Much Ado About You

by Eloisa James

  “Here’s hoping you find a chaperone by Sunday,” Mayne said to Rafe. “I’ll have to elope with Tess if Clarice Maitland remains in the house long. The woman gives me hives.”

  “I’ll send a note to my aunt Flora,” Rafe said. “She lives in St. Albans. Perhaps she could be here as early as next week.”

  “So I have your blessing, then?” Mayne demanded. “I’m to start my courtship tomorrow?”

  “Unless you think it better to wait until Tess is out of her blacks,” Rafe said.

  “Can’t,” Mayne said briefly. “The Lichfield Royal Plate is in a month. If I’m to race Something Wanton—” He shrugged.

  “An unseemly reason to rush posthaste into marriage,” Lucius remarked.

  “Gentlemanly rubbish,” Mayne said, draining his glass. “You remind me of all the sanctimonious bastards wandering around London, forever hinting that I’m a loose fish and not daring to say so to my face.”

  “And aren’t you?” Lucius asked, his voice controlled.

  Mayne considered it. “No. I’m lecherous, and I sleep—have slept,” he corrected himself, “with a good many married women. But I’m not an ugly customer, although I’ll be damned as to why I have to defend myself to one of my oldest friends.”

  “Perhaps because you’re planning to marry a woman simply to get your hands on a horse and race it at the soonest opportunity,” Lucius said.

  “There’s nothing irregular in that. Marriage is nothing more than a trading of assets, and Tess will receive far more than a horse from me. And I might say, Lucius, that all this talk of civility from you is hard to bear.”

  Lucius’s jaw set. “Why so?”

  “You’re not exactly a slave to society yourself. You more than dabble in stocks; you damn near control the English markets. There are those who would think my irregular courtship is nothing to some of your irregular financial maneuvers. Lord knows, no one bred with a silver spoon is supposed to engage in anything resembling commerce.”

  “I gather you agree with my parents’ estimation of acceptable activities,” Lucius said. There was an ugly moment of silence, and then Mayne sighed.

  “I don’t give a damn what you do with your pennies, Lucius, and you know it as well as I do. And you’ve never given a damn whose bed I frequented either. So why are you suddenly making me feel like the devil’s spawn when all I’ve done is declare an intent to become respectable?”

  “At least you’ve both kept your figures,” Rafe said morosely, ignoring the rage that had sliced through the room in the last moments. “My closest friends are a lecher and a merchant, but at least they—”

  “A charming threesome, we,” Mayne broke in. “A drunkard, a lecher, and a merchant. The flowers of English society. At least we inherited our sins honestly…from our forefathers.”

  “My mother would not thank you for that reminder of my father’s birth,” Lucius said wryly. “She decided long ago that my head for figures must have come from his side of the family.”

  “Your mother’s a fool,” Mayne said, but without venom, turning up his glass for the last drops of brandy. “You’re the best of us, even if your father’s inheritance was his face and not a fortune. Ah, well, at least I’m reforming! First marriage, then children, and before you know it, I’ll take up my seat in Lord’s.”

  Rafe doubted that. But it was true that Tess could hardly hope for a better match in a worldly sense, which was precisely the sort of things guardians were supposed to pay attention to. “It can’t be a public wedding,” he said. “She’s still in mourning.”

  “Strictly special license,” Mayne said. “My uncle’s a bishop, y’know. He can give us the license and do the ceremony, right here. You have a chapel, don’t you?”

  “All right, but Tess has to agree. I’m not forcing her into a marriage that’s too hasty to feel comfortable.”

  Mayne gave him a faint smile. “That shouldn’t present a problem. God knows I’ve had enough experience making women love me. I’d give it two days at the most. A few compliments and some poetry should do it.” He said it without boastfulness, simply accepting of his own place in the world and his own skills.

  Rafe hesitated. “No improprieties until you’re married.” It came out more harshly than he intended.

  Mayne looked surprised. “I wouldn’t think of it. She’s to be my wife.”

  “I only said it because we haven’t a proper chaperone,” Rafe said, feeling rather embarrassed.

  “You know,” Mayne said, “my sister Griselda has been staying at Maidensrow, just a few miles down the road. Why don’t you ask her to play your chaperone? The life of a giddy widow leaves her plenty of time to put your wards through the season, and she’s always been fond of you, Rafe. She’ll give the girls a bit of town bronze, and it would make my wedding less of a nine days’ wonder.”

  “If you think she would be agreeable,” Rafe said, “that would be most helpful. Aunt Flora wouldn’t be any good at advising the girls in matters of dress. Since she never married, I’m not sure she’d be the best at that sort of business either.”

  “My sister excels in such matters,” Mayne said. “I think it must be a requirement for young widows that they spend most of their time matchmaking while vigorously resisting a return to the state themselves. I shall send a messenger over first thing in the morning. Griselda’s dress sense is only matched by her curiosity, so I would guess that she will join us as early as luncheon tomorrow. Perhaps I shall have all this courting finished by the time she arrives.”

  “In that case,” Rafe said, “I wish you luck.”

  “I’m off to bed,” Lucius said quietly.

  “Can you put off your return to London?” Mayne said, looking up at him. “I’ll like you to stand with me at the wedding. I swear I’ll have the business in hand by a week at the most.”

  Lucius hesitated, and then: “Of course.”

  Rafe followed Lucius to the door, but, seeing nothing in his shadowed eyes, closed the door behind him.

  Chapter

  9

  The next morning

  Tess had never been stupid about men, only surprised by them. It didn’t take her long to discover that the Earl of Mayne had decided to woo her. In fact, she knew the moment she looked up from the breakfast table, where she was buttering a crumpet and wondering when her sisters would appear, and the earl prowled in, bearing all the signs of a man on a quest.

  Her first thought, that he must be looking for Annabel, was dispelled by the way he lushly declared himself, “Enchanted—no, enchanté!—to see the exquisite Miss Essex,” making no mention of her sister whatsoever. After that, the only question was whether he wished for her hand—or something else.

  She finished her bite of crumpet as he swept himself into the chair next to her, looking fearfully elegant all in black with white at his throat. But he was looking at her. And that look—there was no mistaking it.

  “Good morning, sir,” she said, giving him a smile calculated to encourage. There was no need to be abrasive until she learned his objective. Lord knows, she had plenty of practice rebuffing horse-mad Scots who thought a penniless viscount’s daughter would trade her respectability for a few fine gowns.

  “Miss Essex,” he said. And even if she hadn’t already cottoned to his intentions, the way he rolled the sound of her name—as if he owned her already—would have alerted her.

  Of course, there are suitors, and there are suitors. Some come with spots, and some come with earldoms, and one clearly doesn’t reject the latter candidates. Especially if their profiles were Romanesque and more than acceptable, and their chins neither weak nor receding. In short, there were no excuses for lack of courtesy, even if one did find the gentleman rather unsettling. Tess put down her crumpet and prepared to be courted.

  Mayne took his cue immediately. “You look even more exquisite in the morning than you did last night,” he told her, picking up her hand. His hair was a perfect tumble of curls; one must suppose that he wish
ed it to look that way.

  He seemed to take her silence as all the encouragement necessary. “I trust I don’t offend if I mention what beautiful eyes you have, Miss Essex. They are a truly extraordinary color of blue. One would expect a darker hue, but they are a stronger, clearer shade, the color of lapis lazuli, perhaps.”

  Tess was conscious of a strong wish to finish her breakfast. It was not that his compliments were without interest, but they didn’t seem to assuage her hunger. “You are too kind,” she said, extracting her hand and picking up her crumpet again. Now she thought of it, Annabel would not be pleased. Tess had the distinct impression that under her sister’s funning the previous night was a firm decision to marry the earl, who now showed every sign of wishing to marry the eldest Essex sister instead.

  The earl glanced at Brinkley, who was busying himself at the side table. “I realize that this is a most unconventional request, since we are unchaperoned—”

  Tess’s eyebrows rose involuntarily. Could it be that the earl was going to make his offer here and now? After all, if she didn’t have an excellent memory, she might well have forgotten his name altogether. Which is to say that they had the slimmest of acquaintances.

  But he was only asking her to accompany him on a walk in the gardens. They would be unchaperoned, since Lady Clarice never rose before noon. “We shall stay well within view of the house,” he assured her.

  Tess didn’t bother telling him that she and her sisters had spent their childhood walking about the estate just as they pleased; their governess (when they had one) could hardly chaperone four girls at once.

  “I’d be pleased to,” she said, realizing a second too late that her tone was lacking in a certain enthusiasm.

  “Unless you would rather stay inside the house. Rafe won’t rise for hours: he generally nurses his head in the mornings.” The earl had witch black eyes.

  “Why do you call him Rafe?” Tess asked. “I was under the impression that English gentlemen never used Christian names in reference to each other.”

  “Rafe won’t countenance being known as Holbrook,” Mayne replied. “He has only been the duke for five years, since his elder brother died.”

  “Oh,” Tess said, seeing immediately. “It’s as if he had to step into his brother’s name as well as his title.”

  Mayne nodded, but just as Tess began thinking that perhaps he wasn’t as brittle and fashionable as she would have guessed from his manners, he bent his head to her hand and kissed it again. The repetitive hand-kissing was giving her quite a sympathy with Josie’s churlish refusal to be kissed the previous afternoon. Thank goodness she hadn’t been working with the horses for a good year or so; at least her hand was sufficiently white and soft to warrant so many intimate touches.

  Sure enough, when he raised his head, the trace of sympathy she’d seen in his eyes when they were talking of the duke had vanished. Instead, he looked at her as if she were an exquisite cravat that he had quite decided to purchase. He must have been looking for a wife before they even arrived at the house, given his precipitous decision to court her. Could one imagine that the arrival of four marriageable misses had driven him to distraction, and he simply chose the eldest, without pausing to ascertain her suitability?

  “I find it is dangerous to spend time in your company, Miss Essex,” he said.

  “No doubt that is a disagreeable sensation,” Tess told him.

  He looked faintly surprised, but regrouped. “Not at all,” he assured her. “One feels, always, a kind of exquisite twinge in the presence of a woman of your beauty.”

  “A twinge?” Tess asked, raising an eyebrow. Really, he made her sound like a case of jaundice.

  The earl seemed to have realized that the conversation had gone astray. He pressed her hand and raised it to his lips again. “True beauty always brings a bit of sadness to the heart. One feels the same looking at the great marbles of Greece and paintings by the Italian masters.”

  “I haven’t had the pleasure.” Tess withdrew her hand. She was wishing rather desperately for the solitude of her own chamber. “I do believe that I have a touch of a headache,” she said, standing up. “I must postpone our walk, my lord.”

  Again, he surprised her. There was a flash of amusement in his eyes. He might be a rake, but at least he had a sense of humor.

  “May I bow, if I don’t kiss your hand in farewell?” he asked, and that was definitely laughter in his eyes. “I can certainly sympathize, Miss Essex. We English are outrageously overformal.”

  Apparently, he saw her as some sort of untutored country miss, shaken by kisses to her hand and likely to be thrown into a positive twitter by an elegant bow.

  He bowed. She watched. Then she let a deliberate sardonic edge creep into her voice. “How kind of you,” she said. “I learned so much from this brief encounter. I can only retreat to my room and study how to raise myself to the level of such elegant discourse.”

  Truly, she didn’t even care if he was left with his jaw hanging. He was too beautiful for his own good. Probably he was used to women throwing themselves at his head, the way Annabel had done the previous night.

  Well, perhaps he would be put off by her gaucheness and shift his attentions to Annabel. She turned and walked out.

  Left to his own devices, Garret Langham, Earl of Mayne, collapsed back into his seat and stared at the coddled eggs Brinkley had placed on his plate. Miss Essex didn’t like him much. She was remarkably beautiful, with deep chestnut hair and lips of deep rose that looked as if they were curved to smile, even when they compressed with a faint disapproval.

  The lady wasn’t pleased with his particular brand of civility. Not that he could blame her. Ten years of making himself beloved by every eligible young matron in London—and the only qualification for eligibility was a husband who looked able to hold his firearm at thirty paces—had polished his phrases to a high gleam. He was tired of them himself.

  For a moment he wondered whether such flummery simply didn’t work with unpolished girls from the Scottish countryside. But no. He had seduced matrons far younger than Miss Teresa Essex. Though not—he admitted rather reluctantly—more beautiful.

  Unbidden, the picture of an overly slender blond countess, her head a sleek cap of wispy locks, clothed in fabric so light that it floated around her body came to his head. He narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw. Countess Godwin had no interest in his company. He had made a fool of himself over her. Enough.

  He wrenched his thoughts back to his future wife. He had to marry. His sister told him that daily. He was all of thirty-six and in need of an heir. It all just seemed so…final. So tediously final. Yet Miss Essex was lovely. She was intelligent too, intelligent enough to be unimpressed by his practiced compliments.

  If their union was unlikely to be passionate, well, she came along with a horse named Something Wanton, a horse who had come close to winning the Ascot just the year before. At least he was assured of a passionate attachment to that horse.

  Who could want anything more?

  Chapter

  10

  Afternoon

  “A modiste will arrive just after nuncheon tomorrow,” Rafe said to Tess, catching her on her way up the stairs.

  “Oh, you needn’t,” she said, feeling a tinge of embarrassment. Of course he must have taken one look at their wretched wardrobes and realized they were in desperate straits.

  “Nonsense.” He looked up at her with a grin that made him look suddenly much younger. “You’re my new sister, remember? I can’t have my new sister dressed in bombazine. I can’t stand the stuff. It reminds me of the cook we had when I was growing up: a fearsome lady likely to employ her ladle on a young lad’s head.”

  “Ouch,” Tess said. She agreed about the bombazine, but it was humiliating to be penniless.

  “And you’re past the first three months of mourning,” the duke continued. “You needn’t wear unrelieved black. On quite another subject, Lady Clarice has inquired whether you and your
sisters wish to join her in an excursion to the Roman ruins at Silchester tomorrow morning. Miss Pythian-Adams will join us here until we find another chaperone. So if you wish to investigate the ruins, this would be an excellent opportunity.”

  The very idea of Lord Maitland’s cultured fiancée was disheartening, but Tess knew that Imogen would insist on attendance in the off-chance that Draven Maitland would accompany the party. “That would be very kind of Lady Clarice,” she said, with just the tiniest wrinkle of her nose.

  “I saw that,” Rafe said, putting a finger on her nose. “Lady Clarice would say that you exhibit a deplorable lack of tutoring.”

  “Lady Clarice was quite right in ascertaining that,” Tess confessed. “I’m afraid none of us is very adept in the kind of comportment taught by governesses.”

  “Then we shall discuss Miss Pythian-Adams at length tomorrow evening, after you’ve met her,” Rafe told her, lowering his voice a trifle. “I assure you that if you find traits which you desperately wish to emulate, I shall hire the appropriate tutors without delay.”

  “That sounds like a very carefully worded insult. To her or to me, I cannot be sure,” Tess observed, turning down the corridor toward her chamber. “I shall be careful, Master Guardian, not to irritate you too much.”

  He laughed.

  Annabel was waiting for her. “He’s going to offer for you, isn’t he?” she demanded as Tess closed the door.

  “Who?”

  “The duke, of course.”

  “No, he isn’t,” Tess said, pulling off her worn gloves carefully so that she wouldn’t rip them.

  “Oh pooh,” Annabel said, falling onto a chair by the fire. “The two of you looked as cozy as two bugs in a rug last night at supper, and I heard him laughing just now.”

  “He claims to be uninterested in marriage,” Tess observed, “and I must say, I see no such inclinations on his part.”

  “Thank goodness for the earl,” Annabel said, wiggling her toes before the fire. “I had fancied being Her Grace, but I am happy enough with countess.”