She took the Scot’s arm and propelled the man back toward his waiting coach. “Hoist me up,” she told him, and he obliged, lifting her above the tall wheels of the carriage. The young girl had hidden her sword away again, or perhaps had tossed it behind a tree, for now she sat as demure as you please, her skirt arranged around her neatly on the carriage seat and her gloved hands folded neatly in her lap.
“The claymore is under the seat,” the girl said, blithely answering Pru’s unspoken question.
The Scot rose up beside them on the high seat. Pru did not address the girl beside her, but the man. “Drive.”
And he did.
* * *
Why on God’s blessed green earth Robert Waters had chosen to listen to a single word the slip of a woman said, he did not know. Not only that, he found himself obeying her as she ordered him around as if he were her bootblack. Perhaps it was the blue of her eyes that did it, an indigo that was a sea for a man to drown in.
No, not that. Robbie didn’t care a fig for a woman’s eyes.
Perhaps it was her neat, curved figure, currently swathed in an abundance of sickly gray worsted wool and pale cream lace. He never noticed a woman’s clothes, but these were just ugly enough to repulse him, had they not contained the soft breasts and rounded behind of a woman of quality. How he knew she was quality, he could not say. Perhaps it was the snap in her eyes that had joined the snap in her voice when she spoke to him.
Whatever the reason, he’d found himself standing back and allowing her to rescue his sister from herself in the middle of Hyde Park, in the middle of the fashionable hour.
When he found his tongue again, Robert did not ask the name of the impressive lady who now sat so primly beside him, for he was not at all sure that she would relinquish it. Instead, he used his reclaimed voice to browbeat his sister.
“Mary Elizabeth, for the love of God, the English are going to burn us out! You benighted fool, how could you draw a blade on an Englishman in the middle of a London park in broad daylight? And not just an Englishman, but one of their lairds? Christ wept, Mary, you’ll get us all run out on a rail.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Mary Elizabeth answered, resting herself, as relaxed as you please, against the soft cushions of the fancy carriage seat. “The English won’t burn us out. We’re staying with the Duchess of Northumberland and they won’t touch the house of one of their own.”
“They might kill us in the street the next time we chance to get your ices at Gunter’s,” he groused.
“You might lower your voice a trifle, sir,” the lady said. “You seem to be attracting more unwanted attention.”
Robert did not give a tinker’s dam for what the English thought of him, but he caught himself before he shouted again. He could smell the bossy, curvy woman beside him, and her perfume was making him even more irritable. She smelled of hyacinths and heather. He would swear, if he had not known better, that she smelled of home.
He cursed himself for a fool and focused his mind where it belonged. Not on some spinster virgin who was trying to hide her beauty for some mad reason, but on his sister, who was certain to drive him to drown himself before the week was through.
“What will Alex say when he hears you’ve drawn a sword in public?” Robert asked.
Mary Elizabeth shrugged one shoulder, looking out over the traffic and the houses as they passed them. People had stopped nodding to them ever since Mary Elizabeth had shown them her steel, and now simply stared as though they were apparitions or demons risen up from hell. Robert swore, out loud this time, and the bossy woman spoke.
“I would thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, if you please, sir. Pull over here,” she said, for all the world as if she paid him five pounds per annum as a servant boy.
Robert looked at her, his eyebrow rising, but did as he was told. His mother had drummed into him the simple stricture: never hold a lady against her will. His gaze wandered along the front of the woman’s hideous gown, sussing out the sweet curve of her breasts beneath. Now, if she were a widow woman, or a woman of ill repute, there might be some negotiating to be done.
Robert loved the company of women almost as much as he loved leaving them behind once they began to become tedious. But this one was tempting him to forget his good reason, and why he had come to London at all. No woman had ever tossed his bad manners back in his face before. He found that he liked it.
He thought of the money he had set aside, that he barely needed and almost never touched. It would be easy enough to dip into that money and set this little baggage up in her own parlor, with a quiet back stair that might lead to a bedroom he also paid for. He thought of the delights he and this little bit of fluff might find there, and he found himself smiling.
The bit of fluff seemed to read his thoughts and where they were tending. She met his eyes, and her blue gaze filled with the Wrath of God. Had he been a lesser man, he would have been singed where he sat. She was anything but fluffy, it seemed. He merely smiled once more. If he had ever seen a woman besides his mother face him down like that, he could not remember it.
“I would thank you to hand me down to the street, sir. I believe we have made our escape.”
“And now you hope to make yours,” he answered.
Mary Elizabeth frowned at him. “Don’t mind my brother. He has the manners of an ape. Thank you for helping me. I’m afraid I stepped in it quite badly back there.”
The lady turned her eyes away from him, and as soon as she did, her face softened into a smile. “No thanks are necessary, miss. But I must warn you not to draw on Lord Grathton again. He is a crack shot. And while he would never call out a lady, he might call on your brother here.”
Mary Elizabeth laughed. “God help him. Robbie’s a fury with his fists and with a sword. The laird might have his work cut out for him.”
For some mad reason, Robbie felt himself swell with pride at his sister’s casual description of him. He was indeed a fury on the field of battle, wherever that field might lie, but he had not expected his sister to know it. He looked to the lady beside him, but she did not seem impressed. She did not even look his way, but sniffed.
“Well,” she said. “That’s as may be. But please keep your weapon sheathed when out in polite company in future.”
Robbie thought of one or two choice things to say to that, but he held his tongue.
“I thought he was robbing her,” Mary Elizabeth said.
“At such a time, a lady must allow a gentleman to intervene,” she said.
If he or his brother Alex had offered such sage advice, Mary Elizabeth would have ignored them both. But she listened to the woman and nodded, as if by stating the obvious, she had revealed a deep mystery, and solved a puzzling riddle.
“Indeed,” Mary Elizabeth said. “I might consider that.”
Robert climbed down and offered his hand, wondering how he was going to get this woman’s name, and learn where she lived. He needn’t have worried. With her best friend Catherine now run off with their brother Alex, Mary Elizabeth was ripe for a new conquest.
“You must come and take tea with us tomorrow,” Mary Elizabeth said. “We live at the Duchess of Northumberland’s house. I am Mary Elizabeth Waters, and this lout is Robert.”
Robert sketched a bow, and the lady raised one eyebrow. She did not curtsy back.
“Good day,” she said to him, before turning a much friendlier gaze on his sister. “And I am Mrs. Prudence Whittaker. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Why were you walking alone?” Mary Elizabeth asked.
Robert wanted the answer to this question himself. He smiled down at the fine, honey-brown curls that were trying to escape from beneath the ugly straw bonnet she had clapped over them. She ignored him as if he were not there.
“As a widow, I often have occasion to stroll in the park without a mai
d,” she said.
Robert knew that this was considered barbaric even among the heathen English, who had no better care for their women than he had for a stray sow, but he did not question her. He wanted to see what outlandish thing she might say next. It hit him then, the word she had spoken, the most important word in that sentence.
Widow.
“We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon at four then,” he said. “Shall I come and pick you up in the duchess’s carriage?”
He saw the light of battle flare in her eyes before she tamped it down. It seemed this Mrs. Whittaker was a feisty bit. He was looking forward to finding out how feisty she could be, and how often.
“I thank you, Mr. Waters. But I will find my own way there.” She smiled at Mary Elizabeth before she strode away. “Good day.”
Two
Pru did not know what possessed her to agree to take tea at a duchess’s house with a broad-shouldered Scot and his wayward sister. Perhaps it was the way his blue eyes had seemed to hold her still, like a butterfly under glass. A part of her simply could not catch her breath when he looked at her. Even though she had been strict with herself, and kept her eyes from him except to frown, she had felt his gaze on her. It lingered like the warmth of a sun she had never felt before.
Perhaps she had simply run mad.
So the next day, she set aside her misgivings in her borrowed room in the house of her aunt, and dressed in her ugliest gown. Aunt Winifred Whittaker, whose last name Pru had adopted, looked her over, inspecting her disguise for flaws, as she always did before Pru went out into the world. Her aunt’s unswerving gaze always on her was one more reason she was finally seeking employment as a companion. Out in the world, no matter how odd or unpleasant the family she ended up with might turn out to be, no one would watch her as her mother’s sister did—always searching for a defect.
“It will serve,” Winifred said at last. “But I think that bonnet could do without the flower.”
Pru glanced at the wide glass above the mantel that served to reflect both sunlight and candlelight across the room, making the small sitting room brighter. The tiny white rose she had tucked into the brim of her ugly bonnet was out of place. No doubt of it. She was not even sure why she had plucked that rose from the hedge in the yard early that morning, or why she wore it now. Five years ago, when her brother had died and her family had fallen into ruin, she had given up beautiful things. The sight of that one rose was not pert or pretty, but sad.
“No doubt you are right, Aunt.” But Pru did not move to throw it away.
“Well, I think you might better serve God and your fellow man by living here and working for the poor with me,” Winifred said. “But as you have your heart set on serving in some nabob’s house, there is little I can say in the matter.”
Pru’s heart was bent not on service, but freedom. She did not tell her aunt that, however.
“Miss Harrington seems quite well brought up for a tradesman’s child. She needs a bit of polish, but I think I will be able to see her married within the year.”
“Not in society, surely.” Winifred’s cold tone was colored with a touch of genteel horror.
“Nabobs have their own society, Aunt. I am sure the girl will make a very good marriage among her father’s peers.”
Winifred sniffed. “Indeed. As long as they don’t delude themselves into thinking she might marry quality. As you might have done, had you not been so foolish.”
Pru sighed. It never took long for her aunt to bring up and disapprove of her past choices. A marriage without love was a marriage without honor. Her father had taught her that. Never one to move in society herself, her aunt had never fully grasped how complete Pru’s ruin was. And now, as a twenty-five-year-old spinster securely on the shelf, with no money and no family name to speak of, she was better off on her own. Pru would leave her aunt’s house and make her own way in the world. Nabobs’ daughters were kinder than quality, and their fathers paid better.
The brass clock on the mantel struck the hour. “I must go, Aunt. The Harrington family is waiting.”
She had not mentioned her invitation to the Duchess of Northumberland’s town house. Winifred would have protested that such an invitation from Highland barbarians was a dishonor in itself, but she also would have insisted on coming along if only to see the duchess. Lying to her aunt was easier than dealing with her for the entire afternoon.
“Don’t let their commonness rub off on you, Prudence,” her aunt said, unable to let her leave in peace. She seemed to relish the nasty parting words that would ring in her niece’s ears for the rest of the day. “Never forget, no matter how foolish you behave, that you are an earl’s daughter.”
Prudence swallowed her ire, closing her mouth on words she longed to say. For the sake of the memory of her mother, she held her tongue until she could speak with respect. “Indeed, Aunt. I never do.”
* * *
With Alexander safely married and on the way to Devon with his young bride, Robert could breathe easier. The problem of what to do with his wild sister was still unsolved, but he thought he might see a solution glimmering in the distance, like a pearl gleaming in the depths of the sea.
“A companion?” Mary Elizabeth said. “What for?”
“For company,” Robert answered. “Alex and Catherine will be in Devon with her mother and sister for a fortnight. You’ll be bored here all alone. Having the Englishwoman about might do you a world of good.”
“Don’t insult her by calling her English, Robbie.”
“She is English, Mary.”
“If she were a hunchback, you wouldn’t tell her to her face, now would you?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Then leave her Englishness out of it.”
Robert held his tongue. In spite of Mary Elizabeth’s usual tirade against the benighted English, she seemed to be considering what he had said. Since the first time they had been ordered south by their mother, she might actually take his advice.
He wished for a moment he had his brother Ian’s way of giving a woman an idea and making her think it was hers all along. But Robert was a plainspoken man, if charming in his own way. He’d have to rely on Mary Elizabeth’s long-buried good sense, and a bit of luck.
He had good luck in abundance.
“I’ll ask her,” Mary Elizabeth said. “She’s a true lady, so she might refuse.”
Robbie agreed with that. The delectable widow who hid her glorious curves under ugly gowns had the manners of a lady. A lady he would like to unwrap, like a present on Twelfth Night.
“She is a lady. But she helped us yesterday. She might help us again.”
Mary Elizabeth’s blue eyes were sharp on his face. “I don’t need her help.”
Robert could feel his advantage slipping, so he lied a little. “She doesn’t know that.”
The fancy ducal butler scratched on the parlor door, and Robert felt his neck prickle at the sound. “God’s breath, but he sounds like a cat in sand.”
Mary Elizabeth shot him a quelling look, but she was smiling. “Come in,” she called, as Robbie couldn’t be bothered to encourage the duchess’s servants in their odd English ways.
The butler, Pemberton, stood glowering in the open doorway. “There is a lady to see you.”
He did not address Mary Elizabeth or Robert directly, but spoke to the room at large, as though his mistress the duchess might be hiding behind the wainscoting, or be tucked away behind one of the heavy velvet drapes.
“Thank you, Pemberton. Please send her in, along with the tea tray.”
“As you say, miss.”
The butler bowed from the neck, and in another silent moment, the enticing subject of their conversation was standing in the doorway, as if she was confused as to how she had gotten there at all. She blinked behind the thick lenses of her spectacles, and Robbie felt his p
ulse quicken inexplicably.
It did not occur to him to inquire as to why he had a sudden taste for widows in ugly bonnets and brown wool. He had never been a man to reflect overmuch on his sexual tastes; rather, he preferred to spend all his time fulfilling them. He watched the woman step into the room and accept his sister’s outstretched hand. He wondered how long it would be before he might sample this one.
His sister and the lady were making some feminine conversation, none of which interested him in the slightest. He simply stood at attention, watching the rise and fall of the lady’s breasts as she spoke.
When both girls turned to him, as if expecting some answer, he blinked. “Yes?” he asked at last.
Mary Elizabeth frowned at him. “I told you he has the manners of an ape,” she said.
The Englishwoman stared him down, as if measuring him for a birch rod, so that she might take him over her knee. He shifted uncomfortably at that thought and, before he could follow that flight of fancy, reminded himself that his sister was in the room.
The tea tray arrived, rescuing him from whatever his sister and her new friend had recently concocted. The butler left the tray unattended by the settee, closing the door unceremoniously behind him.
The imperious lady raised one eyebrow at the rudeness of the duchess’s servant, but had the good grace not to comment on it. “Well,” she said at last. “Shall I pour?”
Three
Robert watched as Mrs. Whittaker sank onto the purgatorial settee beside his sister and started pouring tea. Mary Elizabeth did not seem to think it odd that their guest had just taken over as hostess, but then, what in their lives was not odd? If that was the strangest thing to happen all afternoon, he would count himself lucky.
He sat across from the two girls, wondering how he was going to bring up the matter of companionship for his sister while still keeping himself from panting too openly over the tempting widow in her unsightly brown gown. Happily, Mary Elizabeth solved his problem for him.
How to Seduce a Scot Page 28