Married to the Viscount (24 page)

Spencer couldn’t hide his shock. The king had never so much as expressed a desire to drink tea with him, much less required his attendance at a social engagement. Obliging His Majesty would enhance Spencer’s political career immeasurably.

Except that Abby would never agree to it. If she felt uncomfortable at a smallish private ball, he could only imagine how she’d react to meeting royalty at one of Throckmorton’s lavish May Day feasts. “I’m afraid that isn’t possible, Your Majesty.”

“What?” His Majesty’s eyes narrowed. “And why not? Pray explain how appeasing a whim of your lord and king is ‘not possible’?”

Though Spencer felt the noose closing about his throat, he chafed at having to explain himself, even to the king. “My wife still feels uncomfortable in good society. She was raised very differently in America and needs time to learn our English habits. She’s never been around royalty, for one thing, and—”

“Nonsense, she’ll be fine.” The king’s outrage vanished, replaced by a typical nonchalance. “We aren’t entirely un
aware of how Americans behave. We shall overlook any errors of propriety. We merely wish to meet the bold American who managed to capture the heart of one of our most haughty subjects.”

Abby had captured something more volatile than Spencer’s heart—she now held his entire future in her hand. The woman whose favorite pastime was teasing him publicly could easily ruin his political career in one fell swoop.

But that wasn’t what annoyed him about this. What annoyed him was the realization that the king himself had an interest in her. Absurd though it seemed, Spencer didn’t want to share his sham wife with anyone. Not even the man who could destroy him politically.

“I’ll have my man mention to Lady Throckmorton that you and your wife will be attending, Ravenswood,” His Majesty said.

It was not a question. “Yes, Your Majesty,” Spencer said through gritted teeth.

A smug smile curved the king’s fleshy lips. “Oh, and tell your wife to bring that treasure Lady Brumley spoke of in her column this morning. We should like to determine for ourselves if it’s as marvelous as that old battle-ax hints at.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.” He must get a copy of Lady Brumley’s column at once to find out what the hell the king was talking about.

Because one thing was certain—Abby had unwittingly made a splash in society. Spencer only hoped her splash didn’t drown them both.

It was long after dinner before Abby finally got the chance to stand back and survey her handiwork. Everything in the schoolroom was nearly ready for tomorrow. She and Mrs. Graham still had to finish clearing it out and make room on the long table for stations where she and her friends could letter and glue on the labels, fill the bottles, and tie on the rib
bons. But the table had plenty of chairs ranged around it, thanks to Spencer’s obliging servants, and she’d managed to find every ingredient she needed to make the Mead…the Heaven’s Scent.

Privately, she thought Lady Brumley’s plans were crazy, but if her ladyship dictated that the Mead be perfume, why not indulge them? What did Abby have to lose?

“It’s a pity you couldn’t accept Lady Clara’s offer to use her children for this.” Mrs. Graham gathered up the books scattered on the table and arranged them on shelves around the room. “It would’ve made it all go faster, and they’d have liked doing it, I warrant. But after what his lordship’s servants told me about his feelings toward children, I guess you were right not to take her up on it.”

Abby tensed as she reached for a box. “What did his servants say?”

“That he complains about the boys across the street. I’ll admit they’re a rowdy bunch, always sticking their noses where they don’t belong, but that’s no cause to banish them from his garden like he done. They weren’t hurting nobody.”

“Spencer is a very private person. He works hard and has to listen to boring speeches all day, so when he comes home, he just wants to relax in his own quiet garden. Can you blame him?”

“That ain’t the only time. Mr. McFee told me that Mr. Law once gave the boys permission to play in the garden whenever his lordship weren’t here, and when his lordship got wind of it, he put his foot right down. Said he’d best not find any boys skulking about his garden without his say.”

A chill ran down Abby’s spine, but she ignored it. Spencer had a right not to share his garden with anybody. It meant nothing. He might have been worried that the children would hurt the plants or steal the fruit.

Although that seemed petty for a man as rich as Spencer.

Mrs. Graham went on. “But Mr. McFee said you’re right
to keep them away. He said having children here would set his lordship’s temper off something fierce. And you don’t want that, do you?”

No indeed. Abby had already had one close call this afternoon when Spencer had come upon her just as she was dripping Mead onto his pillow. Thank heaven she’d already finished scenting his cravats or he would really have lost his temper, especially considering how he felt about scent. She certainly didn’t want to risk his ire again.

At her continued silence, Mrs. Graham added, “Mr. McFee also says—”

“Enough about that snobbish butler,” she said peevishly. “Since when do you listen to him? I thought you hated him.”

To her surprise, Mrs. Graham actually blushed. “I do. Most of the time.” She suddenly became inordinately busy with arranging books. “That don’t mean he can’t speak sense once in a while. Especially when it comes to his lordship.” She shot Abby a concerned glance. “I was hoping that the viscount would keep you for his wife, but I’m not so sure anymore. He’s a bit more toplofty here than he was in America, don’t you think? Besides, men who don’t like children don’t make good fathers.”

“He’s a bachelor,” Abby said, balking at hearing her own concerns voiced so blatantly. “Bachelors always consider children to be nuisances. That’s all it is.”

Or at least she hoped that was all it was. She wished she could find out for sure without provoking his anger. Because Mrs. Graham did have a point about men who didn’t like children, and Abby fully intended to have children of her own one day. She hoped to have them with Spencer.

Mrs. Graham gave a dramatic sigh. “I just hate to see the man break your heart.”

“He can’t break it if I don’t give it to him. And I’m much too practical to give it to a man who doesn’t want it.”

Not to mention too sensible to discuss the ownership of
her heart with her nosy servant. She picked up a box and began to unload its contents. “Take a look at these bottles, Mrs. Graham. Do you think they’ll do? I tried to get pretty ones, but I had to take what I could find in the rag and bottle shops.”

Suitably distracted, Mrs. Graham rounded the table to examine the bottles. “They’re a bit grubby, but we can clean them up easy enough.”

They were so engrossed in their evaluation that they didn’t hear anybody approach until a deep voice said, “I’m back.”

Abby’s pulse leaped as she whirled toward the open door. Spencer leaned against the doorframe, watching them with an unreadable expression. His well-fitted knee breeches of royal-blue kerseymere left nothing to the imagination, and the matching swallowtail coat with its velvet collar and gilt buttons skimmed his broad shoulders, muscled chest, and lean waist in loving detail. He looked powerful, rich, and dangerously handsome.

And completely inaccessible to a woman like her. Or was that his point in dressing so extravagantly?

No, of course not. He’d been to visit the king. Lucky king.

She tamped down her stammering pulse. “You look well.”

“You look busy.” He smiled, and her pulse went positively mad with glee. With a flick of one long finger, he indicated the table. “What’s all this?”

“Mr. McFee said I could use the schoolroom as a workshop for making the Mead. I would have asked you, but you weren’t here.”

Pushing away from the doorframe, he strolled toward her pots and funnels and brazier for heating water. “It’s a rather large manufacturing operation for a few bottles, isn’t it?” Restlessly, he prowled the room, examining all her materials. It made her nervous, especially when she felt Mrs. Graham’s watchful eyes on her.

Abby ignored the woman. “Actually, I hope to produce
more than a few bottles. When Lady Brumley called on me this afternoon, she suggested that I present the Mead as perfume. She and Clara convinced me to go along. We’re calling it Heaven’s Scent.”

He picked up a bottle and turned it over in his hand. “Appropriate.”

“Do you think so?” she asked, warmed by his interest. “I thought they were both crazy, but they insist it smells pretty enough to sell. Lady Brumley has already put in a large order, so Clara’s bringing a few friends here tomorrow to help me produce them.”

A pained look crossed his face. “You may have to put that off, my dear. You’re going to be much too busy to fool with the Mead right now.”

“Oh?” she said, instantly put on her guard.

“I know I said we wouldn’t attend any more balls and such for a while. But an engagement has come up that we can’t avoid.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What sort of engagement?”

He sighed. “His Majesty is attending Lady Throckmorton’s fête-champêtre on the first of May. I’ve had my invitation for weeks, but I hadn’t planned to go. Now he’s insisting that I do so. And that I bring you, too, so he can meet you.”

“Oh, my lady, the king himself wants to meet you!” Mrs. Graham cried, all her distrust of his lordship apparently vanishing. “Only think of it!”

Abby’s fingers curled convulsively around the back of the chair in front of her. “No, I can’t.”

He leveled his gaze on her. “You can. Besides, we have no choice. Believe me, I like this no better than you. I tried to excuse you from it, but the king would brook no refusal.”

“Why on earth does he want me there anyway?” Abby grumbled, stung by Spencer’s reminder that the last thing he wanted to do was introduce his nobody of a wife to the king. “Has he run out of jugglers and jesters and players to amuse
him? Does he figure that a clumsy American will give him hours of entertainment?”

A muscle ticked in Spencer’s jaw. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Surely he heard what happened at the ball—”

“He doesn’t care about that.” Spencer shifted his gaze to the fireplace. “He says he…wants to meet the woman who captured my heart.”

A bitter laugh erupted from her. “Then I’m not the one he wants, am I?”

Spencer slapped the bottle down on the table. “He
thinks
you are, and that’s all that matters. I can hardly set him straight, can I?”

Dragging the chair out from the table, she slumped into it, her mind awhirl. She wanted to show Spencer she could be his wife in every respect and make him proud of her. But starting at the tiptop of society wasn’t what she’d had in mind.

“It won’t be so bad,” he went on. “You’ll have to spend more time with Clara and the dance master, that’s all. And you have nearly two weeks to prepare.”

Two weeks? To be ready for royalty? If she made a fool of herself before the king, Spencer would never stay married to her. “That’s not long enough. I promised Lady Brumley a hundred bottles of Heaven’s Scent by her breakfast a week from Saturday so she can give them to her friends. I have to meet that quota before I can do anything else. That leaves me only a little over a week, if you don’t include Sundays—”

“You’ll simply have to put Lady Brumley off.”

“I can’t put her off—I already promised! She’s putting it in the newspaper and everything. She may not be the king, but she has the power of the pen behind her, and you don’t want me getting on her bad side, do you?” His black scowl was her answer. “Besides, you know even two weeks won’t make me ready for a meeting with the king.”

“Ready or not, the king has asked to meet you, and you
must oblige him. If you don’t, it could destroy my entire future in the government.”

“But if I do oblige him, I will most certainly destroy your career.”

“Nonsense. What happened to your American ideas about all men being created equal? He’s only a man after all, Abby, and no one to be afraid of. A few hours ago you were telling me that I was just as good as he is.”

“Exactly.
You
, Spencer.
You
are just as good as he is.”

“So are you.”

“Maybe, but you English don’t see it that way. How someone behaves in society matters so much more here than in America. And if I were to ruin your future by some bumbling mistake—”

“You won’t.” He leaned forward to plant his hands on the table across from her. “Come on, Abby, I need you. I’ll give you whatever you want if you’ll do this for me.”

“I don’t want anything—”

“She wants that expensive wardrobe you bought her,” Mrs. Graham interrupted from beside Abby. “She gets to keep every stitch of it and carry it back to America.”

Spencer’s gaze shifted instantly to Mrs. Graham. “Clearly I’ve been discussing this with the wrong person. All right, she can keep the wardrobe. It’s not as if I’ll have any use for it after she’s gone.” His eyes narrowed. “What else does she want?”

“Now see here—” Abby put in.

“She wants them rubies you put on her night before last.” Mrs. Graham crossed her arms over her ample chest. “And not just the ear bobs neither—the whole parure.”

“Done. What else?”

“Stop it this instant!” Abby leaped to her feet to cast Mrs. Graham a fulminating look. “I want none of that, and you know it.”

“If he’s willing to pay—”

“I’m not going to accept jewels or clothes for this like I’m some…some ladybird,” she hissed at her servant. She faced Spencer with a proud stance. “I’m not
that
desperate.”

His gaze softened. “All right. So what will you accept?” His voice was low, earnest. “I’m willing to give you anything, Abby. What do you want?”

She stared at him uncertainly, taking in his firm, determined jaw, the soft mouth that could kiss a woman into oblivion, the arms that had held her so tenderly.

You
, she thought.
I want you
.

She doubted he’d take that for an answer. Besides, she didn’t want to get him by forcing him into it. She wanted to convince him they could be happy married to each other, sharing a life, having children…