Sally MacKenzie Bundle (79 page)
Read Sally MacKenzie Bundle Online
Authors: Sally MacKenzie
Impossible. Aunt Katherine was the pattern card of composure and restraint. Even when she’d been arguing with Papa at Standen, trying to persuade him to allow this trip, she hadn’t raised her voice. No, surely Aunt Katherine had never done a scandalous thing in her life.
They stepped into the entry hall then and Grace’s mouth dropped open. She snapped it closed when she felt Aunt Katherine’s surreptitious tug on her arm.
She was not completely green. Papa was an earl, after all; Standen was a large, stately pile. She had been to a number of balls and parties, but nothing compared to this.
The broad marble staircase, sweeping up from the wide entry with its black and white patterned floor, was crowded with men in precisely fitted black coats and snowy white cravats and women in debutante white or gowns of brilliant colors, their heads adorned with turbans or flowers or ostrich feathers, their necks dripping with jewels. And the noise! The sound of so many conversations reverberated, becoming a roar. It was hard to imagine how anyone could understand a word.
She and Aunt Katherine made their way slowly up the stairs—Grace looked back to see that people were still coming in the door—and down the receiving line. The duke was young—not yet thirty at a guess—and tall, taller than she, as was the Earl of Westbrooke. Even the American girl, the earl’s cousin, Miss Sarah Hamilton, was roughly Grace’s height, though of a slighter build.
“See,” Aunt Katherine said as soon as they’d stepped through the wide double doors into the ballroom, “you did not tower over the duke or the earl or even Miss Hamilton. You have been in such a pucker over nothing.”
“Hmm.” Could it be that she wouldn’t stand out here as she did at home? She looked out over the crowded ballroom and felt a small frisson, a slight shiver of excitement. Perhaps this trip to Town would not be a complete disaster. Perhaps Papa was wrong. “I might have overreacted slightly.”
“Might have?” Aunt Katherine shook her head. “There’s no ‘might’ about it. I thought you were not going to leave the carriage.”
“Well—”
“And now look.” Katherine made a small, graceful gesture encompassing the ballroom. “You have all of society at your feet.”
“Until we descend these stairs and join the crush.”
Katherine grinned. “True. So take a moment before we do”—they stepped aside to let another couple, just free of the receiving line, pass down the steps to the ballroom—“to look. I see a number of tall gentlemen—and I daresay they see you.”
“Ack.”
Katherine actually giggled. “Shall we make our way to that poor man over by the ficus? Or the one by the windows? Or perhaps the two gentlemen by the…by the—oh, dear God.” Aunt Katherine turned as white as a sheet; she put her hand on Grace’s arm as if to steady herself.
“What is it?”
Grace turned to see what—or who—had so disturbed Aunt Katherine. She saw two gentlemen, partially hidden by a clump of potted palms. Aunt Katherine was focused on a tall, pleasant-looking man, with dark hair, graying slightly at the temples. A distinguished looking gentleman, not alarming in the slightest. What could be the matter with Aunt—
Her gaze traveled to the other man.
Oh, my.
The second man was even taller than his companion and roughly ten years younger. His black coat stretched tightly across impossibly broad shoulders. His hair, dark blond and slightly longer than fashionable, waved back from his broad forehead. He had deep-set eyes, high cheekbones, a straight nose, firm mouth…and was that a cleft in his chin?
He was staring at her. A very odd feeling began low in her belly. Lower even. A heat and a heaviness. A dampness.
She flushed. Could he tell?
Aunt Katherine’s fingers dug into her arm. “I…I…I need to go to the ladies’ retiring room,” she said. “Now!” Retiring—no, retreating—sounded like an excellent notion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A native of Washington, D.C., Sally MacKenzie still lives in suburban Maryland with her transplanted upstate New Yorker husband. She’s written federal regulations, school newsletters, auction programs, class plays, and swim-league guidance, but it wasn’t until the first of her four sons headed off to college that she tried her hand at romance. She can be reached by email at [email protected] or by snail mail at P. O. Box 2453, Kensington, MD 20891. Please visit her home in cyberspace at www.sallymackenzie.net.
The Naked Marquis
S
ALLY
M
AC
K
ENZIE
ZEBRA BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
SHE COULDN’T RESIST
“Marry me, Emma. Please.” Did he sound too enthusiastic? She must think him a lunatic. But it would be a sensible decision on her part. Charles tempered his voice. “Our marriage would solve so many problems. We’d get rid of these London idiots. My nieces would get a mother and you’d get a home of your own. Your father could marry Mrs. Graham without disturbing your peace.” He grinned at her, leaning closer. “And I’d get the lovely opportunity—many lovely opportunities—to produce an heir. What do you say?”
Emma’s stinging slap was eloquence itself.
For Mom and Dad,
and Kevin and the boys, of course,
and for Ruth.
CONTENTS
And with thanks to Elin
for the bachelor’s buttons.
C
HAPTER
1
Why the bloody hell did Paul have to die?
Major Charles Draysmith stood on the broad gravel drive, rain dripping down his neck, and stared at the immense sandstone facade looming before him. He did not want to go inside.
He had lingered in London as long as he could, meeting with the solicitor, with Paul’s bankers, taking care of all the details of the succession—and hating every bloody minute. Every “yes, my lord” tore another piece of his life from him.
Thanks to an anonymous Italian thief, he was now the Marquis of Knightsdale.
A gust drenched his greatcoat, sending more rain cascading down his neck. He couldn’t stand out here forever like a great looby. Aunt Bea would be along shortly with the carriages and her servants and her overfed cat to prepare for the house party.
God.
Tomorrow a horde of aristocratic young virgins and their mamas would descend on Knightsdale. Dread clawed at his gut, and his palms started to sweat, just as they had before every battle he’d
fought on the Peninsula. He wanted to turn and run.
He stepped forward and banged on the door.
“Good morning, my lord.”
“Is it a good morning, Lambert?” Charles let the butler take his wet hat and coat. It had been ten years since he’d last seen the man—since Paul’s wedding. Lambert had new lines around his mouth and eyes, and his hair had thinned.
Doubtless the man noted changes in him as well, Charles thought. He’d barely been out of university when he’d last been home; now he was thirty, aged by the blood and dirt of war.
“Have someone look after my horse, will you?”
“Certainly, my lord. Is Lady Beatrice with you?”
“No, I rode on ahead. I—what is that racket?” Charles swore he heard the rumble of distant artillery.
“I believe it is Miss Peterson, my lord, with Lady Isabelle and Lady Claire.”
“What the hell are they doing?” Charles started for the stairs. The noise was coming from one of the upper floors.
“Skittles, my lord. In the long gallery.”
Skittles,
Charles thought.
How can the girls be playing skittles? They’re only infants.
He heard another rumble and then shrieking. Was someone hurt? He started running, taking the stairs two at a time. The long gallery, if he remembered correctly, had a number of heavy, marble busts of past Draysmiths. If one of them fell on a small child…And was that barking? A dog, too? Whatever was this Miss Peterson thinking? He had assumed Nanny and the governess—
was
her name
Peterson? He hadn’t thought so. He would have remembered, surely, as that was the vicar’s name. He had assumed his young nieces were in good hands. Apparently he had been mistaken. Well, this Miss Peterson would shortly be finding herself seeking other employment.
He reached the long gallery just in time to see a small black and white terrier crash into the pedestal that supported Great-Uncle Randall’s bust.
Emma Peterson leapt to steady the statue just as a man bellowed from the stairs. The surprise of hearing a male voice almost caused her to knock over the ugly sculpture herself. Surely Mr. Lambert would not have let a bedlamite into the house?
“What the bloody hell do you think you are doing, woman, letting that animal run loose? One of your charges could have been crushed.”
Emma stiffened. Who was this man, to come here, cursing and criticizing? She pushed her spectacles higher on her nose. Did she know him? His voice sounded slightly familiar. If only he would come closer.
What was she thinking? She should be wishing him back downstairs and out the door. He was not overly tall, but his broad shoulders and general air of command indicated he was used to getting his way. What if he proved threatening? If she shouted, would anyone hear her in time to come to her aid?
“Prinny didn’t mean any harm, sir.” Brave Isabelle faced their intruder with her narrow shoulders back, though she did step closer to Emma.
“Course he didn’t mean any harm.” Little Claire threw her arms around Prinny’s neck. “You’re a good dog, aren’t you, Prinny?”
Prinny barked and licked her face.
“Prinny? Good God, Prinny! He may be a good dog, miss, but he doesn’t belong racing around in here.”
“Sir.” Emma was pleased that her voice did not waver or crack. She pulled herself up to her full, if insignificant, height. “Sir, I must ask you to leave. Immediately.”
“
You
must ask
me
to leave? Madam, I shall be telling
you
to leave in no short order.”
Emma swallowed. Lud, he was coming closer. “Isabelle, Claire, come here, darlings.”
The man stopped. “Isabelle and Claire?”
“Yes.” Emma raised her chin.
He was close enough for her to see him clearly now. His face was sun-darkened, his curly brown hair cut ruthlessly short. He was older, stronger, more assured than the man she had last glimpsed from a distance at the late marquis’s wedding, but she knew him. She could never forget those eyes—clear blue, like lakes, with dark rims. Charles Draysmith, the boy she had idolized and the man she had sighed over, had returned to Knightsdale.
“
These
are my nieces?” Charles stared at the girls. The older one—Isabelle—looked to be about nine years old. She was thin with straight, wispy white-blond hair, high cheekbones, and Paul’s green eyes. The other one still had the plump curves of babyhood, but she was no longer an infant. She had his own wildly curly hair.
Claire, the little one, put her small fists on her hips—an action he’d swear he’d seen Nanny do countless times when he was a boy—and jutted out her chin. “Are you a bad man?”
“Claire!” The woman frowned. “This is your Uncle Charles, the new Marquis of Knightsdale.”
Charles studied the governess. How did she know who he was? Well, the servants should have been expecting him—he’d sent word that he and Aunt Bea were coming—so it wouldn’t have taken a genius to deduce his identity. But she had not known who he was at first or she would not have ordered him out of the house. She had bottom, he’d grant her that. She’d stood her ground in the face of his bellowing. Many an army private had blanched when on the receiving end of his temper.
She was only a few inches taller than Isabelle, but she did not look at all childlike. Not at all. He jerked his eyes higher to study her face. Dark blond hair, the color of warm honey and even curlier than his; a sprinkling of freckles; golden-brown eyes, fringed with long, dark lashes…