Two
Pru did not know what possessed her to agree to take tea at a duchess’s house with a broad-shouldered Scot and his wayward sister. Perhaps it was the way his blue eyes had seemed to hold her still, like a butterfly under glass. A part of her simply could not catch her breath when he looked at her. Even though she had been strict with herself, and kept her eyes from him except to frown, she had felt his gaze on her. It lingered like the warmth of a sun she had never felt before.
Perhaps she had simply run mad.
So the next day, she set aside her misgivings in her borrowed room in the house of her aunt, and dressed in her ugliest gown. Aunt Winifred Whittaker, whose last name Pru had adopted, looked her over, inspecting her disguise for flaws, as she always did before Pru went out into the world. Her aunt’s unswerving gaze always on her was one more reason she was finally seeking employment as a companion. Out in the world, no matter how odd or unpleasant the family she ended up with might turn out to be, no one would watch her as her mother’s sister did—always searching for a defect.
“It will serve,” Winifred said at last. “But I think that bonnet could do without the flower.”
Pru glanced at the wide glass above the mantel that served to reflect both sunlight and candlelight across the room, making the small sitting room brighter. The tiny white rose she had tucked into the brim of her ugly bonnet was out of place. No doubt of it. She was not even sure why she had plucked that rose from the hedge in the yard early that morning, or why she wore it now. Five years ago, when her brother had died and her family had fallen into ruin, she had given up beautiful things. The sight of that one rose was not pert or pretty, but sad.
“No doubt you are right, Aunt.” But Pru did not move to throw it away.
“Well, I think you might better serve God and your fellow man by living here and working for the poor with me,” Winifred said. “But as you have your heart set on serving in some nabob’s house, there is little I can say in the matter.”
Pru’s heart was bent not on service, but freedom. She did not tell her aunt that, however.
“Miss Harrington seems quite well brought up for a tradesman’s child. She needs a bit of polish, but I think I will be able to see her married within the year.”
“Not in Society, surely.” Winifred’s cold tone was colored with a touch of genteel horror.
“Nabobs have their own society, Aunt. I am sure the girl will make a very good marriage among her father’s peers.”
Winifred sniffed. “Indeed. As long as they don’t delude themselves into thinking she might marry Quality. As you might have done, had you not been so foolish.”
Pru sighed. It never took long for her aunt to bring up and disapprove of her past choices. A marriage without love was a marriage without honor. Her father had taught her that. Never one to move in society herself, her aunt had never fully grasped how complete Pru’s ruin was. And now, as a twenty-five-year-old spinster securely on the shelf, with no money and no family name to speak of, she was better off on her own. Pru would leave her aunt’s house and make her own way in the world. Nabobs’ daughters were kinder than quality, and their fathers paid better.
The brass clock on the mantel struck the hour. “I must go, Aunt. The Harrington family is waiting.”
She had not mentioned her invitation to the Duchess of Northumberland’s town house. Winifred would have protested that such an invitation from Highland barbarians was a dishonor in itself, but she also would have insisted on coming along if only to see the duchess. Lying to her aunt was easier than dealing with her for the entire afternoon.
“Don’t let their commonness rub off on you, Prudence,” her aunt said, unable to let her leave in peace. She seemed to relish the nasty parting words that would ring in her niece’s ears for the rest of the day. “Never forget, no matter how foolishly you behave, that you are an earl’s daughter.”
Prudence swallowed her ire, closing her mouth on words she longed to say. For the sake of the memory of her mother, she held her tongue until she could speak with respect. “Indeed, Aunt. I never do.”
* * *
With Alexander safely married and on the way to Devon with his young bride, Robert could breathe easier. The problem of what to do with his wild sister was still unsolved, but he thought he might see a solution glimmering in the distance, like a pearl gleaming in the depths of the sea.
“A companion?” Mary Elizabeth said. “What for?”
“For company,” Robert answered. “Alex and Catherine will be in Devon with her mother and sister for a fortnight. You’ll be bored here all alone. Having the Englishwoman about might do you a world of good.”
“Don’t insult her by calling her English, Robbie.”
“She is English, Mary.”
“If she were a hunchback, you wouldn’t tell her to her face, now would you?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Then leave her Englishness out of it.”
Robert held his tongue. In spite of Mary Elizabeth’s usual tirade against the benighted English, she seemed to be considering what he had said. Since the first time they had been ordered south by their mother, she might actually take his advice.
He wished for a moment he had his brother Ian’s way of giving a woman an idea and making her think it was hers all along. But Robert was a plainspoken man, if charming in his own way. He’d have to rely on Mary Elizabeth’s long-buried good sense, and a bit of luck.
He had good luck in abundance.
“I’ll ask her,” Mary Elizabeth said. “She’s a true lady, so she might refuse.”
Robbie agreed with that. The delectable widow who hid her glorious curves under ugly gowns had the manners of a lady. A lady he would like to unwrap, like a present on Twelfth Night.
“She is a lady. But she helped us yesterday. She might help us again.”
Mary Elizabeth’s blue eyes were sharp on his face. “I don’t need her help.”
Robert could feel his advantage slipping, so he lied a little. “She doesn’t know that.”
The fancy ducal butler scratched on the parlor door, and Robert felt his neck prickle at the sound. “God’s breath, but he sounds like a cat in sand.”
Mary Elizabeth shot him a quelling look, but she was smiling. “Come in,” she called, as Robbie couldn’t be bothered to encourage the duchess’s servants in their odd English ways.
The butler, Pemberton, stood glowering in the open doorway. “There is a lady to see you.”
He did not address Mary Elizabeth or Robert directly, but spoke to the room at large, as though his mistress the duchess might be hiding behind the wainscoting, or be tucked away behind one of the heavy velvet drapes.
“Thank you, Pemberton. Please send her in, along with the tea tray.”
“As you say, miss.”
The butler bowed from the neck, and in another silent moment, the enticing subject of their conversation was standing in the doorway, as if she was confused as to how she had gotten there at all. She blinked behind the thick lenses of her spectacles, and Robbie felt his pulse quicken inexplicably.
It did not occur to him to inquire as to why he had a sudden taste for widows in ugly bonnets and brown wool. He had never been a man to reflect overmuch on his sexual tastes; rather, he preferred to spend all his time fulfilling them. He watched the woman step into the room and accept his sister’s outstretched hand. He wondered how long it would be before he might sample this one.
His sister and the lady were making some feminine conversation, none of which interested him in the slightest. He simply stood at attention, watching the rise and fall of the lady’s breasts as she spoke.
When both girls turned to him, as if expecting some answer, he blinked. “Yes?” he asked at last.
Mary Elizabeth frowned at him. “I told you he has the manners of an ape,” she said.
The Englishwoman stared him down, as if measuring him for a birch rod, so that she might take him over her knee. He shifted uncomfortably at that thought and, before he could follow that flight of fancy, reminded himself that his sister was in the room.
The tea tray arrived, rescuing him from whatever his sister and her new friend had recently concocted. The butler left the tray unattended by the settee, closing the door unceremoniously behind him.
The imperious lady raised one eyebrow at the rudeness of the duchess’s servant, but had the good grace not to comment on it. “Well,” she said at last. “Shall I pour?”
Three
Robert watched as Mrs. Whittaker sank onto the purgatorial settee beside his sister and started pouring tea. Mary Elizabeth did not seem to think it odd that their guest had just taken over as hostess, but then, what in their lives was not odd? If that was the strangest thing to happen all afternoon, he would count himself lucky.
He sat across from the two girls, wondering how he was going to bring up the matter of companionship for his sister while still keeping himself from panting too openly over the tempting widow in her unsightly brown gown. Happily, Mary Elizabeth solved his problem for him.
“I take two lumps and a splash of milk,” she instructed. When the lady handed the Sevres china cup to her, along with its saucer, his sister said, “Thank you, Mrs. Whittaker. Would you be so kind as to add only lemon to my brother’s cup? And might you consider taking on the role of companion to me?”
Mrs. Whittaker paused for the barest moment, raising one eyebrow as she handed him his tiny cup. He reached into his pocket for his flask. When he drew it out, though, her censorious look made him freeze in place before putting the flask back where it had come from. Perhaps he would take his tea without his traditional tot of whisky. Just this afternoon, of course.
To keep the peace.
The lady’s eagle eye turned from him almost reluctantly, as soon as she saw that he had silently obeyed her stricture to keep their teatime a civilized, whisky-free affair. She smiled at his sister, poured her own tea without adding milk or sugar, and took a meditative sip.
Mary Elizabeth kept talking. “My brother and sister-in-law are in the country, and I am staying in Town. My brother Robert here is a decent sort, but not fit company for a lady.”
Robert snorted. “I’ll thank you for that, Mary.”
His sister’s eyes widened at him over the Englishwoman’s head as she bent to add a touch more tea to her cup. He saw then that Mary Elizabeth was simply trying to reel the lady in by calling once more on her protective instincts, and he held his tongue.
Mrs. Whittaker did not even glance at him, but met his sister’s eyes. “You are the lady in question.”
“Of course I am.”
Robert felt his ire begin to rise at the hint of censure in the woman’s voice. He might call Mary Elizabeth all manner of hoydenish names, but he would be damned if he sat by while someone from outside the family criticized her.
“Forgive my rudeness, Miss Waters. I have no doubt that you are a lady. But as you know, the ton is more than a little set in their ways. They have not quite taken to opening their doors to foreigners, and as you are from the north, they might be found especially reticent.”
“I would have thought so,” Mary Elizabeth answered, “but they do as the duchess tells them.”
“The Duchess of Northumberland is not in residence, is she?”
“No. She’s at home, trying to bring her wayward son to heel. He refuses to marry and continue their line. More’s the pity. I don’t know what’s wrong with the man.”
Robert did not point out that she was just as stubborn as the reclusive duke they’d never met, but his sister had the bit between her teeth, so he held his tongue.
Mary Elizabeth went on blithely. “The duchess could not come south for my Season, but she has sponsored me.”
“Which is why you were received everywhere. Until you drew a weapon on Lord Grathton.”
Mary Elizabeth frowned, her blue eyes looking troubled. “Was he that offended, then?”
“I think the earl is a gentleman who would overlook even such folly. But the women of his family, and the women of the ton, are far less forgiving.”
Mary Elizabeth’s frown deepened. “I did not think. I just acted.”
The imperious lady softened slightly as she bent forward and took his sister’s hand. It was odd to see a near stranger offer comfort, and for Mary Elizabeth to accept it so readily. Mary Elizabeth did not turn away as Robert thought she might, but sat still and listened to the woman speak.
“Have you received a great many invitations this Season?”
“I have,” Mary Elizabeth answered.
“And have you received any yet today?”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence, in which Mary Elizabeth sat very still, looking suddenly miserable. Robert had the almost overwhelming need to run the whole stuck-up, mincing mass of London’s elite through with his own sword for putting that sorrowful look on his sister’s face. The sons of whores.
“No.” Mary Elizabeth’s voice was low. Mrs. Whittaker had not yet let go of her hand.
“I think perhaps it is time to retrench, Miss Waters. If you chose to take me on as a companion, it might behoove you to listen to my advice and, wherever you can, to heed it, so that you can continue as a success.”
Mary Elizabeth still looked dejected. “I can try, Mrs. Whittaker, but I am myself, always. I don’t know how to be anyone else.”
The lady smiled then. Her smile was warm and sincere, her eyes shining from behind her thick glasses, cutting past them as light after a storm.
“Of course you must be yourself. I simply suggest that we might plan a manner of attack on society that would make you welcome for all your own stellar qualities, and not just because of the duchess’s influence.”
“Stellar qualities?” Mary Elizabeth looked doubtful. “What are they?”
Mrs. Whittaker leaned close and patted his sister’s other hand. “I think we can take a week or two to explore them, don’t you think? And then launch you back into society a new woman.”
“But as I said, I am always my own woman,” Mary Elizabeth answered. “I can be no other.”
“And we will find a way to show that woman off to advantage, in a way that will not frighten the lords and ladies of London.”
“I think I’d rather go home.”
Robert swallowed hard, but before he could remind his sister of the folly of that, Mrs. Whittaker spoke for him.
“You will no doubt go home, and to great approbation. But first, do you not think it might be fun to wow the ton a little?”
“Wow them?”
“Shock them with what a lady you are.”
Mary Elizabeth mused. “I am a lady already.”
“Of course you are.”
“And if I get a good report from her friends down here,” his sister said, “Mama might welcome me home.”
Robert felt his heart squeeze, but as he watched, Mrs. Whittaker did not waver. “You will make your mother very proud.”
Mary Elizabeth squared her shoulders, and the light of battle came into her eyes. “How do we start?”
* * *
Pru was sure she had offended Miss Waters and her hulking brother past bearing by speaking so plainly, but by the time she rose to take her leave, the girl seemed eager to begin her new regimen. There was no way to be certain that such a regimen would take, but if she could keep her new charge from drawing a blade in public, she would have accomplished something.
Mr. Robert Waters did not comment. Indeed, he said almost nothing all afternoon, which worried her a bit. Of course, if he simply held his tongue for the few months it might take to bring his sister into shape, it might be best for them all.
Though, even if she never h
ad to hear his deep, lilting voice again, she had no idea what to do about his blue eyes. Or his curling, overlong hair. Or his broad shoulders. Or the way he smelled of cedar.
Pru told herself not be a fool. She had turned away men much better bred and much richer than Mr. Robert Waters. But none of them had given her a shiver down her spine whenever they entered the room. Or spoke. Or sat in silence.
It seemed that she had a taste for Highland men that, until now, she had been unaware of. Damn and blast it.
Pru rose to put on her gloves and curtsied, watching as Miss Waters curtsied back very prettily to her. The girl was graceful, no mistake. She would take Mary Elizabeth through her paces, and see if they might find some charming, ladylike skill with which to woo the ton. Pru wondered if she might even have to call on Lord Grathton to ask for his help in setting the girl to rights with the cats of society.
She prayed not. That part of her life was over, and forever. She could not very well ask such a favor of him after all this time, and not expect consequences.
John Vaughton, Earl of Grathton was well on his way to being married to someone else. Perhaps he had already set aside all memory of her, and continued to move on with his life.
Pru was not sure what it was about the young Miss Waters that had convinced her to abandon a perfectly lucrative year with Miss Harrington of Bombay. Miss Harrington and Miss Waters were so different. Miss Waters was a child of privilege and wealth, much as Pru had once been. But there was a fire and a joy in Mary Elizabeth that Pru could not remember having, even when she had been safe and warm, tucked away in Yorkshire in her father’s house.
Pru adjusted her bonnet and moved to the front door, taking in the cool nod of the butler, who seemed slightly mollified to see an English lady in the house. Mary Elizabeth did not accompany her into the entrance hall, but Robert Waters did.
“Forgive me, Mr. Waters. Did I forget something?”
The Highlander smiled down on her, and she felt a hint of hot lava move straight to her nether region. She swallowed hard and forced herself to stand very still as Robert Waters stepped close to her—too close for propriety’s sake. She tried to find her breath, and failed. She could not seem to find her tongue either. How on God’s loving green earth was she was going to live with this man for the time it would take to see his sister married?
How to Wed a Warrior Page 2