Читать книгу Much Ado About You - Eloisa James - Страница 8

I mogen’s hands weren’t shaking. She was quite proud of that. Any other girl would be trembling like a leaf under the circumstances: she was about to meet her future mother-in-law for the first time, and perhaps see Draven too …

She brushed her hair until it crackled, and pinched her cheeks until she looked feverish, and then practised demure smiles in the mirror. There was no reason to be nervous, given that fate had obviously brought them together. She practised her smile again. She must use just the right smile when meeting Draven’s mother: a smile that was not grasping, socially aggressive, or any of those undesirable qualities. She had decided to aim at adorably shy and very young.

It took a while (adorably shy not being one of Imogen’s natural characteristics), but finally she was fairly certain of success. If she merely curled up the very edges of her mouth and let the smile tremble on her lips, she looked positively Juliet-like. Thirteen at the most.

Josie stuck her head in the door just as Imogen was practising a deep, yet bashful, curtsy before the mirror. ‘One can be certain,’ Josie said in her customary acerbic tone, ‘that your darling Maitland will be out at the race-track. So you might as well save your adoring glances.’

Imogen didn’t bother telling Josie that she had already figured that out herself. If a race were being held within fifty miles, Draven wouldn’t be at home. He wasn’t the sort of man to hang around his mother’s apron strings, not an out-and-outer like himself.

‘I truly don’t see what appeals to you about Maitland,’ Josie continued disagreeably.

Imogen turned back to her mirror and dropped another cursty. It was no concern of hers that her sisters were unable to see Draven’s manifest virtues. Why, he had so many that it was hard to catalogue them; they were jumbled in her mind. Of course, he was handsome, with a rakish air of danger. He drove his horses to an inch, and he always looked as if he should have a whip in his hand, even when he was in church. Just thinking of him made her feel giddy with pleasure.

‘It will do you no good to snip at me,’ she told her little sister, sweeping past her out the door. ‘Someday you’ll understand love, and until then, we need not discuss the subject.’

It felt as if they had been sitting in the drawing room for hours before the door finally swung open, and Brinkley announced, ‘The Lady Clarice Maitland.’

In the doorway was a lady dressed in the very first stare of elegance, her head cocked to the side and her hands making all sorts of elegant circles before she even said a word. Her nose had a narrow, chiselled look that was echoed by her high cheekbones. She looked coiffed, sharp-tongued, and inexpressibly expensive.

‘Holbrook, darling!’ she trilled, sweeping in the door before the butler. ‘You needn’t announce my son, Brinkley, we’re positively members of the family.’

The man who stood at Brinkley’s shoulder made Imogen’s heart stop in her chest for a full second before it started beating again.

He was singularly beautiful, with his wide square jaw, that little cleft in his chin, his deep blue eyes … She stood up, but her knees felt weak.

‘Remember, the man is betrothed!’ Tess whispered, as they moved forward to curtsy before Lady Clarice.

Of course, a distant acknowledgement was all that Draven deserved. He was promised to another, no matter how many four-leaf clovers and stars she’d wished upon in the past two years, since she first caught sight of him. She could feel her mouth spreading into a smile that hadn’t even a shadow of demureness about it.

‘You caught me in the nick of time.’ Lady Clarice was shrilling as she held out her hand to be kissed by their guardian. ‘I was just off to London to see my mantua-maker when I received your summons. Luckily, I judged your state more desperate than mine! And these must be your wards.’

Lady Clarice was wearing a dress more gorgeous than any garment Imogen had ever seen. It was fashioned of twilled sarsenet in a rich crimson with three rows of ribband trimming shaped into small wreaths along the hem.

They were all wearing horrid mourning gowns, of dull bombazine with only a narrow strip of white lace lining the neck, and that the gift of the seamstress in the village, who said that she couldn’t see her way to sending them off to the wilds of England without a bit of trimming, and never mind that they couldn’t pay.

Lady Clarice had lace flying from her hair and trimming her hems and her reticule, but she had a sharp face to go with all that decoration. Imogen blinked, pushing away that thought. She was Draven’s mother.

As she and Tess sank into deep, demure curtsies, Imogen looked at Draven’s boots. Even his boots were beautiful, of a rich, brown leather that looked as shiny and perfect as himself.

‘Allow me to present my ward, Miss Essex,’ the duke was saying, ‘and one of her sisters, Miss Imogen. We are all tremendously grateful for your assistance.’

Lady Clarice peered at them as if they were curiosities in a travelling circus. ‘I can’t imagine what your father was thinking to send you here without—’ she half shrieked, and then paused as a thought apparently strayed into her mind. ‘But of course, your father is no longer of this world, is he? Then he isn’t thinking about chaperones. Best leave that to the living!’ She beamed at them.

Imogen opened her mouth and shut it again. She would have to meet Draven’s eyes in a moment. He was betrothed, she told herself again. He had told her in as many words that they had no future together. But then -

‘Where are the other two girls? You did say four, didn’t you? Holbrook,’ Lady Clarice screeched, ‘do you have four wards or not?’.

The duke started visibly and turned back from greeting Draven. ‘There are indeed four of them,’ he confirmed, running a hand through his hair.

Tess beckoned to Annabel, who was standing to the side of the room flirting with the Earl of Mayne, and then to Josie, who was hiding behind the piano.

‘Just look at these four young ladies!’ Lady Clarice cried, once they were all standing in a line. ‘Exquisite! You shall have no problem whatsoever firing them off on the market, Holbrook. I would say that we can achieve at least a lord. Perhaps even higher, dears, perhaps even higher! One must think of these things in a positive light. Of course, there is some work to be done,’ Lady Clarice continued, without seeming to draw a breath. ‘Their gowns are abhorrent, naturally. There is mourning, my dears, and then there is mourning, if you understand what I mean. But the Scottish have no concept of dress and never have. These days I won’t even approach the border. Why, my hair quite stands on end at the thought!’ She patted her gingery ringlets happily.

Josie curtsied and slipped back behind the piano, where she was pretending to shuffle through sheet music. But given that Papa had never had the blunt to hire a musical tutor of any kind, Imogen -if no one else – knew that was a mere pretence. She only hoped that the duke wouldn’t think to ask Josie to play them something.

‘A diet of hard-boiled eggs and stewed cabbage should trim your little sister’s figure,’ Lady Clarice whispered loudly to Tess. ‘I was just the same when I was her age, if you can believe it! But look at me, I managed to catch a baron! You may not be able to look quite as high as that, but I think a lord is not out of possibility! Even the chubby little one should be able to make a good match, with the help of a modiste.’

Tess’s eyes narrowed and her mouth opened, but Holbrook was there before her, suddenly sounding quite ducal. ‘Josephine has a figure that many a young lady will envy.’

Lady Clarice gave him a liquorish smile and giggled. ‘Quite right, Your Grace. You mustn’t lose hope of firing off all four of them. There are men who prefer a poke pudding, as they say!’

Imogen could feel her spirits lowering. The hope that perhaps Lady Clarice would allow her son to marry for true love withered. Lady Clarice looked as if she hadn’t yet learned the meaning of the word love, and she certainly wouldn’t encourage the emotion if she had.

‘But I must introduce my son!’ Lady Clarice said, dragging him forward. ‘Although, darling girls, I must warn you that my darling is promised to another.’ She giggled shrilly. ‘We’ll do our best to find you someone just as suitable, however. Miss Essex, Miss Imogen, may I present my son, Lord Maitland.’

Imogen curtsied, as did Tess beside her. She felt a delicate wash of colour rise up her neck.

‘We are acquainted with Lord Maitland, Lady Clarice,’ Tess was saying rather coldly. ‘He is – was – a friend of our father, Viscount Brydone.’

Imogen knew her sister thought Draven was dissolute, and all because he was dashing and funny and too handsome for his own good, as their nanny would have said, back when they had a nanny.

Draven bowed, quite as if he had never shared a bread-and-cheese supper with them — and he had, time out of mind, because he was as horse-mad as her papa.

‘I have known the Essexes for some two years, mother,’ he said, but his eyes were holding Imogen’s. Her heart fluttered as if it were a bird caught in a cage.

‘What? Oh!’ Lady Clarice laughed. ‘You must have met each other when darling Draven hunts in Scotland, is that it?’ Something guarded entered her tone. Lady Clarice was no fool, and the Essex girls were astonishingly lovely.

Tess caught Lady Clarice’s inflection and felt a wave of panic. If Lady Clarice even caught wind of Imogen’s abject devotion to her son, she might refuse to chaperone them, and then what would they do?

‘I race in Scotland, not hunt,’ Draven told his mother. He was bowing over Imogen’s hand now, and Tess noticed with a sinking heart that he was looking at her sister with some semblance of the passion with which she looked at him.

‘I do believe that my son has a remarkable seat on a saddle,’ Lady Clarice said, not seeming to notice (to Tess’s relief) that Annabel had rudely wandered off without bothering to curtsy and was now standing far too close to the Earl of Mayne and giggling so hard that her curls bobbed around her shoulders like corks caught in a backwash. ‘Not that I can swear to this, because I abhor the out-of-doors.’ And, when Tess looked confused, ‘Fresh air, Miss Essex! It’s ruinous for the complexion to attend those races, I assure you. I only do so under the strongest duress. Of course, my son loves my company so much that it means the earth to him if I do watch one of his horses sail to victory. So I sacrifice … I sacrifice …’

My complexion is clearly ruined, Tess thought to herself. Their father had been dragging them to races since they were able to walk.

‘But I have ever encouraged dear Draven to follow his own delight in these matters,’ Lady Clarice was saying. ‘I do like a man to have an occupation. Far too many gentlemen of my acquaintance sit about all day and never rise from their chairs at the club. They end up with very ill manners, I assure you. And it causes’ — she lowered her voice ‘-a certain spreading in the derrière, if you follow me!’ She trilled with naughty laughter. ‘Although I shouldn’t say such a thing to you, an unmarried girl, for all you are a bit long in the tooth! But not to worry, dear, Holbrook will put you on the market the very first day that you’re out of blacks.’

‘Now, Duke,’ she said, turning from Tess without pausing for breath. ‘What are we to do? I mean, I am more than happy to chaperone your darling wards for a day or so, Holbrook, but London calls. My mantua-maker beckons. Allures me!’ she said with a giggle. ‘So I ask you, Your Grace, what are we to do?’

Their guardian didn’t even blink, so he must be used to Lady Clarice’s style of conversation. Not having had that pleasure herself, Tess could feel a headache coming on. She felt a light touch at her elbow.

‘Would you like to take a turn around the room, Miss Essex?’ The Earl of Mayne stood smiling at her.

‘I would,’ she said, ‘but-’ And she looked helplessly to where Imogen stood talking to Lord Maitland. Surely it wasn’t her imagination that there was something overfamiliar in the way that he smiled at Imogen, something complaisant in the way his fingers sat on her bare arm, just above her elbow.

The earl followed her glance. ‘Rafe,’ he said in a pleasant low tone that cut through the shrilling hum of Lady Clarice’s speech, ‘our guests are likely famished. Shall we adjourn to supper?’

Their guardian promptly towed Lady Clarice out of the room, her stream of gently vindictive conversation fading as they turned the corner into the dining room.

‘Imogen!’ Tess said, trying to sound commanding yet not motherly. Then she turned to the earl and put her hand on his arm.

He looked down at her for a moment, and Tess saw a smile lurking somewhere in his eyes. Then he took her hand and raised it to his lips. ‘If you insist,’ he said softly.

Tess blinked. Could he be starting a flirtation with her?

But the next second Mayne was making smiling remarks about there being no need to attend to protocol amongst close friends and deftly bearing Imogen out of the room.

‘Miss Essex,’ Lord Maitland drawled, turning to her and putting her hand to his lips.

My goodness, Tess thought rather bewilderedly, this hand has been kissed more in the last hour than in my entire life.

‘Josie!’ she called, luring her little sister out from the piano, ‘you may retire to the schoolroom now.’

Maitland may have been wild, but he wasn’t rude. As Josie reluctantly approached, he bowed. ‘Miss Josephine, you look particularly exquisite this evening,’ he said.

‘Cut rope!’ Josie snapped at him.

‘Josie!’ Tess cried, aghast.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ Josie said. ‘It’s only Maitland.’ She rounded on him. ‘You can save your faradiddles for others. You should know that I’m not the person for that sort of foolish talk!’

Tess felt a reprimand coming to her lips, and then bit it back. Josie was obviously on the point of tears. She must have heard Lady Clarice’s comment about a cabbage diet, and Josie was extremely sensitive about her figure.

But before Tess could decide what to say, Maitland tucked Josie’s hand under his arm, and said, ‘Do you know, I’ve a question you may be able to answer. Perfection, my chestnut filly -’

‘I remember Perfection,’ Josie interrupted, a bit curtly. ‘She is a trifle long in the haunches.’

‘I don’t agree about her haunches,’ Maitland said with unimpaired good humour, beginning to walk Josie toward the door. ‘However, she seems to be suffering a bit of tenderness just behind the saddle.’

‘Have you tried Goulard’s lotion?’ Josie asked, her complete interest turning to Maitland. Their father had appointed Josie to make up ointments for the horses’ various ailments, and what had begun as an onerous task had become a true interest.

Tess had to admit that Maitland could be quite beguiling when he put his mind to it. Not that it was of the least consequence.

Still, there were moments in which she could see why Imogen loved him quite so passionately. He was pretty enough, with his cleft chin and rakish eyes. But he was not only horse-mad, he was gambling-mad. Everyone said that he couldn’t turn down a bet, not if it were for his last farthing. Maitland would eat in a ditch, were there the chance of a race afterward.

Just like Papa.