“Thank you for that at least.” She sat down on the edge of the pond and trailed her fingers in the water. “I have worked very hard to make myself acceptable to Lady Creighton. She is willing to overlook my being a widow rather than a virgin, but I doubt she would overlook a girlhood indiscretion, no matter how long ago.”
“Is that what I am? A girlhood indiscretion?” He gave her his most wicked smile, the one he hated and delivered so well.
Minerva snorted. “You are a walking, talking indiscretion, and well you know it.” She smiled, the smile he remembered as his favorite. Pretty, pert, and impossible to resist. She studied his face. “You look well, Sebastian. In spite of the war and the years, you look well.”
“And you look beautiful. More so than I remember, which is saying a great deal.” He meant it and he wanted her to believe it. “Creighton could not have picked a lovelier countess.” The room was too warm. And yet, his skin grew cold. Too many days of travel, perhaps.
“Lord Creighton may have picked me, but his mother is the one with final approval. She decided to put aside her objections to my being a vicar’s daughter when she found out I had produced a son. Being a good breeder makes up for being common.”
“There is nothing common about you, Minerva.” The walls of the conservatory closed in. Creighton had mentioned her son. She had mentioned her son. Had anyone given the age of this son? He was contemplating (more than contemplating – looking forward to) seducing this woman and she might have given birth to his son?
“Are you ill?” She tilted her head to one side and looked him up and down.
“Minerva, your son, how old is he?” He started towards her almost before he knew it.
“Excuse me?” She jumped to her feet.
“How old is your son?” He gripped her elbows.
She pulled free and slapped him. His teeth fairly rattled. Apparently, his charm had gone into hiding. Again. “Edward is eight years old, if it is any of your affair.”
“Our affair is exactly what I am talking about, madam.” She might have given the raising of his son to another man and she was angry?
“He will be eight the first of June.” Her face was white and she shook with rage. “A man who took a first in biology and is as adept as you are at keeping track of his every penny can surely come to the proper conclusions concerning my son’s parentage.”
“I had the right to ask.”
“You have no rights where I am concerned and none concerning my son.” In a whirl of blue and white muslin she crossed the flagstones of the conservatory. To his astonishment she stopped and came back to poke her finger in his tea-soaked cravat. “Once I am married do me the favor of informing me well before you intend to visit. That way I can make arrangements to be anywhere else. Scotland might be far enough. Perhaps.”
“There is nothing in Scotland but sheep and hairy cattle,” he shot back.
“The company of hairy cattle would be preferable to yours.” She stalked off. Again.
“There is no need to run away, Minerva,” he shouted to her retreating back.
She paused to look back at him, her nose wrinkled in disgust. “I am not running away. I am going to change for dinner. I suggest you do the same, sir. Your clothes are wet, and stained, and they smell of strawberries.” The glass panes of the French windows rattled shut with gunfire precision behind her.
Sebastian’s ears rang. It had all been so simple. He’d smile at Creighton’s fiancée, flirt with her, dance with her, picnic with her, talk her into taking a walk in the moonlight, and in less than two weeks she’d throw the earl over for him. And he would ride away a thousand pounds the richer, Creighton would be unencumbered, and the lady’s heart would be bruised, not broken. She’d declare Colonel Brightworth a scoundrel of the worst order, and she would go on to marry someone who actually wanted to have a wife.
He started back towards the front of the conservatory. His boots rang on the flagstone path. The broad leaves of banana trees slapped his shoulders. He shoved them out of the way. It was a good plan. He never went into any business venture without a solid plan. And so far, he’d been soaked in tea, slapped, had his head turned into a millwheel, and his reputed powers of seduction were apparently on a fast horse back to Derbyshire. He only had one question.
“What the devil did you say to her?” Fitzhugh stepped out from behind some sort of exotic flowering vine, glass of brandy in hand.
“You do know I want her to actually fall enough in love with you to cry off, don’t you, Brightworth?” Creighton touched his glass to Fitzhugh’s in silent salute. They both grinned at him mercilessly. “Do I need to call in reinforcements?”
“Overton’s in Town for the Season,” Fitzhugh offered. “No money to speak of, but he is a marquess and has the devil’s own way with the ladies. He can be out here in a day or two.”
Hell no, he would not. “Overton’s a ruffian in gentlemen’s clothing. He’s not coming anywhere near Minerva.”
“Apparently, neither are you, save to have food and drink or a slap thrown at you.” Creighton’s hooded eyes pinned Sebastian with peregrine sharpness. “What exactly happened between the two of you to cause you to run from being leg-shackled to her?”
“I realized I couldn’t afford her. That’s all. Wives are expensive and I didn’t think it fair to marry her on a lieutenant’s pay.” It all made perfect sense then, but every day since he’d searched for the real reason he’d run so far and so fast from the only thing he’d ever wanted.
Fitzhugh fell onto a stone bench and dropped his head in his hands. “Good God, man.”
Creighton downed the rest of his brandy and nestled the glass into an urn of tulips. “Tell me you did not tell her you could not afford her.”
“I wrote it in a note. And had it delivered by someone we both trusted.” Damn. “Roger Faircloth. I gave the note to Roger Faircloth.”
“The man she married?” Fitzhugh whistled long and low. “When you tell a woman you can’t afford her she turns it into she isn’t worth the money. And since you didn’t buy, Roger Faircloth did.”
“It wasn’t like that. Minerva is far cleverer than that. More likely Faircloth swept her off her feet.” His stomach tightened and twisted. He needed some dinner.
“Not hard to sweep a woman off her feet after the last man throws her over for money.” Creighton plopped down on the bench next to Fitzhugh, who patted him on the shoulder.
Minerva had been young, not stupid.
“My friend, you are as good as wed. There is no way in hell Brightworth can pull this off, not with this lady. Too bad.”
Sebastian went all over feverish and then cold. Damned hothouse. He’d have pneumonia at this rate.
Creighton leaned back against an accommodating orange tree and crossed his booted feet at the ankles. He plucked an orange from an overhanging branch and tossed it to Fitzhugh who tossed it back.
Their childish game irritated him. Immeasurably.
“I don’t know. It might not be all that bad,” Creighton conceded. He lobbed the orange to Fitzhugh again. “She is quite… fetching. Marrying her will certainly be no hardship.”
A red haze blurred his vision.
“Indeed. I know now why Brightworth didn’t introduce her to any of us fellow officers whilst we were at Weatherby.” Fitzhugh began to throw the orange in the air and catch it again and again. “Looks like he’s out one thousand pounds and you’ve gained a very lovely bride.”
Sebastian snatched the orange in midair and hurled it at Fitzhugh who fell back so it landed in Creighton’s lap.
“Careful there. I’m to be married in two weeks.”
Sebastian strode towards the French windows that led back to the library. He pushed them open and turned, his hands gripping the frames. “Two thousand pounds. Two thousand and I guarantee Minerva will throw you over before the sun rises on your wedding day.”
“Done,” Creighton affirmed. He leapt to his feet and offered Sebastian his hand o
n it.
Fitzhugh peeled the orange and stuffed a section into his mouth. “You’re mad I tell you. Both of you. Stark raving mad.”
One of the French windows creaked open and Peel poked his head into the room.
“This can’t be good,” Creighton muttered.
“Her ladyship made mention of coming this way in search you three, my lord.”
Fitzhugh and Creighton jumped to their feet.
“Might I suggest the other way out and the back stairs to your rooms?” Peel peered quickly over his shoulder and waved them away.
Creighton grabbed Sebastian’s arm and dragged him through the conservatory, Fitzhugh fast on their heels.
“This is ridiculous,” Sebastian groused as he beat his way through a jungle of flora. “We will have to see Lady Creighton at dinner.” And Minerva as well, but the less he thought of their next meeting the better. At least until he’d come up with another plan. Or six. As they left the hothouse he pulled his arm free.
“I’d rather not see her until then if it is all the same to you.” Creighton tapped a section of oak paneling in the wall down the corridor from the French windows. It popped open to reveal a narrow staircase.
“I concur.” Fitzhugh pushed Sebastian up the stairs. The noise their boots made on the time-worn steps threatened to announce their escape to the entire house.
At the third-floor landing Creighton put a finger to his lips and stealthily lifted the latch. Sebastian looked back at Fitzhugh who grinned.
“Shall we go back down and ask Cook for some mince pies?” he asked.
“God, no!” Sebastian and Creighton replied.
The last time they’d used these stairs they’d been all of fourteen years old. They’d nicked a bottle of port from the earl’s study and a plate of mince pies from the kitchens. By midnight they’d believed themselves to be dying. By morning they’d wished they had. And in spite of being sick until Boxing Day it had been the best Christmas in Sebastian’s memory.
The lord of Creighton Hall opened the door to the servants’ staircase and waved his friends into the third-floor corridor. Sebastian knew why his friend allowed the dowager countess to rule, why he pretended to fear her wrath. He knew, but he didn’t understand it. After all of these years, the man still waited. A vision of Minerva, infuriated and radiant and unafraid, invaded his mind. No, he’d never understood. But he was beginning to and it frightened the hell out of him. He’d better come up with that plan and he’d better do it quick.
“I’m certain Mama has put you in your usual chambers.” Creighton waved up the corridor and started towards the suite of rooms that took up the entire back side of the third floor, the earl’s chambers. “Come to the shrine to the late pater and fetch me in an hour or so. We will go down and face the dragon together. Dress for bloodshed.”
“Mama? When is the lovely Mrs. Faircloth going to take over the duties of the mistress of the house?” Fitzhugh raised a pausing finger to his long-suffering valet who stood in the doorway of the blue bedchamber.
“That depends on Brightworth, now doesn’t it.”
Fitzhugh’s laughter and Creighton’s sardonic expression followed Sebastian into the green bedchamber across the hall. He strode into the room and leaned against the door closed behind him.
“I see Mr. Peel found you, Colonel.” Robbie brushed a bit of lint from one of Sebastian’s waistcoats and placed it carefully next to the rest of his dinner apparel lying on the large four poster bed.
“He did indeed.” Sebastian loosed his cravat and unwound the wilted, stained cloth from around his neck. He shrugged out of his jacket and waistcoat and placed it all in Robbie’s outstretched hands. “She still reigns over the Creighton empire, I see.”
“Only because his lordship lets her, as well you know.” The footman pulled a screen aside to reveal a steaming bath prepared before the fireplace. “That Mrs. Faircloth is a saint to put up with it, if you ask me.” He busied himself unpacking the rest of Sebastian’s kit whilst Sebastian shed the remainder of his tea-stained clothes and eased himself into the bath with a heartfelt groan. He’d never tell Fitzhugh, but the ride from Derbyshire had not been kind to his arse either.
“Has her ladyship been hard on Lord Creighton’s betrothed?” He ducked his head beneath the water and went to work on his hair with the cake of his host’s expensive soap Robbie handed him. He didn’t like the idea of anyone being unkind to Minerva. And the Dowager Countess Creighton took creative unkindness to a terrifying degree.
What sort of inducement pressed Minerva into dealing with such a manipulative old harridan? In all her protestations, she’d never mentioned love. A woman like Minerva, if she loved a man she’d say it. Creighton didn’t love her, but he was handsome, wealthy, titled, and had the ability to make a passionate woman like her fall in love with him. Deliberately or not.
“You were here for the last two, Colonel. What do you think?”
“If her ladyship heard you talking like that she’d dismiss you without a character.” Sebastian stepped out of the bath and wrapped himself in the thick, soft bath sheet Robbie held open for him.
“Her ladyship dismisses me at least once a day.” The footman indicated the chair he’d placed in front of the large window overlooking the back terrace and landscaped lawns sprawling out to a pretty lake. “His lordship tells us to ignore her. We’re only dismissed if he says so.”
“It is comforting to know some things never change.” Sebastian closed his eyes and held back a sigh as Robbie covered his face with a hot towel in preparation for his shave.
“Humpf. Like working on a battlefield. Why do you think he invited you and Lord Fitzhugh here a week early?”
“What possible use could Lord Fitzhugh and I serve in the war between Lord Creighton and his mother?”
“Cannon fodder, Colonel. Pure, infantry cannon fodder. Nothing else for it.”
“We know all about that, don’t we, Robbie.” Sebastian opened his eyes and met the other man’s gaze.
“Aye, we do at that, Colonel.” Robbie had served under Creighton and later under Sebastian against the Corsican. They shared the sort of silent conversation reserved for those who had descended to the same level of hell. And who bore the same burden of guilt upon escaping it alive. In addition to the travails of war against Napoleon this particular footman had survived a number of years on the field where Creighton and the dowager countess battled for supremacy. He knew nearly as much as Sebastian about the reasons for this war.
Sebastian needed two things in his quest to seduce Minerva. A new plan. And a source of information. A gentleman did not participate in espionage. A footman like Robbie would take to it like a duck to water. He’d promised Creighton Minerva would never make it to the altar. He told himself the two thousand pounds was reason enough for him to succeed. The promise of another night or three discovering exactly how beautiful Minerva Welton Faircloth had grown had nothing to do with it.
“Robbie, my good man, I have a proposition for you. One that will help his lordship and infuriate his mother. What do you say?”
Stealing Minerva: Chapter Four
Minerva stood between her betrothed and his sister and did her best to ignore Sebastian without appearing to do so. In spite of Lady Creighton’s best efforts her son insisted Minerva serve as his hostess this evening. She’d have given her best ball gown and her meager collection of jewelry to have witnessed that particular conversation. As Lord Creighton had gone to the trouble, Minerva had to make the effort to treat his old friend with a modicum of civility. And refrain from spilling anything on him.
“My brother is certainly playing the attentive swain,” Aphrodite whispered. “Of course, with you in that dress, he’d be a fool not to, my dear.”
“Creighton is always attentive.” Minerva elbowed her gently. Her friend was right. The earl had knocked on her chamber door earlier and begged the privilege of escorting her downstairs. The minute they’d entered the first-floor drawing room
he’d pressed a possessive hand to her back and kept it there. He’d asked her to act as his hostess. And he smiled at her as if she was the most beautiful creature alive.
Perhaps she had carried things a bit too far. She’d allowed Ditey’s maid to dress her hair and left in her room the cap Lady Creighton insisted a mature widow must always don. As to her dress, what had possessed her to wear it this evening? The décolletage too low, the sleeves mere wisps of lace, and the fabric, emerald green silk – all of it designed to flatter her and present her as some elegant lady. Roger had bought it for her for a season in Town that was never to be. Two years out of date, the simply designed gown was sufficiently formal for a dinner party of friends and family. She’d not intended to flaunt herself. And she’d certainly never meant to spark some sort of typically male show of possession from Lord Creighton. He curled his hand slightly at her waist and gave her a brief grin.
She wanted desperately to smack him. In all the time he’d courted her and even after he proposed he’d never behaved in such a devoted fashion. She’d believed him above the dog-in-the-manger foolishness he currently exhibited. Sebastian told him about their past (part of it, at least) and suddenly he wanted to stake his claim. He needn’t have bothered. Sebastian had—
“He has not stopped staring at you since you walked into the room,” her future sister-in-law leaned in to whisper in Minerva’s ear.
“Who? Ditey, will you stop dragging me about like a child’s toy?” Minerva stumbled across the blue and gold Aubusson carpet, dragged by the skirts of her silk gown. A Chinese vase teetered on a side table as she brushed by and she managed to catch it before it fell. But not before Lady Creighton saw it and frowned her disapproval. Which was a respite from her smiling disapproval.
“Colonel Brightworth.” Ditey stopped before the long case window next to an arrangement of blue and white striped Chippendale chairs and loveseat. “He keeps looking at you with an odd expression on his face and clenching his right hand.”
Her Perfect Gentleman: A Regency Romance Anthology Page 65
