by Merry Farmer
“Perhaps,” he began slowly, glancing to Georgette, “you would like to retire to the room we have prepared for you?” He lifted his eyebrows with the question. “There you might warm yourself by a fire or under layers of down quilts.”
At last, she looked up at him with a measure of gratitude. “Thank you, my lord. That would be nice.”
“Come along,” Georgette said, looping an arm around Alice’s waist and nudging her forward. “I’ll show you where you will be staying. I made certain Mama assigned you a room overlooking the garden. It’s decorated in splendid fashion for the season.”
Fabian stepped aside and watched as Georgette walked Alice out of the room. Lord Stanhope paused in the middle of what looked like an invasive conversation with the duke to stare at Georgette with open interest. He went so far as to absent-mindedly wipe his mouth, as if spotting a tasty morsel. Fabian kept his smile in place until Alice and Georgette disappeared around the corner, then let it drop into a troubled scowl. Lord Stanhope could be a problem if he latched onto Georgette.
“I thought you said Lady Alice was agreeable,” Matthew said, stepping up beside him and tugging his thoughts back to his initial problem.
“She is,” Fabian told him with a frown. “At least, she was this summer in Shropshire.”
“Something must have happened between then and now,” Matthew speculated, fingering the holly that decorated the mantel over the fire.
Fabian hummed, considering that. “I really shouldn’t have been so distant with her once the engagement was settled.”
“What could you have done?” Matthew shrugged. “You’ve been in high demand for over a year now, though why people hire a half-Italian to design gardens for them is beyond me.” He grinned.
Fabian smiled at his friend’s teasing. “Designing gardens is a fair sight better than idling around, waiting for your father to die so you can become a duke.”
Matthew laughed and nodded toward his father. “The old man isn’t going to keel over any time soon. Your mother has infused him with new life.”
Fabian arched a brow warily. “I’d rather not know what my mother gets up to behind closed doors.” He shifted his stance, studying his mother and the duke with a thoughtful look all the same. “They may have the right way of things, though.”
“How do you mean?” Matthew asked.
Fabian crossed his arms and rubbed his chin. “Your father put on quite a show to woo my mother. I never had a chance to do the same with Lady Alice.”
“And all women love to be wooed,” Matthew added.
“They do. And perhaps that’s why Lady Alice was so cold just now. Perhaps the key thing is for me to spend the next few days before the wedding truly wooing her, making her feel special.”
“Of course.” Matthew laughed as if it were obvious. “You need to fall prostrate at her feet and worship the ground she walks on. You need to show her that you want to marry her because she is a goddess and you want to be in her temple at all times.” He added a ribald wink to his comment.
“I wouldn’t mind pouring out daily libations on the altar of her inner sanctum,” Fabian agreed, equally lascivious.
“So do you know what you’re going to do to win her?” Matthew asked.
Fabian glanced to the side, out the window, to spot the greenhouse he was in the middle of redesigning as an overdue wedding gift for his mother. “I have a few ideas,” he said. “All it will take is a little plotting and a little magic.”
Chapter 2
It took Alice what felt like an eternity to warm up after Georgette showed her to the beautiful and lavish room that was to be hers for the first part of her stay at Holly Manor. The bed was piled sumptuously with down-filled quilts, and a cheery fire danced in the grate. Georgette even had one of the housemaids send up piping-hot tea to warm her from the inside. Between the cheery surroundings and kindness with which she’d been treated, Alice’s spirits almost rose.
Until Georgette said, “It will be such a treat to have you as an almost-sister, once you and Fabian are married. He’s not actually my brother, but he is so kind and jolly that it seems like it. Everyone has been thrilled that he will be married at last. We’ve all been blessing your father’s name for arranging the union.”
The smile that had worked its way onto Alice’s face dropped. “Yes, my father has been quite keen on the match.”
Georgette continued to smile as she helped herself to one of the biscuits on the tea tray. “Your father seems like a wise and thoughtful man. It surprises me that he hasn’t married again.”
Alice was grateful that she’d just set down her teacup. She would have spewed tea all over her would-be friend if she hadn’t. “If you had spent any amount of time in my father’s presence, you would understand why he remains unmarried,” she said, debating whether it was safe to come right out and tell a new acquaintance all the horrors of which her father was capable.
“I will make it a point to attend to him, then,” Georgette said. Before Alice could do more than widen her eyes in horror, she sped on with, “Now, if you will excuse me, we have more guests due to arrive, and I promised Papa and Lady Marie that I would play hostess.”
Georgette finished her biscuit with a giggle of delight, then rushed for the door. She sent Alice one last smile before dashing out into the hall and shutting the door behind her.
Alice snapped her mouth closed without having a chance to warn Georgette to stay away from her father. Her shoulders slumped as she stared at the closed door. The young woman couldn’t possibly have it in her head that her father would make a good match, could she? Georgette was the daughter of a duke. Her father was an earl, but he was easily double Georgette’s age, and not even the title Countess of Stanhope was worth being married to a cruel and heartless man like him.
The fear that Georgette was on the verge of doing something awful lingered with Alice through the rest of the afternoon, during which she climbed into bed and napped until she was warm, and through a dull supper attended by over a dozen travel-weary guests who weren’t in the mood for conversation. It niggled at the back of her mind through the night and was there with her when she woke and dressed the next morning.
She had firmly decided to take Georgette aside and explain the folly of her ways by breakfast the next morning. After fixing a plate of the finest pastries and meats she had ever seen, she deliberately took a seat by Georgette at the breakfast table.
“There is a matter of great importance that I must discuss with you,” she began.
Georgette had only just turned away from her brother and glanced to Alice with a questioning look when Count Camoni stood from his place on the other side of the table and cleared his throat. The rest of the chattering guests quieted with astounding speed to listen to whatever he had to say.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to invite you to a special display of horticultural wonder in my mother’s greenhouse this morning,” he said.
A chorus of oohs and aahs sounded around the table. Alice didn’t know any of the other guests, but they all clearly knew exactly who Count Camoni was. They all watched him with looks of admiration that bordered on worship. But what made Alice squirm in her chair was that Count Camoni watched her with the same near-worship. What stories had her father told him about her that inspired such misplaced affection toward her? It felt like yet another one of her father’s traps that she was helpless to escape.
“This display is not only in honor of Christmastide,” Count Camoni went on. “It is a tribute to my lovely bride, Lady Alice Marlowe.”
He gestured across the table to her and Alice wanted to sink into the floor. Every eye at the table turned to her, scrutinizing her as the woman who managed to snatch the famous object of their adoration away from them. Worse still, near the head of the table, her father looked on with a smirk that was so self-satisfied it turned Alice’s stomach and put her off her bacon.
But that wasn’t the very worst of it. Her father’s grin slid
past Alice and landed firmly on Georgette, who returned the look with a smile and a nod. It was the most horrible set of circumstances she could possibly have found herself in. Count Camoni was still standing across the table from her, watching her, but his pleased smile had faded. Alice felt like a bloom that had failed to live up to his standards as he sat once more. She tried her best not to look at him as conversations resumed around the table. Saving Georgette was her first priority, though, not living up to whatever lies her father had told Count Camoni about her.
She turned to Georgette and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get a word out, Count Camoni said, “I do hope you will enjoy the display this morning.”
Alice felt as though he’d looped an arm around her middle and yanked her away from Georgette. Since Georgette had leaned close to her brother to whisper something to him, she was forced to face her fiancé and answer, “Yes, I’m certain it will be lovely.”
She attempted to turn back to Georgette, but Count Camoni went on. “I remember from the house party this summer that you have a particular fondness for dahlias, so I have incorporated quite a few in the display.”
Alice blinked. “I’m surprised you remember.”
“How could I forget?” he asked with a smile.
As handsome and warm as his smile was, it made her uncomfortable. It was too sensual, held too much promise. It was like a drop of honey placed in a trap to draw in a fly for the kill. The mad thought that her father had put him up to it hit her. Not that there was anything she could do to save herself. She was doomed to be nothing more than a pawn in her father’s marital machinations.
“Lady Alice,” the snowy-haired matron on her right interrupted the conversation Count Camoni was trying to have with her. “I understand that you attended Lord and Lady Herrington’s infamous house party this past summer. What was that like?”
Alice could have wept with relief at being given the excuse to ignore Count Camoni without seeming rude. She launched into a thorough description of the house party as her fiancé looked on, remaining silent. The matron, one of Georgette’s aunts, nodded and smiled, laughing at all the right places, enjoying the story. Alice couldn’t have been happier. It meant she didn’t have to converse with, or even look at, Count Camoni for the rest of breakfast.
It did, however, mean that she wasn’t given the chance to speak to Georgette to warn her not to give in to her father. So as soon as the company finished breakfast and made their way to the greenhouse, Alice did everything she could to avoid Count Camoni and her father to slip up to Georgette’s side.
“Lady Georgette,” she began once the two of them stepped through the wide doors at the back of one of the larger parlors to cross the dormant garden and make their way to the greenhouse, “I must speak with you on a matter of utmost importance, right away.”
“That sounds exciting,” Georgette said, looping her arm through Alice’s and marching to the greenhouse at a brisk pace. “It’s about Fabian, isn’t it?” she asked with a conspiratorial wink. “The way he was looking at you all through breakfast gave me palpitations. You’re such a lucky young woman.”
Alice couldn’t help but cringe at her new friend’s words. She was as unlucky as could be to find herself firmly snared and on the verge of being married to a man she barely knew. “It’s not my marriage that concerns me at present,” she said as they stepped through the door into the greenhouse.
As soon as they entered the humid, verdant space, Alice lost track of what she was saying. She’d seen many greenhouses before, but nothing half as grand or beautiful as the space she’d stepped into. All around her, the scent of rich earth and greenery filled the air. Blooms and blossoms from all parts of the globe were arranged in neat displays that served both a practical use and pleased the eye. But in the middle of it all, a wide circle had been marked out that was surrounded by chairs. Several tables that looked like gears in one of the newfangled machines that was taking over industry surrounded a glass armonica, which was being played by an artistic-looking man with a somber expression. On the outer edge of the circle, just in front of the chairs, a series of miniature fountains sprayed and danced in ever-changing patterns.
Alice gasped along with the rest of the guests at the sight. She dropped Georgette’s arm and approached the central display with the wonder of a child. The man playing the armonica ended his song and began a haunting rendition of Bach’s Christmas oratorio that had the hair standing up on the back of her neck.
She barely noticed when Count Camoni swept past her, strode around the back of the display, and stepped into the center by the armonica player’s side. “Please, come closer,” he said, looking right at her, though Alice had the feeling he was addressing everyone. “There’s so much more to see.”
Alice did as he asked, sitting in the chair at the front that he indicated. Georgette was suddenly the furthest thing from her mind. She clasped her hands in front of her and drank in the sight of the fountains, the sound of the armonica, and the wonder of it all.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Count Camoni said, a twinkle in his eyes. “I give you the dance of the dahlias.”
He leaned to one side and turned a crank, all the while watching Alice with a smile. Instantly, the entire display came to life. The small, round tables began to move, rotating themselves, turning around each other, and swirling in one grand circle around Count Camoni, the armonica, and its player. A hundred, bright dahlias had been fixed to the table somehow, and as the whole thing turned, they appeared to be twirling and dancing, like village girls in bright skirts at a festival.
Alice’s breath caught in her throat at the sight. It was magical in so many ways, and judging by the way Count Camoni watched her, hers was the only reaction he cared about. Had he truly made the entire display just for her?
That beautiful thought was squashed a moment later as her gaze slipped to the side and she spotted her father taking a seat beside Georgette. He leaned scandalously close to her and whispered something in Georgette’s ear that made her giggle.
Dread and rage filled Alice, dampening any enthusiasm she had for Count Camoni’s display. She wasn’t ignorant enough not to guess that her father had his sights firmly set on Georgette now. Georgette was the ideal prey for him. Her father was rich, she was young and pretty, and with his daughters all married off, she would make exactly the sort of wife he craved. Alice absolutely could not let it happen.
The armonica player finished his song and a hearty round of applause broke out among the guests. Georgette and Alice’s father clapped as well. Alice merely swallowed, writhing with anxiety.
“There’s much more to see,” Count Camoni announced, coming around the display once more to stand before it. “Please feel free to wander about the greenhouse to see everything I’ve done, at my mother’s request. Though she is not the only woman I hope I have impressed today.”
As soon as the other guests rose from their seats and began to mill around the vast greenhouse, Alice jumped to her feet as well. But she didn’t turn to Count Camoni, not even when he took a step toward her. Instead, she dashed to the side, desperate to stop her father from whisking Georgette away.
Fabian’s mouth hung open, the conversation he’d been about to start with Alice fading before he could say a word. She leapt from her chair as though stung by a bee and sped away from him. His shoulders dropped as he watched her dodge around a few guests and chairs, heading for her father and Georgette.
“Count Camoni, that was amazing,” Lord Harrow, one of his mother’s guests, rushed to speak to him before he could chase after Alice.
“Thank you, my lord.” Fabian shook the man’s hand, glancing over his shoulder so that he could keep an eye on Alice. She had been stopped by Lord George Percival, one of Matthew’s friends, who was staying for the week. George seemed particularly eager to speak to her.
“I must commission you to redesign my greenhouse,” Lord Harrow went on. “Although I hear your services are in extremel
y high demand.”
“I am fortunate to have gained a reputation for horticultural excellence,” Fabian said with a nod. His frown deepened as the conversation between Alice and George continued. Alice seemed overly emotional and gestured toward one of the more secluded paths within the greenhouse.
“So what do you say?” Lord Harrow went on. “I can pay you whatever you ask to update all of my gardens.”
George said something, Alice nodded, and the two of them started down the path.
“If you will excuse me for a moment, my lord,” Fabian said distractedly, stepping away from Lord Harrow.
He didn’t see how the man reacted. Urgency pushed him to follow Alice, and a hot streak of jealousy demanded he discover what the connection was between her and George.
The greenhouse was extensive, but the wonders it held weren’t enough to hold most of the guests there for any length of time. At least half of the company had already headed back to the house by the time he traced Alice’s steps and found her standing at the end of a long row of particularly bushy ferns. George was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t mean the bastard hadn’t ducked through the greenery to make himself scarce. Alice darted a worried look around, as if in the hope George had made it to safety before his appearance.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Fabian asked, approaching Alice like a panther stalking his prey.
“N-no, my lord,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her and looking down. She bit her lip in a manner that suggested guilt.
“What happened to your friend?” he asked in a flat voice, moving to within feet of her.
“I don’t know,” Alice sighed, letting down a fraction of her guard. “I have to…I was trying…my father….” She gave up whatever she was trying to say with a heavy breath, then glanced warily up at him, as if just realizing he was standing too close.