Pretty Poison (6 page)

Forcing herself to look up from Mr. Avery’s chest, she met his clear blue eyes twinkling in the candlelight. “You’ve very pretty eyes.”

“I was just thinking the very same thing about you,” he responded with a chuckle as he turned her sharply to avoid a collision with another couple.

Emily’s vision blurred with the quick movement and she stumbled.

“Pardon,” she whispered, her head beginning to spin in the oddest manner. Perhaps she ought not to have gone in search of that third glass of champagne.

“Entirely my fault,” Nicholas assured her.

She was suddenly dizzy, pinpricks of light flashed in the corners of her vision and her flesh broke out in goose bumps.

Looking away from his gaze, she fastened her eyes to the sapphire pin in his immaculately tied cravat as she concentrated on the steps of the waltz and attempted to regain her equilibrium.

“One, two, three. One, two, three.” Emily only realized she was counting off the steps aloud when she heard Nicholas’s soft laughter.

Her head shot up to see the merriment in his eyes. Unfortunately, the abrupt motion also intensified the strange vertigo she was feeling. Stumbling to a halt, she stared up at her partner in mortification as waves of nausea rolled up from her belly.

“Miss Calvert,” he began, alarm evident in his voice. Other dancers had noticed their stop and were beginning to stare at them.

Without a word Emily turned and walked slowly and stiffly from the dance floor, out through the French doors, across the terrace, down the steps, and into the dark garden beyond, all the while hoping she was not going to embarrass herself by losing the contents of her stomach.

Lady Margaret watched her niece walk away from Nicholas, leaving him standing on the dance floor staring after her.

“That silly girl,” she murmured to Viscount Talbot.

“Is she as addle-pated as she seems?”

“And then some. My brother assured me she is an intelligent chit, actually said she was too smart for her own good. Bah, he always was an idiot.”

“This scheme may not come to fruition,” Andrew warned. “Nick would sooner marry a homely girl than a stupid one.”

Margaret sighed. It had been too good to be true. At the advanced age of four and fifty Margaret Morris had finally decided it was time to marry her long-time love. But she would not marry a pauper. Viscount Talbot was as poor as a church mouse. He had inherited a title and estates that had been nearly run into the ground by his father’s penchant for gambling. Andrew had disregarded the problem of his dwindling fortune until it had grown to such proportions that it could no longer be ignored.

Last year he had finally admitted to his love that he was near to bankrupt. Together they had hatched a plan to provide a much needed influx of capital into the dwindling family coffers.

Margaret had a spinster niece with a staggering fortune; Andrew had a bachelor son with charm and a handsome face. Arrange a marriage and solve all their problems. What could be simpler?

“Perhaps I should start looking elsewhere for an heiress for Nicholas,” Andrew suggested.

“Don’t give up yet,” replied Margaret. “There may be another way.”

Andrew looked down at her with a question in his blue eyes.

“It wouldn’t be the first time a marriage has come about in the midst of a small scandal.”

“Ah, right you are,” he replied with a smile. “The age old custom of compromising the young lady. Splendid notion, my darling.”

“No time like the present,” suggested Margaret.

“She is alone in the garden,” Andrew agreed.

“Shall I send him out after her or shall you?” she asked.

“I’ll do it. You gather a gaggle of geese and I’ll meet you beside the fountain. Shall we say ten minutes?”

Nick found the lady sleeping on a bench in the farthest corner of the garden a few minutes later. His father had insisted he follow her out into the deserted garden, practically shoved him out the door. Nick was no fool. He knew what was expected of him. As he looked down at the mass of wrinkled blue silk and pale limbs, his mind shied away from the task.

He could not marry this girl. He simply could not shackle himself to this empty-headed, fragile creature for life. There must be another way, another heiress.

He thought of her anger when she had realized he was laughing at her counting out the steps to the waltz. Had she simply looked up and smiled, shared in the humorous moment, he might have agreed to this harebrained plan. But could he spend the rest of his life holding back his laughter for fear of offending her?

He had attempted to engage her in conversation, only to be thwarted by her vacant eyes and wispy shrugs. Could he spend an eternity of dinners with a lady incapable of the simplest of dialogue?

He looked down at her painfully thin arms and gaunt face. Could he spend night after night in marital intimacy with a woman he was afraid he would injure with his passion?

Nick heard voices behind him, quickly approaching. Three or four ladies from the sound of it. He had only a moment to decide, a moment in which to define his future.

Margaret led Lady Palmer, Mrs. Elliott, and Mrs. Thaddeus around the tall hedge to the scene that awaited them.

“I don’t know what she could have been thinking of, coming into the garden alone,” she said to the three biggest gossips in London.

“Perhaps she is not alone,” replied Mrs. Elliott with a giggle. Alicia Elliott liked nothing so much as a scandal.

“Don’t be silly, Alicia,” cried Margaret. “My niece is a true lady.”

She allowed the ladies to come abreast of her, so that they too could share in the first sight of Emily in Nicholas’s arms.

“Goodness,” whispered Lady Palmer.

“I’ve never seen such a thing,” squealed Mrs. Elliott.

“Poor dear,” Mrs. Thaddeus murmured.

“What?” Margaret shrieked.

Emily did not so much as lift an eyelid as the ladies stood above her watching her sleep on a cold hard bench in the garden of Clevedon House while the opening ball of the Season raged on.

And just like that, Emily Ann Calvert’s reputation was ruined in London.

Sleeping Wraith
, the next day’s paper called her.

“Theater goers some evenings past must be pardoned for thinking they were attending a surprise rendition of the
Ghost of Sleeping Beauty
rather than
King Lear
as the playbill proclaimed. All eyes were upon the box of Lady M and the
Sleeping Wraith
within. The slumbering lady is Miss C, Lady M’s American niece, rumored to have come to London to make a match with Mr. A. In light of Mr. A’s dwindling family fortune, one could be forgiven for wondering if he would allow the lady’s gentle snores to dissuade him from the match. This author wonders no longer. For last evening at Lady C’s ball, the American heiress
was seen fleeing from the arms of Mr. A during a waltz only to be found mere minutes later reclined upon a bench in the garden. Was the
Sleeping Wraith
perhaps dreaming that a prince, or perhaps a viscount’s second son, would awaken her with a kiss? This writer has it on good authority that Miss C would do better to return to the wilds of America and commence kissing frogs.”

“Really, Aunt, I would never kiss a frog,” Emily said with a laugh when her aunt finished reading the paper to her.

“You find it funny? That all the
ton
is laughing at you? That you are ruined?”

“A lady cannot be ruined by such nonsense. Sleeping is hardly scandalous behavior.”

“It is scandalous when you do it at the theater and then again at a ball,” Margaret cried.

“You English wouldn’t know a scandal if it pinched you on the backside.”

“Pinched… on the backside,” Margaret stammered.

Emily rose unsteadily from her chair. The room spun crazily before righting itself and she found her aunt staring at her as if she had suddenly sprouted horns. “I know scandals. To be sure, I am an expert on scandalous behavior.”

“What are you saying?” Margaret demanded.

“Only that I created one scandal after another at home.” Emily waved her hands about in the air for emphasis before grabbing onto the back of her chair for balance. “Nothing but scandals. Scandals here, scandals there, scandals everywhere. Without even trying.”

Emily took perverse pleasure in her meddling aunt’s obvious shock, stepping away from the chair to stand with hands on her hips. Never mind that she seemed unable to keep still, instead listing from right to left as if buffeted by a strong breeze.

Margaret squinted, her face screwing up as if she’d caught an unpleasant odor upon the same breeze.

“Scandals the likes of which you silly English have never seen,” Emily added before turning and weaving her way out of the room as quickly and carefully as she could manage.

In her bedchamber, she fell upon the bed with her face buried in the coverlet, her amusement falling away entirely.

Ruined? Again? Why? She’d been good. She’d been quiet. She’d been a veritable model of propriety. Good Lord, she’d been a ghost!

Emily sat up and reached for the bottle on her nightstand with a hand that shook. She tried to remember when her last dose had been. No matter, she needed another.

Ruined. Again.

As Emily allowed the potion to lull her into a misty world between wakefulness and sleep, Lady Margaret penned an urgent letter to her brother.

Chapter Six

Nicholas Avery leaned forward to look out the window of the carriage which carried his family to Lady’s Margaret’s country estate in Buckinghamshire. The hills that spread for miles around were golden, the trees stripped of their leaves. There was a decided chill in the late autumn air.

“The hunting should be fine this year,” Viscount Talbot rumbled from beside him. “Margaret hasn’t hosted a hunt in years. Her woods are full of fowl and deer.”

“Venison sounds divine,” Lady Avery replied with a tinkling laugh. “I find myself quite hungry these days.”

Three pairs of blue eyes followed the movement of her gloved hand as she caressed her as yet flat stomach.

Nick smiled and turned back to the window.

Funny how one’s life could change in what seemed the blink of an eye, how fickle Lady Fate could be. Six months ago, Nick had been a much sought after gentleman. After the debacle with his
All But Betrothed
, the marriage-minded mamas had been clamoring for him to notice their daughters. That bit in the papers about
The Sleeping Wraith
had awoken them to the desperation of the Avery family. The rumors of their financial difficulties coupled with the presumed inability of Lady Avery to produce an heir had paved the way for countless dreams of a title up for sale.

Then Joan and Oliver had announced that a miracle had occurred, there would be a child of their marriage after all. Now Nick was once more only an impoverished second son. Marriage to him was not likely to provide a title in the next generation. Oh, he was still considered a good catch by those who desired the connection to a noble family. But his market value had dropped considerably.

Nick had come close to offering for Miss Lumberton before the news of Oliver and Joan’s anticipation of a joyous event. The lady’s mother had made it quite clear that they could aim higher for her daughter and Miss Lumberton was quickly betrothed to Lord Almsey, son and heir to the nearly impoverished Earl of Riverton.

The Avery family was becoming quite desperate. Nick was seriously considering courting one Miss Veronica Ogilvie, daughter to a wealthy Scottish wool merchant. Miss Ogilvie, along with a number of other possible matches, had been invited to enjoy two weeks in the country at Lady Margaret’s sprawling manor house.

Nick was pulled from his thoughts by the sight of a huge black horse and rider galloping across the fields in the distance. They were virtually flying over the golden hills. The rider, who appeared to be a boy too small to manage the great beast, leaned low over the horse’s neck as if urging his mount to greater speed. Sure enough, the horse strained forward and gave that much more to the rider.

“Who is that?” Nick asked his father.

“Who?” Viscount Talbot leaned forward to peer out the window. “No idea. Stable boy, perhaps. Fine horse.”

Father and son continued to watch as the pair approached a stone wall and then they were soaring over it in one long, effortless leap. The boy’s wide-brimmed hat fell from his head and a long stream of fiery red hair spilled out behind like a banner in the wind.

“Well, what do you know,” his father said with a chuckle before he sat back.

Nick watched as the woman and the giant black horse disappeared behind a copse of trees. One of Lady Margaret’s guests? Surely no lady would ride astride in men’s breaches. A servant? The stable master’s wife or daughter?

Half an hour later Nick stood at the big bay window in Lady Margaret’s parlor watching the activity in the stable yard. Another carriage had arrived, heavy with trunks that were currently being off loaded and carried inside. Three gentlemen on horseback arrived just behind the carriage.

“Mr. Avery.” Margaret’s voice called his attention from the window and he turned to find the lady striding toward him with Miss Veronica Ogilvie at her side. She was a pretty young lady in a cool Nordic way, with blue-gray eyes, sharp cheekbones, a thin little nose, and pale blonde hair scraped back from her perfect oval face and piled high atop her head. She smiled and Nick got the distinct impression she was calculating his worth, trying to decide just how much she was willing to pay for the privilege of marrying him.

“Lady Margaret.” Nick bowed over his hostess’s gloved hand before turning to Veronica. “And Miss Ogilvie, a pleasure to see you again.”

“The pleasure is mine I am sure,” she replied as he brushed a kiss over her knuckles.

Viscount Talbot wandered over to join the group and the talk soon turned to the events Lady Margaret had planned for the house party.

“Lady Morris, there is a woman in men’s clothing in your yard,” Miss Ogilvie murmured, staring past Nick with slitted eyes.

He followed her gaze to the window. Sure enough, the lady was leading her horse across the crowded stable yard. Nick stepped to the window and watched as she stopped to chat with a footman and shooed away the stable boy who came to take the reins from her hands.

“I will murder her.” He heard Lady Margaret’s words behind him. “The girl is as stubborn and headstrong as the day is long. Spoiled is what she is.”

“My goodness, Lady Morris, who is she?” Veronica asked.

“Never mind,” Margaret muttered.

She was a goddess stolen from the heavens and dropped in the middle of the stable yard in a beam of sunlight, her fiery hair whipping around her in the autumn wind. Petite and lithe in a crisp white shirt and short black coat over a pair of dark brown riding breeches tucked into tall black boots. In her hand she held a black hat that she tapped repeated against her leg as she spoke to the footman.

“Excuse me, ladies.” Nick bowed and turned, weaving his way through the other guests and out the door.

He arrived in the yard in time to see the woman leading her black beast into the stables and followed her. The stables were dim and quiet, the air redolent with hay and manure. Away from the wind, the air was warm and moist.

“You’re a devil, you are,” a woman crooned softly from the far end of the cavernous barn. Nick froze as the husky voice washed over him.

“You’d best learn some manners if you hope to charm the ladies.” The words were accompanied by a throaty chuckle.

He followed the husky voice down the aisle until he came to the last stall. She’d shed her coat and was bent down examining the horse’s forelock, her glorious dark red hair falling like a curtain over her shoulder, hiding her face. Nick took in the curve of her back in the fine linen shirt and her rounded bottom in trousers that fit like a glove.

“One morning early I went out,” she began to sing softly as she massaged the horse’s leg and the pungent scent of mint liniment wafted on the air. Her voice was dark and rich, tinted with a soft Irish brogue. “On the shore of Loch Lein, the leafy trees of summertime, and the warm rays of the sun.”

As she sang she massaged her way up the beast’s leg onto his shoulder, her small hands firmly pressing into muscle and sinew.

“As I wandered through the townlands, and the luscious grassy plains, who should I meet but a beautiful maid.” She straightened and moved her hands over the horse’s neck, her fingers deftly combing through his inky mane.

Nick was transfixed by her rich voice and the sight of her fingers softly caressing the horse’s neck and up between his ears. The black bent his neck and blew a breath against her shoulder and she laughed before leaning forward to sing into his ear, “At the dawning of the day.”

“What’s that you’re singing?” Nick asked.

“Oh,” she cried in surprise as she spun around.

Nick sucked in a shocked breath. Standing before him was the brightest woman he’d ever seen. Her hair blazed like flames, tumbling over her shoulders and down her back in a riot of tangled curls. Her skin glowed bronze in the afternoon light that washed over her from the high window in the stall, freckles dancing over her nose and across her cheeks. Her eyes flashed, as green as spring leaves, surrounded by dark lashes. She wasn’t beautiful in any traditional sense of the word. She was too vibrant, too dazzling, too earthy for true beauty.

“Hullo,” she greeted with a wide smile. Nick found himself unable to look away from her mouth. Good God, what a mouth. Her lips were full and lush, carnal. Images of her lips, her mouth on him flashed through his mind, heating his blood in an instant.

“Cat got your tongue?” she asked when he stood still and silent before her.

“Something like,” Nick replied with a chuckle as he stepped into the stall. “That’s a beautiful horse you’ve got there.”

“And doesn’t he know it.” She laughed up into his face when he stopped before her and reached out to drag his hand down the neck she’d recently caressed. “Danny Boy’s a rare one. Da bought him from a man in Cumberland for a song. He’ll be dancing attendance on the ladies in no time.”

So, the stable master’s daughter after all.

“Lucky Danny Boy,” Nick replied. “He’ll be living the life, his pick of the mares, and a beautiful woman rubbing him down and singing his praises.”

“Jealous, are you? It’s not so different from the life on an English gentleman as far as I can tell.”

Nick chuckled at her audacity. “Is that how you see us?”

“Aren’t you here to find a broad mare and commence filling your stable with little ones to carry on the name?”

“You’ve got us all figured out, have you?” Nick stepped forward until he was close enough feel the heat of her, smell the scent of vanilla and lemon and animal that floated around her. She didn’t step back, but held her ground, her smile inviting as she tilted her head back to look up at him.

“That I have,” she agreed boldly.

“And what about you?” he murmured. “If you’re not a broad mare in this scenario, does that make you the beautiful woman rubbing the stallion down and singing his praises?”

She shook her head as laughter erupted from deep in her chest and spilled from her lips to brush against his neck.

“You’ve a fresh mouth on you, sir,” she said, stepping back.

“I could say the same for you.” He knew he shouldn’t but he followed her retreat, step for step, until she was backed up against the wall and he was looming over her. He placed his hands on the wall on either side of her head and watched in fascination as she blinked up at him, her eyes widening as she saw his intent.

“Are you thinking to kiss me?” she asked breathlessly.

“Are you thinking to let me?” Nick mimicked her soft drawl, not quite Irish he realized. No, her accent was softer, slower, almost musical.

“Will I be singing your praises afterward?” she asked and he heard amusement in her words.

Nick bent his head and captured her mouth, captured the laugh that came tumbling across her lips, captured the quiet moan that followed. Her lips were soft and full and made for kissing. There was no hesitation in her response, no shy withholding, only acceptance and enthusiasm. He brushed his tongue across the seam of her lips and she opened to him, invited him in, met his tongue with her own and danced and parried.

He angled his head, pressed firmly, drove his tongue into her eager mouth again and again. Hunger thrummed through his veins, pooled in his loins until he was hard and heavy, his cock straining against his trousers. He couldn’t remember the last time a kiss had driven him so quickly to arousal.

Voices intruded into the fog that surrounded his brain, male voices growing nearer.

He broke the kiss, watched as her eyes opened, registered the dazed look in their emerald depths. A fragment of memory chased along the fringes of his mind before drifting away.

She blinked once, twice, gave him a bright smile, and scooted under his arm and away. She patted the black stallion on the rump as she walked around him.

“I haven’t time to rub you down and sing your praises,” she crooned as she left the stall, turning into the long aisle.

Nick chuckled, shook his head to clear the last remnants of desire from his brain, then exited the stables by the back door, careful not to be seen by the gentlemen who had entered. As he closed the stable door behind him, he heard the stable master’s daughter’s glad cry of, “Da!”