Counterfeit Countess: Brazen Brides, Book 1

by Cheryl Bolen

  “Did you tell her I had been your uncle’s secret wife?”

  His lips thinned, his jaw tightened. “I had to. For now.”

  “If she’s the sweet, gentle creature you keep assuring me she is, she will be most understanding.”

  “As long as she doesn’t see how beautiful you are.” He hadn’t meant to say it. Was Maggie’s propensity to truth contagious?

  A wistful look washed across her lovely face, and her eyes danced. She started to say something, then she stopped and grew solemn.

  Fighting against the damned wind slowed their progress. It would be almost dark before they would reach Curzon Street. He had been a fool to ride out in a gig on a blustery day like yesterday. Especially since he possessed a very fine enclosed carriage and a coachman who would have been only too happy to make the trip to Greenwich. An overwhelming, illogical desire to take the damned gig had taken possession of him. Could he have subconsciously wished to exclude Miss Peabody, to have Maggie all to himself? Even his mind was muddled by Maggie’s presence.

  He found himself regretting the bleakness of the day with its somber gray skies and chilled air. Showing an American the verdant English countryside would have given him much pleasure. In another month the meadows would change color, the trees would transform from naked brown to lush green, thick with leaves. The daffodils would poke their yellow noses along every byway from here to Scotland. Where would Maggie be when spring replaced winter’s dormancy? Would she share the Englishman’s passion for pastoral valleys, ivy clad cottages, and neat little gardens?

  Would she be the wife of another man?

  She remained solemn. Quiet. Had his warning terrified her? Eventually, she broke the silence. “You must have Mr. Lyle come tonight. We could play whist after dinner. I think you would like that.”

  Did she now? There was nothing likeable about watching Harry make a cake of himself over Maggie. Even worse, watching Maggie lower her lashes seductively at Harry. Not that she realized how seductive it was when she lowered those extraordinary lashes. “Yes, I’ll send a note around when we get back to Curzon Street,” he said.

  Chapter 11

  In response to Edward’s note requesting Lyle to dine with them and to make a fourth for whist afterward, Harry Lyle met Edward in his library shortly before dinner. “You’ve got that brooding look on your face,” Harry began as he sank into a club chair near Edward’s desk. “That brooding look women seem to adore.”

  “I’ve reason to brood.”

  Harry hitched a brow.

  “I discovered the dead body of Henshaw’s accomplice yesterday. It was ghastly, and unfortunately, I could do nothing to shield Maggie from witnessing the bloody scene.”

  “Where was this bloody scene?” Harry demanded.

  Edward swallowed. “In Greenwich.”

  Harry’s green eyes flared in anger. “How could you endanger Lady Warwick when you’ve been charged with keeping her safe?”

  “I wasn’t precisely charged with keeping her safe. I was instructed not to let her from my sight--an order I upheld. And it’s not as if I set off unarmed.”

  “You took a pistol?”

  “I did.”

  Harry glared at him. “You’ve known since Tuesday night’s unpleasantness that she was in danger. How could you expose her to possible harm?”

  Lyle was right to be angry. Edward had no business dragging an endangered lady all over the countryside. “We foolishly thought that after getting Henshaw’s things from her, the thief would have no further use for Maggie. We also thought that if she could speak with the man in Greenwich she might remember something The Scoundrel may have told her, something which might help us find the thief.” He added solemnly, “The thief who now appears to be a murderer.”

  “The Scoundrel? I take it you’re referring to Henshaw.”

  “As his widow refers to him.”

  Harry nodded, leaning back in his chair. “Tell me about the man in Greenwich.”

  Edward told him everything, dating back to Henshaw’s stolen letter from Bibble.

  “It sounds to me as if the killer’s desperate to get something small, like a document or small jewel,” Harry said.

  “My money is on it being a document. Why slash the clothing? What else could be so unobtrusively concealed beneath the folds of fabric? And if the document wasn’t at Bibble’s,” Edward said in a grave voice, “my fear is he will return to Maggie.”

  “The hell if I’ll allow that!” Harry thundered. “I’d lay down my very life for her.”

  “I’ll do the protecting!” Edward said with outrage. “After all, she’s my family. Or she’s pretending to be my family. My uncle’s widow. And I’ll bloody well look after my own family.”

  “Do you realize how ridiculous you sound? I think the beauty has affected your ability to think rationally.”

  She had certainly affected everything else in Edward’s life. Negatively. “I’ll do whatever’s necessary to ensure the lady’s safety,” Edward said, standing. “We need to go in to dinner. Do me the goodness of imparting all we have just discussed to Lord Carrington tomorrow.”

  * * *

  As Maggie sat before her dressing table while Sarah arranged her hair, she coached herself to think carefully before she spoke at tonight’s dinner table. Her habit of blurting out her every thought had been the source of great humiliation during the journey to Greenwich. For as long as she lived she would never forget how painfully still Lord Warwick had become when she had confessed she thought him in possession of all the qualities she sought in a husband. The poor man was stunned and, no doubt, repulsed by her admission, but being a gentleman he was attempting to extricate himself from an awkward situation without insulting her.

  Despite his carefully phrased rebuttal, Maggie had been completely and utterly humiliated. And to compound her humiliation, she had blathered on endlessly. It was bad enough she had confessed that he was the most perfect man in the kingdom, but when he had given her a perfectly good excuse for the source of her admiration, she had insisted that he was inordinately handsome!

  “The devil take him!”

  “I beg your pardon?” Sarah asked.

  “Oh, dear, I was thinking aloud again. I pray that I don’t do so tonight.” Think before you talk. Perhaps if she told herself that every waking moment she could shed her horrid habit. Rebecca knocked on Maggie’s door and entered while Maggie watched her through the looking glass. “You look lovely in yellow, pet,” Maggie said as Rebecca came to stand beside her.

  “Not as lovely as you. And I see your bosoms have been repaired. I daresay Lord Warwick will still gape at your breasts all night. It’s really not fair, you know.”

  Maggie turned to face her sister. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me. What’s not fair?”

  “You have the good eyes AND the womanly breasts.”

  “Yours will grow. I vow my breasts were no bigger than yours when I was seventeen.”

  “But I shall be eighteen in a few weeks!”

  Maggie giggled. “Perhaps you’ll get breasts for a birthday present!” She thanked Sarah and stood up, linking her arm through Rebecca’s.

  “By the way,” Rebecca said, “I’ve thought of something you can do to prevent your babbling.”

  Upon her return from Greenwich Maggie had evaded most of her sister’s questions. Especially the one when Rebecca asked if Lord Warwick had tried to get beneath her skirts. “Of course, not!” Maggie had responded. She also failed to inform her sister of the dead body. “Pray, do tell me.”

  “You must resolve to put a bite of food in your mouth as soon as you decide to speak. While you’re chewing, you can mentally phrase your words.” She handed Maggie a tin. “Here are some comfits. For after dinner. Whenever you wish to speak to Lord Warwick, you must pop a comfit in your mouth first.”

  “A brilliant plan,” Maggie said, tucking the tin into her left glove.

  Lord Warwick and Mr. Lyle awaited them downstairs, and Lord Warw
ick escorted Maggie into the dining room, where she was seated at his right. She vaguely recalled some rule of etiquette that the highest ranking person should be seated next to the host. She almost laughed, then decided to pinch a prawn from the center of the table and pop it into her mouth. Rebecca’s approving nod did not escape her notice.

  “A pity the weather was dreary for your outing to Greenwich,” Harry said to her as they filled their plates.

  Maggie flicked a glance to Lord Warwick, who had agreed to keep Bibble’s death from Rebecca.

  He nodded.

  Maggie popped another prawn into her mouth. Once she was finished chewing, she said, “It wouldn’t have been so dreadful had we not met with a thunderstorm.”

  “Oh dear.” Rebecca cast a worried glance at Lord Warwick. “My sympathies to you, Lord Warwick, for being exposed to my sister’s irrational fear of thunderstorms. Pray, I hope she wasn’t too hysterical for I know how vexed you are by hysterical females.”

  Maggie popped another prawn into her mouth.

  Lord Warwick’s voice softened. “There’s nothing irrational about your sister’s severe aversion to thunderstorms.”

  “I comported myself as any irrational six-year-old would have,” Maggie said with a laugh. Except a six-year-old would not allow a man to strip her bare or. . . She felt her cheeks burning.

  “I should never have exposed you to the storm,” Lord Warwick said. “I should at least have taken the carriage. The gig was of little shelter from the rain. I’ll feel wretchedly responsible if you take a lung infection.”

  “Pray, don’t give it another thought,” Maggie said. “I’m not prone to lung infections.”

  The footmen cleared the seafood and set out the second course. Maggie eyed the peas. They would be her babble preventer during this course.

  “You shouldn’t have taken the lady out in weather that would frighten her delicate sensibilities,” Mr. Lyle said to Edward.

  Maggie scooped a spoonful of peas and inserted them in her mouth.

  “At the time,” Lord Warwick answered, “I was not aware of the countess’s fear of thunder.”

  “And lightning,” she added.

  Lord Warwick’s amused eyes locked with hers for the briefest second.

  “Did you know, Mr. Lyle,” she said, “that Lord Warwick fancies himself an expert on weather?” Oh dear, she should have filled her mouth with peas.

  Instead of being angry over her chastisement, Lord Warwick flicked her an amused glance.

  “I had some idea,” Harry said. “He’s always talking about clouds. Daresay he’s wrong about them as often as he’s right.”

  “Her ladyship is humbling me,” Lord Warwick said. “She told me I was pig headed.”

  Rebecca’s mouth dropped open, her stunned gaze shifting to Maggie.

  Maggie stuffed a spoon of peas into her mouth. After she had chewed and swallowed, she said, “It was most uncharitable of me to speak in that manner to Lord Warwick.” There, she was perfectly contrite. If only she could take back the other blathering statements about his lordship’s perfection.

  “Uncharitable but true,” he said before turning his attention to Rebecca, querying her about Pride and Prejudice while Harry Lyle discussed The Tempest with Maggie.

  Throughout the night as Mr. Lyle engaged Maggie in conversation (or, to be more accurate, hoarded her attention), she observed him closely. Were he not so close to Lord Warwick, he would be considered rather handsome. He was as tall as his lordship but more thin. Where Lord Warwick was dark, Mr. Lyle was fair with light brown hair, but the two men had much in common besides their privileged backgrounds and the shared nature of their work. Both dressed fashionably. both struck her as being exceedingly kind, and both men were arrogant. Only a confident man could dress down a peer as Mr. Lyle had addressed Lord Warwick on more than one occasion.

  Mr. Lyle’s kindness to her, Maggie realized, was fueled by his obvious ardor, ardor he had eloquently expressed in a poem he had written in praise of her beauty and delivered with a lovely bouquet that afternoon.

  After dinner Mr. Lyle begged Maggie to be his partner at whist. They made a good team. She was a better player than Rebecca, and Lord Warwick was better than Mr. Lyle--which made for balanced teams.

  She set her tin of comfits upon the playing table and continued to pop them into her mouth to prevent her from saying something blathering.

  “I didn’t know Lady Warwick was so fond of comfits,” Lord Warwick said.

  Maggie could feel his eyes on her, had ever since they’d sat down. She had even observed his gaze flicking to her bosom, a bosom that looked perfectly fine in the newly mended emerald dress.

  “My sister is using the comfits---”

  “And prawns and peas,” Maggie added.

  “To keep her from speaking before she thinks,” Rebecca said.

  Maggie’s lashes lifted, and her eyes met his lordship’s and locked. In that brief second she would vow they both remembered her blathering declaration on the journey to Greenwich.

  As the color rose to her cheeks, neither could break the gaze. He may have rejected her outright that afternoon, but there was an intimacy between them now that hadn’t been there earlier. She finally looked away, instantly opening the tin to procure a comfit. It wouldn’t do at all for her to start blabbering about how a sultry glance from him sent liquid heat rushing to her core.

  “Will Warwick take you ladies to Almack’s?” Harry asked Maggie.

  Maggie tossed Edward a quizzing glance.

  “Hopefully next Wednesday,” Edward said.

  Harry directed his attention on Maggie. “I beg that you allow me to be your partner for the first set, my lady.”

  “It will be my pleasure, Mr. Lyle.” Her gaze flicked to Edward.

  He was brooding again.

  Chapter 12

  The following afternoon when Harry Lyle brought documents for Edward to work on he also presented Maggie with another bouquet. “How very thoughtful of you, Mr. Lyle,” she said as she requested a maid to put the flowers in water. “I shall put these on the demilune table in Lord Warwick’s entry hall so that everyone can enjoy them.” The scent from the many bouquets she had already received permeated her chambers, making the addition of one more intolerable, but she would not share that information with Mr. Lyle. “Do you have time for tea?” she asked him.

  “I always have time for you,” he said, his tender gaze whisking over her.

  Pulling her shawl over her breasts, she summoned her sister to join them, then she and Harry went to the saloon. Its asparagus-green draperies swung away from the tall casements, exposing another gray day.

  “A pity the weather prohibits you from an excursion in the city,” he said as he sat on a satin settee that matched the one where Maggie sat across from him.

  She met his gaze and spoke frankly. “I think we both know the real reason why I’m not permitted out. Does Lord Warwick not share everything with you?”

  A contrite look on his thin face, he nodded. “On the matter of your confinement I’m in complete agreement with Warwick. Beastly about the man in Greenwich.”

  “I beg that you not mention that in my sister’s presence.”

  At that moment Rebecca entered the saloon and courteously greeted Mr. Lyle before sitting beside her sister. Maggie approved of Rebecca’s mint-green dress. For the first time ever, her sister was taking pains to present herself attractively. Maggie wondered if the fictional Mr. Darcy was responsible for this improvement and vowed to finish reading the book.

  “Will you be presented this year?” Harry asked Rebecca.

  “My sister had wished that I could attract a well-to-husband, but I prefer to wait until next year to be presented.”

  “Rebecca’s hoping by then---” Oh dear, she couldn’t continue. She withdrew the tin from a pocket in her morning dress (she wished to be prepared in case his lordship engaged her in conversation) and inserted a comfit into her mouth. Whew! She had almost sai
d that Rebecca hoped to grow breasts by next year, and such a topic was sure to mortify her timid sister. “By then Rebecca’s aversion to matrimony might not be so keen,” she finished. “My disastrous marriage to The Scoundrel has rather soured poor Becky against men--despite my assurances that not all men are such scoundrels.”

  “Permit me to say I am pleased you don’t hold all men in dislike because of the vile actions of one man,” Harry said to Maggie.

  Wiggins brought in the tea tray and placed it on the table in front of Maggie, who served.

  “I’ve been reading in the newspapers,” she said, handing Harry a delicate cup and saucer, “that Lord Carrington is the Foreign Secretary. He was kind enough to secure vouchers for my sister and me to attend Almack’s.”

  “Lord Carrington is a very important man whose favor is courted everywhere.”

  “I shall look forward to meeting him,” Maggie said.

  “I should not be surprised if he doesn’t pop in to see Warwick,” Harry said.

  Maggie sighed. Poor Lord Warwick was neglecting his duties because of her. She exceedingly disliked being responsible for rearranging his lordship’s well-ordered life, particularly since the disruptions plunged him into such ill temper. If only she and Rebecca had some other place to go. If only she could find a nice man to court her.

  A nice man to court her. It suddenly occurred to her the man sitting in front of her fit the requirements. She had not heretofore considered him eligible (most likely due to how poorly he compared to Lord Warwick), but Lord Warwick was the ineligible one! She must school herself not to remember what Lord Warwick looked like without a shirt, not to think about the way her heart melted when she studied his broodingly handsome face, not to recall his heated gaze, and especially not to recall how exquisitely he made love to her. Lord Warwick was not remotely attracted to her. He loved Fiona. End of story. End of secret longings.

  She drew in her breath to redirect her attention to Harry Lyle as Tubby came prancing into the room. The cat circled the tea table and came to stand in front of Mr. Lyle’s boots. After a quick lick at his shiny Hessians, Tubby leaped upon Mr. Lyle’s lap.