With This Kiss Part 20

Men were everywhere, posies and bouquets by their side, laughing amongst themselves. Incredibly, a discreet game of piquet was going on in one corner. He recognized only the half of them. Beckwith was there, decked out in an orange coat with garish b.u.t.tons. Lord Pimrose-Finsbury was there as well. Pimrose-Finsbury held only a life t.i.tle, but he owned a good share of Marylebone. He clutched a delicate little violet nosegay.

Gowan felt a p.r.i.c.k of chagrin; it hadn't occurred to him to send someone to Covent Garden to procure roses or something of that nature.

"If you would join the morning callers, Your Grace," the butler said, "I will serve refreshments very shortly."

Instead, Gowan turned on his heel and strode back to the entry.

"Would Your Grace prefer to leave a card?" the butler asked, following him.

"I would prefer to speak to Lord Gilchrist. When did Lady Edith debut?" he asked bluntly.

The butler's eyebrow twitched, but he controlled himself. "Last night," he said. "Last night was her first appearance in society."

Gowan wasn't the only man who had taken one look at Edith and pictured her by his side.

But he now knew precisely why Gilchrist had asked him to attend his ball: the invitation had included the gift of his daughter's hand. There would be no further compet.i.tion if he chose to take up the earl's silent offer.

"I should like to speak to His Lordship, if he is free." He did not ask. Gowan never asked; he stated. It made no difference, because he always got what he wanted. And there was something undignified about asking.

Dukes, in his opinion, did not ask.

They stated.

He had a feeling that there would be no asking with regard to Lady Edith's hand, either.

Chapter Two.

It was a fever that had turned Lady Edith Gilchrist into the greatest success of the season, winning her the hand (and presumably, the heart) of the Duke of Kinross. If Edie hadn't been dreadfully ill at her own debut ball, she might well have been less popular. But as her head felt like an empty gourd, all she did was drift about the ballroom and smile. And smile.

That turned out to be a formula for extraordinary success.

By halfway through the evening, she'd danced with every eligible bachelor on the market, and twice with the Duke of Kinross, Lord Beckwith, and Lord Mendelson. Her stepmother, Layla, caught her arm at one point and said that Lady Jersey had declared her the most enchanting debutante of the season. Apparently, the queen of Almack's patronesses would overlook the fact that at nineteen, Edie was unfashionably old.

Edie had just smiled. She was trying to maintain her balance.

By the time she appeared in her father's library late the next morning, her cheeks as white as her gown, the negotiations surrounding her marital future had already been concluded.

She kept her eyes lowered (to hide the fact they were bloodshot), smiled when spoken to, and said only: "Of course, Father." And: "I would be honored to marry you, Your Grace."

"The truth is, Edie," Layla declared five minutes after Kinross had departed and she'd brought Edie back to her bedchamber, "your fever was sent by a fairy G.o.dmother whom your father forgot to mention. Who would have thought you'd catch a duke?"

This particular duke was Scottish, which was a mark against him-but according to Layla, the fact that Kinross owned the grandest estate in all Scotland made him an honorary Englishman and the most desirable man on the marriage market.

Edie just moaned and fell face down onto her bed. Her head was throbbing, she felt faint, and frankly, she wasn't even quite sure what her fiance looked like. He had lovely voice, but he was too tall, she thought. Big. At least he didn't have red hair. She didn't like red-haired men. "That's not very kind," she said into her pillow.

"You know what I mean. You looked so lovely and pale. The way Mary wove pearls into all that hair of yours was quite fetching. And you just smiled instead of talking. That's very attractive. To men, anyway."

"Don't you think that he's a little impulsive?" Edie mumbled.

Layla pulled back the curtains and pushed the window open. Edie loved her bedchamber, which was large and airy, with a windowsill that overlooked the back garden. But she loathed the fact that Layla perched on that windowsill to smoke cheroots.

"You can't smoke one of those foul things in here," she said quickly. "I hate the smell and I'm sick!"

Even face down in the bed, she knew perfectly well that Layla was paying no attention to her. Edie could hear her settling in her favorite perch and lighting her cheroot at the candle so that she could blow the smoke into the garden. Which she thought kept it out of the room, but it didn't.

"I might throw up," Edie pointed out, moving her cheek to a cooler patch of pillowcase.

"No, you won't. You have a fever, not a stomach upset."

Edie gave up. "My future husband is either impulsive or stupid. I only met him last night, and I can hardly remember what he looks like."

"Not impulsive, manly," Layla said. "Decisive."

"Idiotic."

"You are beautiful, Edie. You know that. For heaven's sake, the whole ton knows that. He probably heard about you long before yesterday night. Everyone has been talking about Exquisite Edith, who is finally making her bow before society."

"Don't forget my Delightful Dowry," Edie said sourly. "It's more important than the shape of my nose."

"He doesn't need your dowry. You clearly have no idea how many young ladies have tried to snag the duke. He used to be betrothed to a girl from a Scottish family-the Capons? the Partridges?-some sort of fowl. She died a year ago and no one has succeeded in catching his eye since. Of course, he was in mourning for some months."

"That's so sad. Perhaps he's been nursing a broken heart."

"From what I've heard, they were betrothed in the cradle or some such and no one, including the duke, knew her very well."

"I still think it's sad."

"Don't be so tenderhearted, Edie. The duke has obviously put it behind him, since he walked into the ballroom, waltzed with you, and lost his heart." Layla paused, almost certainly to blow a smoke ring out the window. "That's rather romantic, don't you think?"

"Did the duke actually say that he lost his heart? Because he didn't seem heartsick to me, though my eyesight was so blurry that I wouldn't know."

"His face spoke volumes."

"It had better, since we were completely silent while dancing last night." Edie wiggled a fraction of an inch in order to cool her burning cheek against yet another section of sheet. "Don't wave that cheroot around. Smoke is coming into the room."

"Sorry."

There was a second of silence while Edie contemplated whether it would be worse to die of influenza, or to marry a man whose face she'd never seen clearly.

"What does he look like?" she asked. "And could you please ring for Mary? My head is pounding."

"I'll make you a cold compress."

"No, you can't move from the window until you've finished that vile thing."

"Then how on earth can I ring for Mary?"

Even face down, Edie could tell that Layla was staying right where she was on the window seat. "You don't have proper maternal instincts," she complained.

"That's true," Layla replied dryly. "Just as well, under the circ.u.mstances."

After the death of Edie's mother, Lord Gilchrist had remained unwed for years-until he'd lost his head at age thirty-six and fallen in love with Layla. Edie hadn't much liked her new stepmother, who had a seductive air that Edie did not appreciate at thirteen years old. In fact, Edie had been rather revolted by the fact that her father had married a mere twenty-year-old, let alone one whose crimson lips and shapely figure flaunted her sensuality.

But a couple of years later she had come upon Layla crying, and had learned just how heartbreaking it is to be unable to give one's husband an heir. They had become fast friends over the subsequent years. Alas, no children ever arrived; lately Layla had taken up smoking and developed a bit of a reckless edge.

"I shouldn't have said that," Edie said. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I probably would have made a b.l.o.o.d.y horrible mother anyway."

"No, you wouldn't. You're funny and sweet, and if you would throw away that cheroot and make me a cool compress I'd love you forever."

Layla sighed.

"Did you put it out?"

"Yes." A moment later fingers touched Edie's shoulder. "You have to turn over so I can put this compress on."

Edie obediently shifted onto her back. "You looked wonderful last night, too, Layla." She squinted at her stepmother. Layla was forever going on slimming regimes, but Edie thought her luscious shape was perfect as it was.

Layla smiled. "Thank you, darling. Do you want me to ring for Mary so you can change your clothes and get under the covers?"

"No, I'm too tired."

Layla being Layla-and lacking a maternal instinct-she didn't insist, but simply put the damp cloth on Edie's head and walked back across the room.

"Are you lighting another one?"

"No, I am not. I'm sitting before your fireplace like a good stepmother. Maybe I'll learn knotting so I can do a better impersonation of one. I'm not quite certain your new husband will appreciate my more eccentric qualities; I must develop some respectable traits so I'll be allowed to visit."

"Why do you say so? Is he a thoroughgoing stick?"

"I don't know him any better than you do."

"But at least you saw him clearly, and you weren't feverish."

"Perhaps a bit stickish," Layla said. "But nothing you're not used to, given your father."

A trickle of water ran down Edie's neck; she was so hot that it felt quite agreeable. "I was hoping to avoid marrying someone like Father."

"Your father is not so bad."

"Yes, he is. He's out of the house all the time, and he hardly ever takes you anywhere. I know that you say that it's different when you two are alone, but all he does at dinner is lecture me. Which is quite unfair, inasmuch as I've never given him the least cause for anxiety. He should be more grateful. Last time I saw her, your mother told me all about Juliet Fallesbury, who ran away with a footman."

Layla had a wicked chuckle. "My mother loves that story, mostly because the man was nicknamed Longfellow. You know, Edie, it might be good for you to rebel a little. It's not natural to cheerfully agree to marry a complete stranger."

"I am not cheerful," Edie pointed out.

"But you're not rebellious, either. I'm worried you'll let your husband have his own way all the time and he'll become a monstrous dictator."

There was something about Layla's tone that sounded a warning note in Edie's mind, but she felt too sick to figure out the problem, if there was one other than her father's dictatorial habits. "Perhaps I will run away, disguise myself as a man, and join an orchestra. Imagine it, Layla. Some people have nothing to do but play music, all day long. And then at night they play some more, but with an audience." A few notes of the prelude of Bach's Cello Suite no. 1 in G Major slid through her mind. The fever made the arpeggio shimmer in her head, as if the music floated like oil on top of water.

"What I'm saying is that you should a.s.sert yourself more, Edie. Men are not easy to live with."

"Father has never refused me anything I truly wanted."

"It's true that he's allowed you to remain home and play the cello, far past the age when you should have made your bow to society."

The notes sneaked into Edie's mind again, luring her into thinking about the broken chords in Bach's prelude. They should be easy, like a basic exercise, and yet somehow . . .

Her stepmother's voice intervened. "The fact is that your father is terrified to let you go. Who will play duets with him? Who will talk endlessly of music? Take pity on me, why don't you? I haven't the faintest interest in discussing the cello. I don't mind hearing it, but I find talk of it tedious. And yet I am facing a lifetime of your father's harangues about bowing and tuning."

"The cello is the only thing my father and I have in common. I can hardly remember talking to him of anything else. And now I'm to marry someone like that, but who likely knows nothing about music?"

Really, if Edie weren't so sick, she would feel righteous indignation, but she was already so sorry for herself that there wasn't any room to moan about marriage to a philistine. "My eyes feel like boiled eggs," she added.

"I'm sorry, darling. Do you want me to send for the doctor?"

"No. He'll give me laudanum, which won't help. Fevers can't be cured by a narcotic."

"I like laudanum," Layla said. "I had it only once, but I've never forgotten the way it made me feel all floaty and free, as if nothing in the world was worth worrying about."

"I'll have to make sure no one ever gives you any. You'd probably develop a habit, the way Mrs. Fitzhugh has. Bell's Messenger said that she collapsed on the ballroom floor the other day, and her husband had to carry her out."

"Reason enough to avoid it. I'm not absolutely certain your father could hoist me from the ground without staggering."

"Would you mind dipping my cloth in the basin again?"

Layla did it while Edie thought about her impending marriage. "Did Kinross give any reason for making such a precipitous proposal?"

"It was because he fell in love with you," Layla said promptly, putting the compress on Edie's forehead. "He took one look at your golden tresses, not to mention the delectable rest of you, and decided to ward off the compet.i.tion." But there was something about her voice . . .

"The truth, Layla."

"And I gather he had important things to do. He left for Brighton directly after speaking with your father."

" 'Things to do,' " Edie repeated. "What sort of things?"

"Problems with the pound note. Don't think about it too closely, darling," Layla advised. Edie heard her opening the little tin box in which she kept her cheroots.

"What did he say, exactly?"

"Oh please, let's talk about something more interesting! Kinross has one of the biggest estates in Scotland. You can only imagine, Edie. He arrived in two carriages, with eight grooms, all in livery; I saw it out the window. I expect you'll live like a queen. Your father says he lives in a castle."