“Very well, then,” Harry said. “If you are resolved to behave with propriety, then so am I.”
Mary Elizabeth shot him a look at that bit of nonsense and nudged Merry with her knee, that they might start out of the stables and head into the sunlight. The cattle break had been covered over for the day, and she set out at a walk. Sampson followed along behind her, as docile as a lamb, with no hint of a request for motion from Harry at all.
Harry found himself watching the rise and fall of her bottom on the saddle, as well as the gentle swaying of her breasts, which seemed not to be caught up by stays at all. “Do you even own a riding habit?” he asked, hearing the petulance in his own voice.
“Yes,” she replied blithely.
Harry waited, but when she did not elaborate, he asked, “Why don’t you wear it?”
“Because the skirt is a nuisance, and riding sidesaddle makes it more difficult to take jumps. I’ll wear a habit when the fancy guests start arriving.”
Harry felt his misery rising up from the ground to swamp him. He scowled.
“You don’t want to see the visitors who are coming to my fancy dance,” Mary Elizabeth said.
Harry wondered where on God’s green earth Mary and her family had gotten the notion that his mother’s ball was for them, but he did not ask. Instead, he said, “Women are coming to look me over, and I dread it.”
He had not told another living soul that he hated the thought of his duty, that his certain future with a wife he did not love hung like a millstone around his neck. He had waited until he was thirty to find a woman who might brighten his days and liven his nights as well as serve as a decent duchess, and he had come to the conclusion that such a woman did not exist.
Mary Elizabeth was frowning, not at what he was thinking, but at what he had told her. “Even a duke’s poor relation is a hot marriage item then?”
Harry grimaced. He needed to tell her the truth, and soon, but he was not ready to give up his friend. Save for Clive—who had beaten him soundly when they were ten even though Harry was a duke’s heir—no one ever treated him as a person after they knew.
“I’m afraid so.”
Mary Elizabeth sighed, as if the burden of too many suitors was something she was familiar with. “Well, if you have need of a hiding place, let me know. I’ve found a few spots in that house where no one will find you.”
Harry smiled at the thought of pressing into some linen closet with her. The temptation would kill him. “You would hide me away, then, and keep me for yourself?”
Mary Elizabeth laughed at that, but she did not scoff, as he had thought she might. Her brown eyes were warm on his, and he felt the moment suspended between them, as if time had stopped. He almost wished that it would, that he might ride through his park forever, with this woman at his side.
He shook his head a little to clear it of such nonsense, but Mary Elizabeth did not look away. “If I could have a man, Harry, you’d be it.”
She said it simply, without affectation or flourish, and kept riding on, a steady presence at his side. The birds sang in the hedgerow as they passed, making a flurry of feathers at the intrusion of a man and a girl so close to their nest. But Harry barely heard them.
All he could see was Mary Elizabeth, the sunlight shining on the gold of her hair, which was even now coming down from its pins to curl along her shoulders and down her back. She looked like a hoyden and a scamp, and he knew that if he lived to be a hundred, he would never again see a woman as beautiful as she was.
“Race me to the beach, then?” she asked, no doubt in an effort to dispel the moment that had fallen over both of them.
“To where you kissed me yesterday?” he asked.
She laughed. “The very spot. Though there will be no such shenanigans today. I am a woman of my word.”
She touched her boot to Merry’s flank, and the horse was off like a shot, so quick that Harry was ten lengths behind before he took his next breath.
Sampson waited only a moment for his rider to give the order to run. When the order did not come, the beast took it upon himself to chase Mary Elizabeth down. Harry clung to his back and bent low over his neck, that the horse might go faster. He could not blame him. It seemed right that every male alive would be chasing after that girl and wanting all the beautiful things about her—things that he simply could not keep.
He found Mary Elizabeth waiting for him, her face turned toward the sea. Merry cropped the sea grass close by, and Mary Elizabeth absently ran her hand over the horse’s withers. She looked deep in thought, and all Harry could think of as he looked at her was how much he wanted her and what a fool he was to moon after a gently reared virgin from the North.
She met his eyes as he climbed off of Sampson’s back, and for a moment, he wondered if she knew what he was thinking. But when she spoke, it was not of the heat in his eyes that no doubt even a virgin could see, but something else altogether.
“The way to make it through this evening,” she said to him, “is to have a goal beyond it.”
Harry stared down at her, watching the swell of her breasts rise and fall with her breath beneath the linen shirt she wore. He saw the faint outline of a chemise beneath that, and when he wanted to look further, he forced his gaze back to her face.
“What goal would you suggest?”
“Well,” Mary said, “I’ve never been on the sea. You might take me sailing.”
“We’d have to marry after.”
She laughed out loud, and Merry shifted under her hand. Sampson shook out his mane and took three steps closer to her, almost crowding Harry out.
“You’re a fretful man, Harry. And I’m sorry for it.”
“You didn’t make me so,” he said.
“No,” she answered, turning her eyes back to the sea. “I did not.”
He stood there looking at her, the softness of her hair flowing down her back in a mass of curls that seemed to move like a living thing. He reached out with one gloved hand and stopped just short of touching those curls.
“You would go sailing with me?” he asked at last, lowering his hand before she might see it.
“Aye.” She smiled at him, giving him a wry, slanted look. “That I would.”
“If I make it through the ball tonight, we’ll go sailing tomorrow. Weather permitting.”
Mary Elizabeth stepped toward him then and laid one hand over his heart. The muscles of his chest leaped under her bare palm. The backs of her hands were soft, but her palms were callused from riding and from playing at war.
She looked for one moment as if she might rise on her toes and kiss him. But then she seemed to remember her promise, for she patted his chest as if he were Sampson and turned away from him to mount her horse.
“I’ll see you tonight, then” was all she said.
Harry did not answer, but stood staring up at her, watching the muscles of her thighs move against the brown wool of her breeches. She did not wait for him to find his manners, or for him to find his tongue, but touched her heel to Merry’s flank once, gently, and let the horse have his head as she rode away.
Twelve
Mary Elizabeth dressed alone for the duchess’s fancy dance party. Her Worship had sent her own maid to help her, but Mary never bought a gown that she could not put on and take off herself, so she sent the woman away, with her thanks. The little Frenchwoman looked relieved not to have to spend another moment with a Highland barbarian, but looked longingly at Mary’s hair as she left.
Mary Elizabeth did have fine hair.
She did little to it, simply pinning the curls up and hoping they wouldn’t fall too soon. For they would inevitably fall, as the tide inevitably turned twice each day.
Mary Elizabeth surveyed the gowns that she knew Mrs. Prudence would want her to wear. Each one was a delicate shade—eggshell pink, robin’s-egg blue, buttercup ye
llow. Each gown was lovely, suited to a debutante. But none of them suited her spirit, and she knew it.
Instead, she drew out a vibrant-red gown with a gold baldric, a cast-off of some fancy lord’s mistress that Madame Celeste, her London modiste, had been stuck with. Mary had purchased said gown with her own money, so as not to cause an alarm among her family. For though her brothers could not care less what she clapped on her back, Mrs. Prudence definitely did.
Mary Elizabeth smiled and put it on.
She was not certain what the gold sash was originally intended to do, other than accentuate the courtesan’s bosom. Mary found herself slightly annoyed by how well it accentuated her own, but she simply donned a third dagger and decided that any Englishman who was overwhelmed by lust at the sight of her breasts might be dispatched easily enough, as he would be mightily distracted.
The gold sash, it turned out, was very useful for hiding knives.
Mrs. Prudence and Catherine both protested her gown, but as they each had their own fish to fry, it did not take her long to get them downstairs to their respective men. Mary Elizabeth felt as if she had done her good deed for the day. She entered the ballroom looking for Harry, but found his mother instead.
“Well, miss,” the old harridan said, raising a quizzing glass to her right eye. “It seems you have quite taken it upon yourself to don the curtains from a den of iniquity.”
Mary Elizabeth felt a smile creep onto her face against her will. She was not certain, but she thought that the duchess had called her new favorite gown a dress from a whorehouse.
“I cut them down myself, ma’am,” she said, determined not to rise to the bait cast out for her, nor to laugh in the old woman’s face. “I had a seamstress sew them up into the dress you see here. Do you think your London friends will like it?”
The duchess swept Mary Elizabeth from head to toe, seeming to stop pointedly on her bosom. “I think the men will adore it.”
Mary smiled. “Well, that’s half of them, then.”
“The women will be furious.” The duchess looked like a cat that had just eaten a low-flying bird.
“In all honesty, ma’am, if you think I give two farthings for what any English think of me, man or woman, you are sorely mistaken.”
The duchess lowered her quizzing glass. “Indeed, Mary. And that is why the men will love you and the women despise you.”
Mary Elizabeth sighed. “Surely these people have more to occupy themselves with than the likes of me.”
Before the duchess could comment on that, Harry was at her side, staring at Mary Elizabeth as if she had just fallen from the moon.
When he did not speak, Mary said, “Hello, Harry. Nice evening for a dance.”
His voice sounded strangled when he answered, “It is.”
Another silence ensued, during which the duchess gloated, though heaven only knew about what, and Harry stared. Mary Elizabeth tried again.
“So, do you dance, Harry?”
His eyes seemed as drawn to her bosom as his mother’s quizzing glass had been. Mary Elizabeth sighed and adjusted the gold baldric beneath them. Harry swallowed hard, looking as if he might choke.
“I do,” he answered at last, sounding as if his crisp, white linen was strangling him.
“Well, then, let’s dance.”
He extended his arm to her, and she took it, knowing that was the proper response when a man was escorting a lady to the dance floor. Mary Elizabeth was surprised to find the English clearing a path for them as if they were Moses parting the Red Sea. Mary thought it odd, but did not comment, so as not to offend him about the peculiarities of the duchess’s guests.
She took one look around for the fat, Recluse Duke and saw him standing at attention in one corner, with everyone else ignoring him. She wondered what these English were about, leaving one of their honored lords unattended.
The band in the corner took that moment to strike up a waltz, and Mary Elizabeth forgot about the Recluse Duke altogether. This was one of the few Southern dances she liked. It had such poetry to it, such sweeping grandeur. She had never quite mastered it herself, but she loved it all the same. She hoped that she would not tread on Harry’s toes, for he was not wearing his riding boots now, but slippers and breeches, as if he were at Almack’s. The slippers were foolish, but the breeches showed off his fine calves.
Mary was wondering why on God’s green earth she noticed that when he took her in his arms and started dancing.
She found that the waltz, with the right partner, required nothing from her at all. She found herself following his lead as if born to it when she had never followed a man’s lead in her life. Most of the fops in London and in Edinburgh had simply tripped along beside her, on and off the dance floor. But Harry did not trip, nor did he mince. He soared.
“You’re like an eagle,” she said to him as they began their second turn around the dance floor. It seemed the English had lost what was left of their tiny minds, or had simply eaten too much before they came, for no one joined them in the dance, but watched them swirl together as if viewing a play at the theater. Not that she had ever been to a play, but she understood what happened there.
He smiled down at her. “I’m like an eagle?” he asked.
“You move on the dance floor like a hunter, but a graceful one. It’s quite taking, Harry. These women really are going to be fighting over you.”
He laughed, and she found she loved the sound of it. He had been so morose for the last day that she as happy to see him with a warm light in his eyes. “I’m glad you approve.”
“Do you hate my dress?” she asked. “I know I’m not supposed to ask, but people have been staring ever since I got here. I don’t want to offend you.”
His eyes darkened from ice blue to cobalt. “You do not offend me.”
He slid his hand down to the small of her back, where she had one of her blades hidden. “What’s this then?” Harry asked, running his fingertips over the sheath tucked away against the silk of her gown.
“It’s my blade,” she said. “It’s what the sash is for.”
“To cover a weapon?” He looked poleaxed for at least the second time since she had met him.
“Well, yes,” Mary Elizabeth said. “You don’t expect me to go out among the English unarmed?”
He laughed then, a long, deep laugh that shook her where she stood, clasped in his arms. For a moment, she thought that he might miss a step in their whirling dance, but he only managed to draw her closer.
Mary’s mouth went dry, and she fished for something to say. “Those girls seem right fond of you for a poor relation.”
She nodded to the women scattered over the room, all of whom were staring at Harry as if he were the Second Coming of Christ, ignoring the fat duke in the corner altogether. The bloody English had started dancing at last, and the band had begun the waltzing tune over again, so that there was enough waltz time to go around for everyone. Mary Elizabeth thought that very kind of them and wondered who they were. She would find out before the hour had passed, and make sure they got a decent tip. The Scottish might be tight with their money, but the English aristocracy was miserly.
Harry glanced around as if noticing the women for the first time. He did not seem to notice the band at all. “Jealous, are you?”
She snorted. “Please! Of the likes of them?”
Harry kept smiling. Mary Elizabeth sighed, for she was nothing if not honest. “Maybe a little.”
He pulled her even closer, if that was possible in that scandalous Austrian dance. “I’m glad to hear it.”
His voice was low, as if someone might overhear him. He leaned close, so that his lips brushed the curls above her ear. His breath was warm on her skin, but for some odd reason, that warmth made her shiver.
“Why?” she asked, sounding breathless to her own ears, and not from the dancing.
>
“A jealous girl won’t mind if I steal a kiss from her later.”
Mary Elizabeth rallied then. She reminded herself not to be a fool, leaning back in his arms so that there was a bit more space between them. “We’ve had that talk, lad. You’ll be stealing no kisses from me. I’m your friend, and I’m backing you in this, remember?”
“I remember.”
Harry did not look at all deterred by her set down. He was smiling his new, strange smile, the one that made her hot and her innards dance. She frowned at him, hoping he might stop. But he did not. He was smiling at her even as she accepted the hand of the man who came up to her next, dancing with the first mincing fop who asked her.
* * *
Harry reminded himself that he had a duty to his guests. He greeted each of them as he passed through the ballroom, allowing himself to be introduced to more marriageable girls than he thought would fit in a house, even his house. Harry even deigned to dance with each of them, only once, as was decorous and proper. And all the while he kept his eyes on Mary Elizabeth.
The girl had no use for the English, but she seemed to have no objection to dancing with them. She accepted the hand of every man who asked her, though she seemed to have enough knowledge of etiquette to know not to dance with any man more than once. She seemed to show no particular preference for any of them, but neither did she look his way. The entire ballroom was watching him, speculating on his actions and upon whom he might marry, but the one woman he wanted acted as if he were not there at all.
It was vexing enough to bring his warrior blood up.
Fortunately, fancy dress balls were just the thing to put a damper on warrior blood. The endless promenades, the quadrilles, the country-dances all forced him to behave as a gentleman, the weight of his mother’s eye on him all the while. He thought of Mary Elizabeth and of how she had called him an eagle earlier that night. He wished fervently that he might swoop down on her now and carry her away from there.
How to Train Your Highlander Page 8