“Since you are actually considering marrying him, I doubt it.”
“Indeed? And just what deficiencies in his character enable you to determine that he is unworthy to marry a woman you don’t even know?”
Featherstone did not reply at once, and when at last he spoke, his answer was no answer at all. “I am afraid I cannot say.”
“You cannot say?” she echoed, and gave a laugh of utter disbelief, not just at his words, but also at how this whole evening was turning out. “You interrupted another man’s proposal of marriage, baited him, humiliated him, and struck him unconscious. In the process, you also humiliated me and ruined what could have been one of the most beautiful moments of my life. And you cannot even say why?”
“No. With regret, I cannot.”
Linnet wanted to tell him what he could do with his regret, but much to her aggravation, she couldn’t think of a reply scathing enough for the situation, so she forced herself to don an air of dignified composure she was far from feeling. “Frederick may need medical attention. I believe I saw Dr. Madison in the ballroom. I shall fetch him.”
“And when he asks how Van Hausen came to be in this state, and how you know of it, what will you say? Shall you tell him about your midnight rendezvous?”
There was a nuance of concern beneath the careless voice and offhand question that caused Linnet to stop in surprise halfway to the door. She turned to give him a searching glance over her shoulder, but his lean impassive face gave nothing away, and she wondered if she’d been mistaken, for she couldn’t imagine why this man would be concerned by gossip about her and Frederick. “A doctor knows how to be discreet, I would say,” she said at last, still watching him.
“You can’t be sure of that, though, can you? What if word gets out?”
She hated being the subject of gossip, but she could see no way to prevent it. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” she pointed out, “since I shall be accepting Frederick’s proposal at the first opportunity.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” he said with a sigh. “Miss Holland, marrying him would be the worst mistake you could make.”
“And yet you cannot explain why that is so.”
He didn’t reply, and she once again started toward the door, but she’d taken just one step when an unmistakable voice called to her through the doorway.
“Linnet? Linnet, where are you?”
“Oh, God,” she gasped, appalled, and halted again, glancing back toward the man across the room. “That’s my mother.”
Before Featherstone could respond, another feminine voice also called her name, and Linnet knew her already-ruined evening had just become a disaster. “Mrs. Dewey, too? Oh, my Lord, that woman is the most notorious gossip in our set.”
“I thought you didn’t care about gossip.” As he spoke, Featherstone reached for the painted Oriental screen against the wall. “That it didn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t, not about me and Frederick. You, however, are a different story.” She watched in puzzlement as the earl arranged the screen in front of Frederick’s prone body. “What are you doing with that screen?”
“Hiding the evidence,” he said enigmatically, but instead of ducking behind the screen with Frederick as she would have expected, he stepped back to study his handiwork. Seeming satisfied, he gave a nod and started toward her. “But if possible, I think it’s best they don’t see any of us down here.”
Linnet couldn’t argue with that point, and she turned to resume her departure, but she’d barely made it to the doorway before her mother’s voice came again.
“Linnet? What are you doing down in the pagoda, young lady?”
Linnet jumped back out of sight at once and cannoned into Lord Featherstone. His hands came up to clasp her arms and steady her, and she felt a jolt of panic. Shrugging free, she whirled around. “You can’t leave,” she told him, keeping her voice low. “They’ve seen me, and if we both go out, they’ll see you as well. You have to stay here. I’ll go out alone and distract them, and you can slip away.”
“Linnet?” her mother called. “Who are you talking to? Who’s with you?”
“They’re too close for slipping away,” Featherstone muttered with a glance at the door. “No escape now, I fear.”
“Linnet Katherine Holland, I am coming down there at once.” Helen’s voice, growing louder, made it clear she was already acting on that threat. “At once, do you hear me?”
“Go out one of the windows,” she ordered Featherstone in a desperate whisper.
“There’s no time.”
“Hide, then.” She pointed to the screen. “Quick.”
The impossible man still didn’t move. “It’s too late. They know you’re not alone.”
“Well, you can’t just stand there. Do something.”
“If you insist.” He took a deep breath, grasped her hands in his, and fell to one knee. “Linnet Holland,” he said, his voice alarmingly loud, overriding her sound of shock, “will you marry me?”
“Stand up,” she hissed. “For God’s sake, stand up.”
She tried to pull free of his grip, but it was futile, and she cast a frantic glance over her shoulder just in time to see her mother sail into the pagoda, with Mrs. Dewey on her heels. At the scene that met their eyes, the two women came to an abrupt halt just inside the door, and their shocked faces told Linnet she was in serious trouble.
Featherstone rose, and she turned on him, prepared to unleash a fresh flood of wrathful protest at his unconscionable conduct.
He gave her no opportunity. Letting go of her hands, he wrapped an arm around her waist, curled his free hand at the back of her neck, and pulled her hard against him.
“What are you doing?” she demanded in a shocked whisper.
“Saving your reputation,” he murmured, bent his head, and kissed her.
Chapter 4
Jack was always agreeable to kissing beautiful women. Marrying any of them, however, was a notion he’d never wasted time contemplating. Matrimony was an expensive business, and everyone knew he hadn’t a bean. Not that his dismal finances had ever mattered anyway since he’d never met a woman he could envision spending a lifetime with.
But now, with his lips on those of a woman he’d known less than fifteen minutes and his marriage proposal to her still hanging in the air, all Jack’s previous notions about matrimony went straight out the window. With her velvety lips beneath his and her lithe body pressed against him, Jack felt as if the earth were caving under his feet and his body had been lit on fire. Suddenly, giving all his kisses to just one woman for the rest of his life seemed more like delight than deprivation.
Everything about her overwhelmed his senses. The taste of her mouth—warm and soft, with hints of sherry. The scent of her hair—delicate and luscious from the heliotrope. The shape of her—slim and lithe, with perfect curves that seemed to brand him on the spot. His own desire—pounding through his body, making his head spin and his heart thud in his chest.
Somewhere in the vague recesses of his mind, he knew what he was doing was terribly wrong—compromising an innocent girl and all that—but with his arms wrapped around her and his mouth on hers, he couldn’t seem to conjure up a scrap of conscience about it, even with her mother standing right there. The fire in him was deepening and spreading, and he was falling, sinking with her into some dark, sweet oblivion where there were no regrets, no consequences—
“What in heaven’s name is this?”
The shocked voice of Mrs. Dewey intruded, but even that wasn’t enough to bring him back to reality. No, what pulled him from the brink, what forced him to appreciate just what he’d done, was the girl. He felt her body go rigid in his hold and her palms press against his chest, and he was forced to take his cue. When he pulled back, he noted with some chagrin the flush of maidenly outrage in her cheeks, but when her hands slid away and she took a step back, he perceived her intent and caught her wrist before she could act on it.
He might dese
rve a hard slap across the face, and if this were any other situation, he’d let her give him his comeuppance, but in this case, he couldn’t allow it. Slapping him right now would ruin everything, not just for him, but also for her, for if he failed to stop her from marrying Van Hausen, her life would be ruined in ways she couldn’t begin to fathom.
“Mrs. Dewey,” he reminded in a whisper. “Biggest gossip in Newport.”
This caution seemed to make no impression. Her stunning eyes narrowed, her full pink lips parted. “Mother,” she said over her shoulder without taking her gaze from his, “this man—”
“Is a cad,” he interrupted. Keeping firm hold of her by entwining their fingers, he moved to stand beside her and turned his attention to the ladies in the doorway. “I know these things ought to be done in the proper way,” he added, offering his most disarming smile, “but I had to declare my intentions to Linnet before speaking with her father.”
“Linnet Holland, as I live and breathe.” It was clear Mrs. Dewey was scandalized, but beneath her shock there was unmistakable relish. “It’s no wonder my husband said you were walking down to the pagoda in a furtive manner. Why, you were preparing to engage in a tryst.”
The girl made a sound of protest at this accusation of her impropriety, but Jack squeezed her hand hard and came to her defense before she could do it herself. “I must protest, Mrs. Dewey. You speak as if something improper is in progress, when the truth is quite the contrary. My fiancée has done nothing to earn your reproach, I assure you.”
“Fiancée?” As expected, Mrs. Dewey pounced on the word at once. “Why, Lord Featherstone, I wasn’t even aware you and Linnet knew each other.”
The girl jerked, managing to free her hand from his. “We don’t. I—”
“It’s been a whirlwind courtship,” he cut her off again. She couldn’t appreciate the true reason for his actions, but for the love of God, didn’t she see that at this point, an engagement to him was the only way to save her from scandal?
“I appreciate that you often know everything about everyone in society, Mrs. Dewey, on both sides of the pond. But you must forgive me for keeping mum. I feared just speaking of Linnet might have done more to reveal my deeper feelings than I would have liked, and I’m not the sort of man inclined to wear my heart on my sleeve. Until I’d spoken to her, I could not think of revealing my feelings for her to anyone else.”
Before his hostess could ask any more questions and impel him to more blatant lies on the topic, Mrs. Holland entered the conversation, playing up to him far better than her daughter was doing. “Why, Linnet, you sly girl, you never said a word, not even to me, your own mother. I am shocked. But at least I now understand why you refused every other suitor in London.” She turned to her friend as her daughter spluttered incoherent protests. “Abigail, would you mind giving me a moment alone with my daughter, and her . . . umm . . . fiancé?”
“Of course, of course.” Though her disappointment at not being able to remain was obvious, Jack hoped Mrs. Dewey would console herself by spreading the gossip of an honorable engagement rather than a midnight tryst, and spread it as fast as possible, preferably before Van Hausen woke up.
“No, wait,” Miss Holland protested as their hostess moved to leave. “You must understand. This isn’t what it seems.”
The older woman gave her a pitying smile. “It never is, my dear.” With that, she departed, closing the door behind her.
The girl turned to her parent with a groan. “Oh, Mother, why on earth did you send her away before I had the chance to explain? You know she’ll go back to the ball and tell everyone.”
“Well, you’ll be the subject of gossip, but that’s what happens when you choose this sort of time and place to accept a young man’s proposal of marriage. Which I believe—” She paused long enough to open the door and verify that Mrs. Dewey was not standing on the other side with one ear to the keyhole, then she closed it and returned her attention to Jack. “Which I believe,” she resumed, “he was in the midst of offering when he was interrupted by my arrival?”
“I had, yes,” he answered at once, for there was no way to prevaricate, even if he wanted to. “I realize it was very wrong of me to conduct things in such a clandestine fashion. My excuse—and it is a poor one, I admit—is that I was carried away by the depth of my feelings.”
Beside him, the girl gave a derisive snort, but though the mother glanced at the daughter for a moment, she seemed willing to accept this version of events even if she suspected the whole thing to be a hum. After all, what other choice was there? “I trust you are willing to meet with her father and conduct the remainder of your suit in the proper manner?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
“This is ridiculous,” the girl burst out. “This man has no feelings for me. He doesn’t even know me, and I don’t know him. I didn’t meet him out here. Why should I?”
“And yet, here you are,” her mother pointed out, “caught with him in a secret assignation, allowing him the opportunity to propose—”
“That is not what happened.”
A soft moan behind him caused Jack to cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder. “Perhaps, we should return to the house,” he suggested in a louder voice, hoping to cover any more of Van Hausen’s inconvenient groaning. “There, we can adjourn to the library for a fuller discussion of the situation?”
Flattening his palm against the base of Miss Holland’s spine, he attempted to usher her toward the door, but he should have known her cooperation would not be forthcoming since nothing about this young woman was proving to be easy.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Turning, she ducked past him and ran to the painted wooden screen. “This is who I came out here to meet, Mother,” she went on as she shoved the screen aside to reveal Van Hausen’s prone body.
“Frederick?” Mrs. Holland sounded appalled, a fact in which Jack took great satisfaction, despite the rather dire circumstances. The mother, if not the daughter, had some degree of taste and judgment. “Good heavens, you were conducting a midnight rendezvous with Frederick Van Hausen?”
As if hearing his name, the other man stirred, causing the girl to kneel beside him with a sound of relief. “Frederick?” She shook his shoulder. “Oh, Frederick, do wake up. My mother’s here, and you have to explain.”
Van Hausen moved to sit up, but the moment he did, his eyes crossed and rolled back in his head, and Jack couldn’t help grinning as the American gave a groan, slumped back to the floorboards, and once again passed out.
“Dear me.” Mrs. Holland studied him with distaste. “Is he drunk?”
“Of course not.” The girl jumped to her feet and strode forward to face her parent. “He was in the midst of proposing to me when that man—” She paused to jab a finger in Jack’s direction. “Interrupted us, picked a fight, and struck poor Frederick unconscious.”
“Frederick Van Hausen was proposing to you?” Mrs. Holland sounded even more appalled than before. “But I saw you kissing Lord Featherstone.”
“I did not kiss him. He kissed me.”
“I think,” Jack murmured, leaning closer to her, “your mother would deem that a distinction without a difference, my darling.”
She turned to give him a scowl at the endearment before returning her attention to her parent. “What you and Mrs. Dewey saw won’t matter, even if she tells everyone in Newport about it, because I shall be marrying Frederick. My reputation will not suffer any lasting damage if our engagement is announced right away. Everyone will think it’s just a misunderstanding.”
Her mother didn’t seem impressed by that. “Mrs. Dewey will never think what she saw was a misunderstanding. As for Frederick, he is unconscious, and you are not at liberty to speak for him. And even if his intentions were honorable, it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to marry him.”
“What?” The girl’s cheeks, flushed from the warm night and the heat of the moment, went pale. “Are you saying
that because he isn’t a British peer? Even after I’ve told you what happened, you would still—”
“Nationality and titles have little to do with it now,” her mother cut in. “I cannot allow you to marry Frederick Van Hausen when you have already been seen committing improprieties with another man, and the witness to this is one of Newport’s biggest scandalmongers. Don’t be absurd, Linnet.”
Jack let out a sigh of profound relief, but the girl’s next words told him he wasn’t out of the weeds quite yet.
“But, Mother, what’s the alternative? You can’t expect me to marry this man. He’s a complete stranger to me.”
“Not such a stranger,” Mrs. Holland reminded. “Not after what Abigail and I witnessed here.”
“I already explained that.”
“And I’m explaining to you, my dear daughter, that how this came about isn’t as important as the fact that it did. There is only one thing that can be done.” Mrs. Holland waved a gloved hand in Jack’s direction. “It was Lord Featherstone who damaged your reputation, and it is his responsibility to repair it.”
The girl gave a huff of exasperation. “You’re insisting on this because it fits with your plans. We both know you want me to marry a peer, but as we have discussed many times before, I don’t share your ambitions for my life. And I’ve got Daddy on my side. Unlike you, he has always wanted me to marry an American.”
Jack tensed. If the girl’s father ended up taking Van Hausen’s part, all was lost. But Mrs. Holland didn’t seem worried. “You think your father would approve of Frederick?” she asked.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t he?”
“Why, indeed. Let’s find out, shall we? He needs to be told at once what has occurred, for I shudder to think what he’ll say if he hears the news of your conduct from someone outside the family. So why don’t you go and tell him what’s happened, hmm, while I have a talk with this young man?”
Catch a Falling Heiress: An American Heiress in London Page 5
