by Amanda Scott
“I don’t care if you guess or not!” she flared. “I’ve been with the Princess Charlotte, and that is scarcely a thing to be ashamed of!”
“In other words, you deliberately defied my orders and went to the Pulteney Hotel!” he snapped. “Alone at that.”
“And what if I did?” Gillian shouted, throwing caution to the wind. “I had a perfectly splendid time, and I have not been seduced, abducted, or morally corrupted!” Arms akimbo, she would have said a good deal more, but Landover advanced purposefully, causing her to draw back a step or two with a small gasp of dismay. Her arms dropped to her sides.
He towered over her. “What happened there is of little concern to me at the moment, Miss Harris. But you need a good lesson in obedience. I will not tolerate defiance, and the sooner you learn that, the better it will be for all of us.”
She turned away, unable to cope with his anger head on. “You’ve no right to dictate to me like this, Landover,” she muttered. “I must and will have the right to go where I like and to choose my own friends.” But her breath caught in her throat on the final words when his hands clamped painfully down upon her shoulders. He spun her around again.
“You made a damned fool of me,” he grated wrathfully, shaking her. “To go to that scheming woman after I had written to tell her you would not come! How dare you speak to me of rights, when you show not the slightest sense of civilized courtesy! Your precious duchess is no doubt laughing up her sleeve right now, thanks to you.” He was still shaking her, his fingers bruising her shoulders, and Gillian feared her bones would soon begin to rattle. His words penetrated, but she couldn’t think straight until the shaking became less violent. Then, as her thoughts fell into order again, she realized that he believed she had deliberately set out to defy him, to make him a laughingstock. But when she opened her mouth to refute this notion, he spoke again in a nearly weary tone. “You are quite spoiled, Miss Harris, and have been allowed to chart your own course far too long, but perhaps a month or so spent kicking your heels in Sussex will help bring you to your senses. I dislike having to—”
“No!” She wrenched from his grasp, given extra strength through sheer fury. “No, you’ll not send me away! You’ll not humiliate me like that!” He reached for her again, but she eluded his grasp at first, and when he did succeed in grabbing one of her arms, she launched herself at him, pummeling him with her fists, swinging blindly. But suddenly, it was over, and she cried out as his grip snapped painfully around her wrists, holding her away, and at the same time forcing her almost to her knees. She looked up at him miserably, but the look of intent on his face brought fear welling to the surface, and she cried out again, this time in fright. “Oh, please, no! Please, my lord. It was not what you think! The princess sent her carriage for me! Please, don’t.” The last came as a mere whisper, but her words had an effect. The pressure on her wrists eased, and he helped her to her feet.
“Don’t what, Miss Harris? What did you fear I would do?”
Gathering the shreds of her dignity, Gillian tried to rub feeling back into her numbed wrists and realized that her knees were quaking. She subsided into one of the Kent chairs with a sigh of relief, but her voice still trembled slightly. “I … I thought you meant to beat me.” She glanced up hesitantly. “I am not generally such a coward, my lord, but you are so big, and you looked so fierce.”
“I think you deserve to be beaten for this morning’s work,” he said grimly, “but I do not have that right. If it had been your brother whose orders you defied so outrageously, I daresay you’d smart mightily for it, my girl.”
She could not deny it. Looking up at him from under her lashes, she said quietly, “It was not as you thought, sir. I truly did not intend to go to the Pulteney when I left the house this morning.”
Landover sighed and pulled the other Kent chair closer to hers. “Go on,” he said as he sat down. “I am listening, but it had better be good. You said something about the princess’s carriage.”
So she told him. Sensibly, she made no effort to conceal the fact that she had refused to accompany Mrs. Periwinkle to the Berry sisters’ house in order to indulge in a private shopping spree, but she went to great lengths to prove to Landover how unexceptionable her visit to the Pulteney had been. He wasn’t particularly receptive.
“I cannot approve any association with the Duchess of Oldenburg. That woman is not to be trusted.”
“She was perfectly charming, sir. She said nothing to which anyone—even you—might object.”
“She is a manipulator. No doubt she is using the princess for her own ends and would not hesitate to use you as well, could she but think of a way to do so.”
“Nonsense! She truly likes the princess. I have seen them together, and you have not!” Her voice had begun to rise, but Landover quelled her temper with a gesture and a mocking smile.
“Easy, child. Stay off the high ropes. You cannot afford to antagonize me further. It is not impossible that the duchess truly likes her highness. The Princess Charlotte is a most likable young lady. Nevertheless, the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg is mistress of a world you know nothing about. She is dangerous, Gillian, and I want your promise you will have nothing further to do with her.”
“Very well,” she replied grudgingly, “but I cannot make such a promise with regard to her highness, so pray do not ask it of me.”
“Perhaps we can effect a compromise,” he agreed with a smile. “I would prefer that you steer clear of the royal ménage altogether, but I really have no valid objection to your friendship with the princess. It is not what I like, and I must urge you to be most circumspect, but if you are careful, I will withdraw my objections.”
“Then I,” returned Miss Harris grandly, “will be only too happy to give my solemn promise to avoid her grace.” Then a thought occurred to her, and she looked at him with a shy smile. “You will not send me home?”
“For the moment, we will agree that I was perhaps a trifle hasty. However,” he added on a warning note, “you are not off the hook entirely. There remains the small matter of your departure from the house this morning.”
“I am sorry for that, sir,” Gillian said meekly.
But Landover wasn’t fooled for a moment. “Are you?”
She looked up, prepared to insist upon it, but discovered when she looked into his eyes that she could not lie to him. Flustered, she looked away again. “I am not used to such constraint, my lord.”
“No doubt, but if you wish to remain in London, you will submit, my girl,” he declared implacably. “Do you know that my first thought when I discovered you were not with Amelia Periwinkle was that you had been abducted? It was not a pleasant thought. Fortunately, you returned before I had begun a concerted search.”
“The Harris Heiress stakes,” she muttered bitterly.
“Exactly. But besides disobeying me, you deceived your cousin, and that was not well done of you. For that, if for nothing else, you deserve to be punished.”
Gillian bit her lower lip. He was right. Her behavior had been childish. She looked at him, and her voice was small. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know,” he replied candidly. “Have you any suggestions?”
She swallowed carefully. “It is Wednesday, so I suppose you could forbid my going to Almack’s tonight. I should be unhappy to miss the assembly, but perhaps you would not consider that sufficient punishment.”
His reaction astonished her. “Oh, no you don’t!” he retorted, his eyes alight with sudden amusement. “I don’t doubt for a moment that you would consider it a punishment, but it would be a far worse one for me, and I’ve done nothing at all to deserve it!”
“My lord?” Her face was blank with confusion.
He chuckled. “No, of course not, how should you know what I’m talking about? We are dining at Harmoncourt House before the assembly, and I wish you to be there.”
“I did not know we were to dine out.”
“If you had not slipped out th
is morning,” he pointed out, “you would know. My sister descended upon me at an ungodly hour to inform me that it is time I set up my nursery.”
“Surely not, my lord!” Gillian gurgled.
He grinned at her. “I left out the wife part. That comes first, of course. Abigail intends to introduce me to a suitable damsel this very evening.”
“Do you always submit to her dictation, my lord?” She could barely conceal her delight at the news.
“Well, not always,” he conceded, “but I daresay she’s right this time. She chose to fling Orison in my teeth.” He paused suddenly, shooting her a rather searching look. Gillian shifted a bit in her chair, self-consciously smoothing her skirt.
“Orison, sir? Your cousin?”
“And heir. Odd that you and Sybilla were discussing him only yesterday, is it not? Abigail says he’s getting notions above his station. Haven’t noticed it myself, but I daresay she’s got the right of it. Abigail’s a very noticing female. Anyway, it is time I settled down, I suppose, so I’ve no objection if she wants to trot a few possibles across the track; however, I’d just as soon not be abandoned entirely to this chit’s tender mercies, so you will not stay at home tonight.”
Gillian found, to her amazement, that his attitude annoyed her. She should be grateful for his acquiescence, she scolded herself. Instead she merely thought him arrogant and rather poor-spirited besides. She rose to her feet.
“If we are to dine at Harmoncourt House, I must wash my hair earlier than I had intended, sir. Pray, will you excuse me now.’
He said nothing, but when she turned to go, he stood and placed a gentle hand upon her shoulder. “One moment, Miss Harris.”
She turned back to him, intensely aware of his nearness and strangely pleased when he placed his other hand on the opposite shoulder. “Sir?”
He looked down into her eyes, and she felt her pulse quicken. Color crept into her cheeks. “We are leaving a loose end or two, are we not?” His voice was as gentle as his touch, and she could think of nothing to say. “Perhaps it is just as well,” he went on when she lowered her lashes and did not speak. “Next time you are tempted to misbehave, perhaps you will remember that the dibs are not in tune and will resist the temptation.”
“I … I’ll try, sir.”
“I shall accept nothing but perfection, Miss Harris. You will no doubt become a paragon of propriety.”
“Oh dear,” she murmured.
He squeezed one shoulder and nudged her toward the door. “It won’t be so bad as all that, you know. You may even enjoy it.”
She wrinkled her nose in disbelief, but he only chuckled. A moment later, as she climbed the stairs, she realized how close a call she had had, and for a moment, her knees threatened to betray her. But then she remembered that Lady Harmoncourt had entered the lists, and her heart began to sing again. Soon she would be free of his constant surveillance, free to be herself again. Oddly, the notion seemed to lack some of its earlier flavor.
Mrs. Periwinkle was waiting for her in her bedchamber and gave her an appraising glance before waving her hand toward a table where a plate rested, temptingly piled with cold slivered beef, cheese, bread and butter, and fruit.
“I thought you might need sustenance, my dear.”
“Oh, thank you, ma’am. I’m starving!” Gillian looked fondly at the thin little woman, elegant today in puce sarcenet with a pink satin cap. “Ellen must have told you what happened. I’m dreadfully sorry if I caused you any worry. I should not have behaved so selfishly.”
“Indeed. A bit tetchy and wayward of you, my dear, but I collect Landover was not too harsh.”
“He was furious at first,” Gillian replied, taking a seat at the table and piling beef and cheese onto a slice of buttered bread. “He very nearly sent me back to Sussex.”
“Oh, my dear! But only ‘very nearly’?”
“Yes. He came round. But it was a near miss, I promise you.”
“‘Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge,’” quoth Mrs. Periwinkle solemnly.
Gillian grinned. “This is hardly a comedy of errors, my dear ma’am. Where is Avery?”
“Off sulking somewhere, no doubt,” stated her companion with just a trace of uncharacteristic exasperation. Gillian stared at her, and Mrs. Periwinkle shrugged. “Perhaps I should not say such things, but he has been living life like a drunken sailor on a mast. ’Tis no wonder Landover called him to book. But now he says he has no turn for dancing or doing the polite and don’t see why he should be made to play the fool.”
Light dawned. “Landover has ordered him to accompany us to Almack’s tonight, and Avery doesn’t wish to go.” Mrs. Periwinkle nodded. “Well, I shall have a word with him,” Gillian said, smiling. “He cannot have thought properly.”
Accordingly, once she had finished her repast, she went to find her brother. A few words from her with regard to Lady Harmoncourt’s intentions soon put Sir Avery in a better frame of mind, and once he discovered that they were to dine at Harmoncourt House before going on to Almack’s—a detail Landover had quite forgotten to mention to him—he began to look forward to the evening ahead.
The dinner was a very fine one, and the placement of guests gave Gillian an excellent opportunity to study Lady Sharon Clevenger, the damsel provided for Landover’s inspection, since they sat opposite one another. Lady Sharon was an elegant piece of goods, Gillian decided. Her sea-green evening dress showed good taste, her manners were polished, and she had no difficulty holding her own in conversation with Landover. And as if all that were not enough, Lady Sharon was a beauty, with a slim, willowy figure, aquamarine eyes, and a mane of magnificent red hair.
When they went on to Almack’s, Gillian was a good deal in Lady Sharon’s company, since the party tended to stay together. As a beginning, it seemed promising. Landover clearly seemed to pay more attention to Lady Sharon than to Gillian. He did not so much as ask the latter to dance, but this was explained by Lady Sybilla when the two had a moment to discuss the success of their little scheme.
“Mama was only too glad to bring Sharon Clevenger to his notice,” Sybilla confided. “Besides dragging Orison in, she also told him people were beginning to talk about his intentions toward you. So that ought to keep him out of your hair a bit.”
Gillian wasn’t sure if that was the cause or not, but she couldn’t deny that during the following week, Landover stayed very much out of her hair. On Monday, as promised, Tsar Alexander and King Frederick landed at Dover, and on Tuesday evening, Landover attended a magnificent banquet at Carlton House in their honor. Gillian saw him at breakfast the following morning.
“Was it wonderful?” she asked. “We got tired of waiting for the precession, so Cousin Amelia and I came home.”
Landover chuckled. “The banquet was marvelous, but only one of the guests of honor showed up. You didn’t see the procession because the Tsar never joined it. He slipped into London on his own. Then he chose to dine privately with his sister at the Pulteney instead of attending the dinner at Carlton House. Prinny’s nose is sadly out of joint.”
“Oh dear!”
“There is worse news. Alexander has declined to stay at St. James’s. He has taken over the principal apartments at the Pulteney instead, and I am told that Mr. Escudier, the manager, has pulled out all the stops.”
“What of King Frederick?”
Landover grinned, helping himself to toast from the silver rack. “Oh, he will stay at Clarence House as planned, but all the fine satinwood furniture Prinny ordered especially for his suite has been removed. His majesty is the spartan sort. He will sleep on nothing but a straw palliasse, and he has ordered a plain table and looking glass, with one common chair to be substituted for all the finery.”
Gillian stared at him. “You’re joking!”
“Not a bit of it. He likes to be thought a soldier first, king second.”
“How absurd!” Jeremy refilled her teacup, and she smiled up at him gratefully, then turned back to find Land
over eyeing her speculatively. “Yes?”
He shook his head. “Just wondering if you’ve been behaving yourself,” he confessed. “I’ve been busy.”
She knew it. Since the arrival of the foreign visitors, she had scarcely seen him, and for days before, much of his time had been claimed by the Regent, who wished to discuss last-minute plans and details with anyone who would listen. She had, however, caught a glimpse of him at two or three of the events she had attended during the week. On each occasion, Lady Sharon Clevenger had been tantalizingly near at hand. An imp of mischief danced in Gillian’s eye as she grinned at him now.
“How is Lady Sharon?”
He grinned back. “Delightful. Very submissive and obedient—a refreshing change for me, you will allow.”
Sparks routed the imp of mischief. “You’ve had no complaints of my behavior, sir!”
“Very true,” he agreed sweetly, “but experience warns me ’tis merely the calm before the storm.”
“Ooh!” Gillian could think of nothing further to say that might answer the purpose, although several demolishing rebuttals would occur to her once she reached the peace and quiet of her bedchamber. At the moment, however, she merely arose from the table with as much chilly hauteur as she could muster and flounced from the room, sped along by Landover’s chuckles.
As a consequence, when she received a message from the Princess Charlotte asking that she call at Warwick House, she canceled her other plans straightaway, informing Mrs. Periwinkle that she would see her later in the afternoon. Several people were joining them at Landover House for supper that evening before going on to the weekly assembly, and Gillian meant to have plenty of time to prepare herself.
Mrs. Periwinkle frowned. “Are you certain you don’t want me to accompany you?”
“No, no, don’t trouble yourself, my dear ma’am. Landover has waived all objections to my visiting her highness, and I’m perfectly certain you would enjoy a morning to yourself, indulging in a comfortable coze with an old friend or two. You cannot pretend that you haven’t denied yourself such pleasures on my account.”
