” Hattie snapped.
The three younger sisters all goggled at their cousin. Iris hugged her. “I would happily wed His Grace, but as far as I know, he hasn’t offered for any of us.”
“The lot of you sit down,” the earl said, waving them into the family parlor. “Clonmere is a duke, so allowances must be made, though this is a very queer start indeed.”
Iris remained standing while her sisters chose seats, arranged their skirts, and looked worried.
“Clonmere sent me a note,” Falmouth said, brandishing a piece of embossed stationery. “He has decided that every one of my daughters is fit to become his duchess, and thus he sought his mother’s counsel. One of those four boxes contains the Clonmere tiara. Each box bears one of your names, the labels affixed by the current duchess. Clonmere will stop by after breakfast tomorrow, and you will open your boxes. Whoever has the box with the tiara in it will become the next duchess.”
He set the paper on the mantel. “Damnedest thing I ever heard.”
“No more peculiar than forcing a duke to choose a wife on the basis of correspondence written decades ago,” Hattie said.
Falmouth scowled at the boxes wrapped in a repeating bouquet of pink, purple, green, and white flowers. “Not now, Hattie. One of my daughters shall marry a duke. I don’t care if the other three packages contain necklaces of shark teeth, so long as my son-in-law is a duke.”
Holly and Hyacinth exchanged a look that included Lily. Something was afoot with the three of them, something that excluded Iris.
“He truly doesn’t care which of us he marries?” Lily asked.
He cared. Iris was certain he cared.
“Why should he?” Falmouth said. “You’re equally well born, none of you is ugly. You can all make babies.”
Maybe Puck’s company won’t be so bad. “I have embroidery to work on for Holly’s carriage dress,” Iris said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast.”
“I have an aria to learn,” Lily said. “Mr. Everhart wrote it specifically for me.”
“I’m working on my French,” Hyacinth said.
“So am I,” Holly added.
They followed Iris into the corridor, none of them looking very pleased.
“I don’t care for this,” Lily said. “I’m not a Maypole partner, to be chosen by lot.”
“I liked Clonmere well enough,” Holly said, glancing at the parlor door. “I don’t like that he can’t distinguish a favorite among us. Taking a wife ought to be something a man feels strongly about, not something he leaves—”
“For his mama to do,” Hyacinth said. “Though I suppose there’s some comfort in knowing that whichever of us must become his duchess, at least the dowager will look kindly upon her daughter-in-law.”
“Any one of you would make a wonderful duchess,” Iris said. “But I agree, when it comes to marriage, one should feel something for one’s intended.”
Trust, for example. Attraction, tender regard.
“I’m off to bed,” Lily said. “At this time tomorrow, one of us will have a ducal suitor.”
“Or be engaged.” Holly made that sound like a dismal prospect.
“But not married,” Hyacinth said. “Not married yet.”
Iris waited until she and her sisters were out of earshot of the parlor. “You do not sound like young women thrilled to be in contention for a tiara.”
That same look passed among the three of them. “Clonmere’s a fine fellow,” Holly said. “But he’s not my choice.”
“Nor mine,” Hyacinth said.
“Nor mine,” Lily said. “But who can turn down a duke? If I’m chosen, and I refuse his suit, will he send three boxes next time? Papa would have an apoplexy, the dowager duchess would be insulted, talk would ensue.”
“I have a megrim in truth,” Holly said.
“My digestion is growing tentative,” Hyacinth added. “I’m for bed.”
They all three slipped off to their respective bedrooms, leaving Iris alone and hopeful, and also worried. Very, very worried.
Chapter 6
“I’m sorry,” Lily whispered to the darkened room. “I cannot be married to a man who prefers the music of a Scottish farmer to the delights of Italian opera. I cannot. Iris, forgive me.”
She carefully peeled the labels on two of the pretty boxes free, then affixed Iris’s label to Lily’s box, and her own label to Iris’s box. Mr. Everhart had been very, very certain that Clonmere would choose Lily, and had regaled Lily with a long list of attributes that made her the best suited to become a duchess.
Such a long list, in fact, that Lily had begun to hope dear Thomas was speaking for himself rather for his titled cousin. She could not be certain if the brush of his hand against hers had been accidental, cousinly, or something more, but if she married Clonmere, she’d never find out.
“I’m sorry, Iris, but I am simply not cut out to be anybody’s duchess.”
She smoothed her fingers over the labels one last time and slipped from the room.
“Mr. Amherst was very clear,” Hyacinth said, closing the parlor door quietly. “He told me, plainly that if Clonmere was looking for
paragon, a lady whose company never failed to delight, the embodiment of womanly perfection, then he need look no further than me. Amherst considers himself well acquainted with Clonmere. I feared he was quoting the duke in fact.”
“Mr. Dersham has put much the same fear in me,” Holly whispered. “He said Clonmere would be a fool to choose any other woman, when I was surpassingly warm-hearted, exceedingly pretty, and tolerant of human foibles. I don’t even know what foibles are, but I know I do not want to wear that tiara.”
“Iris is the oldest,” Hyacinth said, picking up the box with her own name on it. “Papa should have found a spouse for her first.”
“Cousin Hattie says the same. We’re the youngest. Lily at least should marry before we do.”
“What if we’re wrong, Holl? What if Clonmere holds a secret tendresse for Iris? Or Lily?”
Holly lifted her box and shook it gently. “What sort of tendresse makes choosing a duchess a game of musical tiaras?”
“We have to do this, Holl.” Hyacinth began peeling the label on her box free. “I don’t want to be a duchess, and I’m sorry if it makes me a bad sister, but I don’t want you to be a duchess either—not Clonmere’s duchess.”
Holly passed her Lily’s box. “I think of the wedding night, all serious and ducal… what if he starts making love in French? I’d probably respond with something like, ‘Pass me the potatoes, my dear water buffalo.’”
“He’s not that big.” Hyacinth gently worked Lily’s label loose.
“He’s too big for me. Iris and Lily are both taller than we are. Duchesses should be tall.”
They worked in careful silence, until they’d switched their labels for Iris’s and Lily’s.
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