“Don’t be ridiculous. His expression has nothing to do with me.” Minerva waved over one of the footmen waiting patiently on either side of the satinwood Hepplewhite commode. “Thomas, make certain her ladyship has another sherry if she wants it, and then find Mr. Peel and inform him he may announce dinner as soon as he is ready.”
“Yes, Mrs. Faircloth.” The liveried young man bowed and left the room on silent feet.
“Nicely done, my lady,” Ditey murmured. “Now you have taken care of dinner, perhaps you need to send for the physician.”
“Whatever for?”
“If his expression and twitches have nothing to do with you, then I fear Colonel Brightworth is in the throes of either a seizure or a fit of some sort. You should see to him before he succumbs.”
“If he succumbs I won’t have to face him across the dinner table.”
They both took the opportunity to steal a glance at him. And promptly turned back to face the window. “Why do I listen to you, Ditey? You are constantly drawing me into these scrapes and making me say things I have no business saying.”
Aphrodite’s face contorted and her shoulders shook. Now who appeared to be suffering a seizure? Minerva smothered a laugh and fought not to join her friend in her merriment. Given the choice between laughter and aggravation, she’d rather the laughter, no matter how inappropriate.
“If I am to be usurped in my position, one would hope my son’s chosen hostess can see to the comfort of his guests rather than giggle in a corner with his hoyden of a sister.” Penelope Forsythe, Countess of Creighton, had a voice as smooth as glass. Nothing changed its tone, neither anger nor condescension nor pleasure. Her children had their entire lives to learn the nuances mere sound did not convey. It had taken Minerva less than a week.
At fifty years of age, the countess had not a single strand of grey in her perfectly coiffed hair, at least not in what escaped strategically from beneath her equally perfect cap. Pity. It might have helped to soften features that while handsome on a gentleman did little to recommend a lady. The icy blue eyes, slashed cheekbones, and chiseled chin and brow made her son’s appearance so striking as to draw gasps of admiration from silly girls just out of the schoolroom. Minerva had to admit he was perhaps the most decadently handsome man she’d ever seen. Those same aspects of his mother’s countenance made her appear harsh, predatory, and unapproachable. And while his eyes conveyed the warmth of the ocean on a summer’s day, hers threatened to freeze all in her view.
“Forgive me.” Minerva sketched the great lady a curtsy. “You are, as always, quite correct. I will see to Lord Creighton’s guests at once.”
Aphrodite scurried along in Minerva’s wake. “You aren’t seriously trying to turn Mama up sweet, are you?”
They both glanced back in time to catch a truly a frightening smile curl her ladyship’s face.
“There isn’t enough sugar in the world,” Minerva muttered as they joined the gentlemen. “Remind me to ask the laundress to put more starch in your mother’s petticoats so we can at least hear her coming.”
A chord of a coughing fit covered their laughter.
“Are you quite alright?” Creighton pulled her hand through his crooked arm and held it there in a proprietary grip.
“Compared to what, my lord?”
Lord Fitzhugh snorted into his brandy. Sebastian. Well, Sebastian simply stared at her. She stared back. A mistake, for his eyes had the ability to sift her thoughts like flour. Worse, they set her skin to sending odd sensations into the very worst places. He refused to look away. The handsome young viscount and Aphrodite teased and argued. Creighton attempted to keep the peace. And still Sebastian stared. And she determined she’d not be the first to break the gaze.
The doors to the drawing room did it for them. Peel opened them wide and took a step into the room. “Dinner is served.”
Minerva deliberately turned her attention to the butler. “Thank you, Peel.” She peered at Creighton from beneath her lashes. “Shall we go in, my lord?”
“God, yes. I’m starving. Come along, Mrs. Faircloth.” The viscount offered her his arm. “And please tell me Mrs. Applegate is still in residence. If Creighton has managed to run off the best cook in England I shall thrash him to within an inch of his life.”
“If Lord Creighton ever manages to run off Mrs. Applegate I shall help you,” Minerva assured him as he hurried her into the corridor and led her towards the small first floor dining room.
Ahead of them Creighton and the countess paused to allow the footmen to open the doors. Behind them Sebastian said something to make Aphrodite laugh.
“Between Lady Creighton at daggers drawn and Brightworth scowling at you, I decided you needed to be rescued,” Lord Fitzhugh said softly.
“If I had not met Lord Creighton first, I might have persuaded you to marry me, my lord.”
“And if I weren’t such a worthless rogue I might have let you.” He led her to her place opposite Creighton who sat at the head of the table deep in conversation with his mother. The countess appeared to be none too happy to be seated next to her son rather than where Minerva now sat.
Lord Fitzhugh made a great show of kissing her hand before he took his seat beside her. “Don’t let the old dragon eat you, Mrs. Faircloth.”
“I won’t if you won’t.” She nodded for Peel to order dinner to begin. She liked Lord Fitzhugh immensely. She saw why he and Creighton were friends. And God only knew where it came from, but the idea Sebastian had these two men as friends made her glad for him. Women really were stupid creatures about some things. Or perhaps simply about some men.
They managed the soup and the first remove before the countess regrouped and decided to serve Minerva up as the next course.
“I realize your parents are no longer with us, dear,” Lady Creighton began once the footmen had served the second course of partridge, peas, and sweet breads. “But did I not hear you mention your grandmother was a dear friend of the Marchioness of Lightsey? Should we not invite her to the wedding?”
Every head at the table turned to Minerva, save one. Sebastian sliced into his partridge with the gusto of a starved country squire. Here she’d thought she’d passed all of the harridan’s tests. Serenity and grace had a price and a limit.
“Which, my lady? My grandmother or the marchioness?” Oh, dear. Where had that come from?
Lady Creighton’s fork clattered onto her plate. Her eyes narrowed to tiny blue slivers of ice. “Which would you prefer, Minerva, dear?” If she snapped her teeth shut with any more force, they might break. Minerva contemplated the cost of eliciting such a response.
“As my grandmother is Lady Lightsey’s housekeeper, I would suggest neither, my lady. I assure you the guests we have invited are sufficient to celebrate our nuptials. Would you not agree, Creighton, dear?” She smiled at her fiancé sweetly.
“Quite.” Creighton tossed back the contents of his wine glass and raised a finger in signal to the nearest footman. “The guest list is set, Mama. Leave it alone.”
“This marriage would appear more suitable if the girl had at least one relative of good breeding in attendance, Creighton. You know that as well as I do. Being born of a good family makes up for a multitude of sins.”
Oh, this was exactly the conversation she wanted his friends to hear. Especially Sebastian. Not that he appeared to be listening. Which was what she wanted. Wasn’t it?
“In my experience, Lady Creighton, that depends entirely on the family into which one is born.” Apparently, Sebastian was listening.
“I beg your pardon, Colonel Brightworth.” Lady Creighton didn’t beg anything and her current expression indicated she’d found a new victim. Minerva didn’t know which combatant she feared for the most.
“Being born into some families compounds one’s sins rather than forgives them.” He went back to his dinner as if he had not just fired a shot across the bow of one of Society’s most lethal countess-classed frigates.
Minerva con
sidered she might need to stop reading all of those naval histories to Edward before bed.
“Might I inquire after your grandmama, Colonel Brightworth?” Lady Creighton asked with all the charm of a pirate’s cutlass. Edward should really be down here for this. It was about to become Trafalgar in Creighton Hall’s family dining room.
Sebastian’s fork scraped across the family Sevres. “My grandmother is dead, my lady. Although I have been known to borrow Fitzhugh’s grandmama from time to time.”
Lady Creighton sniffed. “I was referring to the Dowager Countess Haddonfield.”
“She is not my grandmother. She is my half-brother’s grandmother.” He speared a piece of partridge and chewed it viciously. Age had given him some reserve. Minerva hoped it was enough.
“She is your late father’s mother. Of course, she is your grandmother. I had heard she was ill.” Either ignorance or cruelty pressed Creighton’s mother to continue. Minerva’s money was on cruelty.
“I doubt it lasted long, my lady. I am certain should God wish to take her he would have to ask her permission first.” Sebastian did look at Minerva then. She had no choice but to smile.
“Perhaps she is merely waiting for you two boys to do your duty and marry well.” Lady Creighton looked at her son pointedly.
“I am certain my brother will oblige her. He has taken his orders from her since my father died. God knows there are plenty of girls foolish enough to take the both of them on for a title and the money.”
“And you, Colonel, is there a woman foolish enough to take you on?” the countess asked.
Minerva plucked her wineglass from the table and downed half its contents. Her first real dinner as her fiancé’s hostess was a small one – a small bear baiting crossed with a naval battle.
“Wives are an expense, my lady,” Sebastian said evenly. “And once a man takes one on they become more expensive every day.”
Minerva’s fork hovered halfway to her mouth. Lord Fitzhugh coughed like a consumption patient on his last prayers. A soft groan emanated from the head of the table. The countess stared at Sebastian in disbelief. Minerva felt as if she’d been slapped. She shouldn’t. She was about to marry a very wealthy earl who liked her. Dammit. Foolish, foolish, girl.
“My grandmother is well and sends her compliments, my lady.” Lord Fitzhugh announced.
“Your grandmother is always in rude good health, Fitzhugh.” Creighton glared at Sebastian. “Don’t you agree, Brightworth?”
Sebastian cleared his throat. “A merciful God would never bestow less than perfect health on so sweet and good a lady as Lady Fitzhugh.”
“Leave my grandmother alone, you reprobate.”
“You only object because she favors me over you.”
“The reason being you never miss an opportunity to flatter her.”
“A talent you do not see fit to waste on me, Colonel Brightworth.” Lady Creighton actually sounded piqued with him. Minerva didn’t remember ever hearing the lady piqued at anything. Then again, Sebastian had that effect.
“There is no need to flatter you, my lady. Your beauty, grace, and intelligence shine so brightly only a fool would attempt to add to their glory.” Sebastian gifted the countess with a smile that was all male, and very little of the man Minerva once knew.
Creighton gave in to a paroxysm of coughing then. Aphrodite took a huge bite of sweet bread and nearly choked on it. Lord Fitzhugh signaled the footman for more wine.
“I see why she likes him,” the countess observed and returned to her dinner.
Minerva didn’t like him. She didn’t like him at all. She especially didn’t like him here.
* * *
“Wives are an expense, my lady.”
Through tea and cakes after dinner with Aphrodite and Lady Creighton, Minerva had discussed wedding plans, the week’s menus, and forms of entertainment for the guests to arrive in a few days. She’d spoken politely, intelligently, and as expected on all of these topics. When the gentlemen joined them after their port and cigars, she’d played the piano for Ditey to sing. She and Ditey had beaten Creighton and Lord Fitzhugh at whist whilst Lady Creighton attended her needlework and Sebastian stared out the French windows into the night.
Yet, the only thing she remembered as she marched up the stairs to the nursery was that one phrase in Sebastian’s practical baritone. It might as well have been the refrain to every song she and Ditey performed for them. Lady Creighton probably stitched the words into her needlework. As if any woman alive wanted to be married to a man who saw her as an expense.
“You had a fortunate escape,” she muttered to herself as she pounded her slippers against the broad Turkish carpets covering the polished oak floors of the corridor. If he knew how much it was going to cost Creighton to marry her, he’d probably tell the man to reconsider the entire bargain. The very worst part was, she had no idea why it bothered her so. Sebastian was here as a guest, nothing more. An unwelcome ghost-from-her-past guest who’d resurrected not only her girlhood dreams, but the memory of all of the ways she’d failed in life thus far. All of the ways she’d failed Roger. And Edward. Edward for whom she’d now made the sort of mercenary marriage she’d sworn never to make.
“Oh, Mrs. Faircloth, thank goodness.” Katie, the young nursery maid Creighton had hired to look after Edward hurried down the corridor, her hands fisted in her skirts. Two of the upstairs maids remained at the closed door to the nursery. They looked to be attempting to pick the lock. Quite professionally too. His mother cut up a great deal about propriety, good breeding, and the necessity of hiring only the best help. Minerva suspected he’d hired some of his servants simply to get under the woman’s skin.
“He’s locked himself in the nursery again, Mrs. Faircloth.” The poor girl nearly had her skirts in shreds. Her big brown eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I had the key in my pocket. Before God, I did. Now he has it in the lock on his side of the door.”
They reached the nursery and Minerva carefully unfolded Katie’s clutched fingers and brushed the wrinkled fabric free. “Katie, it isn’t your fault, dear.”
“Her ladyship will say it is.” The last word ended on a sob.
“Which is why we won’t tell her, will we girls?” Minerva directed her least commanding glower at the two maids who had ceased their attempt at the door when they saw her coming.
“No, Mrs. Faircloth.”
“She won’t hear it from me, Mrs. Faircloth. Don’t know why his lordship puts up with the old beesum.”
“Because earls cannot turn off their mother without a character.” She squatted down to peer into the keyhole. It was blocked by what was no doubt the key jammed in the other side. “They can, however, turn off upstairs maids who insult the lady of the house and downstairs maids who teach young boys how to pick their nursery maid’s pockets.” She glanced up in time to see both maids blanch and then look anywhere save at her.
“Sally, you didn’t.” Katie took a handkerchief from the downstairs maid and then punched her on the arm.
“Meant nothing by it,” Sally grumbled. “The lad is bored locked in this prison all day. Boys want fresh air and a bit of mischief.”
“My son is perfectly capable of finding mischief within the walls of this house without your help, Sally Briggs.” Minerva stood and stretched, hands pressed to her back. It had been a long day, with far too many surprises and skirmishes for her taste. The maids, however, had been up since before dawn and would soon have to be up again. “You three run along and find your beds. It’s late and Mrs. Peel grows more formidable each day closer to the wedding. Off with you. I will take care of Edward.”
At the mention of Peel’s no-nonsense wife, who served as Creighton Hall’s housekeeper, all three girls paled, curtsied and made a mad dash for the hidden door at the far end of the corridor.
“Don’t be too hard on him, missus,” Sally Briggs called in a thunderous whisper before she slipped behind the door and joined the others in galloping up the servant
s’ stairs.
Too hard on him indeed. Edward lived in a state of perpetual anger as only an eight-year-old boy who’d lost nearly everything in the space of two years could. First his father and then his home and everyone familiar to him. She’d tried to convince him her marriage to Creighton would make it all better. He remained unconvinced. Especially after he met the dowager countess. Minerva crouched down at the keyhole once more. Her fiancé’s mother did not venture onto the nursery floor, but everything that happened in this house somehow made it back to her ears. One more last thing Minerva needed in an entire day of last things she needed.
“Edward, dear, please unlock the door. I came to bid you good night.”
“Good night then.”
She raised the latch and pushed. The door didn’t budge. She pressed her forehead to the polished six-paneled slab of wood and sighed. Her ribs hurt under the hold of her corset. Her slippers pinched her feet. Silk weighed a great deal more than she’d realized. Her lovely coiffure had surrendered half an hour ago. She pushed several long curls away from her face. A hairpin pinged to the floor. Hmmm. Minerva picked it up, stretched it all the way out and went to work trying to push the key out of the lock. She remained intent on what she was doing. There had to be a way to do this. The tip of her tongue poked out to touch her top lip. She almost had it.
“Minerva, what the devil are you doing?”
Stealing Minerva: Chapter Five
“Gawp!” Minerva fell over and landed feet in the air in a froth of green silk and white petticoats. She still had the loveliest legs in England.
“Ouch!” Something had flown out of her hand and struck Sebastian in the eye.
A horrendous crash sounded from behind the door. Covering his injured eye with one hand, Sebastian reached down with the other to help her from the floor. She grabbed his hand, shot to her feet, and began to bang said hand against the door like a cudgel.
“Edward, let me in.”
“Minerva, that is my hand you are flailing to a pulp.”
Her Perfect Gentleman: A Regency Romance Anthology Page 66