All You Could Ask For

by Angeline Fortin

  “I must say it has been very pleasant having a purpose, and Edinburgh is such a lovely city even this time of year. When you are rested, we can review the menus for the week and the room assignments in case there is anything you would like to change,” she offered politely.

  Waving her off, Abby smiled, “I’m sure everything will be just lovely, dear. You have excellent taste. I would not have asked you to do this otherwise. Besides, your letters kept me well informed.”

  Eve nodded graciously, accepting her assurance. “And where are the babies? I should like to see them.”

  “The nurse is having them changed. She took Trist up to play with Laurie as well,” she added with a frown marring her angelic brow as she referred to her four-year-old son, Tristram.

  “I’m sure they’ll get on famously.” Eve arranged the cups on the tray, squirming under her friend’s critical eye. She’d forgotten how all-seeing Abby could be. “I must say, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon after the birth.”

  “We didn’t want to miss the engagement ball.”

  “The Roper girls are quite anxious for tonight as well,” Eve replied. Her voice was fond but polite. Distant.

  “And Sean and Colin as well,” Abby answered, looking at her friend with a frown marking her angelic brow. “My grandparents travelled up with us. You should see them this evening.”

  “How lovely.”

  Lovely? What was going on here?

  Abby watched as Eve prepared their cups, adding sugar to Abby’s from memory and asking of her husband how he preferred his. Eve handed a cup to Richard, shifting with visible discomfort. At least it was obvious to Abby.

  “I must say I am so glad to meet you at last, Lord MacKintosh…”

  “Just Richard, please.”

  Eve hesitated a beat. “Thank you, Richard. Abby’s letters make me feel as if I know you already. Of course, I’ve heard stories about you since we were in school together. Abby had the veriest esteem for you even then.”

  Veriest esteem? The Eve Abby knew would have pounced on the opportunity to tease her friend. That comment should’ve at least been accompanied by a grin and a wink. Abby’s brow wrinkled again. “Is that what I had?”

  “Yes, quite,” Eve confirmed with a slight nod. “You know it is true.”

  Abby shrugged, since she could not deny it even though she might rephrase it. She had grown up on the estate neighboring Richard’s. Her older brother, Jack, was a great friend of Richard and his brothers. She’d pursued him all through her adolescence and into her twenties before finally getting him to the altar five years ago.

  Of course, Richard claimed to be the lucky one. Much to her chagrin, he’d tell anyone who’d listen how she was a bonny lass inside and out.

  As her closest friend’s including Eve and Kitty were all stunning beauties, Abby was more pragmatic about the effect of her so-called angelic looks. From them, she was more used to being teased for her diminutive size. She was also as tiny as a woman could get. Standing next to her, Eve used to say she felt as tall as a giant, an Amazon to Abby’s pygmy and as ungainly as an ox. Several inches less than five feet in height, Abby often appeared to be a small child at first glance, so petite was she. There was a time Eve had been relentless in her quest to poke fun at her.

  Why not now? What was different?

  Pondering the question, Abby sipped her tea and pulled a periodical from the table beside the chaise. “What is this, Eve?”

  “It’s a new periodical that Kitty sent me from New York. I just received it yesterday and was so enthralled I could scarcely put it down.” Eve assembled a little plate of sandwiches and cakes for her friend and delivered it to her.

  “Cosmopolitan?”

  “Please feel free to take it. I am finished with it,” Eve offered politely. Too politely to Abby’s mind. “I’m certain she will send on the next issue.”

  “Thank you, I will. Um, Evie?”

  Richard interrupted the thought before it began. “Ah, here are our little lasses now!”

  * * *

  Two nurses entered, each carrying a small bundle. As they took them to the twins’ parents, Eve couldn’t stop herself from jumping up to intercept one of them. Taking one of the girls into her arms, she stared down into a pair of bright blue eyes and hummed with delight.

  “What do you think of my girls, Evie?”

  Eve looked up from the baby girl she cuddled with a flush of embarrassment at having been caught cooing softly to the baby. “How precious, Abby. Oh, I know you wrote me of their names, but I cannot remember.” She cuddled the little girl close and smelled the sweetness of the newborn. “Which one is this?”

  “You have Bryn and this is Corri.” The nurse handed the other baby to a capable looking Richard.

  “Twins!” Eve placed a soft kiss on the downy blond head of the newborn. “I don’t know how you managed it or how you can tell them apart, but they are just lovely.”

  She rocked the babe in her arms and cooed softly while Richard lowered the other babe to Abby’s side and took a seat beside her. His gaze when he looked upon them both was so tender it made Eve’s heart clench. Eve studied her friend’s husband more fully. He was tall, perhaps six feet or so, with dark brown hair and light brown eyes.

  “You know, Richard,” she mused as she idly rocked the baby from side to side, “you seem very familiar to me. Have we met before? Perhaps when I was in London for my debut or after I wed?”

  “I am sure I would remember,” Richard answered with a complimentary smile, earning a jab from his wife. “It’s unlikely, however. I left England in ‘82 when I joined the Queen’s army and went into Africa. I didn’t return until ‘87.”

  “Yes.” Eve nodded, remembering stories Abby had told her. “You left during my last year at the academy. Still, I can’t help but think that you look so familiar.” Dismissing the déjà vu feeling, she turned to her friend. “I am certainly glad you’ve returned, Abby. I suppose now I might turn the reins over to you as hostess. Certainly, I don’t need to even attend this evening since you’re back.”

  A bit of relief niggled at the back of her mind. Coward! She accused herself, but her inner faint heart merely shrugged off the insult.

  “Of course, you do,” Abby stated firmly. “As far as I am concerned, you are still hostess of this affair. I’m certainly in no condition to take over. Besides, Richard's family will want to meet you.” Abby leaned her head back again as if exhaustion were overtaking her. “If I know you, you already have a spectacular gown ready, so name one reason why you cannot carry on.”

  “You do realize that I am supposed to be in half-mourning yet?” Evelyn argued. “Realistically, I am not supposed to show my face in Society for another three months at least.”

  “Even if Shaftesbury’s death wasn’t officially declared until last June, it’s still been over a year since he died. No one here is counting months, Evie, nor would they care even if they were aware of how long it’s been,” Abby dismissed her with a wave of her hand.

  One year today, Eve thought. No, she corrected. Just a year since she found out. True enough, it had been thirteen months since the ship had gone down.

  Abby went on, “I wrote and invited Moira to the ball and house party. Think of how lovely it will be to see her again.”

  Eve sighed. It would be wonderful to see Moira again, their fourth musketeer, as it were. Though they wrote regularly, as Eve had with Abby, she hadn’t seen Moira since before her marriage. Just imagining herself, Abby and Moira together again made her long for Kitty to join them.

  “You need to get out and live again, Eve. And deep down, I’m certain you even want to; you simply haven’t realized it yet. The girl I knew loved to go dancing! Just think what a brilliant time you’ll have.” Abby dangled the provocative lure of a chance to let loose a bit.

  “All right, all right,” Evelyn's soft Irish brogue, a rarely heard gift from her father, emerged barely detectable. She knew she'd been duly defeated when
it escaped her. “I give up. Truly, Abby, you are the most persistent of people. However, I don’t have to like it, and I don’t intend to stay long.”

  Abby grinned in satisfaction. “You'll have a wonderful time.”

  “You know how odd it will look, don’t you? An American English countess acting as hostess for a pair of Scottish girls in a family that she hasn’t even met in its entirety? We ought to cause quite a stir.”

  Eve closed her eyes and sighed, remembering all the balls she had attended in New York and her Season in London. How she missed dancing. It would be so nice to dance again.

  “Maybe just one dance,” she conceded out loud. “If I can find someone to dance with.”

  “Richard can dance with you, since I will not be on my feet at that point,” Abby offered for her husband, who nodded favorably with a quick smile. “He also has scads of unmarried brothers who can keep you busy.” A little frown flitted across her brow briefly. “Jack is expected as well, you know.”

  Eve couldn’t stop the groan that escaped her lips. Abby tilted her head back with a sigh. “I must ask, Evie, how irritated are you by my brother’s behavior? I am curious. Has he been such a trial?”

  Abby had warned her before Eve came to Edinburgh that her brother, Jack Merrill, the Earl of Haddington, had come up with a plan to rebuild his diminished fortunes by marrying an heiress. Apparently, their father and then older brother had left the Haddington estates in terrible disrepair and nearly bankrupt, leaving Jack little choice but to wed for wealth. Somehow, in spite of Eve’s cold reception, the man had taken it into his head that a wealthy widow trumped a young heiress and had set his sights on her. Like a hound on the scent, he had discovered her wealth and set his sights upon making her his wife.

  Persistently.

  Annoyingly.

  Oh, he was handsome enough with his dark mahogany hair and unusual golden eyes, but she just wasn’t interested, and he had been most infuriating this past month. “He hasn’t been too much of a pest,” Evelyn hedged, voicing just a bit of displeasure aloud.

  “Bah, liar!” Abby declared with a snort. “I know my brother.”

  “Indeed,” Eve confessed, and went on to tell her friend how much of a fool Jack Merrill had been making of himself recently. “I swear he simply would not let me be. Every moment I turned around, there he was.”

  At their first meeting, she hadn’t even known who he was. Eve had been walking through the gardens in the park when she had noticed a man staring very rudely at her. Before she had been able to reprimand him for his rude behavior, he’d approached her, staggering from side to side. Public drunkenness, and in the morning hours as well. After bowing extravagantly before her, he’d taken her hand placing a sloppy kiss on it and declared that with a woman like her to bed, marriage might become a tolerable state.

  Naturally she’d slapped his face and informed him briskly that he was presumptuous and rude, a Neanderthal unfit for decent society, a swine of the lowest order. The insults hadn’t deterred him and she’d been forced to threaten calling the constable if he did not leave immediately.

  Eve related this to Abby who set off squeals of laughter at the thought of her brother being so thoroughly set down.

  Her second encounter with Haddington hadn’t been much better. While she had been reviewing the guest list one afternoon, Hobbes had informed her that Lord John Merrill, the Earl of Haddington, had come to call. Interested to meet Abby’s older brother since she had never before had the opportunity, Eve had entered her parlor with a polite smile of greeting until he had turned and she had seen his face.

  “He asked me to marry him,” she repeated now to Abby, still in utter disbelief. “After just five minutes’ acquaintance!”

  “So much for his suave reputation,” Richard joked with a wide grin.

  “Do you not like him even a bit?” Abby asked, biting her lip to stifle another round of laughter. “Ooo, that hurts. Don’t make me laugh”

  “Not even the smallest bit. I’m sorry.” Eve offered a conciliatory smile to soften the comment. Either Jack Merrill was unbelievably arrogant or he was entirely stupid. She didn’t know which, nor did she care to contemplate it. But true to his word, the earl began a wholehearted pursuit of the countess that embarrassed more than anything else. “I am in no danger of being wooed by your brother. I have no intention of ever sticking my head in the marital noose again.”

  However, comments Haddington had made regarding her being an ‘ice queen’ plagued her mind. Eve contemplated the image she knew she must present to those who did not know her well. Cold. Unconcerned. Uncaring. She tried, truly she did, to bring forth some of her old enthusiasm for life and people. Could they not see she tried? Could they not see she was afraid to let people near her? The thought of having someone else control her life terrified her. Eve sighed painfully.

  Mistaking Eve’s heartfelt sigh, Abby offered her a conciliator. “My brother will be arriving soon. I’ll have a talk with him and let him know he simply must leave you alone.”

  “Thank you. I would appreciate it if you could make him understand I have no wish or motivation to remarry. Frankly, he is driving me to the madhouse.”

  Abby laughed out loud. “He does have that way about him, does he not?”

  “I doubt he’ll give up too easily,” Richard warned.

  “I hope you’ll do your best to dissuade him.” Eve tilted her head in the direction of the hall, hearing voices. “Speaking of the devil, I fear he approaches now. Perhaps I can help take the babies up to the nursery for their naps and avoid him altogether?”

  “Goose,” Abby chided, though she nodded to the waiting nurse to take the other baby up to the nursery.

  “Yes, yes, you may tease me all you wish later, but I must run before he gets here.” Eve led the way towards the door. “Please get some rest before the ball tonight. Promise?”

  Abby laughed and shooed her away. “I promise. Now run away, little goose.”

  Chapter 10

  “Godfrey, my good man. Good morning.” Jack Merrill, Earl Haddington, handed his hat and gloves to the castle’s butler as he strode into the front hall. “Is my sister about?”

  “Good morning, my lord. Lady MacKintosh is in the rear drawing room with Lord MacKintosh this morning,” the butler informed the earl while handing off the earl’s personal effects to a waiting footman.

  “Thanks, old man.” Jack took the stairs two at a time to the first floor, calling over his shoulder. “Don’t close the door just yet, Godfrey. I have a surprise right behind me. Send him up, won’t you?”

  “Abby,” he called when still several rooms away from his sister.

  “You needn’t shout, Jack, I’m in here.”

  Jack entered the drawing room to find his sister ensconced on a chaise with her husband. “Abs, my sweet.” He reached down to lift her into his arms for a tender embrace, taking care not to manhandle her. “You look smashing. Where are my nieces? I am dying to see them.”

  “They’re napping in the nursery,” Abby answered, hugging her brother in return. Rogue that he might be, Jack had always been the best of brothers to her, and she loved him dearly. She was glad to see him looking so cheerful. The last time she had seen him, just after he’d inherited the bankrupt earldom from their older brother, Cullen, Jack had been shell-shocked by the enormity of his new responsibility.

  “I will have to run up and see them, but first look who I managed to bring home for the ball this evening?” Jack gestured from Abby and Richard to the door almost as a magician reveals his best trick. “I give you Earl Glenrothes. The elder of the MacKintosh clan. The one and only.” A tall dark man strode into the room as if on cue and Jack winked. “You didn’t think he’d come did you?”

  A pleased smile lit Richard’s features, and he leapt up for a back-pounding hug with his eldest brother. “Francis. Good God, old boy., I didn’t think anything would get you to leave your hiding place and join us this week.”

  Abby of
fered a hand to the newcomer who took it with a squeeze of affection, pressing a warm kiss to her fingers. “No, honestly, I did not think my brother would succeed in luring you home even if it is an engagement ball for two of your own brothers. Francis, how are you? However, did Jack convince you to come?” she asked as her brother-in-law clasped her hand warmly between his own.

  “I simply told Francis I’ve narrowed my list down to one eligible lady I am considering for my wife and asked him to come and give me his stamp of approval.” Jack poured himself a drink from the sideboard and pulled another chair over to join his friends and sister where they sat.

  Abby frowned. “That is awful, Jack. You know I think this idea is very calculated and cold, but I must ask you to stop now. The countess doesn’t even like you.”

  “Aye, I believe you lectured me on the subject ad nauseam via the post these several weeks past,” Jack commented, examining his nails in detail. Truth was, he didn’t care much more for the countess than she seemed to care for him. She was a cold-hearted woman, more strait-laced than any other he had met. But she was indecently wealthy and a widow old enough and experienced enough not to have great expectations of marriage. She was everything a desperate man could ask for. “Your reservations are duly noted but, still, I give you my thanks for tossing the countess, the very rich countess, into my lap. I shall prevail in the end.”

  Abby reached out to slap her brother on the side of the head. “I sent Lady Shaftesbury here to help me not to suffer from your cruel stratagem. She won’t remarry, I promise you.”

  “You send one of the richest widows in the whole of Britain to stay in your house while I am looking for an heiress, and you expect me to not pursue the opportunity?” Jack quirked an eyebrow in question, “I considered her a gift from you the moment I met her.”

  “Well, I guess it was fortuitous for her I did not offer our townhouse for you as well. Otherwise she would never have had a moment’s rest from your pursuit,” she chided, torn between amusement at her brother’s single-mindedness and sympathy for her friend. “Truly, Jack, choose another.”