Married to the Viscount (6 page)

She shot him a startled glance. “Do you plan to continue this farce?”

“To be honest, Miss Mercer, I don’t know what my plans are. Thanks to your chatty servant, the twenty-six people in my dining room have undoubtedly been discussing my new wife for the past half hour. I can hardly put
that
cat back in the bag.”

“So what will you tell them? The truth?” And what did he mean, her “chatty servant”? What exactly had Mrs. Graham said during Abby’s mortifying faint?

“No, certainly not the truth. But I’ll come up with something to buy time until I decide what to do.” He arched one eyebrow. “I can be a ‘particularly talented liar’ myself when necessary.”

“Then it runs in the family,” she said sweetly.

For the first time since her arrival, he laughed. “Apparently.” Opening the door, he beckoned to his hoity-toity butler. “McFee, show our guest to her room and have trays sent up for her and her servant. And have baths drawn, too.”

“Thank you,” Abigail breathed.

His warm smile fleetingly reminded her of the man she’d
so easily agreed to marry. It made her chest hurt with the loss of him.

“Well then,” he said, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

When he started to walk out in only his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, she leaped up from the chaise longue. “Lord Ravenswood!”

He stopped to look back. “Yes?”

“You’ll need this.” Holding together the gaping edges of her bodice with one hand, she held his coat out with the other.

Walking up to her, he reached for it. When his hand brushed hers, the frisson of heat that sparked between them so flustered her that she lost hold of the bodice she’d been holding closed.

His gaze dropped down to her exposed chemise, and his breath quickened until it matched the frenzied pace of her own breathing. For a moment, the dark intensity of his stare made her think he might actually kiss her.

Then he seemed to shake himself, and his gaze jerked back to her face. “I believe, Miss Mercer, you had better keep the coat,” he said in a throaty murmur that resounded low inside her. He circled around behind her. “After everything that has gone on in this house tonight, the last thing my guests will care about is my missing coat.”

Demurring, she let him put it on her. But every whisper of his hand along her shoulder stirred up butterflies in her belly, and every accidental brush of his fingers against her hair resonated to the farthest ends of her silly, besotted heart. Her pulse stumbled the whole time he stood close, swamping her with his delicious scent.

Heavenly day, she had to stop these reactions. He might smell the same as he did in America, and he might occasionally be as kind as he’d been then, but he wasn’t the friendly and fascinating gentleman she’d been so eager to marry. He was a viscount very aware of his own consequence. And she’d best remember that.

By the time he stepped away, she had herself under control, despite the tang of bergamot and wine that clung to his coat and bombarded her senses.

Hastily she fastened up the buttons. At least his coat would hide her open bodice, even if it did look comical. When she faced him to find his lips twitching from the effort not to smile, that small politeness made her wonder if she’d been too hasty in her assumptions about his character.

“Can you manage along now?” he asked.

His gentle tone brought a lump to her throat. “Yes.”

Dear heaven, she could handle this mess so much easier when he was being officious and viscountlike. Whenever these vestiges of the man she’d known before appeared, they made her long for what she knew she couldn’t have.

She gazed up at him, wishing she had the right to smooth that tendril of dusky brown hair back over his ear or straighten his starch-scented cravat where it had been knocked slightly awry. “I believe I was wrong earlier. You are a nice man after all.”

He looked nonplussed. Then a cynical smile curved up his lips. “Do keep that opinion under your hat. Otherwise, I’ll never be able to lift my head in Parliament.”

She couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Don’t worry—my lips are sealed.”

“Thank God,” he said evenly, but his gaze dropped to her lips as if actually checking for a seal.

Or something else entirely, for as his eyes fixed on her mouth, they turned molten, provoking an odd heat to rise deep in her belly.

By the time he tipped his head and murmured, “Until tomorrow then,” she’d forgotten what they’d been talking about. And after he was gone, she could only stare after him in complete confusion. She would never understand that man and his intense looks.

Nor did the stiff-lipped butler enlighten her any about his
master as he led the way to her quarters. She did try to get him talking as they climbed a grand staircase whose massive steps were all of white marble—marble, for heaven’s sake! But conversing with guests about his employer was apparently not something an English butler condescended to do, and Mr. McFee’s one-word replies soon discouraged her from continuing.

Instead she tried to get a good look inside the rooms they passed, but it was too dark. A profusion of expensive beeswax candles in the staircases and halls, however, illuminated gilded mirrors hanging on the hall walls and polished rosewood console tables bordering massive mahogany doors. Velvet-cushioned chairs that looked fit for only the most refined of bottoms dotted the stair landings. Then there were the ornate cornices, medallions in relief, delicately ornamented fanlights, and…

Heavenly day. In her youth, when they’d had money, Papa’s house had been considered fairly grand by Philadelphia standards. Compared to this, it had been a hovel.

It was almost a relief to reach the end of a fourth-floor hall and have Mr. McFee usher her into a spacious but simply furnished bedchamber where she wasn’t reminded of her own foolishness in not realizing from the beginning what a vast gulf lay between her and his lordship.

Mrs. Graham faced off against the stalwart Mr. McFee as soon as they entered. “You sneaky Scot, how dare you put her ladyship in the top of the house like she was a governess. I demand you give us a room in the family quarters. This is his lordship’s wife, I’ll have you know!”

“Mrs. Graham, please—” Abby began.

“Until his lordship informs me otherwise,” Mr. McFee broke in, “you are his guests and belong in a guest bedchamber. Since his lordship keeps late hours when Parliament is in session, I thought it might be more comfortable for you to
have a floor to yourself so his comings and goings would not disturb you.”

“How very considerate,” Abby said hastily. Mrs. Graham wasn’t taking this whole change of plan very well. “Thank you for seeing to our comfort, sir.”

Mrs. Graham merely sniffed. “You think you’re better than us, don’t you? But for all your lofty airs, you’re still a Scot no better than me. You got no right to look down your nose at either of us.”

“I am not a Scot, madam. I am a butler. If, however, the only way I can silence your wagging tongue is to be a Scot…” He paused to fix her with a fierce glance. “I’m braw enow to handle any sharp-tongued American lass, so dinna cross me, ye ken?”

The brogue was so flawless that Abby burst into laughter while Mrs. Graham stood there, mouth agape.

Mr. McFee continued, but without the Scottish accent. “Now I shall leave you to your own duties, madam.” He scanned the room, then fixed his contemptuous glance on the closed trunks. “I believe they include unpacking your mistress’s belongings.”

That snapped Mrs. Graham from her daze. “Why, you…you…” she sputtered, but it was too late. Mr. McFee had already left and closed the door.

“How dare you try to tell
me
how to do my duty, you highfalutin prig, you!” Mrs. Graham shouted at the door.

“He can’t hear you, so you might as well give it up.”

“‘Dinna cross me’ indeed.” Mrs. Graham harrumphed. “I still say he should give us a room in the family quarters.”

“For heaven’s sake, this room is fine. It’s twice the size of my bedchamber in Philadelphia.” Crossing to a window, she looked out across the moonlit street to the hulking shapes of trees that signaled a park. “And I suspect it’s got a lovely view.”

“Aye, but it ain’t the mistress’s bedchamber.”

Abby shot her servant a stern glance. “Stop talking that way. You know I’m not the mistress.” Determined not to dwell on that depressing thought, she strode to the largest trunk and lifted the lid, checking to be sure that all her precious dried herbs, roots, and seeds had arrived unscathed. She might need them if Lord Ravenswood changed his mind about believing her claims. “His lordship’s brother forged the signature, so the wedding can hardly be legal.”

Mrs. Graham snorted. “Is that what the man told you while he had you trapped in that room? I suppose he denies there was a dowry, too. I suppose he thinks to throw us out in the street soon as he makes sure we don’t got no legal recourse. I suppose he—”

“Actually, he was embarrassed by his brother’s actions.” Abby opened a satin bag and brought it closer to the candle. Ah, her black haw and boneset seeds had escaped mold entirely. At least
something
had gone right. “He promised to compensate me for the dowry, and he intends to find his brother and set things right. So stop fretting. If you’ll remember, he was a perfectly respectable gentleman when he visited us in Philadelphia, and he certainly hasn’t changed into a monster now that he’s in England.”

But he
had
changed into a man she hardly knew and thus a man whose actions she couldn’t predict. Firmly, she thrust that unsettling realization from her mind. For the moment, they were safe, and she must take comfort from that.

“I don’t trust these English lords, I tell you,” Mrs. Graham went on, clearly not as optimistic about the future as Abby was determined to be.

“You certainly trusted them when you thought I was married to one.”

“That’s different. And what are we to do now he’s leaving you out in the cold—”

“This is hardly ‘out in the cold,’ Mrs. Graham.” Swallowing her own apprehension for her servant’s benefit, Abby swept her hand to encompass the room. “And if the dinner he told his butler to send up is anything like the one I could smell from the foyer earlier, we’ll be eating well, too.”

Mention of food perked Mrs. Graham right up. “Why? What were they having?”

“Roast beef, asparagus, at least one kind of meat pie—”

“Lordy, you and your nose! Never seen a body with such a clever one. You could pick a lilac out of a bed of roses, I expect.”

“It’s not hard to distinguish the smell of roast beef and asparagus, especially when you’re hungry.” She forced a game smile. “Anyway, my point is we’re being cared for quite well.”

“But for how long?” Mrs. Graham asked.

“It doesn’t matter. As long as his lordship returns my dowry, I don’t care how long we stay. Because after we have the money, we’re free. We can do anything we want.” She held up a packet of seeds and struggled to maintain her cheery façade. “We can return to America, buy a little cottage, start up the business again, and live as comfortably as we please. This could prove to be the best thing that ever happened to us.”

Mrs. Graham eyed her mistress skeptically. “I’ll believe it when I see it. But mark my words, this ain’t gonna be no easy matter, not with the English involved. You’d best not get your heart set on having that money just yet.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Abby said with false bravado. “It’ll all be fine, I’m sure.”

Yes, perfectly fine. She’d be a woman of property. She’d be free. She could marry whomever she wished.

Tears stung her eyes. A pity then that his lordship was the only man she’d ever wanted to marry.

Evelina waited anxiously in the entrance hall for her future brother-in-law to finish speaking with his last guest. Her mother had gone ahead to the carriage once Evelina had promised to be along shortly. Now if only that pesky Lady Brumley would leave.

“I see that you absolutely refuse to explain how you had a wife show up on your doorstep this evening,” the marchioness remarked.

“As I said at dinner,” Spence answered, strained smile in place, “I’ll soon be making a public announcement about my guest. Until then I’d prefer not to discuss it.”

“Then I shall have to give my readers the only version of the story that I have.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Lady Brumley raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth, probably to protest, but Spence’s look shut it. Even the Galleon of Gossip wasn’t immune to his dire glance.

Evelina shivered. She could never bear to have him look at
her
like that. Thank goodness Nathaniel had no such black stare, or she’d be terrified to marry him.

Spence went on. “However, since you aren’t the only gossiping female in town, I am prepared to make you an offer.”

“I don’t take money to quash stories, Ravenswood,” Lady Brumley retorted.

He smiled thinly. “Of course not. But I daresay you’d love to hear all the details directly from the horse’s mouth.”

Her ladyship cocked her head, setting the ship’s bells on her nautical-themed headdress to ringing. “What sort of offer do you have in mind?”

“I promise to relate my tangled tale only to you. As long as you wait a few days to write anything.”

“I suppose I could manage that.” She regarded him shrewdly. “But I’ll hold you to it. No trying to evade me or duck out whenever you see me coming.”

“Of course not.”

“And I’ll give you only one day. Tomorrow I’ll be back for my story.”

His face gave away nothing. “All right, come tomorrow at four-thirty.”

“Four. I need time to write it and get it to the paper for the next day’s press.”

“Very well, I’ll see you then.”

Evelina waited impatiently while they finished their good-byes and Lady Brumley left. At last Spence turned to her, looking a trifle easier than before. “And why are you hanging behind, poppet?”

She nearly burst into tears right then to hear him call her by the pet name he’d given her when she was only a girl and he’d come home on leave from the army, bearing French sweets and painted dolls. She’d always thought of him as the older brother she’d never had. “That tale you told us about Nathaniel helping to catch a footpad—that was all a lie, wasn’t it?”