by Diana Quincy
Tori carried over the tea tray she’d brought up. She looked divine in an azure riding costume that matched her striking eyes.
“At least try some tea and toast. You haven’t eaten anything since you cast your accounts. You must have something.” Tori set the tray on the bed and settled her hips next to it to pour the tea. She added a huge quantity of sugar. “Sweet with plenty of mint, just as you prefer.”
Leela drank. At least the tea rinsed the terrible taste from her mouth. The shay’s warmth had a soothing effect on her stomach. She took a tentative nibble of toast.
Tori followed her movements as closely as a mother bird watches her baby. “A little more.”
“Someone is Miss Bossy,” Leela said dryly. But she did as Tori asked and took another tiny bite.
Tori shifted restlessly on the bed. “Oh, Leela, I cannot wait for you to feel better so that you can become acquainted with Huntington.”
Leela coughed, the toast clogging her throat. The very last thing she desired was to spend any time with Elliot. The unwelcome image of the man, naked and splendid, his muscled form glistening in the candlelight, his manhood jutting proudly, flashed in her mind. To Leela’s mortification, her entire body felt like it was on fire.
Concern shadowed Tori’s eyes. “You’re flushed again.” She reached over to lay a cool hand against Leela’s hot cheek. “We should have known you were taking ill yesterday when you slept for hours after your arrival. You had a fever then, too.”
Leela carefully set her cup on the tray. “Have you spent much time with the duke?”
“Not as much as I should like to. We have not been alone, of course.” Tori’s cheeks were flushed and shiny. “But I suppose there shall be plenty of time for that after we are wed.”
Regret and despair swamped Leela anew. If only she hadn’t agreed to attend Devon’s house party. If she hadn’t met Elliot on the road, she’d be properly sharing in Tori’s happiness and excitement.
“It is important that you get to know the duke,” Leela said carefully, thinking of how easily the man had leaped into bed with a stranger while on his way to visit the woman he intended to wed. “You must make certain that he is honorable and that the two of you suit.”
“I thought we would have an opportunity to speak more once he visited us here at Lambert Hall. But His Grace has spent most of his time since arriving in the library with Mr. Foster.”
“Who is Mr. Foster?”
“The duke’s secretary.”
“Huntington brought his secretary to the house party?” Elliot couldn’t leave work behind long enough to court Tori as she deserved? Not surprising.
At the Black Swan, Leela felt mild sympathy for his future bride. But now that she knew who the bride in question was, she wanted to stomp on Elliot’s stomach while wearing her heaviest walking boots.
That was one of Citi’s favorite utterances. The harshness of some Arabic expressions, learned first from her grandmother during Citi’s summers at Highfield, and then more extensively from her Al-Bireh cousins, had taken Leela aback at first. But she’d come to appreciate the colorful Arabic expressions. They might sound extreme, yet the words also had a tongue-in-cheek humor to them. And in the case of Elliot Townsend, the blasted Duke of Huntington, this one seemed particularly apt.
“Yes, his secretary is here,” Tori said. “They worked after supper last night and all of this morning. Mr. Foster arrived a day before His Grace. I met him when I went to the library to put away some books. Mr. Foster is a very pleasant man. A bit shy like me as well as an avid reader. It will be nice to see a friendly face once I move into Weston House.”
“Weston House?”
“Drink more of your tea,” Tori ordered before answering. “Weston House is the ducal residence in Mayfair on St. James Place. Can you imagine me being mistress of such a grand home and having to tell everyone there what to do?”
“You are doing a fine job ordering me around.” She inhaled, then exhaled, long and slow. But her mind raced.
Nice enough. That’s what Elliot had said about Tori. Very agreeable. Bitterness rose in Leela’s throat when she recalled how dispassionately the duke had referred to his soon-to-be betrothed. Tori wasn’t merely nice enough and very agreeable. She was so much more. Wonderful and beautiful and thoughtful and lively and intelligent and amusing. How could Elliot be so dismissive of a prize like Tori? He didn’t deserve her.
“Promise me,” she said to Tori, “that you will try to find opportunities to spend time with Huntington. Ask Edgar to facilitate that for you. It’s important to see if the two of you suit.”
“I certainly cannot hope to do better than a duke!” Tori exclaimed. “All of the other debutantes are envious of me. Any of them would have accepted had the Duke of Huntington offered for them.”
“I understand that you are flattered by his attentions,” she said gently, “but deciding whom to wed requires very careful consideration. There is no more important decision a woman can make in her life. Your choice of a mate ultimately determines whether you will be happy and content.”
“You of all people know I become a bumbling fool when in the presence of strangers, especially handsome young gentlemen. Edgar says it’s a miracle that Huntington is interested in me.”
“Don’t listen to him. Edgar can be a suttle.”
Tori’s eyes twinkled. “Dare I ask what that means?”
“An unfilled bucket. Empty-headed. Someone not exactly known for his intelligence.”
Tori laughed. “Edgar is not an empty bucket. I appreciate that he is attempting to be realistic.”
“The reality is that you are an amazing person.”
“Undoubtedly,” Tori teased. Lowering her chin, she fluttered her lashes, purposely exaggerating the affectation. “But how can any young gentleman comprehend the full impact of my wonderfulness when all I do is stammer and blush in his presence like a . . . What did you call it? A suttle.”
“Stop it. You are anything but empty-headed and you know it. You shouldn’t feel that you have to settle.”
“How can wedding a duke ever be considered settling?” Tori shook her head. “True, it is not a love match, but I do feel Hunt is my destiny. You have always said fate will send the right man to me.”
Leela did believe in fate, a concept prevalent among her mother’s people. One had free choice, of course, but a person’s destiny could not be denied. Her skin prickled. What if Huntington really was Tori’s naseeb—her fated husband? She couldn’t fathom it. Surely qismat could not be so cruel.
“His Grace must care for me at least a little,” Tori added, “or he would not have offered for me.”
Leela reached for the young woman’s hand. “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
“Maybe both.”
“All I ask is that you try to look beyond the title to the man. A title won’t keep you company, or hold you, or laugh with you. You belong with a man who can love you deeply and appreciate what a true gem you are.” A man who can think of no woman but you, who would never dally with a stranger.
“Oh, I do agree! A man would only offer for a young lady he holds in the highest regard, isn’t that so?”
“I suppose.” Leela could hardly reveal Elliot’s ambivalence toward the match, or how he’d demonstrated his irresoluteness by falling into bed with the first available woman outside of London. What sort of man behaved in such a reprehensible manner? Leela wasn’t proud of her own actions, but at least she was a widow with no attachments. Unlike Elliot.
“This afternoon, Edgar is taking the guests for a ride down the canal. We shall be out most of the day. Perhaps if you rest today, you’ll be well enough to attend the breakfast party tomorrow,” Tori said. “I want nothing more than for two of the most important people in the world to me to become acquainted with each other.”
Under the blankets, Leela’s toes curled. Everything in her wanted to flee, to take her beloved Tori somewhere safe, far away from the Duke of
Huntington who, through a horrible chance of fate, had the power to bring their world crashing down around them.
“I will try,” she finally said.
“Blast it all!” Edgar burst into Leela’s bedchamber later that evening after a cursory knock at her door. “For once in your life, do something for someone other than yourself.”
Clad in a faded pink dressing gown worn over her comfortable baggy trousers that tapered at the ankle, Leela suppressed a groan. She’d finally managed to drag herself out of bed to work on the third volume of her book. Not that she’d accomplished much. The inside of her head felt like an ancient rusty church bell was clanging between her ears. She was certainly in no condition to spar with her late husband’s heir.
“You might try waiting to enter until you are invited.” Seated at a dainty mahogany escritoire inlaid with gold, she casually drew several old letters over her manuscript to conceal it. “As any gentleman should.”
“As if I need lessons in decorum from you. Do not forget that this is now my house and I will do as I please.”
“How could I forget? You certainly remind me often enough.”
Edgar’s pale skin drew taut over aristocratic cheekbones. His handsome features, the downward slant of sky-blue eyes, the tight press of his lips, were so reminiscent of his father’s that it plucked at Leela’s chest. Unfortunately, the similarities between father and son ended there. Douglas had always been kind to her. He had certainly never treated her with cold disdain as his son did now.
“You cannot hide away in this bedchamber forever.”
“I am not hiding. You and your guests were out on the canal all afternoon.” Edgar enjoyed taking guests for outings on the narrow waterways. Leela had never been.
“Be that as it may, your absence was noted.” His gaze lingered on the scattered papers before her. “What the devil are you doing in here anyway?”
She ignored the question. No one knew she’d authored the metropolis’s most talked about travel memoir, and she certainly wasn’t going to enlighten Edgar. He’d have an apoplexy.
“And what in Hades are you wearing?” He stared at her shirwal in disbelief, his voice rising. “Are my eyes deceiving me? Are those trousers? Are you wearing trousers? Are you determined to disgrace us all by dressing so indecently?”
“By wearing shirwal in the privacy of my own bedchamber? Yes,” she added in a voice rich with sarcasm, “I am courting scandal and ruin. You have found me out.”
“This is no laughing matter. I insist that you make yourself decent and rejoin the house party.” Edgar ambled away from her, surveying the chamber. He paused at the chest of drawers at Leela’s bedside. “I shall expect to see you at the breakfast party tomorrow afternoon.”
She twisted in her chair to track his progress. “I’ve already promised Tori that I will attend.”
He reached for the travelogue by her bed and casually flipped through its pages. “The maids say you spent all afternoon writing letter after letter. To whom could you possibly be writing so many letters?”
“I met many people during my travels.” Tension stretched across the back of her shoulders as he leafed through Travels in Arabia. She usually kept her book safely tucked out of sight. But she’d needed to look something up that was pertinent to the third volume she was currently working on.
“And yet you haven’t sent a single letter. I haven’t franked any for you.”
“I will send them when I am ready.”
“You are, for better or worse, the Countess of Devon and will remain so until I take a wife, which cannot come soon enough. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a suitable bride.” To her relief, he set the book down. “The duke has inquired about your health. It is imperative that you give every appearance of respectability at the breakfast party.”
Her stomach roiled. “Huntington asked after me?”
“Yes, he expressed concern for your well-being.”
Maleun. That damned man. The last thing that donkey should do is reveal that he noted her absence.
“Whatever you do, make no mention of your travels.” Edgar paused to examine the dressing table littered with Leela’s personal effects. His interested gaze took in her combs, hairpins, lotions and perfume. “Try not to draw attention to the fact that you traveled, unchaperoned, in heathen lands.”
“I was accompanied by a dragoman.”
“A native.” His lips twisted. “That is hardly the same as taking an appropriate traveling companion.”
Naturally, Edgar’s idea of a suitable chaperone was a properly pale English matron of a certain age. “Need I remind you that I am a widow? I do not require a chaperone.”
“Ah yes, widows are allowed certain liberties.” His probing gaze moved over her in a way that caused her scalp to tingle. Leela was accustomed to sparring with Edgar. They’d always squabbled like warring siblings, but what she detected in his gaze now both surprised and unsettled her.
The gleam in his eyes seemed almost . . . Predatory. She clasped the neckline of her voluminous gown more tightly closed at her throat. “If that is all—”
Edgar flushed and averted his gaze. “Victoria has not been a success on the marriage mart. She’s too book-mad and people-shy to attract suitors suitable to her rank.” He picked up her ornate silver hand mirror, a gift from Douglas, and examined his teeth in its reflection. Edgar had good teeth. “It’s a miracle that Huntington wants her.”
Leela watched Edgar set her mirror down. “The duke is fortunate to have her.”
“On that we might agree. However, society does not concur. And it does not help that Victoria is so in awe of the duke that she can barely string two words together in his presence.” He moved to the hand-painted green wardrobe containing her clothing, strolling about like a dog looking to mark its territory. “I intend to host a ball immediately upon our return to London where Victoria’s betrothal to the Duke of Huntington will be officially announced.”
“Isn’t that premature? Tori barely knows the man.”
“No, it is not premature.” He mimicked her tone. “They shall have plenty of time to become acquainted after they are wed.”
The wardrobe door was slightly ajar. Edgar peered at Leela’s gowns hanging inside. “In the meantime, you and I must put aside our differences and present a united familial front for Victoria’s sake. No one cares to marry into a complicated family, particularly not a man like Huntington, who has family problems of his own to contend with.”
“He does?” Leela straightened. “Like what? Tori has a right to know what sort of life she will be agreeing to.”
“The previous duke, Huntington’s elder brother, was a reckless rake and a gambler. That sort of behavior is known to run in the family. But it appears to skip a generation. The sober, sedate generations clean up the messes created by the wild generations.”
“And who currently rules this generation? The rakes or the repentants?”
“History suggests this is the ne’er-do-well generation. However, Huntington is anything but impulsive or irresponsible. He is a model of decorum, civility and discretion. His name has never been touched by scandal.”
“He sounds like a complete bore.” And nothing like the man she’d spent the night with.
“How fortunate it is for all of us that you are not the one marrying him.”
“Tori should be loved and adored by her husband.”
“I don’t know what heathen ideas you picked up in the desert, nor do I care to know, but kindly do not taint Victoria with these ridiculous notions.”
“Yes, only savages believe in love matches.”
“Are you suggesting that your marriage to my father, a man thirty years your senior, was a love match?”
“That is different.”
“How so? You married a title. Victoria is doing the same.”
“I married my father’s oldest friend to ease Papa’s worries for my future as he lay dying.” It had been a horrible time. Doctors could not pinpo
int the cause but Leela suspected a broken heart. The stomach ailment that slowly drained the life out of Lord Brandon materialized less than a year after Mama succumbed to influenza.
As he lay dying, Papa had fretted over Leela’s future. It would not be easy for a young woman of common foreign blood to marry well, even if she was the daughter of a marquess. “Papa worried that unsavory fortune hunters would take advantage of me. He pleaded with Douglas to give me the protection of his name.”
“And you agreed. What a dutiful daughter you are,” Edgar said. “How fortunate for you that Father happened to be an earl. Being a countess elevated you.”
“My father was a marquess,” she shot back.
“Ah, yes.” He grimaced. “The Mad Marquess. Everyone thought Brandon was a bedlamite for wedding the granddaughter of a common foreign merchant. My sister is far cleverer than you. She will wed a young and vigorous duke, not a former rake who is ready to be put out to pasture.”
Her initial reaction was to tell Edgar to go soak himself in a pile of excrement for a thousand years. Another of the colorfully apt insults she’d learned, this time from her Arab cousins in Al-Bireh. Naturally, they’d found it amusing to teach her all of the indecent words and sayings first, before she’d learned to converse in Arabic. “How can you speak of your father with such a lack of respect?”
Edgar pushed the wardrobe door open wider to inspect its contents. “My father had my respect until he brought you home to fill my mother’s place. Imagine, making a girl of your . . . associations . . . the Countess of Devon. I was certain he’d lost his mind.”
Leela rose and strode over to slam her wardrobe door shut. “Stay out of my things. And leave my chamber. This conversation is over.”
“That is not for you to decide. This is my house. You are here at my forbearance.”
“I am also here to put on a respectable display for your ducal guest,” Leela said. “However, I am seconds away from walking out that door in these trousers for all of your guests to see, particularly your exalted duke.”
