“I take two lumps and a splash of milk,” she instructed. When the lady handed the Sevres china cup to her, along with its saucer, his sister said, “Thank you, Mrs. Whittaker. Would you be so kind as to add only lemon to my brother’s cup? And might you consider taking on the role of companion to me?”
Mrs. Whittaker paused for the barest moment, raising one eyebrow as she handed him his tiny cup. He reached into his pocket for his flask. When he drew it out, though, her censorious look made him freeze in place before putting the flask back where it had come from. Perhaps he would take his tea without his traditional tot of whisky. Just this afternoon, of course.
To keep the peace.
The lady’s eagle eye turned from him almost reluctantly, as soon as she saw that he had silently obeyed her stricture to keep their teatime a civilized, whisky-free affair. She smiled at his sister, poured her own tea without adding milk or sugar, and took a meditative sip.
Mary Elizabeth kept talking. “My brother and sister-in-law are in the country, and I am staying in Town. My brother Robert here is a decent sort, but not fit company for a lady.”
Robert snorted. “I’ll thank you for that, Mary.”
His sister’s eyes widened at him over the Englishwoman’s head as she bent to add a touch more tea to her cup. He saw then that Mary Elizabeth was simply trying to reel the lady in by calling once more on her protective instincts, and he held his tongue.
Mrs. Whittaker did not even glance at him, but met his sister’s eyes. “You are the lady in question.”
“Of course I am.”
Robert felt his ire begin to rise at the hint of censure in the woman’s voice. He might call Mary Elizabeth all manner of hoydenish names, but he would be damned if he sat by while someone from outside the family criticized her.
“Forgive my rudeness, Miss Waters. I have no doubt that you are a lady. But as you know, the ton is more than a little set in their ways. They have not quite taken to opening their doors to foreigners, and as you are from the north, they might be found especially reticent.”
“I would have thought so,” Mary Elizabeth answered, “but they do as the duchess tells them.”
“The Duchess of Northumberland is not in residence, is she?”
“No. She’s at home, trying to bring her wayward son to heel. He refuses to marry and continue their line. More’s the pity. I don’t know what’s wrong with the man.”
Robert did not point out that she was just as stubborn as the reclusive duke they’d never met, but his sister had the bit between her teeth, so he held his tongue.
Mary Elizabeth went on blithely. “The duchess could not come south for my Season, but she has sponsored me.”
“Which is why you were received everywhere. Until you drew a weapon on Lord Grathton.”
Mary Elizabeth frowned, her blue eyes looking troubled. “Was he that offended, then?”
“I think the earl is a gentleman who would overlook even such folly. But the women of his family, and the women of the ton, are far less forgiving.”
Mary Elizabeth’s frown deepened. “I did not think. I just acted.”
The imperious lady softened slightly as she bent forward and took his sister’s hand. It was odd to see a near stranger offer comfort, and for Mary Elizabeth to accept it so readily. Mary Elizabeth did not turn away as Robert thought she might, but sat still and listened to the woman speak.
“Have you received a great many invitations this Season?”
“I have,” Mary Elizabeth answered.
“And have you received any yet today?”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence, in which Mary Elizabeth sat very still, looking suddenly miserable. Robert had the almost overwhelming need to run the whole stuck-up, mincing mass of London’s elite through with his own sword for putting that sorrowful look on his sister’s face. The sons of whores.
“No.” Mary Elizabeth’s voice was low. Mrs. Whittaker had not yet let go of her hand.
“I think perhaps it is time to retrench, Miss Waters. If you chose to take me on as a companion, it might behoove you to listen to my advice and, wherever you can, to heed it, so that you can continue as a success.”
Mary Elizabeth still looked dejected. “I can try, Mrs. Whittaker, but I am myself, always. I don’t know how to be anyone else.”
The lady smiled then. Her smile was warm and sincere, her eyes shining from behind her thick glasses, cutting past them as light after a storm.
“Of course you must be yourself. I simply suggest that we might plan a manner of attack on society that would make you welcome for all your own stellar qualities, and not just because of the duchess’s influence.”
“Stellar qualities?” Mary Elizabeth looked doubtful. “What are they?”
Mrs. Whittaker leaned close and patted his sister’s other hand. “I think we can take a week or two to explore them, don’t you think? And then launch you back into society a new woman.”
“But as I said, I am always my own woman,” Mary Elizabeth answered. “I can be no other.”
“And we will find a way to show that woman off to advantage, in a way that will not frighten the lords and ladies of London.”
“I think I’d rather go home.”
Robert swallowed hard, but before he could remind his sister of the folly of that, Mrs. Whittaker spoke for him.
“You will no doubt go home, and to great approbation. But first, do you not think it might be fun to wow the ton a little?”
“Wow them?”
“Shock them with what a lady you are.”
Mary Elizabeth mused. “I am a lady already.”
“Of course you are.”
“And if I get a good report from her friends down here,” his sister said, “Mama might welcome me home.”
Robert felt his heart squeeze, but as he watched, Mrs. Whittaker did not waver. “You will make your mother very proud.”
Mary Elizabeth squared her shoulders, and the light of battle came into her eyes. “How do we start?”
* * *
Pru was sure she had offended Miss Waters and her hulking brother past bearing by speaking so plainly, but by the time she rose to take her leave, the girl seemed eager to begin her new regime. There was no way to be certain that such a regimen would take, but if she could keep her new charge from drawing a blade in public, she would have accomplished something.
Mr. Robert Waters did not comment. Indeed, he said almost nothing all afternoon, which worried her a bit. Of course, if he simply held his tongue for the few months it might take to bring his sister into shape, it might be best for them all.
Though, even if she never had to hear his deep, lilting voice again, she had no idea what to do about his blue eyes. Or his curling, overlong hair. Or his broad shoulders. Or the way he smelled of cedar.
Pru told herself not be a fool. She had turned away men much better bred and much richer than Mr. Robert Waters. But none of them had given her a shiver down her spine whenever they entered the room. Or spoke. Or sat in silence.
It seemed that she had a taste for Highland men that, until now, she had been unaware of. Damn and blast it.
Pru rose to put on her gloves and curtsied, watching as Miss Waters curtsied back very prettily to her. The girl was graceful, no mistake. She would take Mary Elizabeth through her paces, and see if they might find some charming, ladylike skill with which to woo the ton. Pru wondered if she might even have to call on Lord Grathton to ask for his help in setting the girl to rights with the cats of society.
She prayed not. That part of her life was over, and forever. She could not very well ask such a favor of him after all this time, and not expect consequences.
John Vaughton, Earl of Grathton was well on his way to being married to someone else. Perhaps he had already set aside all memory of her, and continued to move on wit
h his life.
Pru was not sure what it was about the young Miss Waters that had convinced her to abandon a perfectly lucrative year with Miss Harrington of Bombay. Miss Harrington and Miss Waters were so different. Miss Waters was a child of privilege and wealth, much as Pru had once been. But there was a fire and a joy in Mary Elizabeth that Pru could not remember having, even when she had been safe and warm, tucked away in Yorkshire in her father’s house.
Pru adjusted her bonnet and moved to the front door, taking in the cool nod of the butler, who seemed slightly mollified to see an English lady in the house. Mary Elizabeth did not accompany her into the entrance hall, but Robert Waters did.
“Forgive me, Mr. Waters. Did I forget something?”
The Highlander smiled down on her, and she felt a hint of hot lava move straight to her nether region. She swallowed hard and forced herself to stand very still as Robert Waters stepped close to her—too close for propriety’s sake. She tried to find her breath, and failed. She could not seem to find her tongue either. How on God’s loving green earth was she was going to live with this man for the time it would take to see his sister married?
Perhaps she had made a mistake.
“Indeed you have forgotten something, Mrs. Whittaker. Something a bit more important than the tea and crumpets we’ve just shared.”
Pru could not find her voice, so she simply stared at him past the annoying rim of her ugly brown bonnet.
His breath was warm on her cheek as he leaned close. For one delicious, horrifying moment, she thought that he might kiss her there in the entrance hall of a ducal mansion, with the stern butler standing by. But instead of his lips, it was one broad fingertip which rose to her cheek, and brushed a curl back. It had come loose from its pins, threatening to fall into her eye. Robert Waters stood close and let her hair curl around his finger, as if it loved him, as if it wished for him to stay close. Pru knew that she must say something, anything, to set this man down. But her reason had deserted her along with her voice.
“What shall we be paying you then, Mrs. Prudence Whittaker? What price would you put on my sister’s marriage?”
Pru blinked at him, frozen like a rabbit that had scented the hunter. She wished fervently that her good sense would return from wherever it had gone. She also wished that he would touch more than just a stray curl.
When she still did not answer, Robert Waters smiled at her, looking down her body as he might at a horse he wished to purchase at market. His eyes seemed to linger on her breasts, hidden as they were beneath the brown worsted of her gown. He met her gaze again, and she felt her cheeks flush.
She opened her mouth to give him the dressing-down he deserved, but she felt as if he were laughing, not at her, but at himself. There was such a light of good humor tucked away behind the blue of his gaze that, for the moment, her anger vanished like smoke. She almost laughed herself. He was a charmer, of that there was no doubt. She would have to guard against that charm, along with everything else.
“I suppose twenty pounds per annum will suffice, Mr. Waters, paid each quarter.”
“Only twenty pounds? Great God, Mrs. Whittaker, you hold yourself too cheap. I don’t think you realize the monumental task you have set yourself. We’ll be paying you twenty pounds per month, and that only to start. If you manage to marry her off, I’ll throw in a five hundred pound bonus, which ought to set you up for life.”
It was difficult to understand him, and Pru couldn’t be sure whether it was the fact that he was still standing so close, or that his Scottish burr was clouding his words, making her have to listen hard, and longer. But before she could object to such an outrageous sum—far more than the Harringtons had been willing to pay—Mr. Robert Waters had taken her arm, just like a gentleman, and had led her down the town house steps to a waiting open carriage.
“I must go and fetch my things from my aunt’s house,” she managed to say at last. “I’ll return before dark.”
“Aye, that you will. For I’ll be driving you.”
He did not hand her into the carriage, but raised her bodily onto the seat. His hands were hot on her waist. She could feel the sweltering effects of his touch through her thick gown and stays. She clutched her reticule, desperate to take herself in hand.
Sudden wealth and overwhelming attraction after years of poverty and loneliness might seem like gifts from heaven, but she knew she could not allow herself to fall into the blue of Robert Waters’s eyes and ruin herself. No matter how much she enjoyed his touch, she was still a lady. A widow might indulge herself in frolics between the sheets, but gently reared virgins could not, even at the ripe old age of twenty-five.
Or so she told herself as she watched Robert Waters vault into the carriage, sitting so close to her that his thigh pressed against hers. She took in the warm, crooked smile he sent her way and felt her heart shift along with her breath. She was in for more trouble than she had bargained for.
God help her. God keep her from seductive Highlanders. God keep her safe from herself.
Order Christy English's next book
in the Broadswords and Ballrooms series
How to Wed a Warrior
On sale February 2016
Acknowledgments
As always, whenever I have the privilege of writing a novel there are a lot of people to thank. I want to begin with the usual suspects, my mother, Karen English, my father, Carl English, and my brother, Barry English, for a lifetime of your love and encouragement. Thanks to my godparents, Ron and Vena Miller, as well as my dear friends, Amy and Troy Pierce, Laura Creasy, and LaDonna Lindgren for the years of love and unwavering support. My affectionate thanks also go to Trilby Newkirk and Marianne and Chris Nubel for their sympathetic ear, and for always making me laugh just at the right moment. And I have to thank Mike and Jennifer Peace as well as Ellen and Andy Seltz, not just for the years of friendship, but for raising four of the best girls ever to walk the face of the earth.
I also want to thank the incredible team at Sourcebooks Casablanca. Without my amazing editor, Mary Altman, the Waterses and all their antics never would have seen the light of day. Many thanks to Rachel Gilmer and her stellar team, as well as Hilary for her timely and thoughtful insights, and to Amelia Narigon for getting the word out. And I have to thank the design team for the beautiful cover.
A heartfelt thanks to you, the readers, for spending time with me and my Highlanders.
About the Author
Ever since Christy English picked up a fake sword in stage combat class at the age of fourteen, she has lived vicariously through the sword-wielding women of her imagination. A banker by day and a writer by night, she loves to eat chocolate, drink too many soft drinks, and walk the mountain trails of her home in western North Carolina. Please visit her at www.ChristyEnglish.com.
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