Kathleen marched out of the room to show just how displeased she was. Silence followed her departure. Emily pouted. Layla glanced anxiously between them. Vanessa wasn’t sure anything could mend this fence.
And then the innocent in their little feud said, “Emily met someone new last night that she likes better’n Monty.”
“Monty shouldn’t be on anyone’s list,” Vanessa reminded them. “He’s not looking for a wife.”
Annoyingly, Emily said, “I’d like to keep him on mine anyway. I have a long list.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Exactly the problem, Em. How many of those men did Layla like more’n you? Or does she continue to only be allowed your leftovers?”
“I made a concession!”
“That you like someone better than Monty? D’you really call that a concession? Take a good look at how selfish you are and fix it, before you end up ruining your twin’s Season.”
Emily glared at Vanessa. And then incredibly, Layla remarked, “I suppose she did deserve that.”
“Indeed,” Vanessa said, and as if Emily were no longer there, added, “But you can tell her I’m inviting you both to join me for a ride after lunch.”
“So you are forgiving her?”
“You can imply as much, though she won’t hear it from my lips.”
Layla grinned. Emily suddenly giggled. It was an old tactic the girls had used growing up, when one of them was annoyed with another. And it was a nice reminder that they had always settled their disagreements.
Having had her say and feeling much better for it, Vanessa picked up a sausage from the platter, stood, and pointed it to the door. “I’m not actually hungry. Shall we?”
They left the dining room together just as Mr. Rickles was letting someone in. The twins squealed in delight and greeted the man with hugs. Vanessa approached more slowly when she saw it was an old family friend, Peter Wright, but also greeted him warmly. His presence and the twins’ reaction to him made her guess that he’d kept up his visits with the family over the years, perhaps as a favor to William. Many letters from Peter had been delivered to her father in Scotland, forwarded by William’s solicitor.
He seemed surprised to see her there. “How lovely you turned out, Nessa. I’m not sure I would recognize you if I saw you somewhere other than here. Are the three of you enjoying your long-awaited Season?”
“It’s been wonderful so far,” Layla said.
“So many young men in attendance,” Emily added.
“More than enough to go around I hope?” he teased.
What a touchy subject! Yet Vanessa grinned. “Possibly.”
But Emily added, “With Nessa already engaged to Daniel Rathban, there are.”
Emily wasn’t being catty this time, Vanessa realized. Still she groaned to herself, well aware that Peter had been William’s second at that fateful duel with the youngest Rathban brother.
He looked displeased by the news and baldly stated, “Whatever for?”
Vanessa pretended to be surprised by his reaction. “You must be joking. He’s a very handsome man.”
That didn’t change his expression and he said to her, “Might we have a word?”
“We’ll go change for our ride, Nessa,” Layla said, and pulled Emily with her up the stairs.
Momentarily alone in the hall with her father’s best friend, Vanessa braced herself, and Peter didn’t tackle the subject delicately, asking her pointedly, albeit in a whisper, “Are you unaware that his father is directly responsible for William’s absence?”
She didn’t want to tell him that a bargain had been struck. There were already two opposing opinions of her agreement to the bargain, one from her mother, one from Monty. She didn’t want Peter’s opinion to tip the scale. And she’d prefer for Peter to think the marriage was her idea.
So she answered the question by pointing out, “How better to soften someone’s feelings than by becoming a member of his family?”
“But still—does your mother actually approve?”
She grinned. “Mother doesn’t quite know what to make of me. She has found, to her annoyance, of course, that ordering me around just doesn’t work.”
He rolled his eyes. “I am aware that Will gave you free rein, as it were.”
“But as it happens,” she continued, “Mother holds that family in high regard, so yes, I have her approval.”
“Are you both forgetting the vendetta?”
Must he be so persistent? “A grieving brother, a bad decision made.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “I place the blame where it belongs, as my father did. And one heartsick old man doesn’t blacken the whole Rathban family. Besides, all that matters is I am enamored of the son. I am quite pleased by the match.”
Already wearing her riding habit, she headed to the front door before she blushed over that lie, but then something alarming occurred to her and she turned back to Peter. “If you write to my father, please don’t tell him. That should be my happy news to deliver.”
“Certainly. I won’t spoil your surprise.”
Chapter Forty-two
“HOW THE DEUCE DID you hear about that?”
Vanessa had come to visit Snow while she waited for the twins to join her and had found Donnan grooming her horse. And he’d immediately told her that there was a stable near London that was for sale.
He laughed at her surprise. “Ye’d be amazed what ye hear in taverns, lass. The owner seems a wee bit desperate tae sell, so ye could probably get a guid price, which is why I mention it—actually . . .” He seemed a little abashed before he admitted, “Calum and me, we’ve taken a liking tae this town. We wouldna half mind running a stable for ye if yer going tae breed these big beasties.”
Vanessa was delighted that the MacCabe brothers were willing to do that. It solved one of the immediate concerns of owning a stable, finding men she could trust to run it for her.
“My schedule is full for today, but tomorrow morning when I escape all the daily callers would be a good time for you to show it to me.”
“So yer still being kept busy?”
She nodded. “I expected it to be a whirlwind. Tonight we’re going to the theater and I believe Mother has arranged a large dinner party for tomorrow night. I confess, looking further ahead than that is a little daunting.”
The twins arrived, the grooms were waiting. Monty wasn’t among them today, but she smiled as she imagined him still abed. But there was a little nervousness mixed into her anticipation of seeing him. If he teased her about last night, she wasn’t sure how she would react. She hoped he simply wouldn’t mention it, even though she knew that’s all she’d be thinking about the next time she saw him.
She enjoyed the ride through the park with her sisters. She didn’t even mind when they were stopped a few times by their favored gentlemen. The attention certainly kept Emily in a good mood.
Daniel attended the theater that night with his mother, though their seats were on the opposite side of the performance hall from where the Blackburns were sitting, which Vanessa didn’t find helpful at all. If Lady Rathban was their partner in the engagement campaign, Vanessa wasn’t impressed with her tactics, though to be fair, the seats surrounding the Blackburns had filled up rather quickly with the young men who were unofficially courting the twins.
Vanessa made her lack of interest in the present company clear, just as she’d done at the balls, just as she’d done by avoiding the callers who continued to knock on their door each day. She managed not to be rude about it; she just didn’t want to encourage any of these young men when she was secretly courting another.
The twins were too busy whispering with the gentlemen to pay attention to the play being performed on the stage. And Vanessa made sure that if Daniel did happen to glance at her across the room, he would catch her smiling at him, so she wasn’t actually watching the actors, either.
Kathleen assured her that she would take her over to Lady Rathban during the intermission and engage the lady in conversatio
n so Vanessa could have a few minutes to flirt with Daniel. That word flirt had made her want to laugh. It wasn’t exactly what she and Daniel did when they were together. Drawing invisible swords was far more apt.
But she got her chance to be with him for a few minutes in the lobby during the intermission where they were out of range of being overheard. Kathleen had immediately led Lady Rathban a few steps away and started a whispered conversation, and the twins were occupied with their own beaus, leaving her standing next to Daniel.
He looked very dashing tonight, despite his bored expression. But remembering Monty’s lessons, she complimented him on his jacket and put her fingers on his lapel as if she were absentmindedly just feeling the fabric.
He responded to her touch by stepping back out of her reach! “You still haven’t tired of irritating me?” he said cuttingly.
“I could never tire of you, Daniel. You make my heart flutter.”
He snorted. “Rubbish.”
She gave him that sexy smile that Monty had approved of. “My stomach then?”
Any other man might have laughed, or at the very least, have had his lust provoked, but not this one. If looks could kill—was she getting to him? Or had she just gone too far? But then he mumbled, “Brazen,” and looked away.
She had to choke back a laugh. He was suddenly behaving like a debutante. It made her wonder if he’d ever come to London during a high Season when he was young, or had he been too heartsick over his first lost love to do anything so festive? But he had risked his heart a second time, only to be thwarted by his father again. She would love to have the rumors confirmed by him, not that she actually doubted them, since it certainly explained his refusal to marry—and why he now hated his father.
But she held her tongue, remembering Monty’s warning that that particular subject could incite Daniel’s rage and that would ruin any progress she was making. If she was making any. Bloody hell, he certainly wasn’t giving any clues one way or the other.
But to his accusation of being brazen, she grinned and pointed out, “We’re two peas in a pod, aren’t we?”
“We’re nothing alike. You are daft to see any similarities between us.”
“Well, it’s true I am not rude, at least not intentionally—not that I really mind your being that way, if you haven’t noticed. As for being bold, on the other hand, you might agree, I’ve got you matched there.” And then she sighed. “You know, you really should take advantage of my eagerness to marry you while you can. Should your father disown you before the wedding, I’m afraid my mother will withdraw her approval of you.”
“Your eagerness makes you rather pathetic,” he said, cutting her to the quick, then confidently added, “There won’t be any disowning.”
She feigned incredulity. “D’you really not know how close you are to that very thing happening? You may think you can continue to defy your family indefinitely, but I was told confidentially that this is your last year to do your duty to the family—that is, according to your mother,” she thought to add.
He deserved that, and it did turn his blasé tone acrimonious. “He’s threatened again and again to disown me, but he never will. I’m his only son.”
He seemed very confident of that, which might be why she wasn’t making any progress with him. So she gambled with the information Monty had given her, saying candidly, “Actually—you aren’t.”
He snorted. “He wouldn’t recognize my bastards, why would he recognize his own?” And then with more certainty, “He wouldn’t!”
She shrugged. “Maybe not. But you do have a couple of male cousins, don’t you? You are merely the preferred choice, not his last resort, Daniel.”
She felt a deep satisfaction when a smidgen of uncertainty showed up in his expression. Which was a good time to use another of Monty’s lessons. She turned away from him, told her mother she was returning to her seat, and left the lobby.
Chapter Forty-three
THE NEXT MORNING AFTER breakfast Vanessa set out in the coach to visit the stable that was for sale. The Scots led the way, riding ahead of the vehicle. When they were a block away from her mother’s house, she heard a thump, the door opened, and Monty slipped inside.
“Where are we going?” he asked as he sat down on the cushioned bench across from her.
Vanessa was too surprised to answer. He had actually made a running jump to get in the coach as it moved down the street! The Scots probably hadn’t seen him do it. One or both of the two footmen on the perch might have, since the coach did rock a little from Monty’s antics, but they must have recognized him.
And just as she’d feared would happen when she saw him again, she was assailed by nervousness, which made her tongue sharp. “I wonder about your sanity. You could have gotten hurt doing that.”
“I recently vaulted over a high garden wall, a little coach step was nothing.”
“What if my mother were with me?”
“I know exactly where the rest of your family is. The countess is guarding her chicks. She’s not about to leave them alone in the parlor with so many young men visiting. And she also has to oversee preparations for her dinner party tonight, which, alas, I won’t be attending, but Charley will happily take part. Does she even know you’re running away?”
“Did you notice any trunks atop this vehicle?” she rejoined.
“I think if you ran, you wouldn’t take them.” And then with a very warm smile, he asked, “How are you, sweetheart? Miss me?”
“I might have noticed your absence yesterday,” she said, trying to sound aloof. “I assumed you didn’t have enough strength to get out of bed.”
He laughed and pulled her across the way right onto his lap. “Why are you wounding me?”
Why indeed? And her main concern, that he would ignore her after bedding her, had been answered. Obviously no. But intimacy in a coach in the bright light of day was much too risky when one of the MacCabes might fall back to tell her something through the window.
She tried to get off his lap, but he held fast, so she distracted him by mentioning, “Donnan is taking me to a stable that’s for sale not far from London.”
“You mean to buy it for that breeding farm you told me you want to start?”
“If it’s in good condition. You did tell me that Daniel lives permanently in London, rather than at his father’s country estate, so this one is close enough for me to visit regularly, if I’m going to be living in town with him.”
His hand was lazily moving up and down her back, but his fingers were getting a little too close to the back of her neck. She tried to ignore the shivers that ran through her. She tried to ignore the urge to caress him back. What had happened to her resolve to distract him?
He continued the conversation as if he weren’t casually inciting her passions. “I have a feeling you won’t want to spend the entire year with that particular husband, in fact, you’ll more likely want to escape his presence as often as you can. So a breeding farm near London might not be ideal for you. Besides, the owner won’t sell to a woman. I suppose I could buy it for you?”
“Thank you for the generous offer, but that won’t be necessary. He’ll sell to me when I tell him the stable is for my father, a surprise gift, so it will need to be put in his name. I already intended to do that, so the Rathbans can never touch it. I expect to get it for a good price, too, once I tell him I don’t want his livestock, just the buildings. I’ll be filling it with shire mares.”
“All for your Snow King?”
It required a strong effort of will to focus on their conversation and not on his hand, which was slowly lifting her skirt. She slapped his hand away before she said, “Indeed, until he has sons to further his line. Now do let me up before anyone sees us like this.”
“You’re forgetting your lessons. Daniel won’t care who might notice.”
She narrowed her eyes on him. “This isn’t that private. We could be interrupted at any moment by one of the Scots. Are you trying to compromise
me?”
His hand was back on her skirt, and then under it. “Would it work?”
“The lessons . . .” She gasped as his hand crept up the inside of her leg. “Were finished.”
“Practice makes perfect—drawers today? How utterly disappointing.”
She gave in. “Do shut up and kiss me.”
A good while later she heard, “Lass, we’re being—”
She didn’t catch the rest because Monty immediately dumped her on the floor. It was such a rude awakening she burst out laughing and didn’t stop when she glanced back to see Monty’s astonished expression.
“Sorry!” he said. Was he blushing? He helped her to the seat opposite his. “Bloody instant reflexes are my bane,” he tried to explain.
“I’m sure they are lifesaving—or should I say, compromise-saving?”
“Men don’t get compromised the way you mean—yes, I know, it’s quite unfair. Shall I deal with your Scot?”
“You might as well. He’ll know you’re here when we arrive at the stable, unless you intend to hide in the coach?”
He stuck his head out the window to ask Donnan, “Being what? Followed?”
“Aye, as it happens. They’ve had time and room tae go around us but dinna do so. And I’m thinking ye’ll be riding my horse for the rest o’ the trip.”
Vanessa cringed at Donnan’s disapproving tone, but Monty ignored it, saying, “I doubt they’re foreigners, but it would be wise to find out. Ask them directions or something and make sure you hear each one of them speak decent English without an accent.”
Donnan nodded, but warned, “Ye need tae stop visiting yer troubles on the lass, ye kin?”
“I don’t think he likes you,” Vanessa said when Donnan turned about to ride behind them.
“He’s never hidden that fact.”
“D’you really think this is Charley’s trouble showing up again? When he’s not even with us?”
“I do. They’ve obviously connected me to him and they keep showing up in too many places. I’m beginning to think they sent a bloody army after the boy, not just a handful of hounds.”
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