God help him.
Three
In spite of staying up late at the assembly, Catherine rose while the dew was still on the grass to cut lilac and thyme in her garden. They had been forced to let their Town gardener go after her father died, and did not have the funds to replace him. While Charlie, their boy of all work, did his best in the small, enclosed yard, Catherine enjoyed keeping up with the garden herself.
She loved their London town house, though it always made her think of her father and miss him. He had been dead over five years, but she could still remember the sound of his laughter and the scent of his pipe tobacco. She had an old handkerchief with his pipe wrapped in it that she kept buried under a pile of shawls. She rarely looked at it, but she knew it was there.
When she came back, the house was in an uproar, as usual. Instead of sleeping late as Catherine had thought she might, her mother, Olivia, was up with the dawn, shrieking in the breakfast room for hot water. Little Margaret, twelve years old now, was trying to quiet her mother down in a futile effort to spare the servants. Their butler, Giles, had broken his leg the month before, falling down the wine cellar stairs, and now reclined in annoyed splendor in his room at the top of the house. Catherine brought him fresh flowers every day and apprised him of the day’s crises before teatime. In the Middlebrook household, there was always a crisis.
Catherine sighed at the thought of how quiet her own household would one day be. She would marry a sweet, genteel man who kept to himself in the library, save for dinnertime, when he would escort her downstairs to their own dining room with a little flourish of his arm. Over dinner, he would regale her with tales of the City and perhaps his favorite hunting sport while she listened in silence, nodding her approval, grateful to be happy and well cared for.
Of course, where her mother was in these scenarios, she was not sure. For Catherine would only marry a man who would take in her mother and her sister too, no questions asked. A kind man who would welcome them into his home, allowing it to be theirs as well. Catherine sighed as she laid her flower basket down on the hallway table and took off her gardening gloves and bonnet. No household would be quiet as long as her mother was present.
Still, a girl could dream.
Catherine had tried to be very strict with herself, fighting valiantly to keep her mind on Lord Farleigh and the dozen or so other polite gentlemen she’d had the pleasure of dancing with the night before. They had all been agreeable, very quiet, almost bland, like weak tea that was a bit too tepid. She did her level best not to think of Alexander Waters—a deep mug of the finest chocolate cut with heated cream. There was nothing tepid about Alexander Waters. Not in the least.
Catherine was about to step into the breakfast room to save the footman, William, from having to answer her mother when the door knocker sounded. She almost knocked her flower basket onto the marble tiles. She blinked, catching the wicker before the lilac and thyme could fall across her slippers. The door never sounded this early. She wondered for one horrible instant if someone was dead and a constable was bringing the bad news.
Jim, the tallest footman, had been promoted to under butler in Giles’s absence. He stepped into the hall from parts unknown, his wig askew, his dark clothes coated with a thin layer of toast crumbs. He bowed to her in a stately manner before opening the great mahogany door.
A boy from the florist stepped in with three great bouquets that hid him almost completely from view. She should have sent him back downstairs to come through the servants’ hall below, but she had never seen so many beautiful store-bought flowers in her life. Her garden was lovely but yielded nothing that could rival these.
Her mother flew in from the breakfast room, diving on one of the bouquets like a bird of prey. She slipped it out of the delivery boy’s hands, carrying it to the center table in the hallway and giving it pride of place.
“Margaret! Come and look! Catherine has received her first bouquets of the Season! How lovely!”
Margaret ran pell-mell into the room then, her slippers sliding along the polished floor. “Mama, how beautiful. You say they are all for Catherine?”
“Surely not,” Catherine replied. “There is no doubt some mistake.”
“No mistake, miss,” the delivery boy said. “They are for this household, and welcome.”
Jim stood by in silent, crumb-laden glory, not moving to tip the errand boy. Catherine drew a sixpence from the lacquered box on their front table and slipped it into the boy’s palm as she saw him out. “We thank you. Good day.”
She closed the heavy door behind him with only a little difficulty. “You should let me tend to the door, miss,” Jim said, his accent heavy with the sound of home.
Catherine sighed, and smiled. She would have to ask Giles to give Jim another lecture about the duties of an under butler. As it was, she did not have the time, nor could she hear herself think over her mother’s latest shriek.
“Catherine, these lilies of the valley are from Lord Farleigh! My word, girl, you have made a conquest there.”
Catherine felt a warm light come into her chest, and she smiled. But there was no exultation, no exuberance. She realized two things then: that she could one day marry Lord Farleigh, or a man very much like him…and that she would be disappointed to do so.
She pushed those nonsensical thoughts out of her head to better hear her mother read the card from the second bouquet. “These forget-me-nots and primroses are from A. Waters. My word, the Highland gentleman who waltzed with you last night!”
Catherine felt her skin heat. The warm light in her chest turned into a conflagration, and spread in a blush up her chest and neck and into her cheeks. She suddenly felt light-headed, though she had never fainted in her life. Mr. Waters had not spoken to her again after their dance and her presentation to Lady Jersey. Surely, out of all the men she had met the night before, those flowers could not possibly be from him.
She stepped forward and took the note in her hand. The slanted A made her think of an eagle in flight, and the terse Waters made her think of the burn behind their castle in Scotland. Catherine wondered what a burn was. Mary Elizabeth had mentioned fishing in it, so perhaps it was some sort prehistoric stream that led to wild delights, like the Loch Ness Monster or some such fanciful creature. Mr. Waters had written nothing but his name, but Catherine was certain that he had written the note himself.
Before Catherine could completely lose herself to giddy fancy, her mother cawed anew. Catherine saw her brandishing the note from a third bouquet of deep red roses.
“These flowers are for me!”
Catherine felt her color rise even as her stomach sank. What gentleman would send vulgar red roses to a respectable widow? She swallowed hard, trying to hide her sudden nerves. Surely they had not run across some unsavory cad in the middle of Almack’s who might prey on her mother’s sensibilities? As her mother was in raptures over the inappropriate flowers before her, she did not notice Catharine’s concern, but Margaret did. She sidled up silently to Catherine and took her hand.
Mrs. Middlebrook was still speaking, beginning to preen. “I am still an attractive woman, girls. I am not completely off the market yet.” She tittered. “Perhaps they are from the Duke of Wellington. How romantic!”
“God forbid,” Catherine murmured under her breath while Margaret laughed.
“The duke is married, Mama,” Margaret said. Catherine herded both her mother and her sister back into the breakfast room, determined to get some food into them. Mrs. Middlebrook refused to relinquish her flowers, and brought the vulgar bouquet with her. Catherine wanted to bring Mr. Waters’s flowers too, but that would have been foolish. She shut the breakfast door on the bouquets with a decided click.
“Of course the duke is married,” Mrs. Middlebrook said. She took a large bite of buttered toast while Catherine poured her a fresh cup of tea, adding a liberal number of sugar cubes and cream,
just as her mother liked it. “He took a wife for purely dynastic reasons, as all great men do. Our liaison would be pure romance, a love for the ages, like Tristan and Isolde.”
“Or Romeo and Juliet,” Margaret added, taking another dollop of blackberry jam.
Catherine shot her sister a quelling look, which Margaret blithely ignored.
“Those characters all ended up dead,” Catherine pointed out.
“Your soul has no romance.” Her mother sniffed, taking a sip of her fresh tea.
“I’m sorry, Mama. No doubt you are right.” Catherine drank her own tea and watched as her mother dimpled, ire forgotten just as suddenly as it appeared. In spite of her advancing years of eight and thirty, her mother was still a lovely woman. Catherine said a small prayer to the Holy Mother to keep scoundrels and their ilk far away.
“I am pleased that handsome Scotsman sent those primroses for you, little miss.”
“Yes, Mama.”
For some reason, Catherine did not want to talk about Mr. Waters. She felt herself blush again and sipped her tea, trying to force her mind into the calm, bland waters of Lord Farleigh—and failing.
“He’s a fine-looking man, but foreigners are never ideal. Still, he may be rich. I’ll make inquiries among my acquaintances. Perhaps he is worth looking at.”
Catherine choked on a bite of scone. Margaret hit her forcefully between the shoulder blades.
“I don’t think Mr. Waters is appropriate, Mama,” she managed.
Mrs. Middlebrook smiled, licking the butter off her lips like a cat just out of the dairy. “Indeed, my dear, I agree with you. There is little about Mr. Waters that is appropriate. Men like him, once tamed, make the best husbands.”
“He is not a hound dog, Mama, or a spaniel.”
“Heavens no, dear. But all men must be tamed before you let them in the house, or you’ll have nothing but mayhem and trouble all your life. No woman of sense wants that.”
“No indeed,” Catherine agreed, trying desperately to make her blushing stop. She had never learned to control her coloring, and she supposed she never would. She had better get all her blushing done and out of her system, for they were due to take tea with the Waterses at five o’clock.
She swallowed a sip of tea and this time did not choke. “Margaret will have a fine time meeting your new friend, Miss Waters, this afternoon,” Mrs. Middlebrook said. “What a merry party we shall make!”
“Maybe they have a puppy,” Margaret said.
“Scotsmen always keep dogs. No doubt they have a dozen.” Her mother offered this sage bit of wisdom while adding clotted cream to another scone.
“I am sure only Miss Waters will be there,” Catherine said.
Mrs. Middlebrook cut her eyes at her eldest daughter. “Are you indeed? We will see, little missy. We will see.”
Four
Catherine sat drinking tea in the Duchess of Northumberland’s drawing room, listening to Margaret play Beethoven’s Appassionata on a nicely tuned pianoforte. The duchess herself was not in residence, but Catherine’s mother sat with Robert Waters, Mary Elizabeth’s older brother, regaling him of tales of Devon and the growing of roses there—as if a Scotsman, or any man for that matter, might care about such things. It seemed Robert Waters was a gentleman, for he feigned interest so well that Catherine could not quite tell if he was really a secret gardener or not.
She listened with half an ear as Mary Elizabeth spoke beside her of the coming Season and all the dancing to be had among the ton. The other half of her attention was taken up with wondering at the most beautiful room she had ever entered in her life, much less taken tea in. The house was swathed in velvets at the windows, with no thought whatsoever to the fact that such expensive cloth would soon be ruined by the sun. The settee she perched on was covered in watered silk of a deep burgundy hue, a color a man might choose if he were left to his own devices and allowed to decorate a parlor.
Catherine found her mind wandering to the question of whether or not Alexander Waters might like it and where he might be at that moment. She tried to focus on what her friend was saying, but as she took a sip of the fine Darjeeling, she could not think of anything else but Alexander and the heat of his dark eyes.
She was brought abruptly back to the here and now when Mary Elizabeth spoke without preamble, changing the subject from the next dance they would both attend. “We must find you a good husband.”
Catherine blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“We are going to find a man to love you. He will have to love you all his life, and beyond. That’s certain.” Mary Elizabeth frowned, looking off into the middle distance as Margaret clanged on the piano, missing more than one note.
Catherine felt her blood rising into her cheeks, and she cursed herself silently. If she had a fairy godmother, she would not ask for gowns or princes, but for her foolish blush to be gone for life.
“Do you not seek a husband for yourself, Miss Waters?” she asked, trying to be polite while deflecting her friend’s focused regard.
Mary Elizabeth’s hazel eyes seemed to pierce her where she sat, like a butterfly on a pin. She felt exposed as she never was when her mother or her sister looked at her. Her father had seen through her, past her soft smiles, to the girl within. He had fed her hunger for botany and growing things, and had even paid for a Latin tutor to teach her the proper terms for the foliage on their estate. Her father had been the last person to truly know her.
As she sat, caught in her new friend’s gaze, she wondered if Mary Elizabeth might also see behind her polite smiles to the self she tried to keep hidden. No man cared for her true self, nor would. Marriage was not an accommodation of souls but a meeting of two people who needed each other—for companionship, for children, so that they might not grow old alone. To wish for someone to see past her smile into her soul was to wish to hold the light of the moon in her hand.
“I need no husband,” Mary Elizabeth said. “In spite of my brothers’ scheming and my mother’s insistence, Papa will allow me to hunt and fish on our glen for the rest of my life. There is no need to marry to do that. But you”—Mary Elizabeth’s gaze did not waver, even as she blinked as if to clear her vision—“you shall marry for love.”
Catherine found herself smiling then, and the smile was a true one. “There is no such thing as a love match that lasts.”
“Of course there is. My parents have it. I think your parents had it, before your father died.”
Catherine looked across the parlor to her strident mother, who had only become so after she had managed to crawl out of the chasm of her grief. It was almost as if, without her father present in the world, her mother was afraid of not ever being heard again.
“They did,” was all Catherine said.
“And we will find it for you.” Mary Elizabeth squeezed her hand, and Catherine felt for one hideous moment as if she might weep.
She had not cried in years, not since the summer her father died. Tears were wasted salt. Her grandmother had taught her that a woman had better use salt at table and leave weeping to children, who could not help themselves.
“I have made you sad, and I am sorry. Come to the ballroom with me.” When Catherine hesitated, Mary Elizabeth smiled and tugged her to her feet. “Your sister is happy and well banging that pianoforte until it’s out of tune. Your mother is safe in Robert’s care. He’s not good for much, but he can chat with a woman until the sun sets and rises again in the east.”
Catherine laughed a watery laugh, and blinked her unwelcome tears away. “All right.”
Mary Elizabeth announced to the room at large, “We are going up to the third floor. Offer our guests another cup of tea, Robert.”
Robert Waters glowered at his sister over Catherine’s mother’s head, but Mary Elizabeth only smiled at him sweetly. Catherine looked at Robert, trying to find in his blue eyes some of the
warmth she had felt his brother direct at her. He was an attractive man, with curling auburn hair and shoulders as broad as his brother’s. But there was nothing else between them. Only a kind regard on his part, coupled with his polite and distant smile.
Perhaps she had imagined the heat she had seen in Alexander’s eyes. Perhaps he had simply been polite, as his brother was, and she had been overwhelmed by the excitement of Almack’s, by the dancing and the company. It was her only Season, after all, a time for a girl to lose her head, if only for one night.
“What will we do in the ballroom?” Catherine asked as her friend drew her into the hallway beyond, closing the parlor door behind her. “Practice our dance steps?” Catherine could use a bit of practice on the quadrille. She had danced but rarely before coming to Town.
Mary Elizabeth’s eyes gleamed with ill-concealed joy. “No indeed. I’m going to teach you how to throw a knife.”
Catherine was so shocked that she did not even laugh. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t be missish, Catherine. Every woman needs to know how to throw a knife in her own defense. Come with me.”
* * *
Alex was careful to spend the afternoon out of the house. He was acting like a fool, but better to play the fool in private than display his foolishness in front of his family. Mary Elizabeth might notice nothing, but Robert knew him better, and was a good deal sharper when it came to relations between the sexes. Robert would know as soon as he saw them in the same room that his sister’s new friend had taken over too many of Alex’s waking thoughts. Robert might have even been able to discern that Alex had dreamed of nothing but her the night before, just by looking into his brother’s face.
So Alex spent the afternoon at his tailor. When he grew bored of fittings, he thought of getting a drink, but had no interest in drinking alone. Nor did he have any interest in sitting among the English at his father’s club, swilling watered-down Scotch and missing home. So he walked the streets of London, almost hoping that some pickpocket might attack. Or that some ruffian might take him for a fop and bring out a knife, so that he might get some of his frustration out with a good old-fashioned rough-and-tumble.
How to Seduce a Scot Page 3