Max had to concentrate to make sense of her words. She hadn’t said she loved him, but then, what did he expect? He cast around for a reply—something witty, self-possessed, original—as he tidied up and buttoned his falls.
He regarded the houri on the sofa and had to look away lest he start unbuttoning again. “We should open a window.”
Oh, that was witty.
Antonia wrinkled her nose, sighed, and sat up. “I’ll crack the door to the back passage. We leave that window ajar for the cat.”
“I’m sorry,” Max said, taking the place beside her. “My store of urbane banter is at low ebb and I never commanded much to begin with. I am… I did not anticipate… Bloody hell, Antonia.”
Worse and worse.
“Is that a good bloody hell or a bad bloody hell, Max?”
The unforgivably foul language spoken in those prim tones made him smile. “It’s an utterly flummoxed bloody hell. You have slain my rational mind, ambushed my grasp of logic, and drowned my self-possession in pleasure. I don’t know whether to thank you or apologize or. . .” Propose? The idea appealed much too strongly.
“Or kiss you,” Antonia said, bussing his cheek and then drawing her chemises closed. “This is not at all how I envisioned my day ending, though the notion of having ambushed you pleases me. If you apologize I will be very disappointed.”
Max would never, for any reason, intentionally disappoint this woman. “Then I will thank you. You amaze me.”
She tied off the second chemise and started on her buttons, and by the firelight, Max saw color steal over her cheeks.
“The sentiment is mutual, Mr. Haddonfield.”
He wanted her to call him by his name, but he understood that as passion receded, and reality intruded, proper address was like another set of buttons that must be fastened.
“May I walk you home, Miss Antonia?”
Her fingers stilled, then resumed their buttoning. “I don’t want to go home, to be honest, but my family would panic, as would my household. You need not walk with me.”
“Are you ashamed of what happened here?” Perhaps Max should be, but he could not muster a single whit of self-reproach.
Antonia stood and smoothed down her skirts. “Ashamed? Absolutely not. I am ashamed of wasting years trying to curry the favor of polite society. I am ashamed that I took my parents’ love and support so much for granted. I am ashamed that I allowed Mr. Kessler to intimidate me, when as you say, he was dishonest and mean this morning. You may be assured he and I will have a very short discussion tomorrow.”
“Good,” Max said, pleased to see the lady on her mettle. “I think the Barclay sisters would like to overhear that discussion. I know I would.”
Antonia smiled at him, her gaze lit not with mere determination—she’d always been determined—but something else, something quite attractive.
“I’ll crack the door to the back if you’ll bank the fire,” she said, “and then we really must be going.”
She bustled off, no invitation to tarry again some other evening, no final embrace to revisit shared pleasures. Max tended to the fire and straightened the sofa cushions, his mind a jumble of bemusement, pleasure, hope, and misgiving.
Lucifer leapt down from a windowsill, twitching the curtain aside. A handsome coach sat waiting in the street, a pair of matched grays in harness.
“Has somebody sent a coach for you?” Max asked when Antonia returned.
“Possibly,” she replied, passing Max his coat.
He held her cloak for her and shrugged into his jacket, the moment becoming awkward. What to say? What did she want him to say?
“Shall we be going?” Antonia asked, a bit too brightly.
“I need to tell you something.”
“What exactly?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” This matters. You matter.
“I won’t get any ideas at all, Mr. Haddonfield. Three ambushes in one day rather defeats even my formidable resources.”
Max had no idea what she meant by that, so he offered his arm and escorted her to the waiting coach. The vehicle was elegantly appointed, though the door panels displayed no crest. Max handed Antonia into the coach and then she was gone.
Light footsteps intruded into the mental morass that was Max’s attempt to make sense of his day.
“Did you forget?” Dagger asked, shivering.
“You need not have waited for me, Dagger.”
“Didn’t wait for you. I popped ’round here when you didn’t come home. You are due for dinner at Lord Somebody’s in an hour. Thought maybe you’d forgot. I did all the measurements, just like you said.”
Dinner. Lord Somebody. “Damnation.” Max took off up the walkway, his tool bag banging against his thigh.
“You said I was supposed to do the measurements.”
“I did indeed, and I’m sure you made an excellent job of it.” If Max sent regrets to Lord Somebody—Humble? Hambugle?—he’d simply be putting off the inevitable, and it was just possible the viscount might be willing to sponsor some research.
Not that Max would be capable of thinking scientifically about anything for quite some time.
Chapter Five
Antonia’s mind was sluggish though her body felt alive for the first time in ages. Max Haddonfield had done that, muted the endless prosing of her conscience and reminded her that life should include joy, spontaneity, affection, pleasure.
Cupid in the clouds, the pleasure had been astonishing. Antonia pulled the shades on the coach windows and dimmed the lamps, the better to let her thoughts wander where they would. Three conclusions emerged, the first of which should have been obvious.
The longer she subjected herself to polite society’s company, the angrier she became. Where was it written that an earl’s daughter had to marry at all, much less to “keep the fortune in the family”? The time spent with Max Haddonfield had shown her just how constant a companion ill-humor had become.
“I liked to dance, once upon a time,” she murmured to the darkened coach. “Before men began staring at my settlements and my bosom with equal covetousness.”
Max didn’t even know she had settlements, and his regard for her breasts had been nearly reverent.
The second conclusion was a less welcome insight: Antonia’s lover had not ended the evening with any smitten declarations. No polite offer to stop by the next day for a recounting of the exchange with Mr. Kessler. No sweet, until-next-we-meet kiss goodnight. No suggestion that they share an ice at Gunter’s on Tuesday next.
“I amazed him,” she muttered, “but I’m not to get the wrong idea.”
She’d amazed herself, truth be told, seizing from the moment and from the man exactly what she wanted. She had the sense the Barclay sisters would have understood. Perhaps not approved, but they would have understood.
The final conclusion to emerge from her musing was that she’d have to do something about Peter. Max Haddonfield might have been humoring her, indulging in an unlooked-for frolic, or something else, but he’d been respectful, tender, passionate, considerate—in every way, he’d been a delightful lover.
To tolerate Peter’s intimate attentions, even in an abstract sense, was beyond Antonia. She knew that now and was grateful for the clarity her encounter with Max had given her.
“Though I’m not to get the wrong idea,” she murmured as the coach slowed. “Whatever that meant.”
Max had been prepared to put up with Lord Hamblin’s bleating over the course of an informal, masculine supper the likes of which he often endured at his various clubs. In his experience, one could either do science or talk about doing science.
The men and women who did science could be coaxed into discussing their work, but they didn’t wave it about in general conversation like some sign of royal favor. The real scientists tended to gravitate to alcoves, where those who believed in Newton’s corpuscular theory of light could debate with the theory’s detractors by the hour.
Hamblin, however, had assembled a dozen men, each of whom seemed determined to out-talk his neighbor on some arcane subject or other. The meal was informal, meaning conversation did not limit itself to guests immediately to one’s left or right, but instead flew across the table, up and down, and from corner to corner.
The debate made up in liveliness what it lacked in academic expertise.
“But if a miasma is responsible for the spread of disease,” Mr. Peter Nagle said, “then one could reduce the likelihood of contagion by affixing large fans to the rooftops of Mayfair and creating a steady wind in the direction of the river.”
Nagle had apparently forgotten that people lived on both sides of the Thames, also to the east, west, south, and north of Mayfair.
“Miasmas have never been proven,” another fellow snapped. “Contagion hasn’t been proven. God’s will controls the spread of disease, but I will be damned if man’s will shan’t control the spread of progress and that means steam power!”
A thumping round of hear-hear’s followed, while Max took a surreptitious glance at his pocket watch.
“Away with us to the withdrawing room, friends,” Lord Hamblin said, rising. “Let the footmen be about their work while we solve the pressing problems of civilization.”
If consuming vast quantities of port was a pressing problem of civilization, Hamblin’s guests were solving it at a great rate. Max had limited himself to one glass to be sociable, but he didn’t particularly care for port.
“Haddonfield, glad you could join us,” Hamblin said, falling in step beside Max. “What a lot of noise, eh?”
“Enthusiasm,” Max replied. “Ideas cannot be developed into theories if somebody isn’t enthusiastic about the endeavor.”
“You have a few ideas, I’m told,” Hamblin said. “Let’s nip into the library, shall we?”
The herd of guests went arguing and debating on down the corridor, while the library was blessedly quiet. A roaring fire crackled in the hearth, and the scent of beeswax blended with the aroma of old books. The room was elegantly appointed, with oak wainscoting, gilded pier glasses, and the usual assemblage of aging portraits.
“You have a sizable collection,” Max said. “You must be very proud of your library.” What would Antonia make of his lordship’s literary selections?
A young woman rose from a reading chair turned toward the hearth. “Uncle, good evening.”
She was pretty in a pale, blond way, and her gaze said she knew she was pretty. She also very likely knew that standing immediately before the fire in a silk gown emphasized her endowments.
“My niece,” Hamblin said, clearing his throat. “Miss Jessica Huntly, may I make known to you the honorable Mr. Maximus Haddonfield.”
Max bowed, though the form of address bothered him. As an earl’s son, on formal occasions he could be announced as an honorable. This occasion was far from formal.
“Mr. Haddonfield, a pleasure.” Miss Huntly curtsied, tipping forward enough to display her cleavage.
“You indulging in one of them dreadful novels, Jess?” Hamblin asked.
“Poetry,” she said. “Mr. Haddonfield, do you enjoy poetry?”
“I do, particularly the pastoral variety.” Max did not, however, enjoy being waylaid by design. Miss Huntly looked familiar, and she brought to mind a snippet of gossip Max had heard in the men’s retiring room the previous night. “What has caught your fancy this evening?”
She slanted him a glance. “I prefer French verse at this hour of the day. The French know how to be both subtle and bold, don’t you agree?”
Oh, for God’s sake. “I am no expert on French poetry, Miss Huntly. My interests are largely scientific.”
Hamblin patted his niece’s shoulder. “Be a good girl and run along, Jess. Mind you avoid the company parlor. A lot of rogues and scalawags masquerading as men of science in there.”
He winked at his niece and she offered Max another curtsy, then withdrew, her book forgotten—if she’d been reading one.
“Dratted girl set her cap for Peter Nagle,” Hamblin said. “Nagle is a handsome devil, and he has possibilities, but that’s about all he has—and charm, of course. I could not humor Jess’s fancies where he’s concerned.”
Max did not know Mr. Peter Nagle, though he’d heard enough of his bloviations over dinner to conclude that Nagle was no engineer.
“Perhaps we should rejoin the company in the drawing room?” Max had a sneaking suspicion this chance meeting with Miss Huntly had been anything but chance, and the sooner he returned to the other guests, the better.
“Jess is a pretty little thing.”
Clearly, Susannah and Della had been matchmaking—again. “Your niece is lovely. I have no doubt she’ll make some fellow very happy.” And that fellow will not be me. Max started for the door.
“She has settlements, Haddonfield,” Hamblin said, a bit too loudly. “A younger son like you—a fourth legitimate son—could use a wife with some means. I knew your father, and he was a good soul, but not the soundest manager of finances.”
“But you know nothing about me,” Max said, which sat ill with him for Miss Huntly’s sake if not for his own. “You and I were introduced only last night, sir, and raising this topic with me now is very close to unseemly.”
“I know.” Hamblin looked around the library, a literary temple to wealth and comfort, his expression sheepish. “I’m afraid Jess has been a bit unseemly. I am hoping to marry her off before spring.”
Before another social Season, in other words. “I will wish you the joy of that venture, my lord, but women have means of thwarting schemes they do not participate in willingly.”
Hamblin led the way into the corridor. “She was willing to meet you, and contrary to your supposition, I know a great deal about you. One of your brothers is an earl, another—from the wrong side of the blanket—is some sort of nabob with a barony—most unusual that, two titles in one family. Two of your sisters married into titled families as did two of your brothers. Jess could do worse, as she well knows. I would make it worth your while, Haddonfield.”
This scheme was desperate only insofar as it had been attempted without any pretense of finesse. The basic approach—connections on one side, wealth on the other—was the sine qua non of the advantageous match.
And Max, somewhat to his surprise, wanted no part of it. Not now.
“Think about it,” Hamblin said, ushering Max into the guest parlor. “That’s all I ask.”
Max had better things to think about, such as how a librarian came to be riding around London in an elegant coach, and whether that librarian would be glad to see him when he brought Beelzebub around to join Lucifer in protecting the books from nonexistent mice.
“I saw our host drag you into the library.”
The voice belonged to Peter Nagle, who was, indeed, a good-looking blond fellow of medium height.
“Dragged, Mr. Nagle?”
“Last week it was Bletchford, an earl’s nephew. It’s plain enough that I’m out-gunned and out-maneuvered, but a prudent man has contingencies in place.”
Nagle had imbibed freely at dinner, and he held a glass of port now.
“Contingencies are always a sound idea. Tell me, how do you intend to power those rooftop fans you’d like to install in Mayfair?”
For most men with an interest in scientific matters, that question should have led to a twenty-minute discourse on failed prototypes, tangential applications of the successful design, and schedules by which the great innovation could be brought profitably to market.
Nagle grimaced at his drink. “I will power them with good old-fashioned human sacrifice.”
“Perhaps you’ve had enough port, Mr. Nagle.”
His gaze fixed on Hamblin, who was in earnest discussion with a knot of acolytes devoted to steam engines. “I will marry for money, Haddonfield. Nothing dishonorable about it. I’ve a second cousin barreling toward spinsterdom for all the usual reasons—poor thing is
prim and plain—and she’ll have me if I put a bit of effort into charming her. Women like charm.”
Antonia wasn’t swayed by charm. She appreciated scholarship for its own sake, as well as honesty, affection, common sense, passion. Gifts Max had to give in abundance.
And she was leagues away from prim and plain.
“In my experience,” Max said, “which is admittedly based on a very small sample, a bride likes to feel she’s valued for herself, not for her settlements. If you find her prim and plain, she’ll probably sense that.” Max’s sisters had intuition that no sane brother, much less a husband or suitor, would ever discount, and science had nothing to say to it.
“Antonia isn’t exactly attuned to subtleties,” Nagle replied, tossing back a quarter of his port. “She sent an earl packing last spring. Told him to keep his title and his family seat in Dorset and she’d keep her settlements. He wasn’t old, wasn’t homely, wasn’t lacking in manners. First overture she’d had in ages. She regrets that decision now, I’ll warrant. Somebody has to save her from herself.”
Max could see his Antonia doing that—telling a man to pike off, regardless of what the world thought of her decision. Perhaps the name Antonia imparted a certain fixity of purpose to the ladies fortunate enough to be so called.
“So you’ll save her by getting your hands on her funds?”
Nagle wiggled his eyebrows. “She’ll get her hands on me. Let’s hope I can rise to the occasion, so to speak.” He smiled a conspiratorial male smile, and Max felt a frisson of distaste on behalf of the prim and plain spinster facing such a mercenary union.
“Do I know this lady?”
More of the port went down Nagle’s gullet. “You might, being an earl’s son and all. Lady Antonia Mainwaring is long of tooth, short of temper, and no sort of dancer at all, but she’s to be my wife, once I complete a period of mandatory doting. I will fortify myself with dreams of all her lovely money and somehow contrive to go manfully to my fate. Wish me luck.”
“Lady Antonia Mainwaring?” Max’s own voice sounded far away, and the hubbub of other conversations coalesced into a dull, unpleasant roar.
Holiday Duet: Two Previously Published Regency Novellas Page 7
