“This is war,” said Hildur. “And I sink all of you.”
Bunny sighed. “Come now, ladies. The truth is, we’re silly to fight about the gowns. We’re of varying sizes. We may need to swap.”
“Let’s try them on now,” Athena said, and shimmied out of her garish scarlet gown.
Molly tried not to stare. Athena’s bare body was perfect, as sculpted as a goddess’s. Hildur and Joan disrobed, too, and they were equally voluptuous, although Bunny’s natural beauty outshone everyone’s. She also appeared just as comfortable as the others being naked in the drawing room.
Molly bit her lip. No wonder all her competitors had found protectors! They seemed born to be mistresses!
“Delilah?” Bunny pointed to the gold gown that had become Molly’s by default, still displayed on the chair.
“Oh, yes,” Molly said. But her heart beat faster. The curtains weren’t drawn, and the doors—
They most definitely weren’t closed, and not one minute before, two footmen had walked by!
Joan laughed. “Delilah? Why do you hesitate to disrobe?” She was standing beneath the gown of her choice and pulling it over her head. When her head popped out, she said, “You are the oddest lightskirt I’ve ever known.”
“There’s not a thing wrong with modesty,” Bunny said, shimmying into a new gown. “Some men prefer their mistresses that way.”
Molly tossed Bunny a grateful smile. “I’m perfectly amenable to disrobing,” she said, as if she peeled off her clothes in a gentleman’s drawing room all the time. “Once I even ran naked through a field.”
“Did you?” Bunny looked most impressed.
“Yes,” Molly lied, and casually made her way to a corner protected from prying eyes by a potted palm. She laid her new gold gown on a small table and began to remove her old one. “And a whole hunt party saw me,” she said through an armhole.
If she were going to lie, she might as well make it an exciting one!
Joan rolled her eyes. “Why do I have trouble believing you would run through a field naked?”
“She lies,” said Hildur.
Athena laughed. “Of course she’s fibbing. My guess is you’re trying to intimidate us, Delilah. But it won’t work.”
“I’m not trying to intimidate anyone,” Molly said, naked now behind her old gown, which she held in front of her like a shield.
“Is that so?” Joan strode over and ripped the garment out of her hands. “I dare you to run around the outside of the house and back here again. Now.”
“Yes,” said Athena. “If you don’t, you’ll look like a fool.”
“Wait.” Molly blinked hard at both of them and racked her brain for a reply. “You’re trying to intimidate me.”
“So?” Hildur chuckled. “You’re scared. You hide.”
Barely shielded by the potted palm, Molly shivered and—this being August—definitely not from the cold.
Bunny looked at her, concern in her eyes. And perhaps, Molly worried, even some questions.
“Something’s funny about you, Delilah,” Athena said, tilting her head to the side, her shrewd eyes assessing her.
Molly swallowed and fingered a leaf of the palm. She suddenly knew, with a surety that made her tremble inside, that she had no choice. If she wanted to have any sort of chance to win this contest, everyone must believe she was a mistress.
And she wanted to win this contest.
Badly.
London called—plays, new gowns, a husband who indulged her every whim because he loved her and thought she was more fascinating than a broken vase. Or a statue missing an arm and sometimes a head.
If she wanted all that, she must run around the house naked—
Now.
“Just watch me,” she said, and stepped out from behind the palm.
With not a stitch on.
She prayed fervently that the bachelors weren’t nearby and that the footmen were occupied somewhere in the house, and that her mother was busy in heaven playing whist or baking bread, and not observing her daughter at the moment.
“If I do this,” she said to the other mistresses, air swirling about her bare legs and torso, “no more fighting about the gowns, is that clear? Bunny will choose everyone’s. She designs gowns herself and she knows best which of Prinny’s creations would suit whom. If alterations must be made, she can do those, too, right, Bunny?”
Bunny nodded, and surprisingly, everyone else agreed to Molly’s terms, as well.
Molly strode past them, her head held high, out the drawing room doors—she heard the other women run to the windows—and through the main corridor to the front door. She opened the door as quietly as she could, hoping not to draw Finkle’s attention, and descended the three brick steps onto the gravel path.
The wind lofted her hair.
And then she ran. She felt like a deer as she sprinted round the house. She ran as fast as her feet could carry her. She even jumped over a squirrel.
And just as she came around the last corner of the house and had only a few seconds to go, she heard the sound of men talking and laughing, somewhere behind her, somewhere in the woods.
But she dared not look.
So she rushed through the open front door and back into the drawing room.
Her lungs were bursting. She took one, great breath through her nose and lowered herself slowly onto the settee. Then she crossed her legs and began to swing the top one slowly, like the pendulum of a clock.
“See?” she said.
All the women stared at her.
“She did it,” said Bunny with a grin. “Just as I knew she would.”
“Bitch,” muttered Joan.
Hildur’s shoulders sagged.
“Congratulations, Delilah.” Actress though she was, Athena couldn’t disguise the dismay in her eyes. “You’ve proven yourself.”
Molly inclined her head. “Thank you,” she said, her face straight. But inside she was grinning. Whooping, actually. And dancing.
She had rather proven herself, hadn’t she?
Chapter 18
Later that afternoon, Harry excused himself from the company to oversee a carpentry project at the stables, which left Molly a brief hour to accomplish her secret mission to put everyone in a terrible mood.
“I can’t wait to go to the lake,” she lied to Athena, Lord Maxwell, and Viscount Lumley. They were in the drawing room playing whist. “It sounds like a romantic place.”
She hoped she gave them a somewhat misty smile. Then she dropped a card on the table. Truth was, she was bored with the game. She’d rather be playing charades with the others, but she must act as if she enjoyed whist if she were to prevent the whole expedition to the lake.
She’d go on her own to find blackberries for the tart. She most certainly didn’t want to go with all these people and wind up naked in the water with them. She’d had enough of being naked when she’d run around the house on her own, thank you very much.
The most dramatic person in the room was Athena. So Molly would begin with her.
“Lord Maxwell,” Molly said, “what was the name of the character Athena played last at Drury Lane? I’m sorry it’s slipped my memory, but surely you were present at every show.”
Lord Maxwell’s eyes hinted at mild annoyance. “I’m in the midst of analyzing probability here,” he said, looking at his cards and the cards on the table, and thus avoiding the question.
Athena’s cheeks grew rosy as she stared at her own cards, and her lovely winged brows narrowed over her nose.
Molly blithely smiled at Viscount Lumley.
“‘Twas one of the hags, wasn’t it?” Lumley said to Athena. “In Macbeth.”
Athena grimaced. “I should have been Lady Macbeth. It was a tremendous oversight.”
“Oh, no,” said Lumley. “You made a most excellent hag.”
Molly bit her lip to keep from grinning. Lumley, bless his kind heart, wasn’t particularly adept at flattery.
“An astut
e observer would recall that Athena was the only witch the costumers couldn’t make appear ugly,” Maxwell said coolly. “And they didn’t give her the part of Lady Macbeth because the scoundrel of a director was bedding the actress who got the part.”
Athena gave him a glowing smile.
Oh, bother.
Molly must try again. She leaned toward Athena and put on her best “knowing mistress” look, but since she didn’t know what a “knowing mistress” actually looked like, she merely raised her eyebrows. “He brought you your favorite flowers, didn’t he?”
“I sent roses,” Lord Maxwell said. “Every night.”
Lumley grunted in approval.
“But they aren’t my favorite flower, Nicholas,” Athena said, looking down her nose as if she were Cleopatra on a barge on the Nile. “I prefer orchids.” She paused, blinked several times. “If you knew me better, you’d know that.”
“I know you better than you know yourself,” said Maxwell rather dangerously.
Athena sniffed.
Lumley dropped a card, and Maxwell scooped it up.
“Well, you didn’t bring me flowers in person,” Athena protested.
Maxwell held his cards close to his chest. “Certainly I did.” His eyes glinted with irritation. “On the one occasion I was there.”
“Yes, the one occasion.” Athena pursed her lips. “Otherwise, you sent them by courier. A toadlike man, too, with breath that smelled like onions.”
“London bores me,” Maxwell said coolly. “You already know that.”
Athena gave a short nod. But her eyes began to fill with tears.
Oh, my, thought Molly. Her plan was working splendidly. She might go to hell for it, but she’d go to hell for swimming naked, too, so what was the difference?
“I wish you had been there on closing night,” Athena whispered to Maxwell, her voice rising. “Or my birthday!”
Lumley almost gagged on his brandy.
“I should think the expensive baubles I provide you make up for my absence,” Maxwell replied, unruffled, “which is made easier, no doubt, by the presence of your many adoring fans, who rightly call you the best actress on the London stage.” He finished his own drink off with a flourish and dropped a card on the table. “Your turn, Lumley.”
Molly sensed by the look Athena threw her that the actress was confused. Should she be angered or complimented by Lord Maxwell’s remarks?
Molly decided to purse her mouth and slit her eyes to help Athena decide.
Athena huffed, then said shrilly, “What day is my birthday, Nicholas?”
Lord Maxwell sat like a stone, his eyes, half lidded, trained on his cards. Lumley grabbed at his cravat, watching the scene with what appeared to be horrified fascination.
“I believe you’ve won this trick.” Maxwell finally looked over at Athena, his expression inscrutable.
“I most certainly did,” Athena said, her chest heaving with emotion.
Molly stood up. “I—I’m feeling a trifle hot. Will you excuse me?”
Lumley and Maxwell stood to see her off.
Molly walked off, but not before she heard Athena say to Lord Maxwell, “I’m going to my room. Alone. And when I win Most Delectable Companion, if you expect me to be satisfied with a wretched tiara of paste”—the damning phrase hung in the air—“then you are a fool!”
Molly stopped breathing. She couldn’t believe it! Athena had brought up the tiara! Next thing she knew, Hildur was practically breathing fire at Captain Arrow, complaining about the tiara. And Lumley was ashen and cowed by a similar tirade from Joan, which she hissed in his ear for all the company to hear.
If Molly weren’t careful, she’d have a mistress mutiny on her hands!
She stood in the midst of the mayhem and said, “Would someone please tell me more about the trail leading over the hill to the lake? Is it a long walk?”
“I’m not going to the lake,” Joan said, and flounced from the room.
“Count me out, then,” said Lumley, with a lift of his glass, which he then drained.
“No lake.” Hildur stared daggers at Captain Arrow and then followed Joan.
“I don’t believe Athena will be enthused about going to the lake, either,” said Lord Maxwell, looking up at the ceiling, presumably toward Athena’s bedchamber.
“And I shan’t enjoy going to the lake unless all the women go,” Sir Richard said in that oily voice of his. Bunny sat next to him, quiet as a mouse.
Molly could tell Sir Richard was imagining all the women naked and frolicking together in the water.
The libertine.
But she must forget about Sir Richard and focus on saving what little virtue she had left.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “No lake at all?”
The men all shook their heads.
“That’s a shame.” Molly smiled. “But would anyone care for another brandy?”
Every man nodded.
Done, she thought. She could go later for the blackberries. Alone.
“Pour one for me, too,” she heard from the door. “A large one.”
She looked over. There was Harry, looking splendidly handsome, very angry, and only mildly thirsty.
“Hello, Harry,” she said, as pleasantly as she could.
“So, you’ve gotten the other mistresses riled up about that tiara, I see,” he murmured for her ears only.
She shrugged. “Not really. It’s just that a hundred pounds would be a better prize.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Perhaps you could talk to the other Impossible Bachelors about it.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Of course not,” she lied.
He eyed her. “I’ll look into it. Meanwhile, it’s a shame no one else wants to go to the lake. That means you and I shall have to collect those blackberries on our own. After I have a drink or two, of course.”
And then he smiled at her.
The rat.
Harry glanced back at Molly and suppressed a grin. She wore a large straw bonnet and swung a tin pail and looked quite happy, trudging up the trail—and no wonder. The men had agreed to add—oh, all right, had been coerced into adding—a hundred-pound purse to the winnings allotted the Most Delectable Companion.
She was basking in her triumph and perhaps enjoying the splendid weather until she saw him turn to look at her.
And her scowl returned.
Molly definitely didn’t want to go to the lake. Perhaps because he’d told her he swam in it naked on a regular basis and that all his guests were welcome to do the same.
She was doing her best to protect her virtue, which he found…endearing, considering she was already hopelessly compromised. Not that anyone else would ever find out. He’d get her back home safely before her father came home.
“Enjoying the views?” he asked her pleasantly.
“No,” she replied in that airy way she had when she was up to something. “I told you on the first day, I might have a crumbling spine. I should return to the house immediately. Soon I shall collapse, and you will have to carry me back.”
“Molly, exactly what is a crumbling spine?”
She pushed a branch out of her face. “Mrs. Turnbull has it. You know, the lady at church who walks with a cane.”
“You don’t walk with a cane.”
“That’s because I avoid hills at all costs.”
“Oh, dear,” he said. “Good thing this hill is not at all steep. It’s more of a bump, really, than a hill.”
“You’re very lucky it is, Harry. I dread thinking what would happen if it were a tall hill. Swimming is also strictly forbidden for someone in my condition.”
“Really? Could your crumbling spine dissolve in water?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Molly said. “I might land in a hole and be thrown off balance. That’s all.”
Harry bit his lip. “It’s a very flat lake bottom.”
“One can’t take such chances.”
“I’m ce
rtainly glad sack races are permitted with your condition.”
The rustling of leaves behind him stopped.
He turned, saw her vexed look, and couldn’t help laughing out loud. “Molly! I’m not going to swim naked! And I won’t make you, either. Is that what you’re worried about?”
Her brow smoothed out. “Are you sure, Harry?”
“Yes, you silly minx.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her up next to him. They stood nose to chin, she looking up at him with an elfin grin. “I would never make you get naked when you don’t want to.”
He didn’t mean for it to come out that way, all warm and gruff, but her nearness was affecting him, especially as they were surrounded by beautiful, leafy green trees and bushes and the occasional wildflower and a breeze that was softly blowing her skirt.
And privacy. Lots of privacy.
She didn’t say anything back. Her eyes were focused on his, and hers were warm and oh so brown.
The cat had gotten his tongue, as well. It would be so easy, he thought, to lean down and—
No. He really must cease and desist that nonsense. No one was here to see them getting affectionate with each other, so what good would it do for his cause?
Which was to remain a bachelor.
And then Fate, thankfully, intervened. Somehow Molly’s hair got caught in a twig.
“Oops,” she said, and tried to move. But couldn’t.
Harry gently removed the offending strands. “There.” He grinned. “Might as well let down the rest. It’s a hopeless mess.”
She did as she was asked, pocketing her pins. Her hair fell around her in glorious toffee brown splendor, and she shook it out. “Oh, that feels good,” she said with a sigh.
He was glad he was no longer standing close by. Because he was tempted to grab her and kiss her senseless.
There was a bounce in her step now, which he was heartened to see. “I’m so glad you Impossible Bachelors avoided a mistress mutiny, aren’t you?” she said, skipping ahead with her pail.
Her curvaceous backside was temptingly near. “Yes,” he said. “Amazing how it came out of nowhere, isn’t it? Good thing it blew over. We couldn’t have any of the ladies called up before Prinny’s court for rebellion.”
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