by Karen Ranney
“Where is this new grandchild of mine?”
“Sleeping, I believe,” Margaret said.
“She shall awake,” the countess declared peremptorily. “It is not every day that she meets her grandmother for the very first time.”
The countess turned, raised her voice. “Smytheton!”
Smytheton appeared, arms free once more.
“Send for the nurserymaid. I would see my grandchild. A girl, you say?” She turned to Margaret with a frown.
“Never mind, Smytheton,” Michael interrupted. “I will get Veronica.” He left them and quickly mounted the stairs. An occurrence that must not happen often, Margaret thought, the sight of the Dowager Countess of Montraine silent, with a particular look of surprise on her face.
Ada sidled up to Margaret as they walked into the morning room. “Jane would have given him a son,” she whispered.
Margaret only stared at her.
“They are friends,” Elizabeth explained.
“You see, all the attention will be given to a baby. No one will notice that I’m getting married.”
“Hush, Charlotte!” Ada and Elizabeth said at once. The two sisters looked at each other in surprise. Margaret wondered if it was the first occasion in which they felt some accord. The blessed silence was not, however, to last.
“I am sorry, Charlotte,” Ada said. “We should not have been so cruel. Even Horace said that anger is a brief lunacy.”
Charlotte threw up her hands, turned to Elizabeth. “Stop her! She’s quoting again.”
Elizabeth frowned at her sister. “What do you expect me to do, Charlotte? It could be worse; it could be Wollstonecraft.”
“But it’s not. It’s all those old Latin men!”
Michael entered the morning room with Veronica and placed his daughter in his mother’s arms. The countess stood gazing down at the newest member of the Hawthorne family, a look of tenderness on her face.
“It’s been a very long time since I held an infant, little one,” she said. “But I haven’t forgotten how.”
The countess looked up, her eyes sparkling with tears. “She looks very much like me, doesn’t she?”
Margaret nodded, more in an effort to spare the countess’s feelings than in agreement. In truth, she thought Veronica looked like her father. Her eyes were the same shade of sapphire and there were tufts of black hair on her head.
“Just wait until I tell Helen Kittridge about you, Veronica,” the countess said. “Her daughter has yet to wed, and I already have a granddaughter.”
The rest of the countess’s conversation was in a language only Veronica could understand. The three aunts gathered around their new niece, and for once, none spoke over the others. Veronica, accustomed from birth to adulation, grew bored with the cooing after a time and began to fuss. Michael took her from his mother, only to transfer her to Margaret’s arms.
“There are some things,” he said smiling, “that even I cannot do.”
“You cannot mean that you suckle the child?” the countess asked sharply. “That will never do.”
Margaret walked calmly from the room. Her mother-in-law followed her, stood at the base of the staircase staring up after her.
“Say good-bye to your grandmother, Veronica,” Margaret said, glancing down at the countess. “It will be the last time you see her.”
“You cannot mean that,” the countess huffed, frowning up at her.
“I’m afraid she does,” Michael said, smiling up at Margaret. “My wife refuses to be cowed by the nobility.” His grin warmed her. “Any of the nobility.”
“I cannot be dictated to in this fashion,” the countess said, turning to Michael. He only smiled, leaned against the door frame, and watched his wife.
Margaret began slowly to mount the stairs again.
“Shall I have no say at all?”
Margaret raised one eyebrow at her mother-in-law.
“I welcome your opinions,” Margaret said, glancing down. “Not your dictates.”
For the next moment, not a word was spoken between the two women. A battle of wills silently yet fervently waged. Finally, a nod was the only concession from the countess.
“Your nose isn’t too large,” she said surprisingly, studying Margaret. “And your ears do not protrude, for all that you come from peasant stock. Plus, you’ve given me quite a lovely granddaughter. I shall launch you into society myself. We need a new modiste for you, a decent lady’s maid to style your hair. Do you dance?” she asked abruptly.
Michael cleared his throat. His mother glanced at him, frowned, then sighed in surrender.
“Very well, Michael. But with all those economies you insist upon, I can barely afford to outfit myself. Besides, you cannot live as hermits the rest of your life. Both of you have outraged the ton.”
“Why, because we’re happy?” He smiled at his mother and she shook her head at him. But Margaret suspected that the gesture was one less of censure than of capitulation.
Margaret turned and slowly began to descend the steps.
“There is dear Charlotte’s wedding, don’t forget,” the countess said. “You mustn’t be miserly with funds on that occasion.”
“It will be a subdued affair, I trust? Something elegant and reserved for family only? Something modest?” he asked, accentuating the word.
“Ada’s wedding will most definitely be small, Michael. Her intended does not like large gatherings,” Elizabeth said. “A very surprising alliance, Ada, to marry a duke.” She smiled at her sister.
“He’s a very learned man,” Ada said, her pale cheeks taking on a pink hue.
“And wealthy,” the countess said, glancing at Michael. “Very, very wealthy.”
Margaret smiled at Michael’s silence. The Foreign Office had recently paid him quite generously for his mathematical engine. In fact, they were negotiating a large development fund for him to refine and expand its abilities.
His first act after the mathematical engine was accepted by the government was to enlarge the third floor. Then, he had surprisingly and whimsically commissioned a work of art. Her smile grew as she thought of it.
“He is quite a student of Egypt,” Ada said, speaking of her fiancé.
“Not again, Ada,” her mother said, waving her hand in the air. “I do not want to hear one more word about those nasty mummies.”
“Ada’s fiancé says that partaking of ground mummy aids in the digestion,” Elizabeth whispered in an aside to Margaret.
She felt vaguely ill but managed a smile. When the nursemaid appeared, Margaret gently surrendered Veronica to her care.
“Smytheton!”
The butler appeared again, seemingly unperturbed by the countess’s shriek.
“I want you,” Aphra announced. Such a decree had the effect of raising Michael’s eyebrows.
Smytheton, however, seemed to understand perfectly. “I regret, my lady,” Smytheton said, bowing, “that I am currently employed.”
“We shall trade.” The countess turned and directed a stern look at her son. “You’ll take that ancient Peterson and I’ll have your man here. He, at least, can walk upright.”
“I’m perfectly satisfied with Smytheton,” Michael said. “One might even say that I’ve grown quite fond of him.”
The countess slitted her eyes and looked from Smytheton to Michael. “Have you no wish to serve me, Smytheton?”
A delicate question requiring a very politic response.
Smytheton smiled. “Indeed, my lady. But I have been taught that loyalty is of paramount importance. I would not be demonstrating my loyalty should I change employers at this time. Therefore, my worth would be diminished before I ever began to serve you.”
The dowager countess knew full well that she had been declined, but in the most delicate fashion. “Chocolate,” she said to Smytheton, who looked mildly discomfited at her response.
“If you are going to nurse that child,” she said, turning to Margaret, “you must have chocolate at least three times
a day. Have I your word on it, Smytheton?”
The poor man could only nod in reply.
She turned to Michael. “Do change your shirt, dear boy. You look positively unkempt.”
The countess proffered her cheek to Margaret. She glanced at Michael helplessly. He only grinned and shrugged. Finally, she placed a quick peck on her mother-in-law’s cheek.
With that, Aphra glided from the room, her arm upraised. The girls, not unlike three little ducklings, followed in her wake.
The silence echoed.
Margaret sent a horrified glance in Michael’s direction.
“You have a look on your face,” he said, amused, “that I know I’ve worn myself on many occasions.”
“Will it always be like that?” Margaret felt as if a gale had whirled her end over end.
“You were the one who insisted upon a reconciliation,” Michael reminded her.
He walked to the door of the morning room, locked it, then returned to her side and reached for her. She looped her arms around his neck, lost all thoughts in his kiss.
“What would you have done if you had met me before you were a widow?” he asked a moment later.
“No doubt hurt a man who did not deserve it,” she admitted.
“And if we had seen each other before that?”
“Then I would have ruined myself for you. Is that what you want to hear?” she teased. “I would have, you know. And you, Michael? What would you have done if you had met me earlier?”
“Been as I am now,” he confessed. “Illogical at times. Decidedly emotional. Incredibly happy.”
He pulled back and smiled at her. Slowly and deliberately he withdrew a length of red ribbon from his waistcoat, dangled it in front of her.
“Isn’t red the color of ecstasy?”
“Here? In the morning room?”
“Where else?” he said, tilting his head back and studying the ceiling.
The artist had finished the work the day before, and the odor of drying oil paint still lingered in the air. Like the library ceiling, the panorama was of a dawn sky, with tendrils of pink and blue and yellow heralding a new day. But the cherubs embracing in the corner were not diminutive nor plump. Instead, they bore a remarkable resemblance to the Earl of Montraine and his countess.
Smytheton looked toward the morning room, heard the laughter, and shook his head. His stern face, however, was altered by a fleeting, and fond, smile.
Afterword
The history of cryptography dates back 4,000 years. It was fascinating to discover that of all the codes that have been created in that time, only a handful still remain in use. The others have been discarded because they were either too cumbersome to use or they had been deciphered.
The idea for Michael’s mathematical engine, the forerunner of the modern computer, came into existence about this time, as did the idea of two sets of disks that would create a nearly unbreakable code. In fact, Thomas Jefferson invented a similar wheel cipher in the eighteenth century.
Black Chambers operated throughout Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Most of them, however, were dissolved by 1860.
There has always been some speculation about whether or not the British aided Napoleon in escaping from Elba. Their purposes in doing so might have been as the Duke of Tarrant articulated.
In March 1815, Talleyrand informed Louis XVIII of Napoleon’s escape. His accusations were against the English, who were instrumental, he believed, in allowing Napoleon to leave Elba. Talleyrand thought that the ruse was accomplished for one of two reasons: to justify treating Napoleon more severely when he was recaptured; or, as he told the King, the English might simply have wished to send Napoleon to America in order to limit his influence.
About the Author
KAREN RANNEY began writing when she was five. Her first published work was The Maple Leaf, read over the school intercom when she was in the first grade. In addition to wanting to be a violinist (her parents had a special violin crafted for her when she was seven), she wanted to be a lawyer, a teacher, and, most of all, a writer. The violin discarded early, she still admits to a fascination with the law, and she volunteers as a teacher whenever needed. Writing, however, has remained an overwhelming love of hers. She loves to hear from her readers—please write to her at [email protected] or visit her website at www.karenranney.com.
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AFTER THE KISS. Copyright © 2000 by Karen Ranney. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition March 2007 ISBN 9780061738630
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