Enchanted Rendezvous: A Tangled Hearts Romance (3 page)

Archimedes, belly to the ground and lumpy tail outstretched, was stalking the birds. Cecily leaned her arms on the windowsill and waited until the cat made its spring. As expected, he did not reach the top of the basin and instead tumbled backward into the rosebushes. The birds scattered, and Archimedes gave chase. In a few moments he had disappeared into the japonica bushes that edged the rose garden.

“Drat that cat,” Cecily exclaimed.

Archimedes’s sense of direction was as faulty as his timing, and he was sure to get lost in these unfamiliar surroundings. Cecily tossed off her nightcap and gown, dressed hastily, barely paused to brush back her hair, then donned stout walking shoes suitable for pursuit.

She met no one in the hall, and at the door a bleary-eyed footman stared at her in midyawn. Ignoring him, Cecily flew outdoors calling, “Archimedes, where have you got to?”

He was not in the rose gardens. Still calling to her cat, Cecily followed a path that led through the japonica bushes into another larger garden where topiary trees edged beds of flowers and greenery. A brass sundial shaped like a sunflower turned its face skyward, and a large marble statue of Ceres presided over the point where the garden opened up into the woods beyond.

From the fragrance that hung over the place, Cecily knew she had found her grandaunt’s herb garden. She looked around her, but there was still no sign of Archimedes. “Where are you, you old reprobate?” she cried, exasperated.

“Were you addressin’ me?”

Cecily whipped around as a gentleman rose from a marble bench. The bench had been half concealed by the statue of Ceres, so she had not noticed him before, but now that he advanced upon her, she wondered how she could have possibly overlooked him.

Even at this early hour he was dressed in colors that rivaled the flowers. He wore a bottle-green double-breasted jacket with five brass buttons, each as big as a man’s fist. The collar of his yellow shirt rose fashionably high upon his cheeks, and there was the glint of gold in the intricate folds of his snowy cravat. His close-fitting, high-waisted pantaloons of canary-yellow stockinette disappeared into glossy high-heeled boots with gold tassels. As he sauntered closer to her, he fumbled with one long-fingered hand at the quizzing glass that hung on a gold riband about his neck.

“Were you addressin’ me?” the gentleman repeated.

His voice was both affected and bored. He looked too torpid even to hold up his gold-handled walking stick. Cecily blushed furiously, curtsied and said, “No, indeed, I—that is to say, I apologize for startling you, sir. I was looking for my cat.”

“Cat?” The dandified gentleman looked vaguely about. “Don’t see any cat, ’pon my honor. Does this feline belong to you, ma’am?”

“I am afraid so. I brought him here with me, and I am persuaded that he will be lost if—there you are!”

The old tomcat had calmly stalked out of the woods. His coat was covered with burrs, his tail had swelled to three times its normal size, and his one tooth pulled his lip up into a sneer.

Lord Brandon lifted his quizzing glass to his eye.
“Animal looks a trifle nagged, ’pon my honor. Is it the same one you’ve lost, ma’am?”

“Yes. Archimedes, come here,” Cecily said. The cat looked the other way. “I am Cecily Vervain, Lady Marcham’s grandniece,” she continued. “I am sorry to have disturbed you, sir.”

As the gentleman bowed, Cecily was sure she heard the whalebone in his corset creaking. “Lord Brandon, at your service, Miss Verving.”

Cecily frankly stared. Her late father had been an admirer of the Ice Duke, as Pershing was known in some circles, but nothing of the stern soldier and statesman could she see in his eldest son. It was no wonder, Cecily thought, that Aunt Emerald had laughed at the notion that her godson could have rescued anyone.

She looked critically at the lord, who was of medium height and looked to be in his early thirties. He had an aquiline nose, a strong chin, and a fine mouth and might have been almost handsome if it were not for his affectations and graces. Though he had not gone so far as to paint his face and hands with lead, as many of the London dandies did, he wore a large decorative patch at the corner of his lips and another one near his eye. Cecily could hardly tell the color of those eyes, since they were half-concealed by heavy, drooping eyelids.

Even so, they were taking her measure. Cecily sensed that she was being examined, weighed, judged, and discarded in one lazy blink of those hooded eyelids. “Stayin’ in Dorset long, Miss Vervant?” Lord Brandon drawled.

“My name is not—” but Cecily was interrupted by a yelp from Brandon.

“Do you see that?” he demanded.

Was she dealing with a Bedlamite? “What must I see?” Cecily asked cautiously.

“Lint!” Lord Brandon extended his right arm and tapped the immaculate sleeve of his coat. “Look at that—it’s lint. Andrews will hear of this. It’s intolerable, ’pon my honor. He knows that I insist that all my clothin’ be immaculate.”

He withdrew his arm, produced a jeweled snuffbox from his pocket, shook a pinch out on his wrist, and inhaled. Every movement he made was in such slow motion that Cecily began to feel sleepy herself.

“If you will excuse me,” she said briskly, “I must take my cat back to the house.”

But as she started toward him, Archimedes got up and began to walk toward the woods. “Do come here,” Cecily pleaded, but the cat paid no attention. “Oh, Archimedes, why are you behaving so badly?”

“I say, cat.” Lord Brandon tapped the ground with his stick. “Here, puss. Come here, tabby.”

To Cecily’s utter astonishment, Archimedes turned, hesitated, then began to saunter toward Lord Brandon. Here he paused and sniffed the lord’s natty boots.

“I do not believe it. He
listened
to you. But,” she added in some alarm, “I beg that you will not touch him. Archimedes does not like strangers—”

She broke off in astonishment as the cat went belly-up in front of Lord Brandon.

“I grew up with a lot of cats,” he explained. “Sensible creatures, I always thought, with a proper feelin’ for important things like eatin’ and sleepin’.”

Languidly he stooped to rub Archimedes’s stomach. There was a dull glint of gold, and Cecily started as she saw the ring on Lord Brandon’s right ring finger.

“Good Lord,” she exclaimed.

The ring that was shaped like a lion swallowing its own tail. No, Cecily thought.
It is impossible.

Her rescuer last night had been a larger man. He had exuded an energy and resolve, and his movements had been full of confidence and authority. His voice had commanded respect, yet had been tinged with humor.

Lord Brandon straightened, withdrew a white lace-edged handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his hands. A wave of cloying, musky perfume emanated from the handkerchief and wafted across the herb garden.

No, Cecily amended.
Not impossible—ludicrous.

Archimedes sat up, gave a final approving sniff to Lord Brandon’s boots, and began sauntering back toward the house. Lord Brandon used his perfumed handkerchief to smother another yawn.

“You must have arrived late last night, Miss, Verving,” he commented. “I did not see you at dinner. It was a very good dinner, ’pon my honor. My godmother has a good cook—a female cook, which is not considered tonnish, but you have to make allowances for the country.”

Cecily, her eyes still on the lion ring, could think of nothing to say except, “Aha.”

“By now, no doubt, the worthy Mrs. Horrifant has laden the breakfast table with specimens of her art. I’m hungry as a bear, I assure you.”

He looked like a very sleepy bear. Even so, Cecily felt she had to make one more effort. “I arrived very late last night,” she said. “There was a very thick fog, and the driver of the coach could not go fast. You know what it is to drive in fog.”

Lord Brandon looked indignant. “On the contrary, I assure you I don’t. Ridin’ at night is ruinous to the complexion, especially ridin’ in the fog.”

Impossible
and
ludicrous. Cecily turned and began to follow Archimedes out of the herb garden.

Lord Brandon fell into step beside her. “Very im
portant, the complexion,” he told her earnestly. “It’s got to be preserved, Miss Verving, at all costs! I myself use certain herbs, which I personally gather each mornin’ fresh from Lady M.’s garden. It’s an exhaustin’ task, but a man only has one skin.”

Had he actually
giggled?
Cecily glanced askance at the strutting figure beside her and mentally shrugged her shoulders. So much for wild imaginings, she thought. If Lord Brandon was in any way heroic, pigs would commence to fly.

Archimedes chose to reenter Marcham House through the window, and Cecily, who had hastened upstairs to prepare for breakfast, found Mary cowering outside her chamber door.

“Holy saints above us, ma’am,” the abigail exclaimed, “it’s glad I am you’re here. Himself tried to scratch me eyes out when I went in to bring you your tea.”

Cecily opened the door and nearly stumbled over a gray, shaggy body. Apparently Archimedes had decided to stand guard over the door.

“What is the matter with you?” she scolded. “You are a guest here, sir, not the lord of the manor! I have had quite enough of your starts for one day, and you will let Mary come and go as she pleases.”

“Holy saints, ma’am. Does that cat understand the King’s English, then?” Mary gasped.

Cecily glared at Archimedes. “He understands enough not to bite the hand that feeds him.”

Gingerly Mary entered the room and, muttering under her breath, stepped past the cat. Recognizing an old charm her nurse had used against witchcraft, Cecily smiled. “I assure you that Archimedes is not a witch cat.”

Mary looked embarrassed. “Sure, and I don’t
mean no disrespect,” she murmured, “but it’s fey country here. Aren’t the Haunted Woods right here on Marcham land? And wasn’t that where our master, the holy saints above rest him easy, got thrown from his horse, him who could outride everyone in the country?”

She continued to talk about the woods as she assisted Cecily to dress and arrange her long black hair à la Didion. “They say that the spirits of the Druids walk there,” she related, “and that the little people come and dance on moonlit nights.” Then, lowering her voice to a whisper, she added, “And on the dark of the moon, the widow’s ghost walks. Last one to see her was an exciseman, found stone-dead the next day.”

Probably shot by a smuggler, Cecily thought. “Is there much, smuggling going on in Dorset?” she asked.

Mary shrugged. “The brethren of the coast have been active here since my great-grandpa’s day, ma’am. There’s many places to land hereabouts—Robin’s Cove and Gull’s Nest Inlet, and Eagle’s Point. Those excisemen try to catch them, but the brethren are too clever to be caught.”

Was her rescuer of last night one of the brethren? Cecily would have liked to ask more questions, but she knew that she could not keep the others waiting. She hurried through the rest of her toilet and was walking down the stairs when she heard her name called.

Lord Brandon was sauntering down the stairs behind her. “I have just finished rakin’ Andrews over the coals,” he drawled. “A valet of the first water does not allow his employer to appear in a jacket decorated with
lint.
Not done, Miss Verving. Not ton at all.”

Cecily was astonished to note that he had
changed his entire costume and was now attired all in blue. He had on a cobalt-blue coat, cut back to form a square, a waistcoat with pale blue stripes, and breeches of the same hue. He wore stockings patterned with blue clocks and shoes that were almost blinding in their polish.

Effete, condescending, redolent with musk and inherited wealth, the duke’s son padded down the stairs. Watching him, Cecily found herself tallying the cost of his coat. The realization that this garment would probably feed a family for a month made her look at Lord Brandon with even more disapproval.

“This morning Lady M. is breakfastin’ in the periwinkle room,” his lordship informed her. “Usually she favors the marigold room. Luckily Andrews discovered the switch at the last moment, or there’d have been the devil to pay.”

“I do not understand.”

“Every room in the house is named for a flower and is decorated in that blossom’s color. I was dressed for the marigold room. ’Pon my honor, it’s deucedly inconvenient to change on a moment’s notice, especially when a man’s as hungry as I am.”

Cecily stopped dead in her tracks and stared hard at him. “Do not tell me that you change clothes each time you enter a different room in this house!”

Lord Brandon raised his quizzing glass. His magnified eye regarded her as though she were some interesting species of insect. “Madam,” he intoned, “I shudder to think what would happen if I was so unwise as to wear—orange, say—in the fuchsia room. Enough to bring on a bilious attack, ’pon my honor. My friends would think me a proper cake, and I wouldn’t blame ’em.”

Cecily herself thought several things, but fortunately there was no time to voice her thoughts, for
they were entering a room that was furnished in various colors of blue. Everything from the furniture to the draperies and the watercolors on the wall was done in light and dark tones of blue. The sideboard against a wall papered with blue hyacinths was set with several covered dishes. A round table, covered in pale blue lace and set with Limoges china of an azure tint, was set up in the center of the room.

No one was sitting at the table. “Lady M. is not yet with us, I see,” Lord Brandon said as he sauntered toward the sideboard. “I assure you she wouldn’t want us to stand on ceremony. Now, let me see if I can guess what is here. Kidneys? a brace of grouse cooked to a turn?”

Almost quivering with anticipation, Lord Brandon raised the lids, stared for a moment, then exclaimed in revulsion. “The cursed thing’s empty,” he cried.

“I know it is.” Lady Marcham had glided silently into the room. She wore a large apron tied around the waist of her deep green cambric morning dress and had a smudge of flour on her nose. “All the dishes are empty, I am afraid. We have just lost our cook.”

Lord Brandon whipped up his quizzing glass. “What do you mean, lost her?”