Sally MacKenzie Bundle (52 page)

“There is nothing tame about my existence, Agatha. I have six children who often bring more excitement into my life than I quite care for.”

“But how can you call yourself an artist when you’ve never visited Italy or Greece and seen the art of the Masters?”

Mrs. Parker-Roth’s mouth thinned to a tight line. “Agatha—” She stopped, obviously getting hold of her temper, and then smiled at Meg and Emma. “Forgive me. This is a long-running argument, I’m afraid.”

“Indeed it is.” Miss Witherspoon leaned toward Meg. “Consider carefully, Miss Peterson. Do not make the same mistake Cecilia did and fall in love with a pair of broad shoulders.”

Meg flushed, remembering exactly how being pressed up against a certain pair of broad shoulders—and broad chest and muscular arms—had felt.

“I did not make a mistake,” Mrs. Parker-Roth said.

“You did, Cecilia. You could have been a great artist.”

“Agatha—”

“Marriage and motherhood are all very well for some people. Obviously if we want the human race to continue, someone must produce the next generation. It just didn’t have to be you, Cecilia, and you didn’t have to produce so much of it. A little restraint would have been a good thing.”

Mrs. Parker-Roth flushed. “Agatha—”

“It’s not as though your husband has a title to pass on—and in any event, you took care of that concern, had it been one, promptly with Pinky and Stephen.”

“Pinky?” Meg asked. A distraction seemed to be in order.

Mrs. Parker-Roth gave her a somewhat harried smile. “We called Johnny ‘Pinky’ when he was little to differentiate him from his father. His middle name is Pinkerton. He doesn’t care for the nickname now.” She turned back to Miss Witherspoon. “Agatha, really, I don’t think—”

“
That
is self evident,” Miss Witherspoon said. “You didn’t think. Once you met John Parker-Roth at your come-out ball, your brain ceded control of your behavior to your—”

“Agatha!”

“—to some other organ which led you into marriage and then motherhood. Still, if you’d stopped after Stephen, you could have been free years ago—though I grant you, Napoleon made continental travel extremely difficult, if not impossible, for some of that time. But that’s neither here nor there. It wasn’t the Corsican Monster keeping you chained to England, but your own brood of little demons.”

Mrs. Parker-Roth gasped. “You go too far!”

Miss Witherspoon shrugged. “Yes, all right. I apologize. They are very well-behaved demons.”

“They are…you called my children…”

Miss Witherspoon touched Mrs. Parker-Roth’s arm. “You could have been such a fine artist, Cecilia.”

Parks’s mother finally mastered her breathing sufficiently to emit a short, exasperated noise. “I am persuaded I’m as fine an artist as I could ever have been, Agatha.”

“I don’t think so. Remember all those years ago when we met at Lady Baxter’s soiree? You were such a fiery young woman. You said you were only tolerating a Season because it brought you to London and the Royal Academy of Arts. You swore you’d defy your father to pursue your muse.”

“I was ridiculous.”

“You were
passionate.
” Miss Witherspoon sighed. “It is partly my fault, I suppose. I should not have put John in your way, but I never suspected you’d be tempted by a poet.”

Meg glanced at Emma. Her sister looked distinctly uncomfortable, as if the conversation was galloping at breakneck speed toward a precipice and she had not an inkling how to rein it in.

“Agatha, why can’t you understand? I don’t need—or want—to go to Italy or Greece. I can see as well in England’s light as I can anywhere. There is plenty of beauty in my own little corner of the world. And if the choice is between my painting or my children—well, there is no choice. Nothing—
nothing
—is as important to me as my family.”

Miss Witherspoon clicked her tongue, throwing her hands in the air and sitting back on the settee.

“Oh, pish! That is what you have persuaded yourself to believe, Cecilia. It’s what men want us to believe. We’ve been taught from our cradles that marriage is a woman’s highest calling. Gammon!”

“Just because you’ve never wed—”

“Thank God! I have more sense than to sell my body to the highest bidder.”

“Agatha!”

Meg looked down quickly and studied her hands. Miss Witherspoon on the Marriage Mart? The thought of anyone bidding for her stout, aging form was beyond ludicrous, but perhaps she had not resembled a hedgehog—an angry hedgehog—so markedly in her youth.

“Don’t ‘Agatha’ me. It’s too true that many women would be happier if they’d remained single. They say ‘I do’ once, and their husbands say ‘you won’t’ ever after.”

Emma was scowling. “You make marriage sound like prison.”

“It is, Lady Knightsdale. Oh, you may be confined to a lovely estate and your warden might be rich and handsome, but you’ve still given up your freedom. You must serve his needs, letting him use you as he will, when he will, pawing you whenever the urge strikes, leaving you bulging with child over and over again—”

“Agatha!” Mrs. Parker-Roth almost shouted. “You exceed the bounds of propriety.”

Miss Witherspoon’s nose twitched. “My apologies if I’ve offended anyone’s sensibilities. I merely wish to save Miss Peterson from disaster.”

“Disaster? Are you equating marriage to my son with disaster?”

“I’ve nothing against Pinky, you understand, Cecilia. He’s nice enough, for a male.”

“Miss Witherspoon.” Emma’s tone was a touch strident. “Disaster will strike if my sister does not marry Mr. Parker-Roth. Her reputation will be in tatters.”

“Balderdash.” Miss Witherspoon waggled her finger at Emma. “A reputation is required only if one wishes to wed in the
ton
. If that is not of interest, then reputation, as society defines it at least, becomes irrelevant. Look at your husband’s aunt, Lady Beatrice.”

“I’m not certain we should look at Lady Beatrice.”

Miss Witherspoon continued as if Emma had not spoken. “Bea chose to live her life to suit herself. The society tabbies whispered, but she ignored them all and eventually they had to accept her.” She tapped Meg on the knee. “You can do the same, Miss Peterson. Ignore the old cats. Let them hiss among themselves—you turn a deaf ear. Follow your passions. You do have passions, don’t you?”

“Uh.” Passion. The word was becoming synonymous with Parks. With his hands, his mouth, his tongue…Heat flooded her. “Um, I’m very interested in plants.”

“Agatha, Miss Peterson cannot expect society to treat her as it does Lady Beatrice,” Mrs. Parker-Roth said. “Lady Beatrice is the daughter and sister of a marquis. Society is much more tolerant of women who have powerful families behind them.”

“And Miss Peterson is a marquis’s sister-in-law. Most of the tabbies will hesitate to give her the cut direct. They’d be afraid of alienating Knightsdale.”

“As well they should be,” Emma said. “Charles would eviscerate anyone who insulted Meg.”

“Exactly. So you see, Miss Peterson, you don’t have to wed Pinky.”

“
Johnny
, Agatha.”

“Johnny. You don’t have to chain yourself to some man—”

“Johnny is not ‘some man,’ Agatha. He is an excellent, steady, loyal—”

“—boring—”

“He is not boring.” Mrs. Parker-Roth paused, and then sighed. “Well, perhaps he is just a slight bit boring, but he is very reliable.”

“Predictable.”

“There is nothing the matter with being predictable, Agatha!”

Were these women talking about Mr. Parker-Roth? The man who’d appeared
deus ex machina
in Lord Palmerson’s garden to save her from Bennington’s evil attentions? Who’d felled the viscount with one blow? Who’d gathered her close and held her while she sobbed into his shirtfront?

The man who had put his tongue in her mouth and his mouth on her breasts and his hands…everywhere?

Meg shivered, the odd throbbing starting low in her belly again.

There had been absolutely nothing boring or predictable about Mr. Parker-Roth’s actions in Lady Palmerson’s parlor.

“Are you feeling quite the thing, Meg?” Emma frowned at her. “You look rather flushed.”

“Um.”

Fortunately, Mr. MacGill chose that moment to bring in the tea tray.

Chapter 8

“Domestic bliss becomes you.” Felicity tried to keep her tone light and sarcastic, but the vaguely pitying look Charlotte gave her indicated she’d not been completely successful.

“It does.” Charlotte’s eyes drifted over Lord Easthaven’s ballroom, stopping when they reached a man of middle height with thinning hair and thickening waist. She smiled. “I’ve never been happier.”

Of course Charlotte had never been happier. Her first husband—that old goat, the Duke of Hartford—had cocked up his toes just over a year ago. Well, if rumors were true, it was his cock, not his toes, which had been up at the end. But his last effort had apparently born fruit, and nine months after the duke’s demise, Charlotte delivered a boy to her great relief and the previous heir’s greater consternation. A year and a day after Hartford breathed his last, his poor widow wed Baron Tynweith.

Lord Tynweith concluded his conversation with Sir George Gaston and made his way toward his wife’s side. Felicity frowned. One would think they were starry-eyed young lovers instead of mature, experienced adults. Their devotion was nauseating.

Her gut twisted. Nausea—that’s what she felt. Not jealousy. Of course not. How ridiculous. “You have taken to motherhood much more enthusiastically than I would ever have guessed.”

Charlotte kept her eyes on Tynweith, a slight smile playing over her lips. “I’ve surprised myself.”

“And how fortunate the baron seems so content to be a step-papa. Not every man would welcome his predecessor’s brat, even if the brat is a duke.”

“Edward is wonderful.”

Felicity kept herself from snorting. Tynweith’s generosity was not hard to explain. She’d wager the baron, not the dearly departed duke, was the new Duke of Hartford’s real father. She examined the man as he approached. He looked…boring. True, he’d been wild in his youth, but now he was no different from any other aging country squire.

Except he had climbed into Charlotte’s bed and stolen her heart. There must be something special about him. Something that didn’t show in his unremarkable façade.

Bennington’s face with its prominent nose pushed its way into her thoughts. Hmm.

He was here tonight. She’d seen him talking to Lord Palmerson when she’d arrived. They were probably discussing horticulture. Bennington was quite partial to plants.

Would he take a turn in the garden with her? Charlotte had said he’d strolled through Palmerson’s foliage with Miss Peterson.

Her stomach clenched. The clock was ticking. At any moment, her father’s financial failures might come to light. She had no time to waste. She must lure
some
man into the bushes as soon as may be. Bennington might do.

“Do you hear from Lord Andrew? He’s in Boston, isn’t he?”

“Hmm?” But would he go? She’d always thought him a trifle staid. More than a trifle. As stuffy as a churchman. But if he’d been frolicking in the foliage with Miss Peterson…And surely no churchman would have been filling Aunt Hermione’s urn…

He was a viscount. He needed an heir. He was heading rapidly toward forty.

Perhaps he, too, heard a clock ticking.

“Felicity.”

“What?” She looked at Charlotte. What was she prosing on about? Where was Tynweith? Ah, he had stopped again to chat with Lady Dunlee. Now that he was a married man, he was a social pussycat.

“Felicity, you are not attending.”

Perhaps she had been looking for the wrong type of man all along. Perhaps the less showy specimens were the most…rewarding.

“Felicity!”

“What?! There is no need to shout, Charlotte.”

Charlotte looked heavenward for a moment. “I asked you if you ever hear from Lord Andrew. Really, it’s a wonder Westbrooke and Alvord let him live, after what he did to Lady Westbrooke at the house party.”

It
was
a wonder. What had he—and she—been thinking? “No. Andrew is not a correspondent.” He had written once, asking for money. When she’d said she had none, he’d lost interest in her.

Andrew was showy. He was quite beautiful to behold, but his beauty was only skin deep. He was rather rotten on the inside. Bennington, however…

She definitely needed to take a stroll through Lord Easthaven’s gardens with the viscount.

“I cannot believe not a single gentleman has requested you stand up with him this evening, Meg! If only Charlie did not have the earache and want his papa at his side. You can be sure if Charles were here, you would have plenty of partners.”

“Hmm.” Emma was probably correct, but somehow the thought of dancing with a man who had the social equivalent of a gun to his head was not especially appealing.

“Perhaps Mr. Symington is looking for a partner.”

“Mr. Symington is always looking for a partner.” He was looking for one now. Meg watched ladies duck behind pillars and potted palms as the short, balding, portly Mr. Symington—Simple Symington, the wags called him—walked past. Rumor had it his good wife had died of boredom during one of her husband’s discourses.

Rumor also had it she’d died with a smile on her face.

Simple Symington was coming her way. Botheration! Was the man actually going to ask her to dance? It would be torture. Not only was he fat and boring, he reeked of garlic and onions. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Standing up with him would be better than—

Symington glanced at her, reddened, and scurried off in the other direction.

“Lady Dunlee must have beckoned to him,” Emma said. “She is always looking for gentlemen to partner her silly daughter.”

“Of course.” Emma made perfect sense—except that the new Lord Frampton was already escorting Lady Caroline, Lady Dunlee’s daughter, to join a set, and Lady Dunlee was dragging her husband toward the garden door, probably to see what other scandals she could flush out of the bushes.

Tonight Meg had all the attraction of a fresh pile of horse-dung. The fastidious
ton
was stepping carefully around her.