“Oh, goodness, Gabriel,” she said as she waved her hand in a dismissive motion. “You’re an earl. Let’s see. You’re left with, what? Just the two now?” Elizabeth countered, not allowing the earl’s apparent surprise to affect her own rising disgust. She rather liked addressing him by his given name just then, too, especially in a tone that was almost a scold.
Gabriel’s mouth was open in surprise and something else. “How … how dare you?” was all he could say in response.
“They must cost you a fortune!” Elizabeth continued, as if she hadn’t heard his admonishment. “And I don’t know how you can keep them all satisfied,” she continued, just now noticing the earl’s reddened face. She certainly felt satisfied at the effect her words were having on him. “Oh, wait, you cannot. That must be why the one quit you,” she stated in the same sweet tone she would use if she were discussing the weather. “Now, tell me Gabriel, why was it you’ve come calling?”
“Why, you little …”
Elizabeth was on her feet in a instant. “Don’t you dare!” she interrupted him, her own rising anger so quick it surprised even her. You disgusting pig, she wanted to add, but thought it would be too unladylike to say aloud. Why discussing mistresses was somehow acceptable in her own mind could have only been because she had been in the presence of a perfectly acceptable one the evening before. The mistress who had seen to it she had the ammunition she needed at this very moment to most thoroughly discomfit the earl. Brava, Josephine!
Gabriel jumped back a step, startled she would stand up to him. “Milady, I …” He paused, noticed her expression, one that suggested he would be better off taking his leave of Carlington House or risk being hit by a flying objet d’art.
Such as the porcelain vase that graced the table next to where she stood. The one that held the mums he had given her only moments ago.
“I have an appointment,” he stated suddenly, his gaze flitting to the vase and back to Elizabeth. “Thank you for the … hospitality,” he added, backing his way toward the door, visibly swallowing. “I will see my way out.”
Elizabeth’s eyes shot daggers before she called out, “Really, Gabriel. You need to smile. You have no idea how lucky you are at this moment.”
Lucky she didn’t have a loaded pistol.
Lucky there weren’t any servants to see how she had given him the cut direct.
Lucky he wasn’t about to be betrothed to a woman who knew what she wanted in life and went after it.
After a hasty bow, the earl did indeed show himself out the door, a tentative smile pasted on his face.
A moment later, Elizabeth was aware of the front door closing rather loudly.
She stared at the parlor door, stunned at what had happened.
Stunned at what the earl had nearly said. Bitch?
And even more stunned at what she had said.
Sinking into the velvet settee, Elizabeth hung her head and placed her suddenly trembling hands on either side of her face. “Oh, what have I done?” she wondered, tears pricking the edges of the eyes. “What have I done?”
Gabriel Wellingham couldn’t get out of Carlington House fast enough. Once he was through the front door, he paused on the stoop and took a deep breath before descending the stairs to his phaeton. His smile wasn’t one of mirth or pleasure but one forced by the last words he had heard Lady Elizabeth state before he removed himself from the parlor. You need to smile. You have no idea how lucky you are at this moment.
Indeed, he was lucky he had avoided asking a shrew for her hand in marriage! How had he misjudged her so? He thought she would be the perfect accomplice in his ploy to embarrass the Marquess of Morganfield. A beautiful, brainless woman more concerned about appearances and money than her father’s political career. A year or two of political maneuverings, social set downs and manipulative gossip, and he had take the place of the disgraced marquess in Parliament, the man’s daughter an unknowing patsy standing by his side.
But what else had her words threatened would happen if they did wed? Her words were a warning, to be sure. Would she go public with what she knew of the mistress that had quit him the night before? Not that his having a mistress, or two or three, was somehow scandalous. But perhaps she knew of what he had discussed with his mistresses. They were always so eager for him to talk, asking him leading questions about the proceedings in chambers, asking him about his political views, asking him what he thought of various and sundry aspects of life so there was barely time for a tumble or two, and certainly no time for kissing.
Spies! he thought suddenly. His mistresses were spies, sharing the information he was freely imparting to them with … who? The French? Other members of Parliament? Elizabeth?
Gabriel vowed to end his contracts with both mistresses that very night. An expensive endeavor, he knew, remembering how much in pin money and rent he would need to pay to end the liaisons, but it was necessary.
He wasn’t about to suffer the same embarrassments he knew his rival had suffered so many years ago at the hands of a mistress who sold his secrets to the French. Better to sit quietly in chambers and allow the older lords to direct the proceedings. He could be patient, at least until another daughter of the ton, one whose father was somewhat powerful, appeared on the Marriage Mart in the next year or so. Then he could use her to gain the political power he so desperately wanted.
Chapter 40
Regrets
Lord Morganfield paused a moment before stepping over the threshold of the parlor. The rich scarlet and sea foam green upholstery fabrics were well suited to the darker cherry wood finishes of the furniture his wife had so carefully chosen when she had redone the room years before. The year he decided he rather loved her, preferred her, in fact, to his longtime mistress. The year she had borne his son—the heir to his title.
The boy was off to Eton now, presumedly getting an education, although David Carlington’s own time there had been spent in pulling pranks and avoiding getting caught while doing any number of things he shouldn’t have been doing. Thank the gods those days weren’t well documented; otherwise, he would not now be enjoying his career as a powerful member of Parliament.
But, at the moment, he stood in the doorway of his parlor in Carlington House gazing at his eldest, his daughter of oneand-twenty, who at breakfast had seemed somehow different from every other day they had shared the morning meal—he reading The Times and her occasionally conversing about Society events and the latest fashions from Paris with her mother.
Never gossip, though, he realized suddenly.
Her mother might have enjoyed sharing the latest on-dit about town, but Elizabeth Carlington didn’t seem to share in the fascination of other people’s foibles and failures. She was more practical about everything, sure of what she wanted and usually quite good at getting it.
Not spoiled, necessarily, but determined. Perhaps Bostwick knows her better than I do. Not better, he argued with himself. Perhaps he just knows a different side of her.
She was a daughter he could be proud of, he thought, remembering her commitment to her favorite charities, practical charities that didn’t necessarily attract the attention of the other ladies of the ton. And to the charity she had started with her own funds—a charity that, according to his sources, had already seen at least five clients placed into employment at a cost of nearly seventy pounds.
She didn’t behave like a hoyden (well, at least, he certainly had never heard she indulged in such behavior). And after being in Society for three Seasons, it seemed she had decided it was time to accept someone’s offer of marriage. At eight-andtwenty, the Earl of Trenton would seem the perfect match for an only daughter.
But not to him.
To Morganfield, Trenton came off a bit of a self-important ass, too rich and too beautiful to be taken too seriously, too vain to want as his son-in-law, and too eager to achieve political power. Wellingham had made a rather brusque remark to the marquess during the Weatherstone ball,
implying that he had decided on Elizabeth because she was beautiful, and his own beauty required a woman with at least as much to match his own. Could the man be so addle-brained as to actually believe what he espoused?
But then the impertinent Trenton hadn’t even asked his permission to court his daughter.
And this afternoon, at exactly the moment it was fashionable to pay an afternoon call, the ass had shown up at his front door with flowers and a ring in hand, asking to see Elizabeth—“alone, if it can be arranged”—and asked for her hand in marriage.
At least, that’s what Lord Morganfield thought had happened.
He didn’t know exactly what had transpired, which is why he stood in the doorway to the parlor watching his beautiful daughter do a perfect imitation of a watering pot. It dawned on him that he hadn’t seen her cry in a very long time, and he suddenly wondered if she shed tears of joy or of sorrow.
It was always very difficult to determine until such time as the tears stopped flowing.
When Elizabeth finally looked up from her tear-soaked handkerchief and saw him regarding her, she let out one of her patented, “Oh,”s and stood up so quickly she nearly lost her balance and fell back down on the settee.
He hid the sudden grin that he felt tugging at the corners of his mouth and entered the room. Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, he hugged her and rubbed her back until her sobs subsided and he heard her whispered, “Oh, Father.”
Sorrow, then, he realized. “Shh,” he whispered, kissing her temple and then her forehead as he pulled away. “Your mother used to cry like this,” he said quietly as he led her to his favorite wing chair and pulled her onto his lap. She let out another “Oh,” but he wasn’t sure if it was in reaction to her being pulled down onto his knee or surprise that her mother used to cry. “She always felt much better afterwards,” he added when she finally turned her tear-stained face to his. He took a deep breath and let it out. “I am ready now. You can tell me what happened,” he added, as if he’d had to gird himself for whatever bad news she had to share.
Elizabeth nodded and took a breath. “I may have done something truly terrible,” she said, a sob interrupting the ‘truly’ so that it came out in two parts.
Lord Morganfield sighed and leaned back into the chair. “Was it illegal?” he asked, an eyebrow cocked at an odd angle.
Her own eyebrows furrowed as she considered the question. “No,” she replied in a whisper. Her eyes suddenly widened. “Worse, I should think.”
Morganfield’s eyes widened and he held his breath. “Go on.”
“I allowed Gabriel to kiss me at Lord Weatherstone’s ball,” she blurted, holding her own breath as if waiting for her father’s rebuke. She was nearly blue in the face before she realized he wasn’t going to throttle her.
“And?” he finally prompted, withholding his opinion that the Earl of Trenton did indeed warrant arrest and possibly transport, but not because of a kiss.
“He kissed like Harold!” Elizabeth proclaimed with a suitable degree of disgust, hoping the analogy would help to get her point across.
At first, she thought she succeeded.
“Harold kissed you?” the marquess queried, one eyebrow rising on his forehead.
Elizabeth sniffled. “Harold is always kissing me. He’s very affectionate,” she added, suddenly feeling her father’s knees shift dangerously beneath her.
David Carlington blinked once. “Who is this Harold?” he wondered, his eyebrow still rather high.
“Harold MacDuff,” she replied quite matter-of-factly.
“Harold MacDuff?” he repeated, his eyes darting back and forth, as if he was having a hard time remembering if he had ever met someone—anyone—by the name of Harold MacDuff.
“Hannah’s Harold,” she clarified, suddenly realizing her father didn’t remember Harold.
“Hannah’s Harold?” he repeated, his eyebrow climbing. No comprehension was evident in his expression, though.
Elizabeth nodded, a smile appearing. “Lady Hannah’s Harold. Harold MacDuff.”
Her father stared at her for a very long moment. “Does this Harold … also kiss Hannah?” he wondered, his eyes darting about as if he were trying to follow the path of an annoying fly.
“Oh, all the time. He’s very affectionate.”
The knees under her jerked enough that Elizabeth felt she had to move to the ottoman in front of the chair or risk being dumped onto the floor. “And Hannah allows this?” her father wondered, the cocked eyebrow nearly into his hairline.
He was hoping that, with time, feeling would come back into knees.
His legs had gone to sleep.
“Well, of course. I think she’s rather indulgent, actually. She allows him to sleep in her bed with her.”
Lord Morganfield made a rather rude noise in his throat, and his other eyebrow joined the first in elevation. “Indeed?”
“I suppose it’s rather nice in the winter to have such a large, warm body to snuggle up to,” she commented lightly, thinking just then how wonderful it would be if she and George could share a bed in the winter. Or anytime, really. Naked, in bed with George. A frisson passed through her that made her suddenly feel rather warm and wonderful.
The marquess took a deep breath just as Adeline Carlington peeked into the parlor. “There are you,” she said with a bit of relief, her smile growing as she realized she had found both her husband and her daughter apparently having a heart-toheart talk. “I suppose I’m all on pins and needles,” she said brightly, her Italian accent barely evident. Then she noticed her husband’s obvious discomfort and her daughter’s tear-stained face. “Oh, my. Whatever’s happened?” she asked as her look of happiness was replaced with one of concern. She wrung her hands together at her waist.
“Harold MacDuff, it seems,” her husband replied, not yet able to stand up, a courtesy he usually performed when his wife, or any woman, for that matter, entered a room.
“Harold?” Adeline repeated, her eyebrows lifting. “Whatever has he done now?”
“He’s kissed our daughter!” the marquess nearly shouted.
Adeline’s face brightened again, displaying her straight white teeth. “Oh, he does that all the time,” she said with a wave of her hand. “He’s very affectionate. I don’t allow him to kiss me, of course, but I do let him lick my hand now and again. He never could hold his licker.” She tittered when she realized her clever pun.
A growl sounded from David Carlington, Marquess of Morganfield. “Who is this Harold MacDuff? And where do I find him?” Duels might be illegal in England, but at the moment, he didn’t care. He only wanted to get his hands on the man who had taken the liberty of kissing his daughter. And licking his wife.
Adeline frowned at her husband’s reaction. “He’s more of a what, really, darling. Harold is, oh, what is he again?” she asked as she turned to Elizabeth.
“An Alpenmastiff,” Elizabeth said with a nod. “I was just telling Father that Butter Blond kisses just like Harold.”
They both turned to the marquess to find his head in his hands, a mournful moan emanating from him.
Her mother suddenly straightened. “Who is Butter Blond?” she asked then, at which point Lord Morganfield slammed his hand down on the arm of his wing chair.
“Enough!” he yelled, causing both women to attain a moment of being airborne before landing quite suddenly with rather startled expressions on their faces. “Enough about Harold whoever. Who the hell is Butter Blond? And how many times has he kissed you?”
Adeline’s moment of shock passed quicker than Elizabeth’s as the parents both turned to their daughter. Her mouth had formed that perfect ‘o,’ and the look on her face showed her fright at having upset her father. “Forgive me. I know it’s a horrible nickname, but it … it so suits Gabriel,” she said as her shoulders fell and her gaze lowered to her father’s feet. “And just the one time,” she added, remembering the rest of her father’s query.
; Adeline sat down in a chair next to her husband. “You call Gabriel, ‘Butter Blond’?” she wondered, her lips pursing in attempt to prevent a grin from appearing. Lord Morganfield leaned back in his chair and allowed a burble of laughter to escape. “Do you use that expression as a term of endearment, my dear child?” he asked before another chuckle erupted.
“No, of course not,” she said with a shake of her head, wondering if her father would require a trip to Bedlam. “George mentioned it during Lady Worthington’s ball, and it just seemed such a suitable nickname …”
The marquess regarded Elizabeth with a smile and a nod. And then another as he remembered how their conversation got started. “So, Gabriel Wellingham, the Earl of Trenton kisses like an Alpenmastiff, does he?”
Elizabeth sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Yes.”
Adeline gasped.
“And he licks like one, too,” Elizabeth added, a shake of disgust accompanying her comment.
Adeline fainted.
Lord Morganfield glanced in her direction and rolled his eyes. At some point, this tidbit of information about Trenton could be helpful. Perhaps in the political arena, although he couldn’t quite figure how. He thought for a moment. Lord Chancellor, I move the Earl of Trenton’s point on the matter be stricken from the record. The man kisses like Harold MacDuff and licks like him, too! It might make for a moment of humor— everyone knew they could use a bit more of that in chambers … He shook himself out of his reverie to find his daughter’s aquamarine eyes wet with tears. “I take it you didn’t accept Trenton’s marriage proposal,” he stated with a curt nod.
Elizabeth shoulders shook with a sob. “He didn’t actually ask for my hand. I think I … I may have offended him. But I wouldn’t have accepted if he had asked.”
Her father inhaled and let out the breath in a very slow, satisfying sigh. “Thank you for deciding to turn him down,” he said then, his own arms braced on the arms of the wing chair as if he had to ground himself.
Elizabeth’s aquamarine eyes widened again as she watched her father’s reaction. “You’re not … disappointed in me?” she whispered then, swallowing a sob.
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