Lady In Waiting Part 31

"Go inside, dear. Have a look around." Lady Viola snickered and covered her mouth with her gloved fingers.

Callum reached out his hand for hers and together they walked into the shop. Once inside, Jenny's mouth fell open. She couldn't speak. Couldn't do anything but turn in a slow circle and stare in complete disbelief.

Somehow her sketches for her dream shop had materialized. There were the silk-wrapped settees where grand ladies would sip tea while being shown the latest designs. A long bra.s.s bar, where her ready-made gowns would hang, ran along one wall. Blush satin swathes lined the walls and crawled all the way up to the wonderfully high ceiling.

Near the windows was a sparkling gla.s.s case where jewelry and brilliants would catch the light, and wink at Milsom's pa.s.sersby.

"B-but how?" Oh, blast, her eyes were getting hot.

Setting her hands on her hips, Meredith proudly lifted her chin and stepped forward. "When I came down to your chamber to fetch you, your scientific journal was lying open on your bed. And you know how I am, Jenny. I had to take a look, and when I did I was amazed. I had no idea you were such the entreprendre."

"Oh, dear, you should not have done such a thing." Lady Viola waved a finger at Meredith.

"Well, I daresay everyone should be quite happy I pried, for when Lord Argyll asked for suggestions for a wedding gift for Jenny, I immediately told him about the shop in every glorious detail." Meredith stepped before Jenny and looked deeply into her eyes. "You do... like it?"

Jenny nodded mutely as tears breached her lashes and spilled onto her cheeks.

Callum cuddled Jenny to him. "Now dinna ye go and cry. Ye should be happy."

"I am... I just seem to cry at the slightest shift in wind." But as Jenny looked up, she saw the concern in Callum's eyes. "Lud, you don't need to worry. Nothing is wrong, it's just the babe-" Oh, no! Jenny sucked in her breath and clamped her lips closed.

"Did ye say... the babe?" Callum stared at her. "But ye told me... Christ, Jenny, ye must tell me true. Are ye carryin' me bairn?"

Meredith and the ladies seemed to be drawn round her by invisible threads. Everyone was staring at her. Her heart played a riotous tattoo in her ears until she could withstand it no longer.

"Yes, Callum. By autumn we'll have a child." She drew in a deep cleansing breath as she fortified herself for the next words she knew she must utter. "And Argyll will have its heir."

She winced, prepared for a harsh retort. Even the Feathertons seemed to hold their collective breaths in antic.i.p.ation of Callum's reply.

But instead of words, a smile came to Callum's lips, and a look of boundless happiness rode from his mouth to his deep brown eyes.

"Oh, la.s.s," was all he said before he swept her right off the floor and into his arms and he kissed her as never before.

When at last he allowed her to slide down his chest until her slippers touched the floor, Jenny gazed up at him. "I don't understand... I thought you wanted... you intended to see the Argyll line extinct."

Callum led Jenny to one of the elegant settees and waited for her to settle into it. "Aye, I was an angry man, filled with pain borne of a lonely, frightened lad. But now I have ye, and love fills those empty hollows. I am whole again, because ye are in my life. Ye, and our babe."

He bent and kissed her softly then and laid his large hand over her belly. Jenny gasped an absurd gurgling sob as more tears streamed down her face.

"Come on, 'tis time, 'tis time," Meredith cried from outside the door. "I'm ready!"

Another surprise? A little grin pushed through the tears to take hold of Jenny's lips. "She's ready for... what exactly?"

"Weel, ye'll just have to come with me outside and see fer yerself." Callum reached out his hand to help Jenny rise.

But Jenny was on her feet already and halfway to the shop door before realizing she really ought to have taken her husband's hand. It would have been the ladylike thing to do after all-and she was a lady... at last.

As she stood in the open doorway, the sunlight streaming into her eyes, Meredith pulled a rope attached to the linen over the shop sign. The linen dropped away and fell in a dusty heap at Jenny's feet. Lifting her slipper over the linen, she moved onto the flag way and squinted her eyes to read the sign.

Miss Penny's Miscellany.

All a Lady Desires.

"What do you think, Jenny? Wickedly clever, don't you agree?" Meredith asked excitedly. "I wouldn't be the least surprised if you expanded to London... or Edinburgh... or-even America!"

Jenny's felt her eyes grow round as the idea took. Why not? For surely the shop would be a resounding success. Why, already it promised to be the toast of Bath.

But the name... it might be a little long for the American market. Well, she'd just shorten it. She could call it... ah, yes. Jenny smiled.

Penny's.

Epilogue.

Scientific Diary of Lady Argyll.

20 December, 1818.

I have made an important scientific discovery-one that, as a mother, will change my life and those of mothers everywhere-forever.

By crossing two particularly soothing varieties of comfrey and goldenseal, then blending them with the oils of sweet almond and Norwegian cod liver, I have produced a cream for babies' bottoms of unmatched effectiveness for curing rashes. However, the healing strength of the cream allows it to be applied to any sort of chafing, kitchen and sun scorches, as well as small cuts. No doubt this cream will rival the popularity of the tingle cream, but purely for its healing powers of course.

Thus far, there have been no ill side effects during my careful tests on our own wee James's bottom, and sc.r.a.pes and burns of the house staff here at Laura Place. Therefore I shall commence blending a dozen gallipots of the bottom cream and begin selling it in my shop immediately.

I am very optimistic about the future of this cream and to prepare, have decided to order one hundred new gallipots from the dispensing apothecary. I shall place my order at once, for as I have learned through experience, if you need something, do not tarry, but rather buy the item immediately before it's no longer to be had.

And so I shall be off directly, for not two shops down from the apothecary, I glimpsed the most exquisite sterling baby rattle with a gleaming ivory handle, a trio of tinkling bells, and an attached whistle. Wee James truly needs it and what sort of mother would I be to deny him such a basic necessity of life?

About the Author.

KATHRYN CASKIE has long been a devotee of history and things of old. So it came as no surprise to her family when she took a career detour off the online superhighway and began writing historical romances full-time.

With a degree in Communications and a background in marketing, advertising, and journalism, she has written professionally for television, radio, magazines, and newspapers in and around the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

She lives in Virginia in a two-hundred-year-old Quaker home nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains with her greatest source of inspiration, her husband and two young daughters.

Kathryn is also the author of Rules of Engagement, winner of the Romance Writers of America's prestigious Golden Heart award for Best Long Historical Romance.

Readers may contact Kathryn at her Web site www.kathryncaskie.com.

More Kathryn Caskie!

Please turn this page for a preview of A Lady's Guide to Rakes AVAILABLE IN Ma.s.s MARKET SEPTEMBER 2005.

Imperative One It is inadvisable to approach a possible rake without first observing him from a distance, where his seductive charms cannot overwhelm a lady's gentle sensibilities.

The maddening heat from the aged balloon's fire sent sweat trickling beneath Meredith Merriweather's corset, making her flinch. Still, she held the lens of the spygla.s.s ever firm, focusing squarely on the impeccably dressed gentleman who strolled along the bank of the rippling Serpentine, some forty feet below.

"Oh dash it all, can't you bring the basket any lower?" she shouted to her pilot. "Look there, he's getting away!"

"I'll be seein' what I can do, Miss Merriweather, but I'll not be promisin' a thing," the Irishman droned.

Meredith wasn't at all convinced, but movement caught her notice then. Abruptly, she shifted the gla.s.s to a sable-haired woman who approached from the north, swinging her hips seductively as she walked. "Go to it, Giselle," Meredith urged quietly. "Work your charms."

Meredith held her breath and waited. Surely he could not resist the French courtesan's dark beauty. No man could. Her allure was studied. Perfect.

A huge onion-shaped shadow fell over the gentleman as the balloon pa.s.sed between him and the sun. He turned, and cupping the edge of his hand to his brow, peered upward, squinting at the balloon's ma.s.sive silhouette.

Meredith's muscles tensed briefly, but then relaxed. Even if he saw her, she had nothing to fear. Balloon ascensions in Hyde Park were commonplace these days and seeing a great floating orb, while extraordinary, was nothing to warrant suspicion.

She turned the gla.s.s on Giselle once more. "Oh, no." Why was she beckoning him into the trees? That wasn't the plan. Meredith whipped the spygla.s.s from her eye, quite unable to believe what she was seeing.

Hadn't she bade Giselle to keep to the footpath-in plain view?

Meredith jerked her head around to be sure the balloon's pilot understood the urgency of the situation. "We're going to lose sight of them! Bring us lower, please."

The leather-faced pilot stared back at her with his queer, unblinking insect-like eyes.

"Beggin' yer pardon, miss." He shot a nervous glance over the edge of the basket's frayed woven lip. "But another few feet and we'll be sittin' in the oak tops-or worse. How badly do you need to spy on that bloke? Is it worth crashin' through the bloomin' branches?"

Meredith gasped at his effrontery. "How dare you accuse me of spying! I am conducting a scientific experiment-one which you, sirrah, are about to ruin."

Tipping her gaze over the edge of the basket, she peered down at the jutting branches, then turned and looked hard at the impertinent pilot. "We have at least six feet to spare. Drop her three, please."

With a resigned shake of his capped head, the pilot waved to his tether handler below and raised three stubby fingers.

The basket jerked and Meredith's hip struck the wall hard. "Thank you," she growled, leveling a narrowed eye at the pilot, who was working quite diligently to conceal the amused grin on his lips.

Spreading her feet wider for balance, Meredith rested her throbbing hip against the foremost corner of the basket and raised the gla.s.s to her eye once more.

This was the closest she'd ever been to London's most notorious rake, and even floating above the treetops was too close for her comfort.

Having had her own heart and reputation shattered by one of his ilk just two years past, Meredith knew what sort of damage Alexander Lamont and his kind were capable of wreaking.

She rested her elbows on the lip of the basket rail and trailed her gaze down the gentleman's well-shaped form.

Good heavens, even from this height, the rake's appeal was plain. His jaw was firm, angular, and lightly gilded from the sun. He was taller than most men, certainly. His muscular shoulders were broad, his waist trim and-oh, dear. Swallowing hard, Meredith hurried the spygla.s.s downward, not stopping until only his thighs, his delightfully sculpted thighs, were safely in her sight. Well... she had to admit, without question he was the perfect physical specimen of the human male.

Still, if tearoom chatter was to be believed-and when was it not?-he was also the perfect example of a rogue... and the absolute worst sort at that.

Not for a moment did Meredith believe, as others seemed to, that Alexander Lamont had given up his rakish ways and truly reformed.

It wasn't possible. And she would prove it.

That is, if the stubborn pilot would move the great monstrosity of a balloon closer. She had to observe Giselle's progress in bringing out the rake's true nature.

Lud, now she was leading him to a bench beneath a ma.s.sive oak!

"Please, just a little lower," Meredith implored the pilot.

He shook his head solemnly. "Not wise."

A growl pressed through Meredith's lips as she crouched down to the flooring and removed three gold coins from her reticule. It was all she had left, d.a.m.n him-she had already paid him four times the normal fare. Rising, she pressed back her shoulders and made her final plea. "Another guinea per foot you manage to lower this contraption."

The pilot hesitated for nearly a full minute, but it was clear by the tattered condition of the basket and the way he kept licking his withered lips, that he could already taste the money.

With her thumb, Meredith moved the coins around in her palm, making them clink together irresistibly.

"Oh, very well. Three feet," the pilot called out to the man below. "Not a finger more."

As if hearing the pilot's reply, Alexander Lamont looked up at the great red balloon, which now hovered a mere thirty feet above.

Meredith hid her spygla.s.s low inside the basket, and had just gazed out over the Serpentine, as if studying the waterbirds on its glistening surface, when she felt a horrifying sc.r.a.ping sensation beneath her feet.

The basket began to descend into the treetops. Her gaze shot upward in time to see a limb gouge the red bulb of fabric above, tearing savagely into it. There was a deafening, flatulent outpouring of air and the basket lurched and fell. Sharp protruding branches shot up around her.

With a frightened squeal, Meredith dropped low and cowered down deep inside the basket, protecting her face with her hands.

"The skin's been punctured. She's comin' down." The pilot's voice was thin with fear, heightening her own terror. "Hang on!"

"Hang on?" Meredith whipped her hands from her eyes and frantically searched the innards of the basket. There was nothing to grip. "To what, sir?"

"The rail, you fool. The rail!"

Crawling on her knees toward the pilot, Meredith slid her hands up the rough hewn wicker wall, scrabbled for the rail's lip and clung to it.

But the shift in weight was too abrupt. The basket, already deep inside the tree canopy, tipped to the side, pouring her out of its pot like the last drop of tea.

Her back struck a thick limb and pain sucked the breath from her lungs. She gasped for air as she slipped from the branch and plummeted downward at a horrific speed. Branches tore at her gown and sc.r.a.ped her tender skin as she shot through the tree toward the ground.

Below she registered the wide-eyed shock in Alexander Lamont's eyes as she careened toward him. Heaven help me! She squeezed her eyes shut.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.