“And this must be your dear wife, Lady Glimouth,” Viscount Keicester said, taking the Countess’ hand in his.
“Indeed,” the Earl said, “and this is my daughter, Lady Delilah Jefferson.”
“My Lady,” Lord Keicester said, taking Delilah’s gloved hand in his and bowing his head over it briefly. “The rumors of your beauty fall utterly short.”
Coming from any other man, Delilah may have taken that as a compliment. However, from Lord Keicester, this comment was said with about the same amount of warmth as he might mention the weather. It was as if he learned it on his carriage ride north. Everything about him spoke of genuine gladness at visiting his betrothed at her home—everything except those pale eyes of his.
Ah, but then I can play my part, too!
She would make sure to be all smiles and good manners, but try and convey her utter abhorrence for this match through her eyes when she and the Viscount were together. If she could manage it, she would try and instill in him the same sort of chilly unease that he inspired in her.
“That’s very kind of you to say, My Lord,” she said, dipping into a brief curtsey. She returned his smile, trying to summon the Scottish cold into her blue gaze.
The innocuous face regarded hers for a moment longer than etiquette normally dictated.
“Shall we move inside, My Lord?” the Earl of Glimouth ventured. “Perhaps, whilst your baggage is taken to the suites we’ve had prepared for you, you might care to come into the sitting room and take a drink of something or other?”
“That would be most agreeable,” Lord Keicester said.
The party moved into the house, the Earl and the Viscount walking ahead of the two ladies so that Lord Glimouth could inform Lord Keicester on the history of the Glimouth estate.
“What do you think, my dear?” the Countess asked her daughter quietly, as they entered one of the more ornate parlors ahead of the two men. The Earl and Lord Keicester were staring out of a window in the hallway whilst Delilah’s father expounded on the agricultural prospects of his land for the coming season.
“Goodness, Mother, I’ve exchanged two words with the man!” Delilah said, managing to refrain from rolling her eyes only with the most supreme of efforts.
“I think he seems a nice young man,” her mother said, very enthusiastically.
I’m not surprised, especially now that you’ve seen how wealthy the nice young man is.
They passed a very respectful and entirely appropriate hour or so in the parlor, making inconsequential chit-chat as etiquette demanded.
The Viscount was a man that was clearly at home in these sort of social situations. He had a certain grace and charm that Delilah’s parents—especially her mother—found quite intoxicating. He appeared to be a quick study when it came to people, knowing exactly the sort of questions that would set Lord Glimouth’s tongue to gabbling away, and judging the subjects that Lady Glimouth was most interested in.
“But, see here, my Lord,” Lady Glimouth said, pausing to take a fresh slice of cake from the tray on the table in front of her. “You have let my husband and I monopolize the conversation for far too long! Tell us, how did you come to hear of our daughter?”
“Excuse her, my Lord,” the Earl cut in with a small smile. “It’s rare that we get so distinguished a guest as yourself coming to visit us this far north.”
Turning to his wife, Lord Glimouth said, “Surely, how he came to hear of Lady Delilah and why he came to ask me for her hand in marriage is something best discussed first amongst themselves, Mary?”
The slightest shade of rose infused Lady Glimouth’s cheeks at this gentlest of reprimands from her husband.
“Of course,” she said. “Of course. Lady Delilah, why don’t you take the Viscount on a tour of the gardens? That should give the two of you opportunity enough to discuss how his Lordship came to grace us with his presence, and what the future might hold.”
Delilah bobbed her head dutifully, using the movement to disguise her disdain for the idea. “As you wish, Mother,” she said.
Lord Keicester got to his feet as Delilah rose, and the two of them left the parlor and walked out into the sporadic sunshine. It was one of those peculiar days which cannot decide whether it wants to storm or stay fair.
Delilah, pulling a shawl around her shoulders and leading Lord Keicester down the mossy steps that led to the rose garden, thought it the perfect weather to illustrate how her future might turn out.
Chapter 10
As soon as they were within the green coolness of the flower garden, Delilah felt a definite change in the atmosphere between herself and Lord Keicester. Whilst the man had initially been polite but aloof, Delilah sensed a definite cool disdain creep into the young nobleman’s manner.
“So, my Lord,” Delilah said, as they strolled around a gorgeous display of pink Eglantine roses, “do you enjoy flowers? Has your home in Keicester extensive gardens?”
Lord Keicester bent to sniff one of these roses.
“I enjoy flowers,” he said, “as far as they go. I enjoy the way that they give the eye something to rest on, but I’m afraid that I am not one of those men who are prone to waxing poetically about them.”
“I see,” Delilah said, “and does this philosophy only include flowers or does it extend to encapsulate other aspects of your personal life?”
Viscount Keicester walked quite unconcernedly around the back of an ornately sculpted white Musk Rose that one of the gardeners had managed to tame.
“I suppose,” he said, his voice calm, “that it might be said that this is an attitude that colors much of my thinking.”
He plucked one of the white blooms from its stem and studied it as the two of them walked up the garden path.
“May I ask you a question, Lady Delilah?”
“Of course. It would seem that we shouldn’t balk at questions, not when we’re going to be man and wife.”
“Quite. Would I be right in thinking that you are a more…modern woman?”
“By which you mean…?”
“You’re more apt to say what you’re thinking.”
“Isn’t that just the intemperance of youth that affects us all?”
“That might be so, I suppose.”
Delilah looked hard at the back of the Viscount’s head as he walked along in front of her, willing him to feel how little she wanted him there, how fiercely her heart was given over to the Highlander, Marcus Malloch.
“And what if I was such a woman? A woman who is less inclined to keep silent?”
Lord Keicester spun on his heel, so abruptly that Delilah was forced to stop dead so that she did not walk straight into him. The white rose was still in his hand, but Delilah saw that, as they had walked, he had pulled all the petals off of it.
“In that case,” the Viscount said, “I would say speak, and be not silent! I have neither the time nor the inclination to play these societal games.”
Despite her recently cultivated boldness, Delilah was taken aback by the forthrightness of Lord Keicester. Gentlemen did not talk to ladies this way.
I think it’s clear that this man might be a noble, but he is no gentleman.
“If that is how you would have it,” she said to him, making sure to stare into those strange, pale greenish eyes and to tilt her chin imperiously—she was the daughter of an Earl after all. “I would ask you, in plain terms, why it is that you asked my father for my hand? We have never spoken. Never even made each other’s acquaintance before today.”
“The nobility arrange such marriages all the time,” the Viscount said, shrugging with an indifference that set a fire smoldering in Delilah’s breast.
“Quite,” she said. “You, though, my Lord, do not strike me as the sort of man to commit to a course without first weighing its gain and sacrifices minutely.”
The Viscount actually smiled at this, a leering smirk that was repulsive to witness.
“Well said!” he chuckled. “Well said, indeed.”
“Yes, you’re quite perceptive—which is not something that is accredited you when one looks into your reputation.”
Lord Keicester dropped the remainder of the mauled rose to the ground.
“And that is what precipitated me into asking the Earl of Glimouth for your hand; your reputation, Lady Delilah.”
“My—my reputation?”
“Yes. You see, my country estate and London home are both full of Italian paintings, French clothing, and English furniture. I have the finest examples of everything that I can afford—which is mostly everything.”
He snapped another rose head from the bush they had come to halt next to. It was a beautiful red Damask Rose. Delilah could smell its strong, heady perfume even two strides from Lord Keicester.
“Like all those things, and like this rose, I want to have the finest wife to decorate my home. To compliment me when we walk out together. You were quite right. I do not do things unthinkingly. I searched exhaustively for a bride that is both beautiful and chaste, that is relatively unknown in London society but highborn enough to command respect in those circles.”
He held out the rose to Delilah, but Delilah did not take it. She was looking with undisguised surprise and loathing at the man in front of her.
“You want me as—as an object? As something to adorn your home?”
Viscount Keicester leered at her. “That’s right,” he said. “A relatively unknown daughter of an Earl… Well, that is somewhat of a social achievement, isn’t it?”
He held the rose that she had ignored to his nose and breathed deeply.
“Ah, yes. And, what’s more, the rose is just as beautiful as rumor made her out to be.”
He looked up Delilah. Letting the gorgeous bloom fall to the ground, he took a step towards her and crushed the flower under his boot.
“You will make a fine addition to my garden, Lady Delilah. You will want for nothing, of course. Clothed in the finest gowns, drink the most expensive wine, attend all the balls that you could wish.”
Delilah felt ill. He painted a picture in which she epitomized the prisoner trapped in the gilded cage. The thought that she would mean no more to this man than the shoes on his feet or the horse he rode…
She closed her eyes briefly. Thought of cantering over the heathland with Marcus. Laughing and talking and smelling the turf.
“And, you will bear me fine children, too,” the Viscount said.
“I—I won’t. I c-can’t,” Delilah stammered, before she could stop herself.
“Oh, I think you can,” Lord Keicester said. He smiled that despicable smile again. “We can but try.”
This indiscreet allusion to the activity of their marital bed sparked a sudden outrage in Delilah.
“I shall not marry you,” she said with cold fury, willing the tears that were prickling in the corners of her eyes to disappear.
Lord Keicester gave her a commiserating look. “I’m afraid that spirit of yours will not be enough to turn the tide of events. Unless I am much mistaken, Lord and Lady Glimouth are quite taken with me, and quite taken with the idea of you marrying a Viscount. After all,” he sneered, “I imagine that suitors are fairly thin on the ground up in these desolate parts.”
“I, I—”
“You will do as you are told,” Lord Keicester said, snapping the cold words off like icicles from the edge of a roof. “Any tantrum you throw will be attested to youthful nervousness. Trust me when I say this. There is nothing short of a miracle that will get you out of this marriage.”
Lord Keicester’s face softened somewhat at the aghast look on Delilah’s face. Even that, though—the reining in of his obvious natural selfish greed at having her as his wife—seemed tactical.
He wants me calm and pliable. He wants to expend as little energy in securing me as his wife as possible.
The hope that Marcus would come charging in to the rescue and declare his love for her in front of her parents had been burning in her chest like a guttering candle. Suddenly, in the face of this coldly pragmatic Viscount, that hope was crushed.
Darkness enveloped her heart. Darkness and a forlorn cold.
“Please,” she said, “don’t be cruel. Don’t make this harder than it will be already.”
Lord Keicester stepped in and tilted her downcast chin up with one finger, so that she looked up into his smug face.
“Is that an acceptance then, Lady Delilah?”
“Yes,” Delilah said. “Yes, I accept.”
The night was deep when Marcus and Finley reined in at the edge of a narrow belt of woodland that bordered the manicured gardens of the Earl’s estate.
“We’ll leave the nags here,” Finley hissed, slipping down out of his saddle and securing his mount to a tree with a quick-release knot.
The two men had to take a more circuitous route than even Finley had anticipated on getting to the Glimouth estate. Almost, they had run straight into a small patrol of the Laird’s men who’d been scouring the country not far from the border, and that had held them up for an extra hour or two.
“Have ye any ideas tae the layout o’ the house and grounds?” Marcus asked Fin, as the two men ducked into the cover of the trees.
“Come now, Marcus,” Finley said, “poachin’ is one thing, but I reined meself in before I got tae robbin’ the place!”
“I just meant, d’ye ken where the house is?”
Finley ducked a low-hanging alder branch and looked back at his friend with a wry smile on his face. “It’s a bloody big house, ye cannae miss it,” he said.
At the frustrated growl from his friend he quickly added, “I’ve had a wee looksee ‘round the gardens—his Lordship has some lovely, plump ducks on his lake and ponds. We can stay in fairly good cover right up until we make it tae the house.”
“All right,” Marcus said, “let’s be about it, then.”
“What, if by some miracle, we manage tae get yer lass out of here without bein’ spotted?” Finley asked.
“Ye remember that wee shack that ye and I built all those years ago, on the border? Where we could spend a night if we ever got caught out in foul weather whilst we were huntin’?”
“Aye.”
“We’ll take her there. She and I will lie low a while whilst ye scout around and see what sort o’ hornet’s nest we’ve kicked up by doin’ this.”
They carried stealthily onwards for a little while. Then Finley said, “Marcus?”
“Aye?”
“Have ye an actual plan fer when we get tae the manor?”
“A plan?”
“Aye. An idea as tae what ye’re goin’ tae do, ye ken?”
“I’m sure somethin’ will occur tae me,” Marcus said.
“That,” Finley said, “is far from reassurin’.”
Once they were through the mile-wide belt of trees, the two Highlanders slunk across the lawns, sticking to the cover of the deep shadows. They made their way into the relative safety of the gardens proper. Elaborately sculpted box hedges, trimmed into the shapes of swans and rearing horses loomed out of the dark. Elegant flowering shrubs bordered white gravel paths, statues stood in nooks, and tunnels of foliage stretched away in different directions.
The Highlanders paused to listen.
There was only the sleepy chirp of an occasional cricket, the sigh of the breeze as it swept over the border, into the English country garden from the hills of Scotland.
Marcus was chaffing to get within sight of the manor house’s windows, and was just about to creep on when Finley grasped him by the arm and held a finger to his own lips.
“What?” he mouthed silently.
Then he heard the sound that Finley’s quick ears had caught already—the sound of footsteps scrunching through the trimmed lawn.
Marcus and Finley eased themselves ever so slowly backwards into the fragrant peony bush they had halted next to.
Marcus found himself holding his breath, as a figure strolled around the end of the path. It was most definitely a
male figure, flamboyantly dressed in the style of the Englishman with too much time and money on his hands and not enough work to do. It paused at the end of the path, as if unsure as to what way to go, then carried on in the direction it had been going.
Marcus felt Finley’s body relax next to him. The two of them waited for a full minute, ears straining for any sound of the man returning, before they moved on.
Marcus led the way now. He could see the silhouette of the grand manor house looming out of the dark in front of them. The steeply pitched gable roof and elaborate chimneys stood out against the starry sky, the decorative exposed beams just able to be discerned in the darkness. Most of the windows were shuttered, but here and there a glimmer of candle or firelight showed in a window in the impressive façade.
The two Highlanders pulled up in the impenetrable inky shadows of a large, empty ornamental pond. The stone basin was deep and full of moldering leaves, and the two of them slipped over the rim to crouch in the shadows cast by the statue of a gamboling fawn that stood in the middle of the pond.
“Now tae see if we can spot Delilah,” Marcus breathed in his companion’s ear.
Finley nodded, his sharp eyes already scanning the multitude of windows.
Marcus was quite prepared to sit in that empty stone pond until dawn if necessary, but after only a few minutes careful scanning back and forth, he gasped.
“There she is!” he said softly, jogging Finley with his elbow.
Perhaps it was the turbulence of his emotions of late that colored his vision so, but Marcus thought that Delilah looked even prettier than she’d ever looked, as she sat and gazed out at the night. Her face was lit by a single candle in a holder. Her chin rested on her hand.
Frustration and confusion warred within the young Scotsman as he looked up at the English noblewoman.
It might be nay more than wishful thinkin’, but she doesnae look like a lass giddy about the prospect o’ gettin’ married.
This comforting thought flared inside his heart briefly, before he remembered how incorrectly he had interpreted Delilah’s actions and thoughts in the past.
Captured by his Highland Kiss Page 8
