Sweet Summer Kisses

by Erin Knightley

  She removed her glove so that he could place the ring on her finger. A perfect fit.

  “The family betrothal ring,” he explained as he held her hand up to the light of the lamp post. “It looks well on you, don’t you think?”

  “It’s beautiful.”She lifted her head to meet his kiss, and then… nothing happened. A door slammed and she opened her eyes to glimpse the approach of a servant. A lady’s maid, by her appearance, but it was the distress on her face that alarmed Rebecca.

  “Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but your mother the duchess is ill and I was sent to fetch ye.”

  Rebecca gasped. Miles froze to attention. “Where is she?”

  “The ladies’ withdrawing room.”

  Miles moved as if to leave, and then turned an apologetic face to Rebecca. “I’m sorry. I must go…”

  “Of course you must. We must.”

  She took his arm and they hurried past all the astounded faces of the card-players toward the small anteroom that served as the ladies’ sanctuary. Miles entered the females’ domain without hesitation, rushing toward the divan where his mother lay, looking old and tired.

  “Mother!” He turned to Rebecca’s mother. “Has the doctor been called?”

  Mrs. MacPherson wrung her hands. “I tried, but she refused to allow it. Said it is nothing serious, that it happens now and again and there’s nothing to be done.”

  The duchess shook her head sadly. “So… sorry. Didn’t mean to… spoil… special night.”

  Miles drew Rebecca forward, his arm clasping her to his side. She blushed and held out her hand to display the ring.

  “You need not trouble yourself on our account, Your Grace. The deed is done and all that is required is for you to recover your strength so that you may take a part in planning the wedding.”

  Miles’s mother beamed and held out her arms. “Welcome to the family. You’ll be… fine wife. So happy.”

  Rebecca’s mother squealed with excitement and reached up to embrace Miles. “You have made us both so happy. Ella—that is, Lady Aylesbury and I—perceived from the first that you two are perfect for each other, but we worried that there might not be time for the two of you to realize it.”

  She kissed him on the cheek and pushed him toward his mother while she embraced her own daughter.

  “Dear Rebecca,” she said with teary eyes, “To think I spent all these years trying to put you in the way of all manner of gentlemen and you managed to attach a duke all on your own!” She grasped her daughter’s hand and admired the ring. “I can’t imagine what your sisters will do when we tell them on Saturday. Their little sister—a duchess!”

  Rebecca froze. A duchess! Good heavens! She was really going to become a duchess! How was that possible? She swayed on her feet and Miles caught her just in time.

  “Two ladies down,” he said. “Far too much excitement for one night.” He glanced at a maid nearby. “Have someone call for the carriage.”

  Chapter 7

  Bloody hell! She doesn’t know about Arabella!

  Miles’s hands clenched into fists immediately upon hearing Mrs. MacPherson’s delight at the thought of relating the happy news to Rebecca’s sisters. Rebecca needed to hear it from him first. He could easily imagine that Arabella’s version would not show his own character to advantage.

  But then his betrothed showed signs of over-excitement, and he was required to turn his attention to seeing the women safely home.

  Tomorrow, he told himself, he would call on Rebecca and relate the entire sordid tale and apologize profusely for not doing so previously. What a dolt he was to have managed things in such a backward manner!

  But the next morning he spent waiting impatiently for the doctor, who didn’t show himself until after three o’clock—delayed by a problematic delivery which ended fortunately for both mother and babe—and his own hastily-scrawled note to Rebecca was answered by a sweet note inviting him for dinner. Any earlier, she warned, and he would find himself competing for attention with a good many society matrons who were eager to offer congratulations and discover everything they could about that scandalous rendezvous in the garden at the Assembly Rooms.

  Miles pounded a fist on the desk in front of him. What if she took it in her head to believe that it was his intention to keep it from her until it was too late for her withdraw? Even worse, what if she suspected that his wish to marry her came from the desire to repay her sister for her dastardly plot? It wasn’t true, of course. It was years ago, and he’d forgotten all about it until meeting Rebecca had brought it all back. Arabella was older—as they all were—and happily married and no doubt regretted what she had done. Surely she would not wish to spoil Rebecca’s happiness by rehashing old grievances.

  The dinner conversation at Queen Square Number 42 consisted of Mrs. MacPherson’s animated plans for a late September wedding… “provided Her Grace is in health and we can reserve St. George’s—our other daughters were both married there, you know” and weighing the potential suitability of the grounds at the MacPhersons’ mansion or the ducal townhouse, which “though large, might not be possessed of a garden sizable enough” for the wedding breakfast. She regretted that Town would be thin of its most exalted society members at that time of year, but was heartened by the remote possibility that the Prince Regent—by virtue of his close friendship with dear Alice’s husband—might grace the event with his presence.

  Across the table from him, Rebecca glowed with happiness, responding occasionally to her mother’s near-monologue while alternately smiling at him and regarding him with a baffled expression. As the meal neared its conclusion and her mother’s conversation took a brief hiatus so that she could enjoy her favorite dessert—a tasty lemon cream—Rebecca reached across the table to clasp his hand.

  “You wished to see me about something, did you not? Or so you indicated in your note,” she said in a low voice. “Perhaps Mother will allow us some time alone—preferably in the garden where we can get some fresh air.”

  But as soon as they repaired to the drawing room for some celebratory wine, Mrs. MacPherson resumed her monologues through two glasses of wine each, and by the time she declared her intention of retiring, Rebecca was slumped against him and drifting into unconsciousness.

  “Rebecca,” he said earnestly, once the older woman had left the room, “wake up. There is something I must discuss with you.”

  He gave her a gentle push away from him. She jerked her head up and looked at him apologetically. “So s-sorry. Wine has that effect on me. Shouldn’t have had that second glass at dinner.” She yawned. “What is it? I’m listening.”

  Miles’s eyes went heavenward. It was as though a Higher Power was determined to make it impossible for him to make his confession about his previous association with her sister. But he couldn’t delay it any longer. In view of the impending wedding, Mrs. MacPherson had moved up the date of their departure from Bath to allow for a two-day stay in London to make arrangements with the modiste for the wedding gown and trousseau. The household would be in complete disarray on the morrow as the packing-up of belongings commenced, and they were to leave Bath the next day. And on Saturday when they arrived in Kent at Headley’s estate, the cat would indeed be let out of the bag.

  “Coffee,” he called to the maid hovering in the doorway. “Miss MacPherson could use some strong coffee, if you would be so kind.”

  By the time the coffee arrived, Rebecca had begun to slump in her chair again, but she jerked up immediately when he handed her the cup.

  “Coffee keeps me awake at night,” she confided after the first sip.

  Miles doubted that any amount of coffee would impede her sleep that night. If only he could have her attention for a half-hour. Surely he could explain the situation to her satisfaction in that amount of time.

  “It’s about your sisters. I knew them, you see. In London, years ago.”

  She nodded. “Yes. London loved them.” She tilted her head to the side. “You knew
them?”

  “I did. We attended some of the same social events, and it was impossible not to notice them. The Golden Twins were talked about everywhere.”

  “My hair is not golden. Brown. Do you mind, Miles? That I’m not as at-tractive as my sisters?”

  Miles shook his head in defeat. It wasn’t going to happen. He took the cup away from her and set it down on the table in front of them.

  “Your brown hair is beautiful,” he said as he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “You are beautiful. If you recall anything from this conversation tomorrow, I hope you will remember that in my eyes you have more beauty than ten—no twenty—pairs of Golden Twins.”

  Rebecca’s eyes widened. “Goodness! I don’t think there are that many. Do you?”

  Miles called for the maid.

  “Sleep well, my foxed little bride. I hope you are not afflicted with a headache in the morning.”

  “I never have headaches,” she boasted sleepily as the maid drew her away.

  “Good night,” he said to the empty room.

  ~*~

  July 28, 1817

  Queen Square, No. 42

  Bath, Somerset

  It was scarcely ten o’clock when the doorbell rang at the MacPhersons’ rented home.

  “Dear me!” exclaimed the housekeeper, who was midway up the stairs balancing a tray in her arms. “Who could possibly be calling at such an hour! Today, of all days! Mary!”

  A younger woman with a dust mop hurried to the door. “I’ll get the door, mum.”

  “Send whoever it is away, if you can. The ladies aren’t taking calls today.” She could be heard mumbling about tenants who take it into their heads to depart a place with scarcely an hour’s notice as she disappeared into the upper corridor.

  “Not even the Regent ‘imself,” muttered Mary as she turned the latch and stared.

  It wasn’t the Regent, but it was a duke, the very one who had come for dinner the previous night. Her mistress’s new fiancé. His appearance was decidedly less refined, though, his clothing wrinkled as it was and his face looking tired and care-worn. He looked as though he hadn’t been to bed at all—hadn’t even changed! His valet should be sacked, Mary thought, wondering if she could recommend her cousin Martin for the position.

  “Good morning, Your Grace,” she greeted him with a curtsey. “The ladies aren’t available today. Packing for London,” she added unnecessarily.

  His Grace nodded. “Yes, I know that. I came to deliver a letter—an extremely important letter—to Miss MacPherson. She must see it before she leaves. Please deliver it to her immediately and tell her—tell her—give her my apologies for not talking to her about it sooner—in person. Assure her that I shall follow her to Kent as soon as may be, so the matter may be settled and we shan’t be troubled by it again.”

  Mary’s mouth dropped. Could she remember all that?

  The duke ran his hands through his hair. “Just give it to her, if you please. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mary curtseyed and closed the door, leaving the duke on the doorstep.

  I’d best deliver this now before I forget, she told herself as she rested the dust mop against the wall and headed upstairs. Before she’d reached the halfway point, the housekeeper came running.

  “Oh Mary, there you are! James has dropped a trunk on the mistress’s toe and she is in dreadful pain! And Miss Rebecca is suffering from a raging headache—stop whatever you are doing and have Cook send up some willow bark tea. And perhaps some of that healing salve—oh dear, I didn’t check for blood! I wonder if I should call a doctor! Well, what are you waiting for, girl! Be on your way!”

  Mary wheeled around and dashed to the kitchen. In all the confusion, the duke’s letter dropped to the floor and was completely forgotten until later that evening, when the kitchen maid found it while sweeping the floor. Cook told her it was addressed to Miss Rebecca, but considering that both ladies had retired for the night and planned to leave quite early the next morning, she suggested that the letter be slipped into one of the numerous trunks and boxes piled in the foyer so that it would not be left behind.

  ~*~

  And that’s how the letter poor Miles toiled over in the dead of night wound up in the bandbox containing Mrs. MacPherson’s collection of personal beauty enhancements, remaining there for the next four days until they had reached their destination in Kent and Beaton finally got around to unpacking it.

  Chapter 8

  1 August 1817

  Headley Hall

  Rochester, Kent

  “Headley Hall, madam,” the coachman announced as he opened the coach door and pulled down the steps.

  Rebecca lent her mother an arm as she moved to descend the coach. “A footman is coming, and oh, look, Alice is here! I thought she meant to stay in Brighton with Strathmore until the end of the month!”

  The MacPherson twins were so alike that even some of their close relatives could not discern the difference, but to Rebecca, the differences were obvious, and she didn’t need to glimpse the mole on Alice’s upper arm that Arabella did not have. Alice was Alice and Arabella was Arabella, and anyone who had grown up seeing them every day simply knew which twin was which. Even if she could not, it was obvious that the woman approaching them was not heavily pregnant, as her twin surely must be, so close to her delivery date.

  Rebecca stumbled out of the coach after her mother and ran to greet her sister.

  “Dear Alice! How wonderful to see you again! You look fabulous as always. And how are Sarah and little David? Did you bring them with you?”

  Alice hugged her and assured her the children were well and looking forward to seeing their Aunt Rebecca.

  Rebecca frowned. “Oh, if only I had known they would be here I would have brought them some gifts from Bath—” and then she giggled. “Well, perhaps not. I didn’t think of bringing gifts for Tony or Georgie either, and I knew they would be here.”

  Alice shook her head. “Dear Rebecca, who can possibly blame you for such a thing when you were in the process of becoming engaged—to a duke, no less! When Mama wrote me from Bath I could scarcely believe it—you had only just met Aylesbury, had you not?”

  “It did happen rather quickly,” Rebecca admitted. “I’m not sure I can believe it myself.”

  Frankly, in the few days since leaving Bath—and Miles—Rebecca had begun to have doubts that she might have dreamed the entire courtship. If so, her mother had had the same dream, because she had talked about it non-stop ever since to anyone who would listen. “My future son-in-law, the Duke of Aylesbury” was a phrase that popped up in nearly every conversation.

  Alice hooked her arm around Rebecca’s shoulders and accompanied her to the door. “Tell me, little sister, how did you manage to get the man to speak to you after what we did to him all those years ago? I shouldn’t have thought he would give the time of day to a MacPherson after that escapade.”

  “Well, I fell into his lap…” Rebecca began, until the full meaning of her sister’s remark reached her mind, whereupon she froze and returned a blank stare.

  “Escapade?” she said slowly. “What escapade?”

  Alice gasped. “He didn’t tell you?”

  Rebecca paled. Miles hadn’t spoken of her sisters, had he? Except that he’d heard of them. But wait… hadn’t he been trying to say something about them the night before, when she’d had so much trouble staying awake?

  Alice frowned. “He didn’t, did he? Oh dear. That could be a problem.”

  “A problem?”

  Alice winced. “Well, you see, there was a bit of unpleasantness—Arabella had a notion to become a duchess—oh dear, do come in and we shall reveal all. It was all youthful foolishness, of course—on our part, and not the duke’s. You don’t suppose he’s the type to hold grudges, do you?”

  Rebecca could feel her heart beating in her ears. Was her happy bubble about to burst?

  ~*~

  Humiliation was an emo
tion Rebecca knew well—it had been her constant companion nearly all of her life, after all—but the account she heard from her sisters of their appalling attempt to ambush Miles into marriage made her feel so humiliated to be connected with them that she shivered uncontrollably whenever she thought of it. But even that was nothing compared to the suspicion that Miles’s proposal—indeed, the entire courtship—stemmed from a desire to exact revenge on her elder sisters.

  If true, Rebecca’s heart would be truly and irrevocably broken.

  From what she’d been able to glean from her sisters’ somewhat garbled accounts, Arabella, piqued that all her efforts to attract the young heir to a dukedom had ended in failure, had devised a scheme to trap him into marriage. She was to lure him into a darkened alcove and try to seduce him into taking liberties. At that point, Alice was to stroll by with one of the ton’s worst gossips, who would then send news of the scandal far and wide throughout the ton, thus compromising Arabella and forcing Miles to marry her.

  At this point in the story, Mrs. MacPherson had slumped in her chair, and a maid had to be sent for the hartshorn. After coming to her senses, she demanded to hear the rest of the sordid tale, glaring at them with such fury that even Arabella—who had up to this point characterized the incident as a youthful lark—started fidgeting in her chair and complaining about all the inconveniences of advanced pregnancy.

  Rebecca didn’t feel a bit sorry for her.

  Apparently the scheme went awry when it turned out that the lady Alice had chosen to accompany her was the mother of one of his best friends. Lady Winkfield, although affectionately known as “Lady Loose Lips”, was no fool, and recognized the girls’ trick straight away, giving them the benefit of a tongue-lashing they didn’t soon forget. What she said to Miles afterward they didn’t know, but for a time, they were given the cold shoulder by him and his cronies. It wasn’t long afterward that the news arrived of the death of Miles’s father, and he and his mother had left London for the remainder of the Season.