“I’ll go dress for dinner, then,” Mary Elizabeth said, making her curtsy to the duchess, who sat in silence, for once without one blessed thing to say.
Her mother rose when she did, and the blue of her eyes pierced Mary Elizabeth, cutting her to the heart, as it always did. Mary did not waver, but faced her down, certain for once that she was in the right. Or if not, if she was in the wrong yet again, there was nothing to be done for it.
“You will give him your answer tonight,” her mother said.
Mary Elizabeth squinted at her, as if a narrowed gaze might change the view. It did not. Her mother was as beautiful as she ever was, and as remote as a distant mountain that Mary would never climb.
“I’ll answer him when it suits me, Mother.”
She curtsied once more to the duchess and walked out before her mother could say anything else. She almost expected her mother to follow her, to rail at her, even though they were in public, even though the fancy English were close by on the terrace to hear. But of course, her mother did not. Mary Elizabeth stepped out into the hall alone, only to find Billings there, ready to close the door to the duchess’s sitting room behind her.
Mary Elizabeth looked around the hall, hoping for some reason she could not fathom that Harry might be there, waiting for her, though of course, he was not. He loved her, but he was a duke with a houseful of guests, and had better things to do than loiter in a hall, waiting for the likes of her.
Mary Elizabeth took herself upstairs to change her gown, and to have a bath, that she might soak away her depression in one of the many ducal bathing rooms.
* * *
Harry loitered about in the hallway, ignoring Billings’s inquiring gaze, trying desperately to hear what was being said in the sitting room beyond the stout oak door. He was just thinking of walking out along the terrace and trying to listen from the glass doors, or perhaps at one of the windows, when his only friend, Clive, appeared from abovestairs, sliding on one hip down the last three feet of the polished banister, landing like a cat on booted feet, swaggering as he winked at Billings’s disapproving stare.
“And what is this I find? The great Duke of Northumberland standing about like a footman in his own hall? Harry, come and give a man a hug, and a drink, for the love of God.”
Before Harry could answer him or hit him, Clive Owain, son of a small baronet from Wales, hugged him tight and then let him go. They had met as schoolboys at Harrow, and had been fast friends ever since. Harry had watched Clive’s back among the evildoing sons of the elite, and Clive had watched Harry’s whenever they went down to London for a bender. Harry was never much of one for benders of any kind, but Clive had always managed to get him to unbend, if only a little.
Harry smiled at his friend and thought how lovely it was that he would not have to send for him to stand up as his best man. Where such a nonsensical thought had come from when Mary Elizabeth had not yet consented to be his, Harry was not sure. But he had it none the same, and the joyous sense of well-being that went with it.
“Billings here tried to make me come in by the servants’ entrance, but with the house filled to the rafters with Scots, it seems a mere Welshman goes barely noticed.”
Billings did not glower, but his face became impassive, the closest to a glower he ever gave. Harry thanked Billings and took his friend by the arm, dragging him along the corridor to the library before his mother heard that he was about. Not that anything slipped past the duchess, not even the arrival of Harry’s only undesirable connection.
Harry closed the door behind them once they were safely tucked away in his library. He poured Clive a whisky, neat, and watched as his friend smiled appreciatively as he drank it and poured himself another. Harry sprawled on the only comfortable sofa, thinking of how he had made love to Mary on it only the night before and when he might get her back onto that sofa, with a good deal fewer clothes, once they were engaged.
“I see you finally got some decent whisky in,” Clive said, sipping his second glass as he sat down across from Harry in an armchair.
“You have the Scots to thank for that,” Harry answered.
Clive raised his glass to them in a silent salute. “I will thank them when we meet. Over dinner, perhaps?”
“There will be at least two Scots present for the meal, I believe.”
Harry heard his own voice stiffening in what Mary Elizabeth would have called “fancy ducal fashion,” and Clive laughed out loud at his prim tone, as no one else living would ever do save for Mary herself.
“So who is she?” Clive asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
Clive smiled but this time did not laugh at him. “The girl you’re in love with.”
“How do you know I’m in love with anyone?”
“Because I’m in love myself, and I know what it looks like. Who is she?”
“She’s one of the Scots.”
“God help you, man. A Scot?”
Harry found himself smiling as he caressed the back of his comfortable sofa with one hand. “A Highlander.”
“And that is a different breed, then?”
“Quite.”
Clive downed the last of his whisky but did not get up to pour himself another. “Well, if she brought decent drink into your house, I’m inclined to like her.”
“And what of your lady? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
Clive set his heavy crystal glass down on a side table and leaned back into his armchair, spreading his long legs out before him. He smiled a bit like a Cheshire cat, and Harry realized that for once, he was not going to get this particular story out of him. “Romance is a tedious business to all save those most directly concerned. Let us just say, for now, that it is a tale for another day.”
Harry opened his mouth to needle his friend further, but something about the set of Clive’s gaze made him change his mind. “All right. I’ll leave you be, for now. Just don’t cause a scandal in the middle of my house party.”
Clive sent him a wicked smile. “But, Harry, isn’t that what house parties are for?”
Twenty-one
There was one last gown that Mary Elizabeth had bought from Madame Celeste with her own money while in London, a gown that she had gotten for a song, as a courtesan had been between patrons and had reneged on her bill. Mary Elizabeth loved the gown so much that she did not simply shake it out and put it on, but called in an upstairs maid to press it for her.
Mary Elizabeth stood at the top of the ducal staircase in her royal-blue gown, preparing herself for the screeches she might soon be hearing from her brother Alex and the deathly pallor that would no doubt come over her mother’s lovely face, undermining her rosy complexion. Mary Elizabeth squared her shoulders and walked with some semblance of grace down the stairs. One must begin as one meant to go on.
“Mary!” Catherine said as she entered the drawing room. Her friend and sister-in-law could no more contain her exclamation than she could have stopped the sun from rising. Catherine recovered, though, and moved away from Alex to embrace her. For a moment, Mary Elizabeth thought that the sweet girl might offer her shawl.
“Good evening, Catherine. Have I missed anything?”
Catherine opened and closed her mouth like a fish, and Alex began crossing the room, his face as dark as thunder. Before he could reach her side, however, some Englishman she had never seen before sidled up to her and bowed over her hand. “Madam, what a vision you are in blue.”
The man was not as tall as Harry, nor were his shoulders as broad, but his green eyes gleamed with mischief that made her smile. “Call me Mary Elizabeth,” she said.
“My lady, it would be my honor.”
“And you are?”
“Harry’s friend from Wales. Clive Owain. And you must be his friend from the Highlands.”
Clive caressed the word friend with a hint of
something else beneath it. Mary Elizabeth thought to call him on it, but when he smiled at her, it seemed to be in good-natured fun, so she let the moment go.
“Where is Harry?” she asked instead.
“Trapped in the corner by his mother and some young lady I have yet to meet.”
“Lady Ashleigh,” Catherine supplied helpfully.
Mary Elizabeth caught Harry’s eye from across the room. He looked like a man who was going down for the third time. “Get over there and help him, man, if you call him friend.”
“I would, but I have more pressing business of my own—business I hope you can help me with.”
Catherine gasped at that bit of buffoonery, and Alex came up beside her, taking his wife’s hand. “I see you’ve met Clive of North Powys.”
“I have, Alex.” She quirked an eyebrow at her brother, waiting for his comment on her gown. He said nothing, as a nonmember of the family was present. She had to give her brothers points for loyalty—as long as their mother was not around. She wondered where their mother was and had just started to look for her when Clive took her hand and placed it on his arm for a turn about the room.
“I’ve never understood the object of the promenade,” Mary Elizabeth said.
“To see and be seen, of course,” Clive answered.
“By whom?”
“Ah, now, in the answer to that lies the mystery of the ages.”
She laughed a little at him, catching Harry’s eye again. Her man raised one eyebrow at her and she shrugged one shoulder at him, as if to say she had no idea what his friend was about but might soon find out. He nodded as if he understood her, and turned back to his mother and the lady at his side. A patient man, her Harry. He would need that patience if he was to deal with her and hers for the rest of his life.
“I’ve never been to Wales,” Mary Elizabeth said. “Do you love it there?”
“I hate to leave it.”
“I hate to leave Glenderrin,” Mary Elizabeth said. She caught the eye of Harry’s cousin, Clarice, a young lady who seemed to always know what was going on in every corner of the house without even being told. Mary Elizabeth wondered if the girl kept spies and, if so, how much she paid them.
She hoped the girl had had no one peering in at her and Harry when he’d been under her skirts in the library the night before.
“I need your help with a small enterprise,” Clive said.
When Mary Elizabeth nodded to him, he went on.
“I need your help to make a certain young lady jealous.”
Mary Elizabeth laughed out loud at that, and a few of the gentlemen’s heads turned to listen to her. Not a few of the women glared at her, and Mary Elizabeth had to curb the urge to glare right back. She saw Harry smile, and her irritation lifted.
“If you’re trying to devil Harry’s little cousin, Clarice, she is already jealous. She is watching us like a hawk with a mouse.”
“She is indeed my intended target,” Clive said. “How astute you are.”
“Don’t blow smoke, sirrah. The lady has not taken her eyes off you since I came in this room. It takes no genius to see that.”
“Perhaps not. But the lady is stubborn. She will not admit her feelings for me, not even to herself.”
“You ought to cease foolish game playing and carry her off. She’ll thank you after.”
Clive laughed out loud. “If I were a man of Harry’s stature, I might do just that. But as a lowly baronet’s son, and a Welsh baronet’s son at that, I find I must employ more stealth.”
Mary Elizabeth found herself growing bored with the whole thing. “Well, good luck to you, then. I hope you win your lady.”
“This promenade has served my cause well.” Clive stopped in front of Harry, bowing to the duchess. “A pleasant dinner to you, Miss Waters.”
“Mary Elizabeth,” she reminded him.
He bowed over her hand. “Mary Elizabeth.”
The duchess looked down her nose at him, raising her quizzing glass. Clive simply smiled broader and kissed the lady’s hand before whisking Lady Ashleigh toward the door, where Billings had just rung the dinner bell.
“I see you’ve met Clive,” Harry said, his smile warming her heart as nothing else had since she had seen her mother. She stood in the light of it and drank it in.
“Colorful company you keep” was all she said.
The duchess snorted upon hearing that. “You ought to know, missy. You’re the best example of it.”
With that, the older lady swooped down on a handsome young man from Devon and asked him to lead her in to dine. It was the very reason the duchess allowed informal procession in to dine at her country house: so that she might swoop down on a different young man at each seating.
“I like your gown,” Harry murmured in her ear.
Mary Elizabeth was about to whisper to him that she’d rather hide in the library with him than eat, but then she met her mother’s eyes across the drawing room. If the ice of the North Sea was colder, Mary would have been surprised.
“I wore it for you,” she said, telling only half the truth as she drew him with her toward the dining room. Harry fell into step beside her, flanking her as if for battle. He had seen her mother, too.
“I’m with you,” Harry said.
Mary Elizabeth looked into his sky-blue eyes and smiled at him. The very sight of him seemed to tug at her heart—not hard enough to tear it, but strong enough to remind her that she loved him. “Thank you,” she answered him, as he seated her at the far end of the table from her mother and Alex both.
She felt safe for the moment, but knew that she had more work before her that night. She squared her shoulders and raised a glass of white Burgundy to her lips, sipping the French stuff without tasting it. Which was a shame, for Harry’s mother had only the best wines brought to table. Mary Elizabeth should savor it. She tried to savor the exotic wines and the meal that went with them, but all the while she felt the heavy gaze of her mother on her like a stone.
* * *
Harry loved to see his woman in royal blue. He had not known it until he saw her swan into his mother’s drawing room wearing yet another low-cut silk confection. He had been trapped with his back to the wall, speaking idly with the Lady Ashleigh, able only to gaze across the room at his Mary, almost swallowing his tongue with lust even as he did his level best to make polite conversation.
Clive had rescued him, as he always did, and Harry spent a pleasant dinner gazing down his intended’s gown to the beautiful curves of her breasts and the hint of lace that edged her stays.
He would give her a sapphire pendant to go with that gown, as soon as he might order one from his jeweler in York. It would be surrounded by tiny diamonds and rest low in her cleavage, just between her breasts. Harry wanted to put his lips there and taste her, where her skin would have the flavor of darkness and soft flowers. He remembered, for he had tasted her there the night before.
His pleasant thoughts were interrupted after dinner when Lady Anna of Glenderrin cut him and his girl off from the herd, cornering them in his mother’s salon. The lady did not look at him at all, but kept her hard, blue eyes on her daughter.
“I see that you have used my money to purchase a courtesan’s gown.”
The ice in her voice ran along his skin, and Harry stepped closer to Mary Elizabeth, wishing they were already married, that he might shield her from this woman for the rest of his life.
“I purchased it with my money,” Mary Elizabeth said. “It would have belonged to a courtesan, but as she could not pay, I bought it. I prefer jewel colors, and it had the convenience of hidden pockets so that I might hide my smaller blades.”
The love of his life said all this as a matter of fact, as she might comment on the weather or the state of the roads. He braced himself, for he knew women well enough to know that her mother would not le
t that pass.
“I will not discuss the wearing of blades, much less the use of them, in company. I will only say that you have disgraced the family long enough, and it is far past time that you behave with decorum, like a lady.”
“Like an English lady, you mean.”
Harry wondered for a moment if perhaps his girl did not need protecting after all. Her mother drew up as tall as a goddess, and, as if she feared that she might say something she would regret, left abruptly to join the duchess where she was holding court once more beside the tea cart. Lady Anna’s only concession was to nod at him briefly before stalking off.
Mary Elizabeth released one long breath, staring after her mother for only a second before she turned to smile at him. “That is getting easier, I believe,” she said.
Harry touched a stray curl that had come loose from her topknot to rest against her cheek. He knew that he should not touch her so in company, with all of the ladies of London looking on, but it seemed he could not stop himself. Even as he stood there, more than one ambitious mama looked a bit depressed, with a couple of the more enterprising ones turning to the eligible Earl of Grathton to chat him up, dragging their daughters with them.
“What is getting easier?” he asked.
“Standing up to her.”
There was a pounding at the piano as someone struck up what sounded like a reel. Harry turned to find Catherine seated at the instrument, pounding away with more enthusiasm than talent, though she seemed to hit all the notes in correct succession, more or less. Her husband Alex stood beside her, smiling down at her as if she were producing the music of the spheres. Mary Elizabeth sighed as she looked at them.
“They are well matched,” she said. There was a longing in her voice that he wanted to kiss away.
“So are we.”
Mary Elizabeth smiled at him, and the shadow that had come into her eyes since she had first seen her mother that afternoon faded, if only a little.
“Come and dance with me,” Harry said.
“You know the steps, then?”
How to Train Your Highlander Page 15