by Regina Scott
Sarah made a face. “In truth, I’d rather not go out tonight. I may ask Norrie to come visit. Would you mind staying in?”
It was quite apparent that Persy would mind a great deal, but she gave a tight-lipped smile. “No, certainly, if that is what you wish. Tomorrow will be a better day, Sarah, you wait and see.”
Sarah wanted to believe her. She had certainly expected a brighter future before she met Lord Breckonridge. But his proposal, insulting as it had been, seemed to have changed her view. Just as the luster of Lady Prestwick’s ball had dimmed when he had left it, so her life seemed to have dimmed without the prospect of him in it.
“I don’t understand it,” she complained to Norrie when her friend visited that evening. “I never expected to marry and I certainly don’t want to marry without love, so why am I so blue-deviled?”
Norrie smiled consolingly. “Do you perhaps love him?”
Sarah frowned. “I didn’t think so. Certainly I find him handsome. And I will admit I admired him before he made his proposal. I do not think I know him well enough to love him.”
“Perhaps you are merely disappointed he is not the gentleman you thought him,” Norrie offered. “However, it is nice that he chose you, you must admit.”
“I suppose,” Sarah allowed. “Am I over reacting? Should I have given his suit more consideration?”
“Not in the slightest,” her friend declared. “You have the right to be loved, Sarah. And you said yourself you cannot abide a gift given out of anything less than love. You may be miserable now, but think how miserable you would have been if you had accepted him.”
Sarah did think about it. Indeed, it seemed as if she could think of little else. She thought of it as she wrote her letter to her aunt and uncle because she could not admit that not only had Persy cast off the duke but she had rejected what they would consider an excellent match. She thought about it that night as she brushed out her hair, and her hand grazed the spot he had touched on her cheek. The memory was as warm as her skin. She could not help thinking about it as she was forced to sit the next day and watch Persy flirt with her endless stream of callers. Neither Lord Wells nor the Duke of Reddington appeared. There was also no sign of Malcolm Breckonridge. Sarah was just as glad. She wasn’t sure what to say to him anyway.
It was late in the afternoon when Mr. Timmons drew Sarah aside. “We have a difficulty in the entry hall, Miss Sarah,” he said in his wheezy voice.
Sarah frowned. “Difficulty? What’s the matter?”
“Perhaps you should see for yourself, miss,” he replied.
Catching Persy’s eye to let her know she would be out of the room for a moment, Sarah excused herself and hurried to comply. Once out the door, she immediately saw the problem.
The entry hall was overflowing with flowers. Vase upon vase of roses sat upon the hall table, squatted on the marble-tiled floor, rested against the wood-paneled walls. Red roses brushed the mirror above the hall table; white roses cluttered the entry to the library; and pink roses gathered behind the etched front door. She looked at Timmons in exasperation.
“This is the last straw. We must ask Persy’s admirers to restrain themselves. There cannot be a single rose left in London!”
Persy chose that moment to peer down the stairs. Seeing the flowers, her eyes widened, and she hurried down to caper into what little space was left.
“Oh, roses!” she exclaimed, going first to one bouquet and then another. She touched a petal here, bent to sniff a flower there.
Sarah watched her with a shake of her head. “Really, Persy, this is too much. See who sent these, and ask him to stop at once.”
Persy giggled. “They are ostentatious, aren’t they? Oh, what a dear. Let me find the card.”
“Here, miss,” Timmons offered with a deep sigh, handing her a small card. Persy took it eagerly and read the inscription. Sarah turned to the butler.
“Perhaps if we salted them about the rooms, the smell would not be so overpowering,” she suggested.
“Perhaps we should move them all to Sarah’s room,” Persy said, voice decidedly piqued. Sarah turned to her with a frown, but it was nothing to match the frown on her cousin’s face. Persy thrust the card at her and stalked back to the sitting room. Frown deepening, Sarah looked down at the card.
“Forgive me,” it read. It was signed only, “Breckonridge.”
The card dropped from her lifeless fingers, and she stared around at the dozens of roses. For her? He had sent all these to apologize to her? Did he care about her feelings after all?
The thought was wondrous. She had dreamed years ago that someone might truly love her and care about how she felt. She’d conjured fairy tales with Norrie about the gentlemen they’d meet and the love they’d find. The dreams had sustained her until her Season had proven them a lie. Since then she had been careful to whom she gave her heart.
No doubt that was why the thought that he might care frightened her as well. She had accused him of not loving her, but she had admitted to Norrie that she did not think she was in love with him. Now that she was faced with the possibility that he could love her after all, she wasn’t sure what to do. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t truly believed he would propose in the library that day. Love had seemed a far away ideal, something remembered before the deaths of her parents, something echoed in her friendship with Norrie. She wasn’t entirely sure why no one except Norrie had ever shown her what she believed was love, but she had wondered whether she might somehow have held them off. Now here was Malcolm, refusing to be held off, refusing to go away. She had no idea how to respond.
But one thing she did know.
It would take a great deal more than a surfeit of roses for Malcolm Breckonridge to wedge his way into her heart.
Chapter Eleven
“And then,” Appleby stated with great relish, “Mr. Timmons reports that she took the roses and threw them in the trash.”
Malcolm paused in the act of removing his shoes. It had not been a good day. In the first place, recent events had made the Marquis DeGuis more than cautious in openly endorsing any mention of reform. Respected as he was among the Tories, his support was key to Malcolm’s plans to halt the spread of censure. Only an extended conversation with the fellow, and his astute wife, had brought him into reluctant agreement. In the second place, Viscount Darton was having trouble framing the Widows and Orphans Act in such a way as to please the conservative Tories, and Malcolm had had to spend several hours wrangling over the merits of “child” over “dependent.” Despite his promises to Anne, he had not had a moment to spend in courting and had hoped the roses might carry on in his stead. Obviously, that was not the case.
“You’re certain she saw the card?” he asked his valet.
“Most certain,” Appleby reported giddily. “She ripped it in half and half again.”
“If you tell me she danced among the pieces,” Malcolm growled, “I shall hurl this shoe at you.”
Appleby sobered immediately. “My apologies, my lord,” he murmured with a hurried bow. “I had no idea the subject was so injurious to your sensibilities. You can, of course, count on me to temper my comments in the future.”
Malcolm closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Patience, he had to have patience. “I am not a child, Appleby,” he said at last, “and my sensibilities, as you put it, are not so easily injured by anything Miss Compton might do. Now, is there anything more you care to relate?”
Appleby thought hard for a few moments. Indeed, the fellow’s face screwed up so mightily that Malcolm wondered whether he was having an apoplectic fit. Just when Malcolm was ready to leap to his rescue, the fellow’s brow cleared. “No, my lord,” he replied.
Malcolm almost left him alone, but there was one more piece of information he needed for the next step in his campaign, however badly it seemed to be going. “Did you have any luck discovering Miss Compton’s favorite candy?” he probed. That question did not seem to overtax Appleby’s abilities at least
, for the fellow answered quickly enough.
“Chocolate nougats,” he proclaimed, trotting to the wardrobe to retrieve Malcolm’s blue velvet dressing gown. Malcolm bent and finished removing his shoes at last, straightening and rising in time for Appleby to drape the robe over his shoulders.
“Chocolate nougats,” Malcolm mused aloud.
“Yes, my lord,” Appleby replied, tugging the robe down at the back. “Although she has been known to pass them up for rum centers.”
“Get a box of each from Gunter’s,” Malcolm ordered. “I’ll write a note to go with them.”
“Very good, my lord,” Appleby intoned. He returned to his business of preparing the room for Malcolm to retire.
Malcolm settled himself into the easy chair by the fire and reached for his Bible. The chair had been with him since his college days, the Bible even longer. Both were well worn and comfortable. The back and sides of the chair had long since been bent and crushed to fit the contours of his body. The tooled leather of the Bible, rubbed deep in places, fit his hands.
He thumbed through to one of his favorite passages, in the book of Exodus, and read again where Moses prayed to God to return His presence to the Israelites after they had built the golden calf. God had called the Israelites a stiff-necked people. Malcolm understood that phrase all too well. How many young lordlings had he had to shepherd through their first weeks in Parliament as they attempted to put their petty concerns into inappropriate laws? How many more seasoned nobs had he had to reason with when titled consequences were threatened by the public’s welfare? There were moments when, like Moses, he could only pray for patience. There were times when, like God, he almost refused to favor them with his presence. But Moses had at least had a helper in Joshua. Malcolm had never found anyone whose judgment and temperament he trusted enough to work directly beside him. At least, not since Winston Wells.
He tried not to think about that time in his life. His older cousin, knowing his interest in politics, had arranged for him to get a seat in the House of Commons. He had had to work directly with a number of members in the House of Lords, one of them being Baron Winston Wells. Wells had been a fastidious man, as careful in his words as he was in his dress. While he leaned heavily toward the more popular Tories, he would listen while Malcolm expounded his increasingly Whig theories. Unfortunately, Malcolm had not been the only one to whom he had listened. It was in Malcolm’s third year at Commons that he found that Lord Wells had been selling secrets to the French.
He had been sick about the matter for days. He had come to care for the man as a father. How could he possibly turn the fellow over to the authorities? Finally, in desperation, he had appealed to the man himself. The next day, Wells had been found dead, with a self-inflicted bullet through his temple. Malcolm closed his eyes in memory, but the vision of Lady Wells’ distraught face would not leave him.
Young Wells had been away at school then, but Malcolm had vowed to do what he could for the boy he had made fatherless. But even helping to pay for Rupert’s schooling and giving the boy entre to Parliament when he had taken his father’s seat a few years ago failed to fill the void in his heart left by Winston Well’s passing. Sarah Compton acted as if it would be easy to let someone fill his heart, a woman, a wife. She had no idea what she asked of him.
At length he realized that Appleby had finished and taken himself off for the evening. Malcolm had one last task to accomplish before retiring. He pulled the portable writing desk from the table beside him and nestled it in his lap. He obviously needed to find a better way to apologize to Sarah. Surely that would not be too difficult a task. If he could find the words to assuage Lord DeGuis’ concerns, certainly he should be able to write a meaningful apology to a woman.
But the words refused to come, at least to his liking. The first draft he threw away as too effacing. The second he ripped up as she had ripped up his card as too arrogant. The third was too wordy, the fourth too terse. At last he paused and stared into the fire. Anne Prestwick had told him he would need to put effort into this courtship, but somehow he didn’t think this was what she had in mind.
Perhaps he should look farther, find a woman who was less demanding. Surely some other woman would be happy to take his money and position and serve at his side without any messy entanglements of the heart. Yet something inside him quailed at the thought of leaving Sarah behind. What was it about the intractable Miss Compton that drew him in? Her witch’s eyes came immediately to mind, followed swiftly by the womanly curves that filled her gowns. Was it merely a physical attraction that held him, then? That made little sense as her cousin was even more beautiful, and she attracted him not at all.
It was something more, then, something deeper. He refused to believe it had anything to do with his heart. He did not believe in love at first sight. No, a better explanation might be that Miss Compton had many of the traits he found praiseworthy, more, in fact, than any of the women he had met over the years. And he had been sporadically hunting for several Seasons before Anne Prestwick had been coerced into helping him. No, Sarah was a rarity. It might take him years to find someone with her qualifications, and time was running out. Therefore, it was imperative that he attempt to salvage their budding relationship.
He took out a piece of paper and twirled the quill between his fingers for a moment while he thought. Then he dipped the tip in the ink and sent the quill flying across the page. He was not known for having a golden tongue to no effect. It was time he did what he did best.
* * * *
It would take a great deal more than an excess of roses to win Persephone Compton’s heart. Of this, Rupert Wells was certain. In fact, he was amazed Breckonridge had tried something so very common. Wells had had agents watching the Compton house for three days, ever since the Prestwick ball. He knew the vast number of gentlemen who had come calling. He’d read detailed accounts of their dress, their equipage, and their bouquets, all of which were designed to impress. The girl was an Incomparable after all. The eligibles flocked to her like pigeons to grain. He knew better than to join them. He must stand out from the crowd.
He had started the game at the ball by appearing to be cool to her. His demeanor had intrigued her, he was certain, for she had doubled her efforts to attract his regard. But he could not let too many days go by, or she would likely turn her attentions elsewhere, perhaps even to Breckonridge. While he wanted to keep Breckonridge interested, he wanted to keep Miss Compton disinterested. The key was either ruining or hurting Breckonridge. If that meant ruining or hurting Miss Compton in the process, it was simply too bad.
But just as he could not denounce Breckonridge as evil without proof, neither could he show an open interest in Miss Compton without tipping his hand. He had hoped to further their acquaintance at Almack’s Wednesday night. The ballroom boasted any number of places where a gentleman might snatch a private moment with a lady, if he were clever. Rupert knew he was clever, but Persephone Compton had not arrived for the dance. Now he had no choice but to make a more obvious approach.
His chance came Friday morning when one of his spies sent him word that Miss Compton had been spotted on Bond Street, shopping with only a maid and footman for company. He had excused himself from the private debate over the wording of the Widows and Orphans Act with a curt word to Breckonridge. He took private delight in the man’s frown. It was not often he found an opportunity to insult the fellow twice in one day and get away with it. He was positively giddy by the time he reached the shopping district.
His man directed him to the milliners, where Miss Compton was trying on hats. He could see her through the window, her willowy frame wrapped in a ribboned pelisse of serpentine satin. Her curls glowed golden against the color. He walked past the shop for a block and waited, then was forced to retrace his steps twice more before she actually appeared. By then, he was more than a little put out with her.
Still, he tipped his high-crowned beaver and nodded to her as they passed. He would have had to
have been blind not to see the eager light spring to her violet eyes. He certainly heard the eagerness in her voice as he made to continue and she hailed him.
“Lord Wells! How lovely to see you!”
He turned to find she had stopped and was smiling at him charmingly. Only the hint of pink in her creamy complexion told him she knew she was being forward.
He bowed. “Miss Compton. A pleasure. I trust you are having luck with your shopping?”
“Tolerable,” she pronounced, waving a dainty hand back to where a strapping young footman balanced a stack of parcels reaching nearly to his solid chin. “But I have such trouble making decisions on matters of dress. It is so difficult to judge what would look well on one.”
“I would imagine anything would look good on you,” he told her pointedly and had the pleasure of watching her blush deepen.
“You are too kind,” she murmured. “Still, I value the opinion of a more seasoned person. Unfortunately, my dear cousin Sarah could not join me this morning.”
Though he knew the spinster had been left at home, he was careful to evince surprise. “You are unescorted?” he asked, ignoring the little dark-haired maid beside her and the footman at her back. “That will never do. I’m certain your friend Lord Breckonridge would never approve of it.”
At Breckonridge’s name, she stiffened, putting up her little chin. “I do not care whether he approves or not. I am much put out with Lord Breckonridge, and you may tell him so.”
Rupert hid a smile. So, she had already taken Breckonridge’s measure. He might be able to use that to his advantage. He forced his face to remain unmoved. “How tragic,” he drawled. “You must tell me how he came to earn your wrath. Would you allow me to walk with you a while?”
She batted her lashes before lowering her gaze. “Certainly, Lord Wells. But I hope we can find better topics of conversation than Lord Breckonridge.”