No Marriage of Convenience (16 page)

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Riley demurred, wondering what Lord Delander would think of Jane Gunn, their one-armed seamstress.

“Brilliant!” he said. “Now, Mason muttered something about lessons you must conduct this morning, so afterward I insist you accompany me on a ride in the park in my new carriage.”

“I hardly see how that is possible,” Riley told him. “I haven’t the time.”

Lord Delander remained undaunted. “Perhaps I can help with these lessons—say as a potential suitor for the girls to practice their wiles on.”

“That would be so kind of you, Lord Delander,” Be
atrice said in a soft feminine voice that left everyone staring at her.

“See? I have one vote already,” Lord Delander said, glancing over at the flushed Beatrice as if he didn’t recognize her.

Even Riley was taken aback, but she recovered quickly.

So it was true. Beatrice was in love with the Viscount. Now if she could just move the young man’s affections in that direction…

“You’re still here, Lord Delander?” Cousin Felicity asked, as she herded her charges through the crowded foyer. “Off with you, so we can start our day.” She waved to the girls, who trailed after her like convicts on their way to Newgate. As she passed by, Beatrice pushed a deliberate wedge between Lord Delander and Riley.

Much to her chagrin, Riley found herself crowded up against Mason. He put his hand on her shoulder to steady her and his touch burned through her daygown.

Her back and legs pressed into his, and they molded together as they had last night, but this time in front of the entire household.

Her cheeks must be flaming, she thought, for her entire body seemed heated.

The moment the girls passed, she stepped out of his shadow. “Excuse me,” she murmured.

“Quite all right,” he replied just as quietly.

She dared a glance over her shoulder to see if their shared touch had ruffled his composure as it had hers. But much to her chagrin, he stood stoically behind her, his features revealing nothing but that of a hint of impatience behind his scholarly spectacles. Nowhere in sight was the devil-may-care rake who’d so audaciously taken her into his arms and kissed her senseless.

Riley ground her teeth together. What was she becom
ing when the merest touch from this man turned her into a puddle of distraction?

“Well dash it,” Lord Delander complained, as Mason showed him toward the door. “I won’t be deterred from my quest, Miss Riley. I shall rescue you from this prison.”

As Belton closed the door behind the persistent Viscount, Riley started to dart up the stairs behind the girls.

“Madame,” Mason called out. “If I could have but a moment of your time.”

Madame
. Riley cringed. So they were back to that…

Steeling herself for another lecture on circumstances that were hardly her fault, she turned around on the stairs and marched back to the last step before the foyer.

As the pair argued about the problems presented by Del, Cousin Felicity and Aggie stood overhead on the balcony.

“They make a lovely couple,” Cousin Felicity mused.

“Sound like a pair of old married people down there,” Aggie said with a shudder. “I fear your cousin and my dear girl are more alike than either of them would care to admit.”

“I just hope they will figure it out before it is too late.”

“O
h, Mason,” Cousin Felicity wailed as she burst into his study. “I had nothing to do with this! Nothing!”

The total of the long column of numbers he had almost finished tallying slipped away, fleeing his mind as if frightened away by Cousin Felicity’s histrionics.

He buried his face in his hands and shook his head. This was what he got for thinking he could take control of his life.

“Oh, Mason,” she wailed. “This is a disaster.”

He sighed. Now what?

Cousin Felicity rushed to his side, handkerchief in hand. “What could I do?” she whispered. She glanced at the door, her fingers plucking at the linen square. “
She
came to call. I couldn’t have Belton send
her
away—especially since she came with
him
, and now what are we to do with
them
?”

Mason was afraid to ask. “Who came, Cousin?”

“Lord Ashlin,” an imperious voice called from the foyer below. “Where are your manners? One does not keep a lady of my advanced age idling about one’s foyer like some tradesman.”

Mason cringed at each strident note.

Cousin Felicity had been right to act as if the French were landing. For if the French rabble ever dared cross the Channel and storm the British shores, England had one thing not even they would dare cross.

Lady Delander.

“What is that dreadful noise?” Lady Delander complained, looking up at the ceiling as if the very plaster offended her.

“Dancing lessons,” Mason said, offering the most plausible answer to cover for the rehearsal taking place in the ballroom overhead. “The girls are practicing for their upcoming Season.”

“What are they wearing?” she asked, frowning overhead. “Clogs?”

Mason laughed for a few seconds, but when no one else joined in, he stopped, wondering how his day could get any worse.

Not only was he entertaining Lady Delander, but also her brother, the Duke of Everton—while abovestairs the entire house shook with what he assumed was the pirate battle from the third act.

Mason had tried his best to steer his guests to Cousin Felicity’s parlor, which was on the other side of the house and as far from the Queen’s Gate players as he could get them without entertaining them in the cellar, but Del’s mother had been adamant about being taken to the best room in the house.

“Besides,” Lady Delander had said, as she’d led the way to the Green Salon, “I always envied your mother this room. It has such a lovely view of her garden.”

Once everyone had been ensconced in the salon, Cousin Felicity had ordered refreshments brought around, while
Mason sent Belton to notify “Cousin Riley” of their visitors.

Upstairs the racket continued unabated, as several large claps of homemade thunder reverberated through the ceiling.

The Dowager jumped in her seat. “Gracious heavens! What heathen ritual are they dancing up there?”

Mason glanced at Cousin Felicity, who suggested, “Perhaps the pianoforte is out of tune.”

“Best you see that instrument repaired, my lord,” Lady Delander said. “Those girls will be deaf before the week is out. I say that instrument should be silenced immediately.”

As if in answer to Lady Delander’s edict, the ballroom stilled, the rehearsal coming to a sudden halt.

Mason breathed a sigh of relief. Obviously Belton had reached Riley and informed her of the impending disaster they were facing.

“There was quite a parade of unusual people through the Square and into your house this morning, Lord Ashlin,” Lady Delander commented.

“We’re having some work done around the house,” Mason replied.

“Rather odd workers,” she sniffed. “It looked like a veritable circus.”

“We’ve also retained some tutors for the girls,” Cousin Felicity filled in when Lady Delander continued to look suspicious. “The fashions of these French dancing masters.” Cousin Felicity rolled her gaze upwards as if she didn’t know what the world was coming to.

“Hmm,” Lady Delander mused, eyeing them both carefully before she said, “Wherever is this cousin of yours, Lord Ashlin? When I was a young girl, I would never have been so rude as to keep callers waiting for hours on end.”

Mason forced a smile on his face. “I can’t imagine what is delaying her.”

“You said she would be expecting me,” Lady Delander directed this complaint at her son, whose lovesick gaze remained fixed on the doorway. “I am unused to waiting for anyone.”

“Now Josephine,” the Duke said to his sister. “Leave off on the poor girl. She may be nervous about meeting you.”

Lady Delander straightened. “Nervous about meeting
me
? Ridiculous! Whatever has the girl to worry about?”

“Being eaten alive,” Mason muttered under his breath.

“Mother,” Del said, “I am sure Riley wants to make the best impression possible. After all, you’ll be her mother-in-law.”

“We’ll see about that!” the old girl snapped. “Lord Ashlin, my brother and I were trying to figure this out yesterday, and I found it most vexing. However is this young lady related to you?”

“Uh, she’s…well, it’s…it’s complicated,” he said. He momentarily dashed around his family tree trying to find a logical branch from which to pluck Riley and one with which the Dowager might not be familiar. “Do you recall my grandfather’s youngest brother?”

“Henry?” she asked. “That scamp. Ran off with Lord Middlewood’s daughter. A poor match if ever there was one. But you can’t tell me this Riley is related through that line—your great uncle and his wife had only daughters, and they never married. Inherited their looks and temperament from those uppity Middlewoods.” The lady nodded, as if that was enough said about that unfortunate connection.

“Did I say youngest brother?” Mason corrected, cursing
the Dowager for her steel-trap memory and intimate knowledge of the
ton
. “I meant next-to-youngest brother.”

“Who, John?” The Dowager smiled. “Now there was a dashing man. I remember seeing him once at a ball in his regimentals. A major or a lieutenant-colonel? Do you remember him, George?”

“Barely,” the Duke replied. “Went overseas. Don’t think he ever came home.”

Mason sighed with relief. “Yes, that’s right. He never came home. Riley is descended from Major St. Clair’s line.”

The Dowager’s eyes narrowed, like those of a ferret after a rat. “Indeed. Most peculiar indeed that no one knew of her until now.”

Much to Mason’s fear, Cousin Felicity started filling in the holes in his newly invented family history. “Major St. Clair died quite tragically.”

Lady Delander turned her skeptical gaze on Cousin Felicity.

“Yes, quite tragic,” his cousin continued in a nervous rush. Then, to his horror, she launched into a long dissertation about their far-flung cousins, complete with tales of snakebite, lost babies, and feats of heroism not even Shakespeare would have dared pen.

“Now this is where I can’t go on,” Cousin Felicity was saying, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks.

Mason prayed she wouldn’t.

She did.

“When I think of what happened next, it wrenches my heart so.” Her hands clutched over her breast, her gaze heavenward, Cousin Felicity looked like Mrs. Siddons ready for a dramatic demise. She’d obviously been taking more than just social lessons from Riley. “Oh, the tragedy of it.”

“What happened?” The Dowager snapped.

“The St. Clair curse!” Cousin Felicity declared. “The same one which took my dearest Freddie and Caro—also sent the dreadful fever that claimed our dearest Riley’s mother and father when she was just a babe.”

“The St. Clair curse, indeed!” the Dowager scoffed. “I never heard such nonsense.”

Mason had to agree—but if there was one, he wished it would take him right there and then so he didn’t have to witness another moment of Cousin Felicity’s theatrics.

The show, however, was just beginning. Cousin Felicity had the audacity to look completely affronted at the Dowager’s mockery. “Can you explain Freddie and Caro’s unfortunate deaths?” she demanded. “The untimely demise of Riley’s parents
and
her grandparents?”

Well, the Dowager couldn’t, and her open mouth clapped shut with a decided snap.

“When I think of that poor motherless girl—” Cousin Felicity’s bottom lip quivered. “Being raised by those bloodthirsty natives and not knowing she had any family, I just weep.”

Mason wanted to as well. He just hoped the rest of the room realized Cousin Felicity’s bloodthirsty natives would never have come from the Indian subcontinent.

Cousin Felicity obviously didn’t know or care, for she was sniffing and sobbing as if the entire family was about to fall prey to this mythical hex.

“There, there,” Mason told her, reaching over and patting her hand. “Our newfound cousin is quite safe and sound now. You needn’t continue like this.”

Please don’t continue
, he silently begged.

“She’s a blessing to our family,” Cousin Felicity told the Dowager between exaggerated sniffs.

Del rushed to confirm Cousin Felicity’s convictions. “An angel to behold,” he began. “From the first moment I saw her, I knew—”

“—Oh, enough, Allister,” his mother snapped. “You’ve been nattering on about this girl so that I expect her to be able to walk across the Thames, what with all her heavenly merits and blessed virtues. Though I must say, promptness is one asset that seems to have passed her by.” The irritation and impatience in the Dowager’s voice rose with each word.

As Mason was about to try and make further amends, the doors to the salon swung open and in walked Riley.

Not just Riley—but Riley of the East. The lost daughter of the St. Clairs. He could almost hear the Delhi snake charmers playing their flutes as she entered the room.

Though she looked English enough in her simple yellow muslin, she’d draped over her shoulders a shawl woven in the Eastern style. Her magnificent hair, which last night had tumbled down over his fingers, tempting him to undress her further, was now for the most part, covered with a modest white turban, from which dangled what appeared to be a small ruby.

Beneath the hem of her gown peeked a pair of Oriental slippers the likes of which no one had probably ever dared wear in front of the Dowager.

“Cousin,” she said softly to Mason, making a pretty curtsey, and then a salaam to their guests, just as Hashim might have. “My deepest apologies to you and your guests for my delay. I’m afraid I was quite unfit to appear before such distinguished company and had to make the
appropriate
changes.” She blushed and hung her head with demure shame.

“That is quite all right,” Mason told her, wondering at
this transformation that left her looking exactly like the waif in Cousin Felicity’s tale.

Cousin Felicity’s unlikely tale
.

Then he glanced over at the family’s newest bard and caught her winking at Riley, who in turn inclined her head so slightly the movement was discernible only to her partner-in-crime.

Mason did a double-take at his zany cousin and equally troublesome
faux
cousin.

The two of them had cooked up this entire script.

Then as if on cue, Riley turned to Belton and held out her hand.

The poor aggrieved butler sighed, then produced a small bouquet of flowers.

Riley took them up as if they were gilt, instead of the poor scroungings they looked to be and carried them over to the Dowager.

“Part of the reason I am late is that I was trying to finish these,” she said, holding out the flowers to the Dowager. “Cousin Felicity confided that you and Lord Ashlin’s mother shared a love of flowers.” She fluttered her hand at the window which gave way to the tangled mess that was once the Ashlin garden. “I thought you might appreciate a small remembrance of the blossoms she tended. I believe these roses are quite rare.”

As she held out her offering, Mason saw the hand holding it was bandaged.

So apparently had the Dowager. “What is wrong with your hand?”

“Nothing,” Riley said, hiding it behind her back.

“What have you done to yourself?” This time, not waiting for an answer, Lady Delander reached out and caught Riley’s arm, pulling it forward and peering down at the wrapping covering her fingers.

Riley sighed. “I fear I am unused to English gardens,” she told the Dowager. “I got caught by the thorns while I was trying to pick your flowers.”

“Wicked patch of them out there,” Del said, rubbing his shoulder where he had fallen the day before.

The Dowager stared down at the roses and other pickings in the bouquet. “Well, I never,” she announced, as she looked from Riley’s hand to the collection of roses beneath her imperious nose.

Mason and everyone else watched the formidable matron, awaiting her verdict.

“Well, I’ve never been so touched.” She sniffed a couple of times and then, much to Mason’s amazement, a flurry of tears fell down the stony cheeks of the dragon of Ashlin Square.

Mason wouldn’t have believed the sight if he hadn’t witnessed it first hand. Riley had made another conquest. He was beginning to think there wasn’t a heart in London she couldn’t win.

Just so long as it wasn’t his.

Cousin Felicity fished out another handkerchief and handed it to the lady. “Our Riley is such a thoughtful, kind girl. And so brave in her distress.”

Lady Delander nodded as if she didn’t trust herself to respond.

“Mother, are you all right?” Del asked.

“Of course I am,” she snapped at him, shoving the thorny bouquet into his arms and turning toward Riley, her waspish features immediately softening. “Roses. You picked me a bouquet of roses. You sweet child.” Lady Delander glanced back at Del and frowned. “Not even my own son is capable of such kindness.”

“I’m just so sorry I was unable to complete my task,”
Riley said, heaping on the regret and adding a sorrowful expression to her downcast features. “There are ever so many lovely blooms out there, but after my mishap, I grew too timid to attempt to reach them.”

“I would only be too happy to—” Del began to say, rising to his feet and reaching out to take Riley’s hand.