She laughed at herself. Though she was posing as a widow, she was not one. Nor was she a lady to toss away her virtue at the first sign of a man who set her tingling with a moment’s mad passion. Pru had no room in her life for passion, mad or otherwise. In order to stay out of her aunt’s house, she needed to finish this job and get her charge married off. If Robert Waters truly did honor their bargain by paying her five hundred pounds, she could retire to the wilds of Yorkshire and live out the rest of her life in blissful, if carefully budgeted, independence.
For some reason, that thought was not as exciting as it had been even three hours before. Something about spending time with Mr. Waters had knocked her reason out of joint. No doubt, once she was safely tucked away with Mary Elizabeth, teaching her the basics of how to charm London ladies, she would not be seeing much more of him.
But there was dinner to get through first.
She examined her gown once more, and found it fitting for her purposes. It was overlarge, with a huge brown ruffle bordered in cream lace which obscured the line of her breasts. Its high waist and full skirt concealed the curve of her hips. There was little she could do about the abundant mass of her honey-brown curls, so she had simply hidden as much of them as she could under an ugly lace cap. Before heading down to the dining room, she pulled on her spectacles, attempting once more to hide the dark blue of her eyes. She had been a pretty girl once, but she was older now, and no doubt safe from any man’s advances, whether she wore a disguise or not.
She straightened her shoulders and opened her bedroom door.
* * *
Robert Waters sat alone with Mary Elizabeth in the music room. Dinner was not for ten more minutes, and he had a very strong feeling that his Mrs. Prudence was a stickler for never being late. It seemed she would never be early, either.
“Do you still like her, Mary?”
His sister sipped at her whisky as she stared out into the lush garden behind the house. So many bits of green grew in the south, but Robbie knew that she would trade every shade of that green for the brown and ocher of home.
“Of course I still like her, Robbie. She needs a friend, just as Catherine once did. It’s my pleasure to take her in and care for her.”
“She’s here to look after you.”
Mary Elizabeth smiled at him then, and for a moment he remembered what she looked like when she was truly happy, after a day hunting grouse in the thickets beyond the burn back home. He took in that smile and asked himself how long it had been since he had seen her happy. Since before she had fought with their mother back in Edinburgh, perhaps. Or even longer ago than that.
“That’s what you keep sayin’, Brother. But I told Alex, and I’ll tell you. I’ve no need to marry, not now, and not ten years from now. But this girl, she’s alone in the world, and she needs looking after.”
“And you’re the woman to do it,” Robbie said.
Mary Elizabeth’s smile did not falter. “That I am, Robbie. Until I find the man who’ll look after her better than me.”
He did not know why the thought of that pained him, but it was like a bolt to the heart, a vise that closed suddenly, and then twisted as it squeezed. Robbie opened his mouth to tell his sister that he was not paying the woman twenty pounds a month only to run off and marry the first bastard she met, when Mrs. Prudence entered the room and silenced him altogether.
She was dressed in yet another brown wool dress. Robbie wasn’t sure how, but he was going to get her out of those ugly gowns within the week. He enjoyed trying to decipher the lines of her body beneath the heavy clothes, but the sight of all that wool in summer made his skin itch. He wanted to see her in muslin and silk.
He wanted to see her in nothing at all.
How long had it been since he had taken a widow for a lover? A year? Maybe more? He often hesitated to deal with widows, for those lovely women, while willing and experienced, often fell in love with him.
Or more likely, they fell in love with the idea of being married again to a man with a bit of gold in his pocket. The fact that he was a younger son of a branch of a Scottish house that had all but died out during the Rising of ’45 did not seem to hinder their ardor. And Robbie had been forced to tell a hard truth to each one in her turn: he was not a marrying man.
He watched as Mary Elizabeth led Prudence into the dining room, and he followed in silence, like a hound hoping for scraps. A civil word had not come out of his mouth since she had come downstairs. He supposed he should say something. Women liked that, even if they were not destined for your bed.
Robbie wondered if Prudence might pass a night or two with him in his.
He forced himself to raise his eyes from the soft, rounded posterior that swayed before him. He remembered his manners in the almost automatic fashion that his mother had drilled into him without ceasing, and he drew her chair out for her before one of the ducal footmen could spring into action from his post against a silk-covered wall.
She seemed startled, almost as if she had forgotten he was there at all. He smiled at her, and watched as a blush rose up her neck from the high bodice of her brown gown. His smile widened, and she faltered for a bare moment before she rallied, and glared at him.
“I thank you, Mr. Waters. But I believe that is the footman’s job.”
“A gentleman always sees a lady seated.” Robbie repeated one of his father’s many strictures by rote.
“And what of me then, Robbie?” Mary Elizabeth asked as a footman seated her with care.
He let his eyes linger on the curves of Prudence’s face for a moment more before he turned to his sister. “That man there seems to have you well in hand.”
Mary Elizabeth might easily have deviled him further, but she seemed to recall that they had a guest, and she held her tongue. She sat up very straight at table and did not at once start talking about fly-fishing, which he took for a good sign. God willing, she might learn such restraint when in company. Perhaps Prudence was a good influence on her already.
“And might I inquire about your husband, then, Mrs. Whittaker? Was he in trade, or was he a gentleman?” Mary Elizabeth asked, as blithe as you please, as she helped herself to some stewed carrots.
Robbie thought he might leap across the table and throttle her. But as he wanted to know the answer as well, he said only, “Ian would have your hide, Mary. All the gentlemen of our family are in trade.”
Mary Elizabeth did not even look at him but waved one hand in his general direction to silence any further outbursts on his part, all of her focus on her prey.
Mrs. Prudence looked more than a little chagrined to have her dead husband brought into conversation as soon as she seated herself at table, before she could even pick up her fork. She rallied almost at once, and took a bite of carrot before she answered.
“He was a gentleman,” she said.
A silence followed in which Robbie and Mary Elizabeth waited for more. The silence lengthened, and no information came.
Mary Elizabeth broke her examination off to shoot him a look of concern, and he raised his eyebrows as if to say, You started this.
“Did Mr. Whittaker own his own farm, or did he live in town?” Mary Elizabeth finally asked.
The fish course was being served, and Prudence took a bit of trout for herself before she answered. “Mr. Whittaker was a curate.”
That answer silenced Mary Elizabeth effectively for the length of the time it took for the fish course to be cleared and the meat course to be brought out. Braised beef in butter, it looked like—his favorite. But he could not enjoy it, for all he could think of was Prudence beneath some other man.
He wondered if the illustrious Reverend Whittaker had brought her pleasure. If he had not, the dead man should be hog-tied. If he had, perhaps his widow might be persuaded to embark on a pleasurable journey or two with him between the sheets of his borrowed bed.
The thought made the heat rise in his groin. He took a sip of the French wine the butler always served with beef, and told himself to calm down. She was a lady who deserved to be wooed.
Robbie had never bothered to woo a woman in his life. A smile here, a bit of flattery there, and most women were his for the taking. He wondered how a man might go about persuading a slippery woman. He supposed he would have to ask Alex when his brother came back from Devon.
“So your husband was a reverend then?” Mary Elizabeth inquired after the silence. “He made sermons on Sundays and judged the raspberry jam contests and such like?”
Robbie watched Mrs. Prudence closely, and saw her blink, as if she had never before been asked about such trappings of a minister’s life. “Yes,” she said very slowly, laying her beef fork down by her plate. “My husband was quite fond of raspberry jam. And blackberry jam, too.”
Mary Elizabeth smiled. “The duchess has a good deal of jam put by in her pantry. I’ll have them bring both out tomorrow for breakfast.”
Prudence suddenly looked pained, as if Mary Elizabeth had stabbed her through the heart. “Thank you,” was all she said.
Mary Elizabeth reached for her hand across the expanse of the overly grand table. She held Prudence’s hand in her own, as Robert wished suddenly that he might do. He hadn’t yet earned the right.
“Forgive me,” Mary Elizabeth said. “I should not have mentioned your husband, or his likings. I have only brought you pain, and I am sorry for it.”
Mrs. Prudence rose from her chair, and the footman behind her sprang into action with a lurch, for he had not expected her to stand. The young man drew her chair out of her way, looking chagrined to be caught unawares.
Robbie knew just how the bastard felt. He got to his own feet two seconds too late, for it did not do to sit while a lady was standing. Another stricture his mother and father had driven into him.
“Please, do not apologize.” Prudence cleared her throat, but her voice was rough with tears. Robbie felt like the worst of heels—while he’d been imagining her beautiful breasts, she was almost crying for the man she had lost.
She must have loved her husband, then.
The thought was a blow to his solar plexus—a blow so strong that it took his breath. He did not get it back before Mrs. Prudence had flown.
“Forgive me, but I must retire for the evening. I feel a sudden headache coming on. Good night.” She was gone suddenly, opening the door to the corridor before the footman could move to do it for her.
Robbie remained standing in her wake, not sure what to make of her, or of himself. He came to with his sister staring at him, as if he was the Christmas goose and she was looking for the best place to start carving.
“You love her,” Mary Elizabeth said.
“I don’t use that word,” Robbie answered.
His sister pursed her lips as if to blow away what he said for the nonsense it was. She kept staring at him, so he sat down and applied himself to his beef. It had grown cold, and no longer tasted like much, but he ate it all.
“You love her,” Mary Elizabeth said again.
“Don’t be daft, girl. I’ve barely known her a day.”
Robbie felt his words stick in his throat, so he downed a second glass of the expensive red wine from Burgundy. Mary Elizabeth still did not move, but kept pondering him, as if she might find the answer to the ages somewhere about his person.
“I’ll help you,” she said.
“I don’t need my sister’s help to get a woman,” he answered.
“Not normally, no,” she said. “But you’ll need my help with this one.”
Robbie did not speak. He had a sinking feeling in his gut that, for once, his sister was right.
Six
Pru felt like the worst woman who had ever walked the face of the earth.
She knew that she was not, of course, but lying to her new employers—whom she had reluctantly begun to think of as friends—chafed at her as lying never had before.
She had rarely, if ever, spoken of her phantom husband. The nonexistent curate was an amalgam of her childhood pastor, her father’s steward, and a hint of true fantasy thrown in. The fantasy of a man who was loyal and true, a man who would never leave her, a man who would love her all her life.
That last bit was the most ridiculous fantasy of all.
From the little she had seen of men during her single abortive Season before her brother’s death, gentlemen of the ton did not stay faithful. Not to the women they courted, and certainly never to the women they wed. They might come by her brother’s house to offer a bouquet of summer flowers, but that night, after the balls were over, they would be off to find a woman somewhere—a mistress, or someone even less savory.
It did not escape her in that moment that she was a hypocrite. She should not judge those women, who were no doubt simply trying to make a living in a man’s harsh world. Pru had the advantages of a bit of money and good breeding, along with the education that would allow her to serve as a governess or a companion in any household in the land. The women forced onto the street, or onto the stage, did not have her advantages. They had never been an earl’s daughter.
She was still an earl’s daughter, she supposed, though the earldom had fallen into disrepair with no heir available. Every branch of her father’s kin had long since died out, and with her brother gone, the lands and money had returned to the Crown. William the Conqueror had created the first Earl of Lynwood almost eight hundred years before, and now, that line was ended. She was the last of them, and she was a woman.
And now, in spite of her illustrious breeding, she was as poor as a church mouse, hidden from the ton in a web of lies to keep those who once had known her family from recognizing her, to keep her hidden from the people who despised her. She could not bear the thought of facing all the men who had once invested in her brother’s shipping venture, only to lose their fortunes to the drink.
When her brother disappeared, the world had said that he was to blame. That he had simply vanished with the investment money, setting himself up as a king in some foreign land. Venezuela perhaps, or Peru.
Her brother would never have done such a thing. For him never to have returned, as he had not in five years, he had to have died at sea. He had told her always, even as a child, that the ocean was not to be trifled with. That even when a man was faithful to Her, She was a harsh mistress who would one day take Her due.
The sea had taken her brother, no matter what the wagging tongues of the ton said.
Hiding from society in plain sight made her a liar. What made her a hypocrite was that, despite her habit of protecting her virtue as a treasure, in her heart, she was no lady at all. She had been taught all her life that her virtue made her a lady, better than women who had fallen into ruin. But now Pru was a woman of twenty-five who had never been touched, a woman who wanted Robert Waters with an intensity that shocked her to the center of her bones.
She was not completely certain what she wanted from Robert. She knew a little of what happened between a man and woman on their wedding night, but the bare facts did not seem to encompass the width and breadth of her desire, and she had only known him for one day. She wondered how much she might want him once she knew more about what men and women did together in the dark.
Pru was no widow. She was no true lady. She was a liar, and had a newfound desire to become little better than a whore. And she knew, whenever she thought of Robert Waters’s blue eyes and wide shoulders, that she did not care.
* * *
After a long night of wishing for what he could not have, Robbie finally stole a few hours of sleep toward dawn. When he rose from his bed, still thinking of the curves of Prudence’s face, he found her waiting for him at the foot of the grand ducal staircase.
“I can’t find Mary Elizabeth,” she said. “She’s gone.”
“She’s not in the breakfast room?” Robbie asked, drinking in the soft sweetness of her mouth and the blue of her eyes beneath the thick lenses of her glasses. He wanted to take those glasses from their perch on her nose and see those eyes for himself.
He knew he had gone soft when that thought crossed his mind, but it hardly mattered. He was man enough to allow a little softness in his life.
He forced himself to pay attention to the here and now, and to keep his eyes raised from the rounded beauty of Prudence’s breasts. They were displayed even beneath the latest hideous gown she wore, this one a drab shade of gray. “Mary Elizabeth never misses a meal,” he finally said.
“Well, she’s missing this one.”
With that pert answer, she led him into the ducal breakfast room, where a glorious repast was laid out in understated splendor. The household staff kept preparing meals for an army, as if in the fervent hope that the duchess would return with one and oust the Scots from their midst.
And just as Prudence had said, Mary Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen.
“She might still be abed.” Robbie could hear the doubt in his own voice.
“I already called for her in her room. The bed is made, and she is gone.”
“Did you notice if her fishing pole was missing?”
Instead of telling him to go and look for himself, Prudence considered his question, a thoughtful look on her face. He enjoyed watching her think, too, it seemed.
“I did not notice such a thing.”
“She keeps it propped next to her wardrobe, where she can always see it.”
“There was a sword there, but no fishing pole.”
Robbie did not comment on the fact that Mary Elizabeth still had not sent her claymore home.
“Then he might have gone to a river.”
“The Thames?” Prudence asked, looking horrified.
How to Wed a Warrior Page 4