Escaping his own party was not possible, but he did manage to find a hiding place behind one of his mother’s many ferns, so that he might steal a moment to watch Mary Elizabeth in peace.
Her brother Alex found him there but did not simper or fawn, nor did he ask any foolish questions, such as why a man would be hiding from all the lovely women in the room. Alexander Waters seemed a man of few words, but when he spoke, those words were always filled with sense.
“I have kept my promise,” Alex said.
“I am grateful.”
“You haven’t told her yet.”
Harry felt the weight of his own foolishness as it settled on his shoulders. “No,” he answered. “But I will, tonight.”
Alex nodded and did not say anything further on the subject. The two men stood together behind that palm, watching as Mary passed by in the arms of a fool and as her brother Robert danced with his lover, Mrs. Prudence.
“Someone might tell her before you do.”
“They might,” Harry conceded. “But I doubt she would believe them.”
Alex smiled. “True enough.”
“She does not have a very good opinion of my countrymen,” Harry said.
“No,” Alex agreed. “But she has an excellent opinion of you.”
Harry did not know what to say to that, so he did not answer. Alex went on, as if Harry had agreed.
“If you wish, you may court her openly. The family will not stand in your way.”
Alexander Waters of the Back of Beyond said this as if he were offering a great gift, granting Harry a boon, as if he were the prince and Harry the man with no title and only his mother’s connections to recommend him. At first, Harry felt his temper snap, and then he considered. Taken as just a man, with no titles or lineage considered, Alexander Waters was his equal.
Harry did not remind Alex of all that separated him from the woman he wanted. Her family’s objections would have been the least of it. He said only, “Thank you.”
Alex nodded and fell silent. Harry felt as if he should ask about their traditions, but he could think of nothing polite to ask. So as was his way, he asked something not polite at all.
“So, Waters, which do you prefer? Kilts or breeches?”
For one long moment, silence reigned. Harry thought perhaps he had offended him—but then Alex Waters smiled.
“Kilts. Without question.”
If Harry had had any sense, he would have left it at that. But being a duke had not taught him caution or prudence. He plunged on.
“Don’t you find them a bit drafty?”
Alexander Waters raised one eyebrow. “A man doesn’t mind that.”
“Even in winter?” Harry asked.
“Especially in winter,” Alexander Waters replied.
“I think a man might freeze his bollocks off.”
Alexander’s smile softened then, and his gaze turned to his young, blonde wife, where she was now dancing with his brother on the other side of the ballroom. “That’s why it’s best to marry, and quickly.”
“So my mother keeps telling me.” Harry caught the look said mother sent him from across the room. She raised her quizzing glass and peered at him through the fronds of the fern he hid behind. If he had not known better, he would have sworn that she knew what he was saying, even with thirty feet between them and her band from Aberdeen sawing away in the corner.
Alex saw where his gaze was tending. “Duty calls?”
“It does.”
Alex nodded. “Forgive me for prying into your affairs. But it seems to me that you must make your own way, whatever others say.” The statement stood between them, and then Alex said in parting, “I have a strong mother, too.”
He nodded to Harry and wandered off, not waiting to be dismissed. Harry stood behind the fern for a little while longer, watching Mary Elizabeth dance by as blithely as if she had never kissed him at all.
Thirteen
Mary Elizabeth enjoyed dancing with the English gentlemen who had descended on the duchess en masse, but after only two hours, she was sick of the dances themselves. If she did one more promenade, she would throw a knife, and most likely hit someone. When the band had set down their instruments for a bit of a break, she went over to them with a tray of whisky. She found that whisky lubricated the wheels of conversation with any man she had ever met, and made them more amenable to listening to her.
When she discovered that they were from Aberdeen, she gave a war whoop of joy that made all the English who heard it turn and stare. She waved to Robbie from across the ballroom so that he would know that she was not in distress. “The band’s from Aberdeen!” she called to him.
She was working on talking the bandleader into her scheme when Harry appeared at her side. The bandleader blanched and almost dropped his glass.
“Harry, this is Angus. That fellow on the drums there is Jaime, the man with the fiddle is Bobby, and the gent with the fife is William.”
They all bowed to him, and she wondered why they bothered. Each man downed his whisky as if afraid someone was going to take it away from him.
“We were about to begin playing again, sir,” Angus said, for all the world as if he were afraid of offending Harry. Mary Elizabeth ignored him as if he hadn’t spoken.
“Angus here needs a member of the family’s permission to play a song I like. Will you give it to them, Harry? I know you’re only a poor relation, but I’m no blood kin to the duchess at all.”
Angus choked when he heard that and almost dropped his now-empty glass.
Mary Elizabeth took it from him before he could and collected the rest of the crystal cups from the group. “There’s more where that came from, lads. Good Islay whisky my brothers brought down from home.”
She turned to Harry then and caught him smiling at her as if she had a smudge on her nose. Had she not been holding the silver tray, she would have swiped at it. Instead, as soon as a footman stepped over at Harry’s silent bidding, she handed over the tray and carefully ran one finger across the bridge of her nose, just to be sure.
“All right, Mary Elizabeth,” Harry said. “I’d be happy to dance to your tune.”
She smiled and was pleased when he smiled back. Angus shifted on his feet to hear a man use her given name, but again, she ignored him. “Just the one song, mind,” she said. “I don’t want to frighten your English away.”
Harry was still looking at her face as if he saw something new there, as if they had not just danced together two hours before. Mary Elizabeth decided not to wonder about it, for the ways of men were strange and a woman might run herself mad trying to decipher them.
“They’re not my English,” he said. “They’re my mother’s.”
Mary Elizabeth did not understand the distinction, and wondered for a moment if he might be half Scot. She did not have the time to try to puzzle out who on God’s green earth his mother was. But the band was tuning up by then, ready to start the new set, and she dragged Harry by the hand onto the middle of the dance floor and lifted her skirt.
“This is a simple reel,” she said, “with a lively step. Watch my feet, and see if you might try it.”
She moved through the steps slowly, the way she had been taught as a child. When she looked up at him, she found his eyes resting on her calves in their silk stockings.
“Harry, pay attention now. Don’t be missish about seeing my legs. You saw them in breeches just this morning.”
He looked at her then, and the heat in his blue eyes made her stop dead in the middle of a thought. She almost lowered her skirt and found that she had the strange, unaccountable urge to run away. But Harry acted as the gentleman he was, as he laid his hand on her waist and took her other hand in his.
“I think I see what you’re about,” he said. “Let’s show them how it’s done.”
The band starte
d playing in earnest then, and all the English around watched as Harry led her through a decent reel with only one misstep, and that one due to her. She found herself flummoxed by his easy ways with her favorite dance and wondered what else he might be good at, besides dancing and horseback riding.
She wondered if he might spar with her at swords and how she might talk him into such a thing. Then she met his eyes, and saw the heat in them, and wished to God in His Heaven that she had not given her word not to kiss him again. For Harry, it seemed, was a man born to be kissed, and she the woman born to do it.
She had little time to reflect on this, for her feet were flying, as were Harry’s, and he lifted her in the air at just the right moment without her even having to tell him to. She realized then that he knew this dance, that he had danced this reel before with some other girl, and she found herself unaccountably and unreasonably jealous of whatever woman had been lifted by him in the same way, her skirt in the air and her hair falling around her shoulders, as Mary’s hair had begun to fall from its pins around hers.
Mary Elizabeth told herself not to be a fool as Robbie and Mrs. Prudence joined them on the dance floor, taking up the steps, with Alex and Catherine close behind. Mary did not take the time to wonder why she was jealous, and for such a foolish reason, but stepped away from Harry as soon as her feet hit the ground once more.
“Well,” she said. “You seem to know this dance without me teaching you. I’m off to find another man to teach.”
Harry caught her hand and tugged her close enough, so that he could speak low in her ear. “Don’t go far,” he said. “You’re eating dinner with me.”
She felt her heart lighten suddenly at his kind if oddly abrupt invitation. His eyes were still as hot as blue flames, and they stayed on her face, though the other women in the room were staring at him and preening, trying to get his attention for some reason known only to them.
“All right,” she said. “But I’m off to dance now.”
“All right,” he answered, as if he had seen something in her face that satisfied him, and he let her go.
Mary Elizabeth turned to help the Earl of Grathton learn the steps to the reel. He was a kind man who had danced with her earlier, after she apologized again for attacking him in Hyde Park with her sword. Grathton was a quick study and soon had his own sister in hand, teaching her the reel as well, so Mary was free to teach each man who came forward, wanting to learn. And it seemed every man did.
Catherine and Mrs. Prudence helped with the instructing, but it seemed some of the English wanted only Mary Elizabeth. She obliged them, for they were guests of the duchess and this reel was her own scheme, but she noticed that Harry watched each man who touched her as if longing to cut every man’s hand off before it could rest on her waist. When some shallow fop from Hampshire lifted her with a flourish during the final strains of the reel, Harry was at her side as soon as her feet touched the ground.
“That’ll do, then,” Harry said, for all the world as if he were her keeper. “I’ll take her from here, Jefferies. I thank you.”
The fop bowed low to Harry as if meeting the King of Sheba, and Mary smiled at him as she watched him scamper off. Then she turned narrowed eyes on the man at her side.
“Don’t be rude to the English, Harry. The duchess invited them here, though God alone knows why she invited so many. And don’t act like you’re the boss of me, for you are not, nor will you ever be.”
Harry’s blue eyes caught fire when she said that, and he dragged her by the hand behind a massive fern. The dinner gong sounded, and the company began to troop into the dining room, as the duchess had arranged for informal seating and a buffet to be served.
Mary Elizabeth had worked up an appetite with all her dancing, and tried to take her hand from Harry, that she might go and eat. When that failed, and his hand clung to hers like a limpet, she tried to drag him with her and failed again.
“Harry, I’m hungry. Why have you dragged me behind this infernal plant? Let’s go and eat.”
Harry did not answer her, but drew her close, as if they were going to waltz. She opened her mouth again, to chastise him, when his lips closed over hers, silencing her. His tongue was in her mouth, sliding along her own in the most delicious way, and she found herself clinging to him, the muscles of his broad shoulders firm against her gloved hands, warm through the wool coat he wore.
She tried to draw back from him, remembering her oath. He did not let her go as she expected him to, but trailed his lips down her throat and then up behind her ear, making her shiver.
“Harry, I gave my word not to kiss you,” she said, her voice sounding breathless, like somebody else’s.
He drew back from her then, and the heat in his blue eyes was warm, but not the sparking flame it had been on the dance floor. “I did not give my word, Mary.”
“I am supposed to be helping you,” Mary Elizabeth said. “I can’t help you if you kiss me.”
“You help me by letting me kiss you.” He kissed her again, as if to demonstrate his point, and she felt herself pressing closer to him, as to a fire in winter.
Just when she was gathering her good sense to protest again, he let her go. He let her catch her breath, as he caught his, and then he took her hand and laid it on his arm. “Let us go and get some braised beef, before the English eat it all.”
“You’re English, Harry.”
“Then trust me when I tell you that my people are gluttons.”
He did not speak again, but led her to a table and served her a plate of fine food while a footman brought a glass of wine. All the while, the English were watching them and whispering. Mary Elizabeth wondered idly where the fat duke had gotten to and why the company watched her friend Harry so closely while they ignored their own fancy lord. She tried to set the English out of her mind and eat her dinner, which she had earned, but the sound of their whispers were like a snake’s hiss in her ears.
* * *
Harry found himself eating braised beef with his Scottish girl, with the whole of the ton looking on, and he discovered that—far from feeling annoyed at being the center of attention as he always was in company—tonight, he did not care one whit. He also did not give a fig for anyone’s thoughts on his dinner companion, though he could feel the tension rising among the ambitious mamas in the room as they took in Mary Elizabeth in all her red-clad glory.
Dressed as a courtesan, Mary Elizabeth had entertained the guests all evening with her antics. Leading the reel had only been part of it. Every gentleman who had danced with her to have a gander down her low-cut dress had come away half in love with her sweetness and her wit. Mary Elizabeth had also blithely led him around by the nose all evening and was the only one who seemed unaware of that rather obvious fact.
Harry felt his mother’s keen eyes on him and knew without a doubt that she would soon be dressing him down for spoiling her party and not picking one of the lovely, sensible girls on offer to court with an eye toward marriage. Harry had no eye for any of them, for he kept both eyes on Mary Elizabeth Waters, the only woman in the room who seemed immune to his charms.
Harry wondered how to go about transforming her feelings of friendship for him to feelings of love. She liked kissing him, which was a good start, but it was not nearly enough. She seemed content to treat him as a sort of distant cousin, one who had a good seat on a horse and was a decent conversationalist. Of course, she did not know he was a duke. Perhaps, if he told her, she would fall swooning into his arms and allow him to take her then and there.
That fantasy lasted for all of thirty seconds. As enticing as it was to think of Mary Elizabeth surrendering to him, opening her sweet arms to him, allowing him to caress her succulent breasts with his lips and hands, he could not fathom a circumstance—any circumstance—under which his girl would swoon.
Which was why he loved her.
The fact that he love
d her had come to him all in a rush as he lifted her high in the reel. He had watched her dance away from him, jigging and leaping with every man who came to her, feeling the effects of her smile even from a ballroom away. The knowledge had not surprised him, which was surprising in itself. His love for her seemed to open a door in his heart that he had not realized was closed. Now that it was open, the unbending path of his future seemed not like a burden, but an adventure. Even the path of running a duchy might be a joy for the rest of his life if Mary Elizabeth was with him. With his indulgent protection to surround her for the rest of her days, the duchy was large enough that even a bird as free as Mary might live there. And he could take her North, to her family’s seat at Glenderrin, and let her roam the lands there. Not in winter, but in late spring and through the summers, perhaps. Her love for her homeland made him love her more.
Now, he had only to tell her.
“Mary,” he said to the woman who held his affections. She ignored him completely, devouring a slice of spiced cake. “I need to speak with you.”
She swallowed her bite and reached for her wineglass without looking at him. “Aye,” she said. “Speak on.”
“Not here. What I have to say is too important to say in company.”
She set her glass down then and looked at him warily, wiping her mouth with delicate precision on her linen napkin. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Will I be needing a tot of the whisky for this talk of yours?”
“You might.”
“All right, then.”
She stood up abruptly, and he had to scramble to stand with her. He felt the mamas in the room turn on him like pointers after a wily fowl. Not wily enough, it seemed, for he had been caught by the woman beside him.
“I’ve found a nice place for a sit and think,” she said. “Come with me, and I’ll show it to you.”
She started out of the ballroom, and he followed, like a hound at her heels, while the ladies his mother had so thoughtfully invited for him watched their progress, daggers hidden behind their smiles as they tried to catch his eye in vain. Mary Elizabeth had eyes only for her brother Alex, who stood and glared at her as she passed, but she waved him off. Harry followed her out of the room. When his mother met him at the door with raised eyebrows, he simply kissed her cheek and kept walking.
How to Train Your Highlander Page 9