by Jade Lee
“I see chef has finished his latest batch of bangla.” She scanned the table to see the remains of a half dozen of her father’s favorite Indian dishes. “And you’ve had quite a feast as well.”
There was the rapid scramble of feet as the two men rushed to stand. Meanwhile, her father grinned at her.
“Best Indian chef in all of London,” he said.
“The only one, Papa.”
Lord Whitly bowed his greeting. “This was the finest meal I’ve had since coming home, and I extend my highest compliments to your chef.”
“He’s a good man and a good cook,” her father said with a warm smile.
“He’s an average cook, but an excellent brewmeister,” Mari returned. Then she took a deep breath and forced herself to smile, as if she wasn’t worried to death that her father had just engaged her to this man. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Lord Whitly. Did you and father discuss anything significant?”
Her father waved his hand in too wide an arc. “It’s all significant. We have more in our heads than fripperies and balls.”
This was a standard complaint among her father and the ladies of the household. Their usual response would be to tease him about his less-than-fashionable attire. For a man who desperately wanted to rise in the ranks of the social elite, her father was woefully bad at dressing himself.
But instead of the usual comment, her gaze caught and held with Lord Whitly. He was looking at her with an intensity she found rather thrilling. He hadn’t moved from his formal stance, but his eyes were trained so tightly on her face that she couldn’t look away. And she couldn’t deny the flutter of delight she took at his attention. Then he ruined it completely.
“Your hair makes me wince. Doesn’t it hurt?”
She touched her pins, noting that many of her curls had escaped, so she quickly attempted to settle them back into place.
“No, no,” he said. “You’re going to give yourself a migraine.” Then before she could stop him, he pulled out several of her pins.
“Oh!” she cried, trying to stop him. But he was quicker than any man—especially an inebriated one—ought to be. A moment later, every lock on her head was released to fly about her face in abandon. And as quick as that, her head felt better. The ease on her scalp made her eyes flutter closed for a moment in relief as her hair tumbled down her back.
“Stop that!” she said as she tried to brush them back into order. It didn’t work. Not without the pins he was dropping so casually onto the table. “Give those back to me.”
Lord Whitly shook his head while her father dropped back down into his chair. “He’s right, you know. You look much prettier with everything…” He waved vaguely about his ears. “Loose.”
Had her father just suggested she become a loose woman? If the man wasn’t in his cups, she’d admonish him, but he was smiling fondly at her, and she couldn’t bring herself to naysay him.
Lord Whitly’s mood, however, was something else entirely. She turned to him with a stern glare. “When I need advice on my toilette, I shall be sure to ask someone else.”
He huffed out a breath. “What happened, Miss Powel? Why would you do this to yourself? A beige dress? The entire thing makes me sad.”
She felt her mouth gape open. What was the polite response to so outrageous a statement? I did it because this was the only way to get married? Except, of course, she wasn’t married. I did it because the gossips delighted in hurting me whenever I wore something interesting? Very true, but he wouldn’t understand the way women sniped at each other.
Before she could frame a response, he rubbed a hand over his face. “Damn, I’ve become maudlin.” He glared at the bangla. “That’s a good drink, but stronger than I thought.”
Obviously. What sane gentleman picked the pins out of a woman’s hair? “What are you doing here, Lord Whitly?”
Her father’s head snapped up. “You said she was expecting you!”
Lord Whitly grimaced. “She ought to be. I can’t help it if she forgot.”
Mari dropped her hands onto her hips. “I have not forgotten anything.”
Her father groaned. “He said you were to go walking in Hyde Park today. Because you lost some wager about lemonade. Really, Mari, I thought you knew that ladies don’t make wagers.”
She opened her mouth to give a blistering retort—drunken father or not—when she realized he was right. She had wagered and lost. A walk in Hyde Park had been the forfeit. She couldn’t remember one thing with her hair all fly-away and Lord Whitly standing so close.
Meanwhile, the blighter in question grinned at her father. “See? Can’t help it if she forgets.”
“Did you really forget?” her father pressed. “You? The one with the perfect schedule in her head?” He looked at Lord Whitly. “Amazing mind, my gel. Remembers everything.”
She blew out a breath. “It’s been a difficult day. I rose too early.”
“And fell off your horse,” her father said. “Your mother told me.”
Mari had no response to that, so she turned to Lord Whitly and tried to be gracious. “I can see that you’re not quite yourself right now, so perhaps we should delay our walk.” Maybe until after she brought Mr. Camden up to scratch.
“I am perfectly well, thank you,” he said with a smooth bow punctuated with a flourish that had gone out of style two hundred years earlier. “I merely await your convenience to amble.” Then he cast her a mischievous look. “Perhaps you wish to change your gown?”
“You won’t like anything else I own either,” she muttered. Then she tried to think things through logically. She wished to learn what Lord Whitly and her father had discussed. She wanted to know more about his secrets too, and any number of things that had kept her wondering through the night and had prompted her to rise too early this morning. And the best time to get him to talk was when he was soft from drink.
In short, now was a better time than most for her to go strolling with him. She just had to keep her temper long enough to gain the answers she sought.
“Very well, Lord Whitly, it would be my pleasure to walk with you this afternoon.”
“Excellent!” Then he offered her his arm. She took it gingerly, setting just her fingertips on his sleeve, but then he settled his other hand atop hers. Large and all encompassing. Just a forearm. Nothing so exciting about that. Except she was excited by it. She did marvel at his easy strength and the hard bulge to his upper arm. He was a powerfully built man. And he was looking at her as if he wanted to eat her.
She ought to be frightened. She told herself to be on her guard. Instead, she flushed and looked away, both embarrassed by his attention and flattered by it. They started to walk out of the room, but before they could leave, her father called out.
“You really think stability in the carriage is the wrong choice?”
Lord Whitly turned back, Mari with him. “I think that carriages in India overturn from trying to outrun bandits on bad roads. If you want to transport your silk from the interior up through Turkey, you need to design a carriage with a protected seat for a sharpshooter.”
“Have to find a reliable sharpshooter first. At least half of them are in league with the bandits.”
“Plenty of men coming out of the military, some of them with great skills. My brother would know of a few.”
Her father arched a brow. “But would he recommend me to them?”
Lord Whitly smiled. “He would if I asked.”
“Hmmm. I’ll think on it.” Then he plopped his chin on his fist and stared darkly into his empty cup of bangla.
Lord Whitly waited a moment, obviously unsure what that meant. Mari couldn’t blame him. Her father’s moods were unpredictable at the best of times. So she squeezed his arm, trying not to get a surreptitious thrill at the motion.
“He’ll be like that for an hour or more. It’s what
he loves to do best after a good bout of bangla.”
“Talk about carriage designs?”
“Stare into space and mutter about ideas. He tends to overflow with them when in his cups.” She gestured with her free hand as one of his secretaries slipped into the room and sat down, pen and paper at hand. “Mr. Harper is here to record whatever comes out.”
“So his ideas are good?”
She shrugged. “Only one or two in a hundred. But it doesn’t matter. He has so many.”
“One or two good ideas could set a man up for life.”
She nodded and was strangely pleased that he understood her father. She’d heard the whispers about him. Her father was an odd-duck bourgeois. A town cit who had delusions of being better than he was. Only his family and a few of his investors knew the true genius of the man. And now, perhaps, Lord Whitly saw it as well.
“So is that what you two talked about?” she pressed as they headed for the front door. “Carriages in India?”
“Some.” They parted at the door to accept hats and gloves from Horace. “He is sending around a marriage contract for me to peruse.”
Her step hitched, and her heart beat painfully in her throat. “Oh?” she said, scrambling to keep her voice from a high-pitched squeak of alarm.
“I shouldn’t be too concerned. It’s the initial gambit. The terms will be outrageous, and if I accept them without argument, your father will likely ban me from the house.”
If she was alarmed before, now she was tending toward horror. “What?”
“It’s the game of negotiation. Surely you’ve seen it before. A suitor appears avidly at your side, and then abruptly disappears.”
Well, of course she had. Scores of times. “Because they didn’t accept the terms of the negotiation?” How humiliating to have her future dickered over like a meat pie at market.
“Or they were insulted. I believe it’s one way your father tests the gentlemen who come for your hand. If they don’t understand how to barter, then they won’t manage your dowry well. And that, I gather, would be a capital crime.”
She didn’t know how to answer. She’d never thought deeply about the subtleties of the marriage contract. She had been more interested in thinking about the man than the money.
Meanwhile, he held his arm out to her again, winking as he spoke. “Never fear. I know this particular game very well.”
“And do my wishes matter to either one of you?”
He gave her a fond pat on her hand. “Of course they do. A great deal.” His expression shifted into devilry. “But that has nothing to do with the marriage contract. In that, I think your father and I shall take a great deal of joy in growling at each other like distempered dogs.” They stepped onto the walkway and began a pleasant pace toward Hyde Park. “We have that in common, you know,” he added. “Your father and I.”
“Acting like dogs?”
He chuckled. “A love of negotiation. I never realized how much fun it was until India, when my entire livelihood depended on well-struck bargains.”
She shook her head. “I dislike it intensely. I rely on knowing what an item is worth and then paying that much and no more.”
“Which works extremely well for a pair of shoes or a horse, but not so well with a wife.” He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to the back. “If we had to measure your worth, I would be beggared paying for you.”
A pretty compliment indeed, made all the more striking because he said it with little inflection. It was a statement, not flattery, and she turned mute from the heat his words generated in her belly. Warm, liquid yearning that might even be called desire. Which pushed her into an irrational state of panic. Desire, after all, was much too wayward for her.
So she rushed her words, everything spoken without forethought. “What do you know of Lord Rossgrove? Have you ever met him? He would not be in your set, though naturally your father would know him. They’re both political. And the men of money often speak together. But I’m not sure if you know anything of him, because you’ve been in India for a long while.”
She bit her lip, cutting off her abrupt flow of words. He arched a brow, his expression bemused. “Is Lord Rossgrove the tolerant uncle of Oscar Morgan, disinterested father to Stephen, with a prune-faced wife and a love of sugar plums?”
She blinked. In one question, he’d told her more than she’d learned in an afternoon of searching. “I-I believe so,” she stammered.
“Then I am somewhat familiar with him. Why do you ask?”
“I mean to impress him tomorrow, and I wish to know how.”
His head jerked slightly as he stared at her. “That’s a fool’s gambit if ever there was one.”
“Why?”
“Because he only cares about power, and as lovely as you are, you have none. You cannot gain entrance to his sanctum unless you have something he wants. And since you don’t, you are doomed to fail.”
“But he has asked to speak with me. Indeed, he has commanded it.”
That got his attention. His brows drew down, and his hand tightened over hers.
“I have surprised you,” she said with a childish kind of satisfaction.
He nodded slightly, as if to acknowledge the statement. It was a small thing, clearly done without conscious thought, because his mind was likely working out the reasons for her summons. But she noted it in the way one might note a spectacularly colored coat or a beautiful song. Clearly, he felt no problem with admitting she’d beaten him in this small way. She’d surprised him. But whereas she took satisfaction in winning, he couldn’t care less. She couldn’t imagine Mr. Camden admitting so tiny a thing. Nor her father. She had to trick them into listening to her. For a “winner, winner,” he was decidedly casual about losing.
And while she was still absorbing the magnitude of that, he inquired about her abrupt confession. “Do you know why Lord Rossgrove would summon you?”
“I have an idea, yes.”
He waited in silence when she didn’t provide the answer. He didn’t begin to reason it out with guesses or silly comments. He simply ambled with his quiet attention fixed on her. It was unnerving. And in that awkward moment, she found the truth tumbling out once again.
“I believe he wishes to put Mr. Camden up for a seat in the House of Commons.”
“The one that was meant for his nephew?”
Mari nodded. The man was in London barely a day, and back in the country for less than two weeks, but he knew gossip from a month earlier.
He tilted his head. “Do you have a relationship with Mr. Camden that would bring Lord Rossgrove’s attention to you?”
She nodded slowly. “I believe I do.”
“So you are engaged?” There was a dangerous edge to his voice that made her shiver. Not in fear. Everything about him was pleasant in this casual stroll on a lovely afternoon. But there was a note to his voice that made her breath catch and her nipples tighten.
Good Lord, that couldn’t be true, but the sensations were undeniable. How humiliating. Even her nipples were wayward.
“Miss Powel?” he prompted while she was busy being embarrassed by her breasts.
“Oh, um, no. Not as yet. I believe Mr. Camden is waiting for Lord Rossgrove’s approval before he speaks to me.”
“What man seeks another’s approval before choosing a wife?”
“What man barters for his bride like a cantankerous dog?”
His lips twitched in response, and again he dipped his chin toward her. “I shall not debate my choice of bride,” he said, his voice low. “The bargaining is merely for fun.”
“Your sense of fun is distinctly lost on me.”
“Is it?” he challenged. “Truly?”
She bit her lip and shrugged. He touched her arm, stopping her forward movement as he looked hard at her face.
“Never say you cannot
laugh with me. I remember the sound from six years ago. It has haunted my dreams, Miss Powel. It has lived in my heart ever since that day.”
“I laughed?” She couldn’t remember it. “Out loud and at a ball?”
“It was a bold sound, filled with joy with a musical lift at the end.” Then he did it. He laughed in his deep baritone, lifting the final notes at the last moment. It was so odd a sound that other strollers stopped to stare. And then he frowned. “No, that’s not it,” he muttered. Then he did it again. Loud and full, in a higher register before doing a strange trill at the end.
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. He sounded so bizarre that the giggles burst from her. And then—belatedly realizing what she had done—she clapped her hand over her mouth just before the lift at the end.
“Yes!” he cried. “That’s it exactly.” He pulled her hand away from her mouth. “But don’t cover it up. It’s the most wonderful sound ever.”
“You have had entirely too much bangla,” she said, her voice stern.
“Not me,” he said, his expression sobering. “I begin to think you have not had enough.” Then he sighed, and they began walking again. “I cannot understand why you have locked yourself away. You dress dull, you cover your mouth and never laugh, and you think of marrying a man who must get Rossgrove’s approval. Has England gone mad, or is it just you Welsh?”
“Is it mad to think of my future? Is it mad to act in a way that will not incite gossip?”
He grumbled under his breath. They had come to the edge of Hyde Park, where the ton was out enjoying the lovely afternoon. The drive was clogged with carriages, and the pathways were awash in the color of ladies’ gowns and bonnets. “Tell me you can look on that and not laugh.”
She looked where he gestured, but saw nothing untoward. It was merely the fashionable throng parading about the grass. “I see nothing to be amused—”
“The lady wearing the stuffed swan in her bonnet.”