“I won’t tell you that, Mrs. Prudence.” Mary Elizabeth winked at Catherine, shooting Pru a wicked smile. “I won’t tell you that I’m wearing three.”
Pru groaned aloud, but Mary ignored her.
“Enough about me. There will be English wall-to-wall this night, and not one will catch me off my guard. But the true question is, how quickly can we get you in this blessed gown and down those stairs, so that my brother will quit pining for you?”
“Pining?” Pru asked, a little thrilled in spite of herself.
“He’s been staring at the staircase, waiting for you to come down it. He’s making the fancy butler nervous. For the sake of the duchess’s smooth-running household, get into this gown, and quickly.”
Pru found herself taken under Mary Elizabeth’s wing yet again. Mary Elizabeth decked Pru’s throat in a string of pearls that the girl insisted she wasn’t wearing anyway, while Catherine dressed her hair.
When they were done, the girls would not let her even glance in the mirror but tugged her by the hand, leading her to the door. “No peeking. Just enjoy yourself,” Catherine said.
“But I am here to look after Mary Elizabeth, not parade about in a beautiful gown.”
“Mrs. Pru,” Mary Elizabeth said, her hand on the doorknob, “you shall look after me, just as I shall look after you. But you don’t need to dog my every step, stand on the sidelines, and watch the dancing. I want you in the center of it. If Robbie doesn’t ask you to dance, a hundred other men will.”
“There won’t be a hundred men here tonight.”
“It was a metaphor, Mrs. Prudence.”
“Please, Mary, just call me Pru. And it is my duty to keep you as safe as I can from any gentlemen who might think to take liberties.”
Mary Elizabeth laughed so loud the room reverberated with it. “Take advantage? Of the likes of me? God help the Englishman who tries.” Pru still frowned, so Mary Elizabeth raised her skirt, displaying a second wicked dagger tied to her garter. “This is what any English who tries to woo me with more than words will get. A taste of my blade might do more than one of them good.”
It was Pru’s turn to laugh and shake her head. She was a complete failure as a companion. She had done little or nothing to civilize this beautiful Highland girl. She cast a prayer toward heaven that none of the guests tonight would try to steal a kiss from the lovely, extremely well-armed Mary Elizabeth.
Twenty-seven
It had been a hellish, frustrating day without even a glimpse of his girl, but it was all for a good cause. Robbie had stayed away from Prudence for fear he would drag her off and roger her in a dark corner somewhere.
Now he stood at the bottom of the ducal staircase, waiting impatiently for her to come downstairs. Like most women, she was late—something he had better get used to. He had a lifetime of waiting ahead of him, standing at the stairs while she got coiffed and powdered to her own satisfaction.
He tried to recall if he had ever waited on a woman before, save for his mother. And that barely counted, for she had kept the whole family waiting. Even then, he had always been too busy wrestling with his brothers and causing trouble to notice much of what his mother was up to. Today, though, he was discovering that waiting on a woman you wanted was an entirely different matter, and none of his clan were about to distract him from it. The only brother with him was waiting just as impatiently on the opposite side of the staircase for his own wife.
What a pair they made. The mighty had truly fallen.
Finally, sometime past the first waltz, Pru made her entrance. More to the point, she came down the staircase, fairly dragged behind Mary Elizabeth, who seemed intent on hanging on to her prize. Once his sister saw him, though, she left Pru at the bottom of the stairs and went off into the ballroom on her own business, whatever that might be. To dance, he supposed.
He blinked hard then, and focused on his prey. For once, she was not dressed in hideous brown or gray. Prudence was wearing one of the gowns he had bought for her.
It was the blue one with bits of silver sewn onto it. As the modiste had promised, the silk clung to her bountiful bosom, and brought out the deep indigo of her eyes. Her honey hair was on display, and her useless spectacles had been left upstairs.
Robbie was not a poetic man. But when he saw the woman of his life standing on those stairs, looking like a princess from some German fairy tale, he caught himself holding his breath. She was his—if he could catch her.
But he had better be quick about it.
Already, she was garnering interest from the men fleeing from the ballroom into the safe haven of the smoking room. He watched as each one of them looked her over before catching Robbie’s eye and quickly hurrying on their way.
“Pru,” he said. “You need to come with me.”
* * *
Prudence could not tear her eyes from the lords and ladies milling about the house, most heading for the ballroom. The dance was in full swing, and she did not know how she would face that crowd without her disguise.
It had been many years since anyone who once had known her had seen her, save for John Vaughton and his sister, but if the duchess held to her word, Prudence’s identity would be revealed as soon as she stepped in among the dancers. Had Robbie not been waiting to take her hand at the foot of the staircase, she would have turned back and hidden in her room, locking Mary Elizabeth and everyone else out.
She blinked at Robbie, the heat of his skin comforting her despite her glove and his.
“You’re with me,” he said again. He deliberately placed her hand on his arm and led her away from the throng.
There was a pretty little room halfway down the hall, a sitting room not currently in use, as everyone was dancing and drinking in the great room beyond. Candles were lit on the mantel, and the mirror above them caught their light.
Robbie drew her into the intimate space, his lips brushing hers. “Did I not tell you last night that you are mine?” he asked without preamble.
Pru blinked at him, her eyes on his. She did her best to push away her fear, to stand alone with this man and drink him in, without thinking of what lay beyond those walls. He was so beautiful in his dark blue coat, against his auburn hair that she almost succeeded. Instead of letting him kiss her, as she knew they both wanted, she stepped back from him, moving across the room to toy with a porcelain shepherdess on one table.
“You mentioned something about me being yours for the night,” she said, hedging, as she knew she must. Passion was one thing, but there was danger in letting either of them think what was between them could be more. She could hear the music from the ballroom even where they stood, and that music seemed to speak of her doom, which was coming closer. She forced a lightness into her voice, hoping that Robbie would follow her lead. “But a new day has dawned.”
Robbie rounded on her, blocking her path to the door.
“Let us be clear, Mrs. Prudence. You are mine, every night, from now until forever.”
She looked at him at last, taking her gaze from the ugly shepherdess. He could not possibly mean what he said. She forced herself to smile, as if he had jested. “Is that so? I don’t recall that being part of our agreement.”
He opened his mouth, but he must have been so shocked that nothing came out.
She pushed a little further. “As far as I recall, we had a pleasant interlude on a table. Then I went to sleep.”
“Pleasant?” he croaked.
She turned to the door. “If you’ve nothing to say but repeating my own words, I must go. Someone has to keep an eye on Mary Elizabeth, and I don’t trust Alex and Catherine to do it. She’s wearing at least two blades, possibly three, and I need to make certain that no unsuspecting gentleman gets blooded.”
He caught her then, and drew her to him, as her heart had hoped he would. There was a part of her that wanted to keep him with her for the
rest of her life, and damn the consequences. The heat of his body overwhelmed her as it had the night before. The crowd waiting outside that room seemed even more distant as they stood close, with nothing between their bodies but his buff breeches and her sapphire silk.
She fought herself, doing her best not to lean closer to him. A kiss was one thing, but the heat in his eyes promised a good deal more. “Let go, Robbie. You’ll muss my gown.”
“I paid for it. I reckon it’s mine to muss.”
“Don’t be an ass,” she said, then blanched in horror at her own use of colorful language.
Robbie chuckled, and kept drawing her in. “I missed my waltz, Mrs. Prudence. I want it now.”
“What waltz?” she asked, her eyes on his lips.
“The one that went on in the ballroom while I was waiting for you to come downstairs.”
“You might have danced it with some other girl.”
“I might have. No doubt. But it’s you I want.”
She blushed and felt her fair skin turning pink all the way down to the top of her low-cut gown. He leaned down and kissed the top of her breast where it peeked out from the silk.
Robbie seemed intent on driving her mad. Instead of kissing her witless, as her traitorous body hoped he might, he moved back a decorous distance, took her hand in his, and drew her into a slow waltz. She danced with him easily, without thinking, trusting him to negotiate their way around the cluttered sitting room filled with settees and overstuffed chairs. The soft rustle of her skirts brushing against his trousers was the only music they had, but it was the loveliest dance she had ever had in her life.
Robbie stopped the dance after a minute or two, which was a godsend, for she had started to shake. Suddenly, the danger seemed more real in that room than in the ballroom beyond. Prudence could not trust herself with Robbie, and those few moments of a waltz had proven it. The scent of his skin was in her nose, and the heat of him pressed against her body. She wished he would devour her as he had the night before. She wished he would draw her down onto the ducal carpet, pull up her skirts, and have her there and then. She wished he would truly make her his, though it would ruin them both.
When that thought crossed her mind, she stepped back and took her hands off of him altogether.
“I must go,” she said.
“And you’ll go with me,” Robbie answered. “I’ll even let you dance with the men who will surround you out there. But I want you to remember, you’re going to marry me.”
Prudence felt a sudden shift in her heart, as if the world was new, and she was free to live in joy. But then she thought of the people beyond the door, and of how they would not only soon turn their backs on her, but would despise the entire Waters clan if she was foolish enough to accept him. Even if Robbie was in earnest, as her aching heart was beginning to believe he was, she had to refuse him.
So she pretended that she did not believe him, and instead of giving him a decent answer, she simply sniffed. “Indeed?” she said. “I do not recollect giving you my hand.”
Prudence fled the room then, but not before she heard Robbie let out a peal of laughter so loud that they no doubt heard him in the ballroom.
Pru checked her appearance in the ladies’ retiring room, shaking out her gown to make sure that Robbie had not wrinkled it. She wondered if he had truly meant to propose. He loved her, she was sure, but the fact that she had lied to him—and was still lying to the rest of his family—had not come up again. Only one of the many things that still stood like a granite wall between them.
She thought of the disgrace of her brother, and of the dark shadow cast over her family name. In good conscience, even if Robbie did ask her to marry him, penniless and dishonored as she was, she would have to refuse him. Her family had already fallen. She would not bring the Waterses down with it.
The thought brought her a short stab of pain. She breathed through it, and went out into the ballroom to look for Mary Elizabeth.
Pru was distracted by the fancy ducal butler announcing her arrival. “The Lady Prudence Farthington.”
Before she could turn and run like the coward she suddenly feared she was, Prudence felt the eyes of the ballroom turn to her, even the eyes of those dancing. She wished fervently that the black-and-white parquet might open up and swallow her whole, but it did not oblige.
The dance stopped as if someone had cast a spell on the crowd, bringing them all to a standstill. They stared at her, taking in her borrowed gown and her cascading curls as if she were less than the dirt beneath their feet, and as if they hoped in the next moment to shake her off.
But Her Grace the duchess nodded to her from across the ballroom, and crossed the floor to stand beside her. The orchestra had fallen silent, as the dancing had come to a sudden halt, but at a nod from the duchess, the music resumed at once. The Duchess of Northumberland stood beside her until, one by one, the couples began their quadrille again.
“No daughter of Elizabeth Whittaker will stand alone in my ballroom,” Her Grace said. “Hold your head high, girl. They may cast aspersions on you elsewhere, but in my house, you are safe.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
Prudence felt her tears rise, but the duchess shook her head.
“Do not weep in front of them,” the august lady said.
Prudence heeded her advice and got herself in hand. She took a deep breath, and let her false identity go. She was herself now, for good or ill. Her family name was ruined, but she would own it. She would not hide anymore. She crossed the ballroom to find Mary Elizabeth holding court among half a dozen love struck swains. The women who had descended on Northumberland from London stared at Mary Elizabeth as if they wished they might consign her to oblivion. She watched as one particularly nasty cat gave Mary Elizabeth the cut direct, but Mary Elizabeth did not seem to mind, merely shrugging as she refused a glass of punch offered by one of the gentlemen at her elbow. It seemed the men of the ton were a good deal more forgiving of her London social faux pas than their women were. Prudence wondered for an idle moment if she might actually be able to see her charge married after all.
The gentlemen standing by did not leave at the sight of Prudence, but bowed and smiled, friendlier than Prudence would have thought possible. One even offered to fetch her a glass of punch, which she politely declined.
Alexander and Catherine began dancing a country-dance, and Mary Elizabeth soon joined them, once she had chosen the man she would favor. In spite of the cold glares of the London ladies, Pru saw no hint of a weapon in sight and breathed a little easier.
She should have known better, for trouble seemed to love her. John Vaughton, the Earl of Grathton, was at her side in the next moment. Where was Lady Cecelia? She looked around desperately for his fiancée, but could not find her anywhere.
He bowed quite correctly before saying, “I’ve been looking for you, Pru.”
She blinked at him, trying to smile in spite of the sinking in her heart. He had the same look on his face that she had seen years before, when she was young and fresh and full of hope. When she was still worthy of the love of a man like him.
She saw the duchess eyeing them together. Her mother’s old friend leaned over and whispered to the Lady Grathton, John’s mother, who looked over at them and forced a smile. Any sense of control Pru might have felt about the evening was slipping away. She caught sight of Robbie sauntering into the ballroom, his eye fixed on her.
“Will you dance this set with me, Pru?”
She opened her mouth to refuse, but Robbie was getting closer, and she did not want to speak to him again. She laid her hand on her old friend’s arm. “Yes.”
They joined the country-dance, and when they came together again, John Vaughton was smiling. “That was much easier than I thought it would be.”
“What was?” she asked, still distracted by the predatory gleam in Robbie’s eye. He
stared at her down the length of the room from where he leaned against a pillar, watching her every move.
“Getting you to dance with me.”
She looked up at John and found him smiling down at her. She felt a pang, just above her heart, at the memory of just how much she once had cared for him. Where had all that love gone? Perhaps it had been an illusion. Perhaps at twenty, she had simply not known what love could be.
“You are an excellent dancer, John. There are no doubt many ladies here tonight who would fall all over themselves to dance with you.”
He laughed at that. “You were never quite so forthright when you were a girl.”
“I’ve changed a good deal,” she said.
“In that we differ,” he answered. “For I have not.”
His hand seemed heavier on hers as they passed in the dance, and she wondered what he meant. She wished suddenly that his rude fiancée, Lady Cecelia, might show her face and interrupt their dance. But the girl was nowhere to be seen.
“I must speak with you,” John Vaughton said. “Alone.”
She opened her mouth to refuse just as the music stopped.
He stepped close to her, too close for propriety, and whispered against her ear, “It is about Albert.”
Her brother was the one thing that would draw her out, and John knew it. She narrowed her eyes at him, but placed her hand on the arm he offered her so courteously. “All right,” she said.
“Let us walk in the garden.”
“I am here with my young charge. I cannot be gone long.”
He looked at her as if trying to see behind her eyes to her thoughts. “I think the Waters family can take care of themselves for the length of an hour. This is important.”
“So you’ve said. Lead on.”
He laughed again. “You’ve become imperious since I last knew you.”
She smiled a little wryly. “Let me assure you, that is only one of my faults. I will endeavor not to reveal any more.”
How to Wed a Warrior Page 18