by Connie Mason
“Begging your pardon, milady, but the Minister’s Cat is for dowagers and dotards,” Lord Boswell said, stifling a belch by pressing a fist to his chest.
“How about Sardines?” someone suggested.
“There are plenty of places to hide in Wyndebourne, but I think Sardines might be more fun once you all learn the lay of the house more completely,” Serena said. “We don’t want to lose anyone on the very first night.”
“Getting lost is the whole point,” Lord Boswell said with a wink. “Provided you get lost with the right person.”
The under-butler appeared in the doorway and sidled haltingly toward the marquis. He spoke softly enough for only Lord Wyndleton to hear him. The marquis rose immediately.
“Pray, excuse me,” he said. “A matter has arisen to which I must attend. Good night all.”
His glance darted briefly at Miss Braithwaite and then he strode from the room.
Once Wyndleton was gone, Lord Boswell slapped his thigh. “I have it. What about Hot Cockles?”
“An unusual name. How is it played?” Miss Braithwaite asked, dragging her gaze from the door through which Lord Wyndleton had just disappeared.
Lord Boswell grinned. “Easy. We blindfold a fellow. Then we spin him around a bit and when he’s good and woozy, we lay his head in one of you lovely ladies’ laps. While he’s trying to figure out whose lap he’s in, the rest of we gentlemen will take turns whacking his bum with a cricket bat.”
“The game has the benefit of novelty. That’s for certain.” Lady Lysandra arched a skeptical brow. “And how does one win this game of Hot Cockles?”
“Well, there are those who would say that merely being able to rest one’s head on feminine satin is winnings enough,” Lord Boswell said, waggling his eyebrows.
Jonah wondered how much wine the man had consumed at supper. He might be an earl, but his speech and behavior were as loutish as a dockworker’s.
Why am I the only one who can see it?
“But in order to be declared the winner, the blindfolded fellow must correctly guess the identity of both the gentleman who’s whacking his bum and the lady whose lap he’s sniffing—I mean, resting upon.”
He giggled nervously as silence descended on the room.
“A lady’s scent is really the only thing to go by since the blindfolded fellow ought to have his hands bound as well. Otherwise, he might be tempted to try to identify the lady based on a flounce around her hem or a well-turned ankle if his hand should happen to slip under skirt,” Boswell rattled on. “I’ll go first. Have you a cloth for a blindfold, Lady Serena?”
“If it’s a beating you’re wanting, Boswell, I’ll oblige you,” Jonah said, rising to his feet. He’d be damned before he sat by and watched while Boswell laid his head on Serena’s lap, or on any of the other women present, come to that. The man was nothing but a swine dressed in a Saville Row ensemble. “And since I won’t be using a cricket bat, you won’t need a blindfold.”
Miss Braithwaite raised a hand as if she’d admonish him but then thought better of it and lowered her palm to her lap.
Lady Lysandra rose to her feet, glared directly at Jonah, and then sniffed and looked away. “I’m so glad we are among sophisticates who understand that a game is just a game. Since I heard no objection raised, certainly not by anyone of import, I think we should play Lord Boswell’s game.” She pulled an embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve. “This should do for a blindfold, I believe, though I fear some of my perfume may linger on it.”
“In that case,” Lord Boswell said, “I shall count myself extremely fortunate to be awash in your scent, dear lady, even if it makes something harder.”
Lady Lysandra’s brows shot upward. “Something?”
“My task, of course.” Lord Boswell waggled his finger at her. “You naughty girl, what were you thinking?”
The rest of the assembly tittered uncertainly at this. From the corner of his eye, Jonah saw that Serena’s face was drawn taut as a bowstring. Boswell was well on his way to hijacking the house party, but as an earl and the reputed intimate friend of the Prince Regent, he could evidently do no wrong. He stooped before Lady Lysandra to allow her to fasten on his blindfold.
“Now all we need is a cricket bat,” Lysandra said. “Serena dear, should you ring for a servant? Oh wait, perhaps there is someone here who doesn’t belong in our company but is probably equal to the task fetching and carrying for his betters.” She riveted her gaze on Jonah. “At least, one hopes he’s bright enough to serve such mundane purposes.”
Jonah gave a curt bow in Serena’s direction. “I believe I’ve had all the frivolity I can stand for one evening, my lady. If you will excuse me.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. Jonah turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, thinking that Lady Lysandra had better hope he wasn’t really going to fetch a cricket bat.
Twenty-two
From cradle to grave, one’s place in Society is settled by the question of birth and breeding. Unlike the American upstarts who tout their “self-made man,” we know Society has made us what we are and if we are wise, we are properly grateful.
It’s a canny man as knows his place. To change it would require changing not only the man. It would mean upsetting the order of the entire world.
From Le Dernier Mot,
The Final Word on News That Everyone
Who Is Anyone Should Know
Jonah rifled through the library shelves, looking for something—anything—to take his mind off the lascivious game Serena’s houseguests were playing. Of course, if he were honest, a few weeks ago Hot Cockles would have sounded like a grand time to him. Now the thought of another man being that close to Serena made a red haze descend on his vision.
If Jonah were the one wielding the cricket bat, he’d knock the bum of any man who dared lay his head in her lap into next week.
He wanted to hit something, preferably something that could hit back. But fisticuffs were frowned upon in Polite Society, and the drawn look on Serena’s face when he left the salon told him he’d mortified her enough for one evening.
He fingered the spines of DeFoe and Keats and Sir Walter Scott tomes. None of the titles were dark enough to suit his mood.
Perhaps Dante’s Inferno?
The door to the library creaked open behind him and then slammed shut with a resounding thwack. He turned to see Serena framed by the lintel.
“Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” she said, her hands fisted at her waist. “You made a fool of yourself.”
“Me? I’m not the one who wanted my arse whacked in public.”
She heaved an exasperated sigh. “Jonah, don’t you see? You can’t go around insulting an earl to his face and expect others to sit by and—”
“I don’t care if he is an earl,” he said with a snort. “I’d have said the same if Boswell was the bloody King of Siam.”
She shook her head slowly. “I believe you would. But Society will not allow it.”
“Seems to me they all did.” His shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Except for your friend, Lady Lysandra. I suppose in the language of the ton, she feels she skinned me rather efficiently, doesn’t she?”
“She does. And to be honest, you deserved it.” She crossed the marble expanse of the library floor, her arms resignedly at her sides now. “You were doing so well at dinner. Why did you have to say anything in the salon?”
“Because no one else did. Serena, if you think I’d stand by and watch while that”—he searched for a sufficiently vile term for Lord Boswell that wasn’t too shockingly vulgar for mixed company and came up empty—“that…waste-of-skin that answers to the name of Boswell came anywhere near you, you don’t know me very well.”
“That seems to be the general consensus—that I didn’t know you before this house party and the only reason you’re here at all is because of the marquis’s whim,” she said with another sigh. “Please, Jonah, behave yourself. I’m so tired of trying to defend you.”
>
“I don’t need you to defend me.”
“Yes, you do, whether you realize it or not. Once you left, the whole company was clamoring to know why you were invited to Wyndebourne.”
“The whole company?” According to Miss Braithwaite, Bianca Dobby, at least, should have been on his side.
“Well, maybe not everyone, but those with the most strident voices, that’s for certain. Even the ones who agreed with you about Lord Boswell’s game couldn’t support the way you insulted him.”
If they’d had an inkling of what Jonah would really have liked to do to the man, they’d have realized an insult was letting him off easy.
“The man spends his summers in the Prince Regent’s Brighton palace, for pity’s sake. He entertains royalty with the very sort of game he suggested for us.” She paced before him like a caged lynx. “Do you know how difficult he could make your life if he wished?”
Evidently, she’d forgotten how difficult Jonah could make it for the earl to simply breathe if he wished.
“I can’t tell you how relieved I was when Father returned and insisted on breaking up the party to share a new shipment of port with the gentlemen,” she said. “Believe me, I made no objection this time when he led them away.”
If her father had been in the parlor the whole time, Jonah doubted Lord Boswell would have felt bold enough to suggest Hot Cockles in the first place. The marquis didn’t suffer fools gladly. Certainly not ones he outranked. Jonah only hoped Miss Braithwaite would give Lord Wyndleton a fair version of the incident later.
He’d seen them riding together earlier. Surely the secretly married couple had some way of spending time together out of the public eye, even when Wyndebourne was filled with guests.
“Are you listening to a word I’m saying?” Serena’s voice interrupted his thoughts. Her fists were back at her waist and her eyes were spitting blue fire.
He nodded slowly but didn’t really have a clue. Her angry words had trickled past his ears and spilled off his shoulders like water over a dam.
“What did I say?” she demanded.
He decided not to play fair. Jonah caught her into an embrace and pulled her close. “You were saying that you’re glad all your other guests have toddled off to their beds because that means you and I can be alone now.”
“I did not.” She punched his chest with her fist once, but didn’t try to pull away. “I said I had to plead a headache in order to escape the women and come looking for you.”
“So even though you’re angry, you were looking for me,” he said, his chest warmed by the knowledge. He bent and gave her a lingering kiss. “What did you intend to do once you found me?”
“That depends,” she said, a sly grin lifting the corners of her mouth. “Did you find a cricket bat?”
He gave her bum a playful swat. “Jezebel!”
She reached around him to whack his right back. “Cretin!”
Jonah pulled her close for a deeper kiss while he cupped her bum and lifted her against him. She tilted herself into him with a deep groan.
“Lady Serena!” The shocked voice belonged to Amelia Braithwaite.
Serena tore herself out of his embrace as if he were on fire and put several arms’ lengths between them. “Amelia, this isn’t what it looks like,” she said.
“And what do you think it could possibly look like other than what it is?” The older woman moved smoothly into the room, letting the door close softly behind her. Only the twin splotches of red on her cheeks betrayed the fact that she was quietly livid. “I know Sir Jonah is here to inspect the horses, but I hardly think he needs to check your teeth.” She flicked a cold glance at him. “If you’d be so good as to leave us, sir.”
“No.” He was already in trouble for behaving boorishly this evening. He wasn’t about to add to his list of sins by being a lout and letting Serena face her mentor alone. “I won’t.”
Serena cast him a pleading look. “Jonah, don’t be difficult. You’ll only make things worse.”
“I’m not being difficult.” He moved to place himself between Serena and Amelia. “I simply need to speak to Miss Braithwaite. Alone.”
“Oh, I think you’ve already spent enough time alone with the women of this household,” Amelia said through clenched teeth.
“It’s important that I discuss my recent trip to Portsmouth with you, Miss Braithwaite. Once you hear about where I went, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
“Where you go when you gad about the countryside is none of my concern.”
Amelia tried to peer around him to glare at Serena, but he sidestepped to keep the two women apart. With both of them circling and Jonah shifting to maintain his position between them, it was the oddest dance he’d ever been a party to.
“You’d be surprised at what might concern you,” he said. “I certainly was when I visited the parish church and looked through their marriage records.”
Miss Braithwaite’s eyes flared with sudden alarm, and Jonah gave her an almost imperceptible nod.
“Serena, go to bed,” Amelia said in a clipped voice.
“Now, wait a moment.” Serena ducked under Jonah’s arm and pushed past him to face her governess. “What are you and Sir Jonah talking about? And besides, the time is long past when you could send me to my room.”
“Would you prefer that I call your father here and describe to him the state in which I found the two of you?”
Serena frowned like a Kraken, but Amelia Braithwaite didn’t turn a hair. Finally, Serena gave an exasperated growl and stormed out, making the door rattle against its hinges behind her.
Jonah grinned after her. Serena was intriguing when she was curious, but she was magnificent when she was angry. “She does have a temper, doesn’t she?”
“She also has a family that loves her very much.” Miss Braithwaite laced her hands before her trying to project a calm image, but her knuckles went white from the tightness of her grip. “Now, tell me, Sir Jonah, what is your price?”
“My price?”
“For your silence. You wouldn’t have brought up the church register unless you meant to blackmail the marquis and me,” she said with a surprisingly even tone. She might have started in this household as a governess, but her manner was as haughty as any marchioness ever thought about being. Then her eyes narrowed. “But you should be aware that you will be making a powerful enemy. There is not enough coin in the realm to shield you from the hailstorm you’ll find raining down upon you once his lordship learns of your extortion.”
Jonah shook his head. “I’m not going to blackmail you. What do you take me for?”
Amelia’s hands relaxed slightly. “You’re not?”
“Of course not. I only brought it up because I wanted to talk to you without Serena around and figured that was the best way to convince you to let her go without a dressing down. She doesn’t deserve it. Whatever fault there may be with what you witnessed here this evening lies with me,” he said. “But back to you and the marquis. I assume Serena doesn’t know about your…arrangement with her father.”
“No, though we intend to tell her when the time is right,” she added quickly.
“Soon, I hope. Like week-old fish, this sort of news doesn’t improve with keeping.”
“I know, but it can’t be helped. To be honest, Sir Jonah, it’s something of a relief to be able to talk with someone about it.” Amelia walked across the room, tension draining from her like a lubberly coracle with the wind spilt from its sails. She sank into one of the Sheraton chairs near the burled oak desk. “As soon as things are settled with the Duke of Kent and Serena is safely wed, Lord Wyndleton feels it will be the right time to announce the truth about our marriage, to his daughter first and then to the world.”
“And what if the duke doesn’t offer for her?”
“He will,” she said vehemently, as if her fervor would make it so. “There’s a great deal of pressure on Kent from the House of Lords not to wed Prince Leopold’s sister. Our allia
nce with Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld is strong enough without it. England wants an English princess, my husband says, not one who speaks German.”
Jonah came over and sat in the chair opposite her. “What if Serena doesn’t want to marry Kent?”
“She does. She must.” Amelia scrunched the fabric of her skirt between her fingers. “Her father is counting on it.”
“What if she doesn’t?” Jonah repeated.
“Why would she refuse him? Are you saying that…” Amelia’s eyes widened. “Have you proposed to her? Tell me you haven’t done anything so foolish.”
“No. I haven’t.”
But he almost wished he had. Marriage was no longer the unthinkable proposition he’d always considered it to be.
“Good. Please don’t—oh!” One of her pale eyebrows arched and her expression softened. “I just realized. This is no rake’s game to you. You love her, don’t you?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and studied the tips of his Hessians, wondering what had given him away. “It’s that obvious?”
“No, it wasn’t, but now that I’ve taken the time to consider, to notice the look in your eyes when you speak of her, I can’t think how I missed it before.” She laid a hand on his forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry, Sir Jonah. This cannot be easy for you.”
“I don’t expect pretending to be a governess when you’re really the lady of the house is easy for you either.”
She turned her lips inward for a moment. “No, it’s not. But I do it willingly for my husband’s sake. And Serena’s too.”
“Then I hope you’ll do something else for her.” Jonah reached over and took both of Amelia’s hands in his. “Don’t let the marquis force her. If she refuses the duke, convince her father to accept Serena’s decision with good grace.”
“How can he accept that? It would be the match of the century. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Yes, I do.” He squeezed her hands, willing her to understand. “You and Lord Wyndleton should know better than most that we can’t order passion. It comes where it will. I want Serena to be free to choose whether or not she accepts Kent.”
