Hayley Ann Solomon

by The Quizzing-Glass Bride

  Lost in thought, he did not notice Sir Peter eyeing him keenly, or Lady Reynolds casting shrewd eyes upon his person. Nor did he notice Fern’s fingers move to the strings, until the first discordant notes. He tried not to wince, and coughed genteelly instead. Then again, came a jangling that set his nerves on edge.

  “Gracious, Fern, you are funning us!” Lady Reynolds gasped.

  But Fern was not funning; she simply could not see to save her life. She had thought she might get away with something simple, but of course, without her spectacles or even the quizzing glass, she could not see to find the first string. The whole matter, quite simply, was perfectly hopeless.

  Tears of mortification stung her eyes, for although she wanted to be rid of Lord Warwick, and she was certain this display would accomplish the matter, she felt a great depression of spirits. This, in addition to the natural feelings of anger at her predicament. Oh, if only she had not allowed Mimsy and her mama to bully her so! Surely her iron spectacles, with their charming blue satin ribbon, would have been preferable to this? But there was no going back, no wishing she had worn a simple muslin with her hair unfettered by clips and pins! No wishing that the damnable tiara, heavy upon her head, could be consigned to the devil, or indeed that the whole company be so consigned! Everyone—even Waters, the third footman, was staring at her agog.

  She rose from her seat a little unsteadily and held up her head a trifle higher than she might normally have done. Lord Warwick, rather than being annoyed, began admiring her for her backbone. She glared, with quite enormous, glorious, sparkling green eyes, at her audience.

  “You will forgive me if I retire. I am tired, and I have the headache. Lord Warwick, pray do not feel obliged to tender your addresses. I understand perfectly if you have undergone a change of heart. As a matter of fact, I release you utterly from any arrangements you may already have made. Naturally I do not have the details, since I was never consulted, but I surmise there must have been some settlements.”

  At which both her parents gasped in shock and annoyance, and Lord Warwick very nearly clapped his hands. So, she had spunk, the little one. And at last he thought he understood what ailed her.

  The little termagant had wished to be courted, by God! Well, if he could just uncover a trifle more of the evening’s mysteries, he might oblige. On the other hand, he should probably make a very hasty exit and thank his lucky stars. For the present, however, he satisfied himself with bowing and extending his hand. It was ignored, again, but he was not so easily set aside this time.

  Lady Reynolds, in the process of swooning yet again, missed the most disturbing occurrence of all. Warwick swept forward and placed his arms about Fern’s waist in a grip that was light yet nevertheless hinted of steel. Fern gasped, for she had not seen the extended hand, but she certainly felt the consequences of ignoring it!

  Sir Peter signaled for another brandy and sank back into his chair. He was perfectly unused to such goings-on in his own home, but if it would save the settlements, he would be a sorry sort of papa not to turn a blind eye to this outrageous behavior.

  Fern struggled, but Warwick murmured firmly that it was wiser that she did not. In a louder tone, he very civilly invited her onto the balcony again, “for,” he said, “you undoubtedly require a restorative, Miss Reynolds, and the air is really most clement for headaches and such.”

  At which the third footman nimbly moved to open the balcony door, which could be accessed from the music room, just as easily as from the more formal dining area. Sir Peter retired, at last, with his paper, and Lady Reynolds, still not yet recovered from her shocks, lay moaning upon the sofa, both the housekeeper and the upper housemaid now busily in attendance.

  Fern was trapped. Short of screaming—and even her volatile nature did not permit this—there was nothing to do but to acquiesce, and to try to ignore, quite utterly, the masculine arm encompassing the only part of her gown not resembling a pumpkin.

  A task easier said than done, for the gloved hand was like velvet, warm and heady against her skin. Their arms seemed to touch, and though she had been wearing gloves in the approved manner, these had been discarded before the debacle of her performance. She wriggled a little, but it was hard to do so and still maintain a shred of her dignity.

  Besides, the more she wriggled, the heavier seemed to be his arm upon her waist, until she thought she was trapped in some kind of heavenly vise. For heavenly it was, though she was loath to admit it, and loath, too, to question why her body trembled so, or why her breathing became so shallow just because she could feel his own breath upon her neck.

  The candles outside were still glowing, flickering merrily in the enormous candelabra lit with such painstaking care by Mrs. Fidget, the housekeeper. Fern could just make out the flicker, though not the wrought-iron castings of the elaborate structure. She did not need to though, for Lord Warwick was leading her, as if in a dance.

  Not a quadrille, she thought, but a waltz. She had only to turn just slightly to be encased in those arms of steel. Contrarily, she turned away, but was pulled back faster than she expected, so now her mouth was within inches of his own. She had never been so close to a gentleman in her life, and now she really did feel faint!

  Her knees felt like they were going to cave beneath her, but amazingly, they were resilient. Warwick, completely lost to all sense of decorum, drew her closer yet, so that her lips almost touched his shirt, and she smelled the wild excesses of rosewater and musk that he splashed liberally upon his person.

  “You are really a very tiresome creature, Miss Reynolds.”

  The words were drawled, but Warwick was anything but composed as he looked down upon those dreamy, soft emerald eyes. He had never really expected to want to kiss his intended, a fact that now surprised him slightly. Now, he very much wanted to, especially as she was licking those lips in a most intriguing manner, but he suspected it was agitation rather than affection that prompted her.

  “You don’t understand!” Fern pulled away, at last. The air was freezing after the intimacy of his arms.

  “Then pray, do enlighten me!”

  “You think you can . . . can . . . maul me like this just because of some contracts you have signed with Papa! Well, I assure you that is not the case! I am sorry if I have wasted your time, Lord Warwick, but since I was never apprised of your intentions, I do not think I can be so very much to blame!”

  “Which is a backhanded apology if ever I heard one! And how are you so knowledgeable of my intentions now, Miss Reynolds?”

  “Oh, half the house staff is! It is a pity, I assure you, I am not a common housemaid! Then I would have known of the marriage plans an eon ago, I am sure! But since no one cared to apprise me of my illustrious good fortune, I am afraid I now stand in ignorance.”

  “And on your high ropes!”

  “Yes, well I said you could call it off.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Fern bit her teeth and lied. She was too ashamed of the strange sensations that he aroused in her to do anything else. “It is, Warwick. And now, if you will excuse me . . .”

  “I shan’t. Not before I have kissed you, that is.”

  “You are abominable!”

  “And you are behaving like a mannerless brat! I should have spanked you when I had the opportunity.”

  “Oh!”

  “Yes, oh! And now, if you please, you shall permit me to kiss you. Ordinarily I would have waited for the banns, but I find the matter is most urgent.”

  Fern thought he meant it was urgent to convince her, but Lord Warwick was fascinated to find he meant urgent in the quite literal sense.

  He wanted Fern; he wanted to stop her quarrelsome objections with a thorough kissing. He wanted her to smile with blinding happiness and proclaim herself the most satisfied lady alive. Quite why he should want such an absurdity, when a convenient, trouble-free nuptial was all he really aspired to, he did not know. But with all his heart he wanted it, and he wanted it not next month,
nor next quarter, but now, this very moment.

  He pulled the coroneted head closer, and Fern, for once, was bereft of all speech. Dimly the candles flickered in her consciousness; then all she could think of was Lord Riccardo Warwick and his consuming masculine presence. She could feel, rather than see, his smooth, clean-shaven skin and his starched cravat with its lustrous pin bedded deep in the folds.

  She could feel his hands upon her, then his mouth, gentle, but oh, so demanding. It was a sweeter kiss than she could have dreamed possible, yet it promised of more sweetness still. When Warwick felt her rigid body relax, he laughed a little in some secret triumph and kissed her again, and her tangled lashes, too.

  Fern moaned a little and extended her long, very lovely neck. He touched it lightly with his thumb, but was shocked moments later to feel a very heavy object land on his feet. Since he had changed out of his riding clothes, he was wearing shoes, rather than the more traditional boots. They were highly polished and as soft as doeskin.

  “Hell and damnation! What the devil was that?”

  The moment was broken. Fern, horrified, broke from his arms. She did not have to see to know what had happened. The wretched tiara had slipped its clips and tumbled to the ground. Or, more specifically, to his feet. She realized, with mortification, that it was solid gold. The sapphires were as large as wren’s eggs. Her head ached—quite truly, it did—and so, evidently, did his feet. In a few seconds, she was sure, Mimsy’s splendid coiffure would be in pieces about her head. Her humiliation would be complete.

  Ignoring his arms—which were stretched out with the offending jewels—she gathered her skirts and ran. Sheer good luck stopped her from either tripping or walking into a windowpane. The candelabra, thankfully, was well out of her shortsighted path. Warwick thought to follow her, then stopped dead in his tracks. His heart was beating most erratically for a rake, but worse, he was laughing. He thought perhaps it would be best if he departed. Fern—dear, lovely, wonderfully wild Fern—might not understand his sudden mirth.

  In truth, neither did he, only he knew for sure that he wanted Fern, and more, that the feeling was reciprocated in kind. Despite her strange behavior, her indifferent manners, and her obvious prejudice against him, she felt as compelled as he did to abandon good sense and kiss and surrender to inner passion. Fern had always had an inner passion. He had known it on that day, five years ago, when she had stolen past his under groom and fed poor Rascal barley sugar.

  He had glimpsed it again when her eyes sparked fury and chagrin, but most of all, her mouth had given away a hundred sweet secrets. Now all he had to do was to get to the bottom of the peculiar mystery of her aversion to him, and he would be home and dry. Oh! He had also to post the banns and send a notice in to the Gazette. He did not, he thought, wish to wait long.

  With a little whistle, he let himself out a side door. Edgemont, erect at his post at the grand entrance, was horrified. When he found Miss Fern’s tiara lying about as if it were of no more moment than a pair of nankeen breeches, his horror was complete. Word spread through the lower order like wildfire. Miss Fern was no longer to be a grand marchioness. No, nor a duchess either, not even when the Duke of Hargreaves popped his cork. It was no wonder, then, that when Miss Reynolds was finally served her morning chocolate, the face of her maid was quite as miserable as her own.

  Four

  The gentleman, poised on the point of knocking, dropped his gloved hand silently to his side, tossed his top hat on a hall table, and regarded the single occupant of Sir Peter’s extensive library with ill-concealed interest. He was unaware how arresting he looked, with his curly, shoulder-length hair and his dark, smoldering eyes. His locks were not guinea gold like the lady’s, but sandy, revealing faint lights as he moved. When he smiled, his chin dimpled. He was not smiling now, only staring curiously within.

  There was no sign of Sir Peter, of course, for everyone knew him to be far from bookish, preferring the hunting fields to the rosewood confines of the Evensides library. So it was a lady he watched with unconcealed interest.

  She was dressed in a simple gown of rose sarcenet, with a tantalizing underslip of the purest white—silk, he thought, but he could not be sure. She was turned from him, a book open upon her lap. She had not read a word for ages. He could see, for the fifth page of Ivanhoe was stained with tears.

  He made a small movement, then startled in surprise. It was not the bright, abundant gold locks that arrested him, for he had glimpsed them the night before, beneath the appalling headpiece. What captured his attention was the revealing satin ribbon dangling down the nape of her neck.

  What a clodpoll he was! The lady wore spectacles! It would explain much, he thought, especially her cutting of him at the outset, when she had rudely brushed past his extended hand. Oh, there had been myriad clues.... Now that he thought on them he was only astonished he had not perceived it before.

  What a pother over nothing!

  He peered at her closely. The spectacles were charming and distinctive. Common iron, with loops at the end of each temple for a securing ribbon. A bit dark, perhaps, for her piquant face, but that could be rectified. Good Lord, he could have gold ones wrought if she so wished! It was not that uncommon—Lady Asterley had famous silver spectacles; there was the new tortoiseshell. . . . But he ran ahead of himself. He was not home and hosed yet, he was certain.

  Ivanhoe was growing wetter. The lady was now weeping quite freely. He wondered whether it would be diplomatic to depart unseen, or have himself announced.

  The decision was wrested from him by the lady herself, who looked up at the precise moment he was pondering this conundrum. The book slid from her lap with a large crash, and she jumped up guiltily, affording the gentleman an utterly guileless smile.

  “I am sorry, sir. You have caught me trespassing on Sir Peter’s library! I am not usually such a watering pot, only . . .”

  “Only?”

  “Oh, I should not burden a stranger with my troubles! Step inside, and I shall call a servant. Sir Peter is hunting, I believe, but if it is urgent a footman can be sent. . . .”

  Warwick did not hear where the footman could be sent. He was too astonished to vouchsafe anything but the mildest reply as he regarded her with suddenly acute eyes. Good Lord, she behaved as though she did not recognize him! And her charming demeanor was at such odds with her behavior the previous night, it could hardly be credited!

  “Miss Reynolds, do you not know who I am?”

  Fern looked startled. “Should I? Your countenance is certainly familiar, but I cannot perfectly recall ever being introduced. But I am such a shatterbrain, you must forgive me! If we have met, it was probably in London, and my first season, you know, was an unmitigated disaster!”

  “That I cannot believe!” Warwick was gallant more by habit than by choice. His mind was far too active wondering how the devil the girl did not recognize him. Either she was playing a very deep game, or he must tread carefully. Perhaps, if she did not recognize him, it would give him a fresh start, time to talk to her without her prejudices or angers or fears. Fern might slap Lord Warwick in the face the next time they met, but she would surely treat a stranger with more courtesy! Warwick decided rather whimsically that he would rather be the stranger.

  He smiled meltingly at Fern, so that she blinked, her honest, direct gaze a staggering contrast from their last encounter. He inferred it was both the spectacles and the happy circumstance that she’d not just had a bridegroom summarily foisted upon her. Or, at least, that he was not that groom! Bother Mama! He should never have taken her advice and approached Sir Peter first. He should have realized from the outset that Fern would have a mind of her own. Now was his chance to get to know that mind, and he was damned if he was going to own to being Warwick!

  He took her hand. “We had the pleasure of a dance a while back. I cannot exactly remember whose ball it was, but it was a great crush.”

  “Oh, then it must have been Lady Addington’s. She is famous for he
r squeezes, and the others, I believe, were all rather moderate.”

  “Yes, Lady Addington’s, then. It must have been. You look delightful.”

  “With my spectacles?” Fern made a face.

  “Especially with your spectacles. They distinguish you.”

  Fern’s eyes lit up. Warwick thought that they shone brighter than flames on the finest wax candles.

  “Do you think so? Mama thinks they are perfectly abhorrent, and my dresser despises them. I would myself, probably, only it is so good to actually see, and not to have to stumble over everything, or . . . or . . .” The smile faded from those luminous eyes. Warwick thought he knew why. The memories from yesterday must have been painful indeed. He felt a stab of remorse for not realizing sooner what the problem had been.

  Fern spoke again. “I am very much afraid, sir, that I am in disgrace. And in a dreadfully morbid frame of mind, so it would be best if I excuse myself from your company right now. I shall arrange to have a tea tray sent ’round. . . .”

  “No!” The words were loud and rather too adamant for a stranger.

  Fern raised her brows a little. “No to the tea tray, or no to my departure?”

  “No to your departure. I forbid it. I am perfectly at ease with morbid people, for I am morbid myself. I will rattle around in this library like a caged animal if I don’t have something young and pretty to look at! If Sir Peter is at hunt, he will be an age, and you cannot deny it!”

  “No, but neither is it proper to remain.”

  “Oh, bother proper! Haven’t you ever wanted to rebel, Miss Reynolds, and do something just because it isn’t permitted?”

  “Frequently, sir, but I try to quell the impulse.”

  “Do you always succeed?”

  Fern looked abashed, then smiled again. “Almost never, I am afraid.”

  “Then stay with me. No one will know. This wing of the house is seldom used, I believe.”