When Harry Met Molly

by Kieran Kramer

  The good-natured bantering continued through Hildur’s turn. Lord Maxwell drew the short straw for her. Everyone laughed when Hildur came out and said, “Do not throw him to the sharks.”

  Bunny was next. Captain Arrow was her partner. When she came out, she looked as beautiful as ever, but she said nothing. She simply smiled prettily. Sir Richard gave Captain Arrow the cold shoulder and pulled Bunny to him with a proprietary air.

  Which left but Sir Richard and Viscount Lumley to draw straws. Molly and Joan still had to take their turns.

  “Into the closet, Delilah,” said Harry.

  No one moved.

  Harry nudged Molly in the back.

  Oh, yes! She was Delilah!

  She entered the closet, which to her dismay she found completely empty. She was hoping to hide behind a pelisse or a man’s overcoat.

  Dear God, don’t let Sir Richard be the one, she prayed.

  Harry shut the door in her face, but before he did, she gave him a mute look of appeal. He, in turn, signaled to her with his gaze that she must endure.

  Now she was alone. In the dark. Her knees began to tremble. She heard the wild laughter outside the closet, and then the “Oho!” which meant that some man had drawn a straw for her.

  A moment later, the door opened and shut quickly. All she could see was the outline of a man’s head. She couldn’t tell if it was Viscount Lumley or the despicable Sir Richard.

  She gulped, put her hands out in the dark, palms up, instinctively wanting to protect herself, especially if it were Sir Richard.

  But her hands pressed against a very trim waist. It was Viscount Lumley. Thank God! Although she did not want to kiss him. At all.

  “Wait!” she whispered.

  “Why?” He grabbed her hands and squeezed them in a friendly way.

  “I—I—” Her mind scrambled. What could she say that would make him delay the inevitable? “I wanted to ask after…your mother first.”

  “My mother?” he whispered, sounding flabbergasted.

  “Yes, how is she?” Molly hoped his mother was still alive. No man could turn down answering a question about his own mother’s health!

  “Actually, she’s quite well, thank you. Except for her gout. She and Father both get that on occasion.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, they do. It’s a shame what old people go through, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed.”

  Their hands were still clasped.

  “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” she asked him.

  He had five, he said, and at her insistence, he told her the names and ages of each one, and whether or not they were married.

  “Lovely,” she replied.

  There was another pause.

  “Are you ready?” he asked at the same time that she said, “Do you like a good cherry tart?”

  “Hmmm, I suppose I do,” he said slowly. “Although I think I prefer apple. Why?”

  She squeezed his hands back. “If Cook will let me in the kitchen, I’ll make you one.”

  “I’ll look forward to that,” he said, utterly polite.

  There was another pause. She felt sweat trickle down her back. The closet was quite stuffy. “It’s rather hot in here,” she said.

  “Indeed,” he answered.

  “They’re awfully loud out there, aren’t they?” A rhetorical question, really, but perhaps he would respond.

  “They are,” he said.

  And then someone opened the door. Their three minutes were up. Viscount Lumley dropped Molly’s hands, and they walked single file out of the closet, he first.

  “Well?” asked Sir Richard.

  The nosy-body.

  Molly’s chest tightened. She didn’t like that Sir Richard seemed particularly interested in her, although perhaps she was imagining that.

  “We talked,” Lumley said in a disbelieving voice.

  “You talked?” Joan asked Molly.

  Molly smiled. “Yes. He has a wonderful family.” She turned to the viscount. “Thank you, Viscount Lumley, for the scintillating conversation.”

  There was a chorus of boos.

  Viscount Lumley looked only a bit dejected.

  Molly whispered in his ear, “Remember, the tart.”

  “Oh, yes!” he said, and grinned.

  Harry looked at Molly with a bemused expression.

  And then it was Joan and Sir Richard’s turn. Of course, Molly doubted Joan would ever be afraid of anyone, but couldn’t she sense the malevolence rolling off Sir Richard in waves? No one else seemed to, either, except Harry, who spoke to him as little as possible.

  Their kissing episode went off without a hitch, and it was thankfully time for supper. Molly knew she must make a good impression in the dining room if she were to win any votes for the day’s best mistress.

  But she didn’t know how.

  The other women were sparkling, almost giddy—except for Joan, who maintained her intense, subtle allure—and Molly could hardly put two words together. Neither could Hildur, of course, but she said many incongruous things that made people laugh, like, “Aye, aye, Captain,” to the footman who served her. She also oozed exotic, sensual charm with that jesting pout of hers.

  Supper was plentiful and delicious, but by its end, Molly was weary from watching the others enjoy themselves. Her brain hurt from all the thinking she’d done, as she tried to figure out ways to enter the conversation and sound witty and charming all at the same time.

  “Pass the salt, please,” she said at one tiny lull. Everyone turned to look at her, which she supposed was good. She stared back, searched for something else to say, and finally came out with, “I read a very good book the other day.”

  It had actually been quite dull. Her father didn’t approve of her reading novels, so she’d read a tome on Egyptian embalming methods. Which she knew backward and forward, thanks to her father and Cedric, so it was nothing new.

  “What was the title?” Harry asked politely.

  She couldn’t very well tell them. “I forget,” she said. “But—”

  She took a moment to think of a proper way to describe the way the Egyptians pulled people’s brains out of their noses.

  But it was too late. Hildur made a funny remark, and the conversation turned to other directions. Molly was never able to interject again.

  Finally, after another hour of sheer torture for her, Harry rose from the table. “It’s time for the men to adjourn to the library,” he said, standing tall and straight.

  All the men had been drinking profusely, as well as the women, except for Molly. But no man appeared to be showing any ill effects, except for Sir Richard, who had the effrontery to belch at the table and then immediately demand a kiss from Bunny.

  Molly sensed every woman at that table shuddering beneath their festive exteriors!

  “Each day we’ll cast a vote for the one lady who stands out above the rest,” Harry said. “We’ll sign our voucher to ensure that we can’t choose our own companion, of course.”

  “What if there’s a tie?” Joan asked.

  “Prinny’s advisors have ruled that we shan’t name a daily winner,” Harry explained. “We’ll leave the votes to accrue in a jar until the end of the week. The daily vote counts three points. You’ll also be able to win points for the occasional game you shall compete in during the week, as well as at the finale. When all the points are totaled, we shall have our winner. If there is a tie at the conclusion, we’ll cast another vote until someone wins the Most Delectable Companion title. Fair enough?”

  Everyone nodded, although Molly felt that somehow things were still not very fair. She wasn’t sure how, though.

  “Right, then,” said Harry. “Men, follow me for our first vote.”

  All the men stood.

  “When will you come back to us?” Athena asked in a dramatic stage voice, her arm raised and extended toward Lord Maxwell. She looked and sounded exactly like Rapunzel in her castle, crying out to be saved.
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br />   Molly couldn’t help but draw her eyebrows together. Athena’s remark probably clinched the actress the day’s votes, save Lord Maxwell’s, of course. He wasn’t allowed to vote for his own mistress.

  “We’ll return when our business is done,” he reminded Athena.

  “Very well.” Athena sighed prettily, a small curve of a smile on her parted lips.

  Molly almost choked with disgust at Athena’s biddableness!

  But then she remembered Lord Maxwell might vote for her. So she smiled at him in what she hoped was a winning fashion. She wasn’t sure if she had remnants of the turtle soup in her teeth, so her smile was rather weak.

  Lord Maxwell gazed at her with an expression bordering on aloof.

  Then Joan, her eyes half lidded again, said, “I believe I’ve dropped my fan.” Slowly, she stood up and bent down to the Aubusson rug. She patted it as if she were searching for her fan, a move which exposed her perfect cleavage to all the men.

  “Why, here it is!” said the amiable Viscount Lumley, pointing to a fan lying on the table.

  “Indeed!” said Joan. “I’d forgotten, Viscount.” She gave him a slow, sizzling smile.

  Molly almost huffed. Joan hadn’t even attempted to be a good liar! She’d known her fan was there all along! Molly was sure everyone else knew it, too, but no one appeared annoyed.

  In the next instant Hildur unraveled her braids, shook out her hair until it swirled in tousled glory around her face, and said, “Hildur is a mermaid. Choose Hildur.”

  Whereupon all the men laughed uproariously, save Maxwell, who merely lifted his mouth upward in a show of appreciation.

  Molly was shocked at the other women’s brazen attempts to sway the men’s votes. But then again, she supposed mistresses were supposed to be brazen.

  So far, she was a terrible mistress.

  She looked at Bunny to see what she would do to win the men’s votes.

  “I’m a country girl,” Bunny said in that light, frothy voice of hers. “Give me a field of flowers or a stack of hay to frolic in, and I’m happy.”

  Then she tucked a tiny flower from a vase on the table deep into her bodice.

  The small act of putting the flower between Bunny’s ample breasts was so sensual the men were speechless. Which meant that Bunny had won the day. Molly was sure by the evil way Athena looked at her. But now everyone was looking at Molly.

  “She has nothing to say,” said Joan. “She is more like a governess than a mistress. Ask Lumley.”

  Everyone laughed but Molly and Harry. He gave her a look as if to urge her to say something clever.

  Molly felt her face heat up, but try as she might, nothing would come out of her mouth.

  “After we vote, I shall take this so-called governess upstairs,” said Harry in a suggestive manner. “We’ll see if she has anything to teach me.”

  What a vulgar thing to say!

  But then Molly remembered. Lewd remarks would be flying this week. She was dying to tell everyone the truth, that Harry was lying through his teeth, that she would never be caught in a compromising position with him, even if he did happen to be, in her completely unbiased opinion, the most kissable man in the room.

  But she couldn’t do that, of course. Lumley and Arrow hooted their approval of Harry’s salacious remark and, along with Sir Richard and Maxwell, followed him out of the dining room to vote for their favorite mistress of the evening.

  The other women stopped laughing and sat quietly, small smiles of amusement still lingering on their faces. None of them seemed too worried about the night’s voting.

  Except for Molly. Her face beneath its layer of powder and rouge felt hard as stone, and just as unmoving. She knew no one would vote for her.

  Chapter 11

  Harry led the men out of the dining room with a heavy heart and a sense of foreboding, but he wasn’t going to let them guess he was feeling pessimistic about Molly’s chances to win the contest. It was obvious she’d been a tremendous failure on her first night at the house party. At this rate, she would never win the title of Most Delectable Companion, which meant that the most he could hope for at the end of the week would be to avoid pulling the shortest straw and thus avert the disaster of having to propose to Anne Riordan.

  He supposed he should be grateful to Molly for not making him the instant loser of the entire week. At least her presence assured him of having a small chance to survive the Season as a bachelor for another year. But he felt as if his luck were running out.

  His first inkling of doom had come when Fiona ran away from him at the inn. No woman had ever chosen another man over him! Granted, he’d never been besotted with her beyond the bedroom, so what did it matter?

  But then Molly had appeared, heaping scorn upon him for having a mistress at all. Up until now, even his mother hadn’t dared to comment on his wastrel ways in so forthright a manner.

  Harry’s sense of control, which he’d always prided himself on, was slipping. In fact, he felt almost desperate as he watched the other men put their votes on small slips of paper and then drop them into the large, blue vase. He knew not one of them contained the name Delilah.

  By the end of the week, the vase would be full of paper, and they would remove the names to see who had won the most votes. Even if Molly won all the games during the week, if she got no nightly votes from the men, she would most likely be unable to win.

  Lord Maxwell poured two brandies. “Interesting choice of mistress,” he said, dropping his quill on the table and handing a glass to Harry.

  “I should say so,” echoed Captain Arrow, holding his own empty snifter out to Maxwell for another splash.

  “Very interesting indeed,” said Viscount Lumley, still looking stunned from his encounter with Molly in the kissing closet.

  Sir Richard lowered his cheroot. “I don’t think you could have brought anyone less likely to win, Traemore,” he said, smoke curling around his face.

  There were mumbles of protest around the table, but they were not very loud or strong, Harry noted. Obviously, everyone agreed with Sir Richard.

  As he did himself.

  Nevertheless, he would put on his best game face. “The competition for the title of Most Delectable Companion will continue,” he said calmly to them all, and then he turned to look pointedly at Sir Richard. “And I promise you,” he said evenly, “that you’ll soon see that Delilah is a contender.”

  His promise sounded hollow even to his own ears.

  Sir Richard smiled, but it was bitter and mean, not at all kind or amused. The other men said nothing.

  “I shall see you in the morning, gentlemen.” Harry moved toward the door, keeping his shoulders back, but inside, he felt the veriest loser.

  “Off to see what your ‘governess’ can teach you?” asked Sir Richard.

  Harry paused and turned around. “You’re awfully interested in my mistress, Bell. Will that translate into a vote for her tomorrow night?”

  Sir Richard was cool. “I’m not interested in your mistress, Traemore. I’m interested in seeing you lose.”

  “You would be, wouldn’t you?” said Lumley. “Seeing as how Harry is well liked by all, and you’re an aging rake with nary a friend but your valet, and even him you must pay.”

  Sir Richard half rose from his chair.

  Lumley matched the movement. “Just try it, Bell.” His tone was menacing.

  “Gentlemen.” Harry raised his hand. “If we’re forced to be together, as this bet has ensured we shall be for at least a week, let’s stay civil.”

  Sir Richard sat back down, his eyes still narrowed at Lumley.

  Harry saw that Sir Richard was most definitely going to be a problem during the competition. But he refused to show his worry in his expression. Without another word, he bowed and left the room.

  His more immediate concern was to find Molly. The girl needed propping up, or their whole house of cards would fall by the morrow.

  “I’m appalled.” Molly dragged he
r feet as Harry pulled her along the corridor upstairs toward their bedchambers. “A kissing closet? Why, I never imagined such a thing could exist!”

  Harry chuckled. “I didn’t, either. Prinny has a wicked sense of humor.”

  “It’s not funny,” Molly said. “If the whole week is like tonight, I’m going to hell, for certain. And it will be all your fault.”

  Harry stopped her. “My dear, console yourself with the fact that if you go to hell, you began the journey long before this week.”

  She gasped.

  He chuckled. “Seriously, Molly, you’re not going to hell. What else were you to do? I certainly couldn’t take you home the moment Cedric abandoned you. I’d have forfeited the wager, and my future depends on it. You had to come here.”

  She sighed. “I really don’t think my staying any longer is a good idea.”

  “Of course you’ll stay.” Harry strove to sound firm and calm. “Tonight was only our first night.”

  They stopped outside her room.

  “But I’ve never felt so stupid in my life as I did tonight,” she whispered, looking up at him with those brown eyes, which were bleak now, not at all impish.

  Harry fought against feeling sorry for her. By failing to portray herself as a desirable mistress, she was possibly ruining his chance at freedom, just as she had done that long-ago night at the Christmas ball, when her silly poem had forced him into military service.

  “I know you can do better,” he said. “I’ve seen the fire in you. You need to show it to everyone else.”

  Molly sighed. “I’m supposed to be biddable and have fire?”

  Harry thought for a moment. “Yes. I know that sounds contradictory, but a woman’s fire is banked. It’s not evident all the time. It smolders. I should have explained better in the carriage.”

  “I don’t have any fire.” Molly’s shoulders sagged. “Not like those other women.”

  Harry knew it was the brandy, but suddenly, his nemesis looked very appealing. He remembered holding her on his lap, the way she’d fiercely grabbed his neck, as if she couldn’t get enough of his kisses.

  And he remembered the way she’d looked in that blue gown at the inn. Voluptuous, tempting—