An Extraordinary Flirtation

by Maggie MacKeever

  Lord, those dimples. Her smile was like a blow to the belly. Or maybe to the heart. “I’ll get down on my knees for you if you wish it. I did so once, as I recall. And then you married Norwood. I have never understood why.”

  His voice had turned husky. Cara was stricken briefly mute by a vision of Nicky on his knees before her, and what he might do there. She reminded herself that even her own brother had said she was grown drab and dull. “Don’t try and claim you wore the willow longer than a sennight. I know otherwise.”

  He was not so foolish as to claim anything of the sort. “I never said I was a monk.”

  Anyone less monkish, Cara could not imagine. The memory of his kiss still tingled on her lips. “Why haven’t you married, Nicky? You need to get yourself an heir.”

  Nick was running out of patience. If Cara backed any farther away from him, she’d end up in the fire. “Why is everyone so concerned with my progeny? I have an heir, my nephew Colin, who will someday be a fine man, even if at the moment he’s driving my sister to distraction with his pranks. He’s already been sent down from university once this term. Speaking of heirs, you didn’t give Norwood one, I hear.”

  To talk of heirs with Nicky was to open doors of memory best left closed. Cara looked away. “That was a different matter. Norwood didn’t require an heir. His title died with him. It is unkind of you to use me like this. I would never have thought you’d go so far to get your revenge.”

  Nick wasn’t feeling kind, nor did he know why he should be expected to, when all was said and done. He placed his hand on Cara’s cheek, and turned her face to his. “Revenge is not a luxury in which gentlemen indulge.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No? Yet you brought me out in the streets of London alone at night. Anything could have happened. Had you thought of that?”

  Her skin was cool against his hand, and soft and smooth as silk. Perhaps he had been base enough to wish her frightened a little bit, but never would he see her harmed. “You weren’t alone for a moment. My servants think I’m quite mad.”

  “And the hackney driver?”

  “He thinks I’m mad also, but it matters naught to him, because I’m also rich.”

  Cara wasn’t certain she didn’t agree with them. Not that her own processes of reasoning were above reproach. “But, Nicky, why?”

  His hand slid down her cheek to cup her jaw. “Because you showed no signs of returning to London on your own.”

  How she wished to turn her head and press her lips against his palm. Cara stared at Nick instead. “And of course it would never occur to you to come to me.”

  His thumb brushed across her lower lip. “Did you want me to?”

  Difficult to remember, with him touching her like that. “I think,” Cara said unsteadily, “that I never wanted to see you again.”

  Nick raised his other hand and framed her face between them. “You made that fairly clear. We have unfinished business between us, Cara. Frown at me all you will, but admit that you wouldn’t have let me in if I’d come knocking at your door.”

  Could she have turned him away? Cara didn’t know. “Very well. I’ve come to London. Now will you discourage my niece?”

  He bent his head and brushed his lips against hers. “No. Not unless you encourage me instead.”

  Not unless she what? The scoundrel! Cara jerked away from him and raised her hand. Easily, Nick caught it. “Why are you so determined to do violence to my person?” he asked, in exasperated tones.

  “I’m feeling violent.” Cara tried to twist free. Perhaps Nick hadn’t meant what she’d thought he did. Surely he hadn’t meant what she’d thought he did.

  On the other hand, Cara wasn’t altogether certain she didn’t want Nick to mean what she’d thought. He had the most appalling effect on her. “What the devil are you up to, Nick?”

  How cross she looked. How troubled. Nick touched a fingertip to her furrowed brow. “I’m flirting with you, cara. Has it been so long that you’ve forgotten how it’s done? And if you run off again to the country, I swear I’ll elope with your wretched niece.”

  Chapter 9

  Ianthe sat alone at the table of carved mahogany, in front of her a teapot which resembled a cauliflower glazed yellow and green, and a single muffin on a plate. It was the family habit to breakfast informally, from dishes placed on the mahogany sideboard. Rather, the family would be breakfasting informally, if they ever crawled out of bed. Ianthe picked up a piece of muffin and crumbled it on her plate.

  Cara walked into the room, dressed for riding in a habit fashioned from a shade of blue that matched her eyes, around her throat a froth of white lace. Daisy trailed hopefully after her. “Good morning,” Cara said. She dropped her plumed hat, gloves, and riding crop on a side table, and moved to inspect the dishes on the sideboard. Daisy followed. “No! Bad dog. You have already been fed.”

  The muffin plate was hardly all the sideboard had to offer. Among the choices were fan-shaped dishes and octagonal and square, an oval egg stand with twelve cups, a Chelsea tureen in the shape of a rabbit, and a burnished copper coffeepot. Those dishes held, among other delicacies, broiled mackerel and dried haddock, mutton chops and cold tongue and a veal-and-ham pie. Cara wrinkled her nose at broiled sheep’s kidneys—although Daisy looked hopeful—and chose a plain boiled egg.

  Cara sat down at the table. Daisy flopped down by her chair. Ianthe poured tea from the cauliflower pot into a fresh cup. “You missed a treat by not joining us last night. Zoe was very disappointed by Lord Mannering’s absence. It appears that she has no interest in callow youths. Beau read her a dreadful scold and then chucked her under her chin and called her his precious puss. I thought I would cast up my accounts.”

  Cara wondered if she might cast up her own accounts. She picked up a spoon and poked at her boiled egg. She was not used to drinking brandy. Nor was she used to kissing Nicky. Although she once had been.

  She glanced up to find Ianthe looking at her oddly. “What did Zoe do to cause Beau to scold?”

  Ianthe contemplated the ruin of her muffin and reached for the marmalade pot. “Beau has apparently decided that flirting is the eighth deadly sin. Not that I noticed him giving it up himself.”

  Of course Ianthe would have noticed. Cara wondered if her cousin still cared for Beau in the way she once had. Unfortunately, first cousins were forbidden to wed. Or perhaps fortunately, because Ianthe would have been even more miserable if she had married the faithless Beau.

  Although, had she married him, they would not be having this conversation about Zoe. Cara pushed aside her boiled egg. “Who did she flirt with?”

  Ianthe spread marmalade on her muffin. “Who didn’t she flirt with? She has added a lieutenant in Prinny’s own regiment to her Zoo. Baron Fitzrichard was also at the theater. During intermission, he came to speak with us. He has decided to use your name for his neckcloth.”

  Cara stared. “Zoe flirted with Baron Fitzrichard?”

  “No.” Ianthe smiled. “Although she might have tried to, had he not quelled her with his quizzing glass.” Her anxious look returned. “I don’t mean to appear vulgarly inquisitive, Cara, but—Does Mannering want her, do you think?”

  Heaven only knew what Nicky wanted. Cara wasn’t altogether convinced, despite his words, that he didn’t crave revenge. However, as for Zoe—

  Cara picked up her teacup. “He does not.”

  “Oh, and I had so hoped he did!” Ianthe’s tears welled. Having come prepared for the occasion, Cara handed her a handkerchief.

  Ianthe dabbed at her damp eyes. “You mustn’t think I like being a watering pot—oh yes, I know that’s what Zoe calls me—because I don’t. But it seems like everything has passed beyond my control. If only—no, you mustn’t look like that! Don’t think for an instant Beau is being truthful when he says that if you’d exerted a properly auntly influence, instead of staying in the country with sheep and your kumquats, Zoe wouldn’t have turned into an enfant terrible. Zoe was beastly even in the cradle,
and he knows it as well as I.” Ianthe paused for breath, and frowned. “It seems very odd. If Mannering doesn’t care for Zoe, why does he encourage her, do you think? Because he does encourage her, I’ve seen it for myself.”

  Cara contemplated the damask tablecloth, and supposed she shouldn’t be surprised to discover that the white-on-white design was a hunting scene. How to explain to Ianthe what Nicky truly wanted? If indeed he did want her, and wasn’t running some sort of rig, though the evidence certainly had seemed to point that way. His touch had been so ardent, his embrace so impassioned, his hand upon her knee so warm—

  Cara picked up her napkin, and fanned herself. Zoe wouldn’t take kindly to the intelligence that Lord Mannering preferred her elderly aunt to herself, which was also odd of him, because Cara had inspected herself in the looking glass that morning, and her doubts had not been assuaged. “I don’t know what Nicky’s up to,” she said, truthfully. Daisy inched closer to her chair.

  Just how Machiavellian was the marquess? Cara had asked herself that question countless times during her long and sleepless night—or not so long, by the time she’d snuck back into the house and climbed into her bed, but sleepless all the same. She wished she might trust Nicky, but knew she dared not.

  Cara drew patterns with her fork on the tablecloth, Ianthe watched her silently. Daisy looked back and forth between them. Ianthe fed the setter a muffin crumb.

  “ ‘Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more!' 0’’ Zoe swept into the room, snatched up a table knife, and held it before her nose. “ ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?’“ Having secured her family’s startled attention, as well as Daisy’s, she dropped the knife back onto the table and approached the sideboard. “The theater last night was splendid, Aunt Cara. A pity you had to miss it. How’s your poor head?”

  Her headache looked irritatingly young this morning, in a demure white muslin dress. Any more angelic, and the chit would need a harp. “My head aches abominably. I hear you had a good time last night.”

  Zoe deposited a plate filled to overflowing upon the table, and herself upon a chair.” ‘Art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?’ Of course I had a good time. I always have a good time. Although I would have had a better time if Beau hadn’t started scolding me.” She popped a forkful of veal pie into her mouth. “And if Lord Mannering had been there.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full!” Ianthe said automatically, as Cara ruminated on where Lord Mannering had been, and what he’d been doing. “However,” Zoe added, “it doesn’t signify.”

  It didn’t? Cara blinked. Lord Mannering had been engaged in a most improper—and quite delightful—midnight tryst with none other than herself, and it didn’t signify?

  Zoe had been a little too generous slathering marmalade on her muffin. She scooped up a wayward dollop from the tablecloth and stuck it in her mouth. “I have decided to fall in love with Lord Mannering. He cannot be my True Love, because he will soon be too old to sire children, and I do want to have children someday. However, he is the perfect person with whom to have my first affaire de coeur, for he has had enough of them to know what he’s about."

  If Cara had choked at the notion of Nicky being too old to sire children, which she had, Ianthe blanched at mention of affaires de coeur. “Good gracious!” she murmured, and cast Cara an anguished glance.

  ‘Twas clearly the moment to take up the mantle of auntly duty. Cara had never wished to do anything less. “Young ladies don’t think about such things, Zoe,” she said. “Let alone mention them out loud. Has it occurred to you that perhaps Lord Mannering might not wish to have an affaire de coeur?”

  Zoe waved her knife. “ ‘If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly.’“ She noticed a bit of veal pie stuck on the knife and licked it off. “Whyever should I think that? The marquess is out of his senses over me. When I abandon him, he will be quite shattered. However, I must follow my heart. It is the way of Loversalls.”

  “Certain Loversalls are prone to flights of fancy,” snapped Cara, as an aghast Ianthe fed the last of her muffin to the dog. “And to speak more highly of themselves than is nice. You still have not explained what makes you so certain Lord Mannering has formed this great attachment to you.”

  Blithely, Zoe embarked on a broiled kidney. “How could he not?”

  Cara watched, somewhat queasily, as Zoe made short work of the kidney; told herself sternly that she should be tolerant, because the girl was so very young. Did the wretched child truly fall in love with Nicky, he surely would break her heart.

  If, that was, Zoe possessed the capacity to love anyone other than herself. If, indeed, she had a heart. Cara might have been more concerned for her niece had she not suspected that what Zoe intended to fall in love with was not Lord Mannering himself but the notion of having London’s most determined bachelor dangling at her apron strings.

  Cara wondered if Nicky might be persuaded to dangle. Then she also wondered if he might be persuaded to be Zoe’s first affaire de coeur, which inspired her with a strong desire to empty the marmalade pot over her niece’s stylishly cropped head.

  Beneath the table, Ianthe nudged her. Cara cleared her throat. “My dear, you wouldn’t wish to be accused of boldness, or of making an ungainly exhibition of yourself. Society will tolerate a good deal, but there are limits, especially for a young woman of good breeding.” Lord, what a prude she sounded. Do as I say, not as I do. Even Ianthe glanced at her askance.

  As did Zoe. “Piffle! As if I cared for such stuff.” She waved her fork, thereby casting a piece of dried haddock onto the floor. Daisy moved immediately to investigate.

  “Daisy, no!” said Cara, but it was too late. Guiltily, the setter licked her chops. “Your manners are as bad as Zoe’s.”

  “ ‘Cabin’d, cribb’d, confined!’ ” observed that young woman. “I know what that’s like. I never realized before, Aunt Cara, that you’re so high in the instep.”

  “I’m not!” said Cara, stung, then recalled that she was supposed to be. “That is, I merely meant to warn you that you might wish to impose a check upon your natural high spirits lest they lead you to disagreeable consequences.”

  “What fustian!” Zoe reached again for the marmalade. “As if you’ve never done anything you should not.”

  Such as kissing Nicky? Cara opened and closed her mouth.

  “I knew it!” crowed Zoe. “Tell us all. Ianthe will also like to know.”

  Ianthe already had more to think about than she wished, as result of Cara’s casually uttered “Nicky.” She murmured, “No, I don’t!”

  Cara rapped her fork on the table. “Never mind what I might have done! We were talking about you.”

  “It probably wouldn’t be all that interesting anyway. Seeing as it happened so long ago.” Zoe lifted a knife laden with marmalade to her mouth. Ianthe protested, “Knives are for cutting, not licking, Zoe."

  This was like dining in Bedlam. Cara bit back the temptation to retort that the latest thing she’d done that she shouldn’t had been just the previous night. Zoe thought her too old and stodgy to have an affaire de coeur of her own? Well, they’d just see about that!

  Gracious! What was she thinking? Sternly, Cara banished all memory of the previous evening from her mind. “What do you think you will gain from an affaire?”

  What an absurd question. Zoe looked pityingly at her aunt. “Experience, of course. As well as considerable pleasure, if what Beau says is true.” She giggled at Cara’s startled expression. “Goose! He didn’t say it to me. And then, after I’ve had all the experience I want, I shall settle down and live Happily Ever After with my own True Love.”

  Her niece was an innocent, Cara reminded herself, while Ianthe sighed. So innocent—or arrogant—that she thought she might arrange her life as she wished. “I’m not sure that Happily Ever After exists outside of books.”

  “You have t
o marry the right person.” Zoe eyed her aunt. “Why did you marry Norwood? Everyone is asking me. It does seem a trifle queer.”

  Ianthe also looked curious. Cara was about to either confess all, or tell them to mind their own business, when Beau walked into the room. “Good morning, everybody. How’s your headache, Cara? You missed an excellent play. Kemble was splendidly tortured, and Mrs. Siddons very affecting as well, Ianthe went through four pocket handkerchiefs.”

  Beau looked clear-eyed and rested, as if he’d enjoyed an excellent night’s sleep, which doubtless he had, now that he’d cozened his sister into coming to London to give pointless advice to his brat. Perhaps she would empty the marmalade pot over his head. Cara pushed back her chair.

  For the first time, Zoe noticed how her aunt was dressed. “Where are you going?” she inquired.

  Cara glanced at the tall windows. If sunlight didn’t stream through the glass, it had at least made a long enough appearance to assume the absence of rain. “Squire Anderley and I are riding in Hyde Park.” She picked up her feathered hat and placed it on her head.

  Looking speculative, Zoe propped her elbows on the table and dropped her chin into her hands. “Squire Anderley is very handsome. Are you going to have an affaire with him?”

  “Nonsense!” said Beau, from the sideboard j he was loading up his plate. “Your aunt isn’t going to do anything of the sort. And you shouldn’t know about such things, puss.”

  Zoe fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I don’t know how I couldn’t know about affaires when you have them all the time. I think Aunt Cara should have one. It might make her less priggish. However, you’re right, she is probably too old.”

  Cara bit her tongue and wished the marmalade pot were handier. Daisy whined. Ianthe looked at her cousin sympathetically and murmured,” ‘When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain?’ Remove your elbows from the table, Zoe.”