Miss Molly Robbins Designs a Seduction Page 23

  “Why should I mind?”

  “I didn’t want you to think I might poach your pet away from you.”

  Molly replied with mock solemnity, “Lady Anne, I can pass him on to you with impunity. As long as you keep him well fed and watered and clean out his cage.”

  “Good gracious. It is quite a liability to look after an artist.”

  “Indeed, your ladyship.”

  Carver, who had crossed the room to greet her, added wryly, “The creative soul is never an easy one to keep domesticated.”

  She shot him a look that she hoped would urge him to behave. He duly kissed her hand very politely, so no one but she would note the wicked gleam in his eye as his lips lightly stroked her knuckles.

  Apart from Lady Anne, the Rothespurs’ drawing room was inhabited by males until Molly arrived with her friends. They were introduced to the other gentlemen present, all of them looking at her with great interest. Then she was seated beside Mrs. Slater on a small, dainty sofa, and after answering a few questions about their journey across London that evening, Molly let Fred take the conversation, which he did painlessly and seamlessly. Fortunately, he and Lady Anne were both chatterboxes, and for the first quarter hour, theirs were the voices most often heard. Occasionally Lady Anne’s brother spoke up to rein her in discreetly, and Lord Skiffington interjected the odd comment, which seldom had much to do with anything, but Carver spent those first moments simply watching Molly across the room with his potent, heated regard.

  When Lady Anne opened the instrument and invited the ladies to play, Mrs. Slater suddenly perked up and accepted the challenge. Until then, Molly had never even known the lady knew how to play a note, but Mrs. Slater turned out to be far more eloquent on the pianoforte than she was with her speech. Her fingers moved over the keys with great dexterity, and she was soon absorbed in her playing.

  Well, it was really no surprise that she’d never known about the widow’s musical bent, thought Molly, for there was no instrument at Mrs. Lotterby’s house, and no room, or coin, for one. But she had surely been a terrible friend for never bothering to know about Mrs. Slater’s accomplishment. Until then, the struggling, widowed young mother was little more than a sad shadow in the corner of her eye, a victim of unhappy circumstance, and someone to be pitied. There was, of course, more beneath, if one bothered to scratch the surface, but Molly had been too caught up in herself to take the time. A woman did not disappear just because she married, lost her husband, and then had a baby. Mrs. Slater had been someone before all that happened, someone with hopes and dreams and laughter in her life. Someone who took music lessons and learned to play beautifully. Yes, indeed, it was important to scratch beneath the surface if one meant to properly know a person.

  While sitting at the instrument, the lady’s entire demeanor changed from meek and browbeaten to composed and confident. Molly supposed—like her own ability with needle and thread—music was a way to express thoughts and ideas she could not put into words. The poor lady must have suffered dreadfully for the lack of an opportunity to exercise her skill, for it would drive Molly insane if she could not sew or sketch her designs.

  Glancing around the room, she was glad to see everyone paying attention and admiring her friend’s playing. Very proud and pleased for Mrs. Slater, she made up her mind to purchase a small spinet for her as soon as she had enough money. What was the good of her own success if she could not share it with her dear friends?

  Beginning to feel as if the evening would not be nearly as uncomfortable as she’d imagined, Molly’s spirits improved, and she lost some of her own reserve, but not enough to attempt a tune on the pianoforte.

  Watching the faces of Carver’s friends, she wondered how many knew the truth about their relationship. They were gracious to her, very civil. Lady Anne’s brother clearly made an effort to put Molly at her ease, smiling pleasantly and angling a few subjects in her direction without questioning her pointedly to make her the center of uncomfortable attention. He had also, she soon discovered, provided pineapple tart, just as she’d been promised.

  She soon decided that Sinjun Rothespur, Carver’s oldest friend, had a likeable, unpretentious manner and an endearing smile. As for Lord Skiffington, he was the typical rakish blade, bent on pleasure. The sort that never properly grew up. Yet he was tolerable and not at all stuck-up. On his best behavior perhaps, she thought.

  When Lady Anne took over the musical entertainment, it only allowed them all to appreciate the superiority of Mrs. Slater’s playing. Their young hostess had a heavy hand on the keys and distinct lack of rhythm, but what she lacked in certain areas she made up for in sheer determination and bravado. Frederick offered to turn the music for her, and soon he was singing along, a born show-off, while Lady Anne thumped away at the pianoforte, her ringlets bouncing, eyes shining. Molly watched them together and saw two lively, spirited young people who might be in very real danger from each other.

  Better have a word with Fred later. Wouldn’t want him getting his heart broken, and it was doubtful the Earl of Saxonby would let his young sister fall in love with an artist. She glanced slyly at Mrs. Slater, for she’d harbored some romantic hopes for the pretty widow and handsome, merry Fred, but the lady watched him now with a kind smile and seemed to be enjoying the dreadful noise as best she could, tapping her foot in an effort to keep time even when there was no discernible beat to the playing.

  Alas, mused Molly, one could not make love bloom where there was no seed. On the other hand—she looked for Carver—one could not stop love growing in places where it should not either.

  Oh, where had he gone? He was no longer in the chair where he had sat moments ago.

  Suddenly a large hand tapped her shoulder, and she turned her head to find him behind her, having apparently moved across the room while she was watching the entertainment. His lips moved in a slight smile as he looked down at her. There was no word exchanged, no need for any. The tender touch of his fingers on her bare shoulder spoke an entire soliloquy. However, Molly refused to let her imagination run away with her again. Just as it had in regard to Fred being Mrs. Bathurst’s long-lost son, her mind was eager to sew neat seams around the facts. She might want to believe Carver was in love with her, but her wishes didn’t make it so. Even if he was capable of such a feeling, what good would it do? She was still a dressmaker, and he was an earl. Their love could flourish only in shadow.

  But tonight she felt connected to him in a new way. A deeper way.

  It was as if they were alone together in that room.

  The glorious sensation lasted just five more minutes.

  When the doors opened, everyone seemed surprised. The music stopped abruptly, and Lady Anne rose from the instrument to greet her new guests. A hollow silence fell over the room, unnatural and sinister as cockcrow in the afternoon.

  ***

  “Covington. I thought you were otherwise engaged,” Rothespur exclaimed.

  “I decided to come after all. You know the Baroness Schofield, of course.”

  It was a good thing Sinjun had the ability to play perfect host and hide his thoughts, for Carver knew his were written all over his face at that moment. His gut tightened, as did his jaw. His teeth began to hurt.

  Fletcher Covington walked into the party with Carver’s former mistress on his arm, smirking like a man who just won a fortune on the Epsom Derby.

  Carver would have left at once, but Margaret laid a hand over his fingers, where he’d placed them upon her shoulder moments before, and when he glanced down at her, she shook her head very slightly. Her color had risen, but she was composed, her eyes calm, her hand steady.

  She was right, he thought, why should their evening be cut short? He had finally drawn her out of hiding, and the last thing he wanted was to see her run back again into her mouse hole at the first sign of trouble.

  Everything was going so well. Until now.

  After a slight delay, their trainee hostess, Lady Anne, scrambled to welcome the new
arrivals, but a crisp chill had cut through the atmosphere of the room. The baroness made her disdain for Margaret and her friends quite obvious.

  “Ah yes,” she murmured. “You are that seamstress…Roberts, isn’t it? The runaway bride who jilted that poor country lad because she had bigger fish in her net.”

  Furious, Carver stepped toward her, but again a subtle movement from Margaret prevented him from making a protest.

  The baroness chortled. “Don’t mind me, just a silly jest.”

  “No one else is amused,” Carver replied, curt.

  “I can’t think why. I know you love a good joke. Perhaps it’s amusing only if it’s not at your expense, Danforthe.” She looked at Margaret again, her eyes narrowed slyly. “You’re quite flushed, Roberts. Must be the heat of the evening. I do hope I have not said anything amiss.”

  “Not at all,” said Margaret quietly. “I am flattered you remember me at all, madam.” Clearly she had more poise in the face of rudeness than he did, he thought, and his admiration for her leapt another few steps that night.

  The baroness entreated them all to continue the party. “Don’t let me disturb you. Please, play on Lady Anne.” She and Covington swept away to be seated.

  Carver caught Sinjun’s eye and read there a silent, hapless apology. He shook his head, gesturing that it didn’t matter, even though it did, of course. There was no doubt that Covington had done this deliberately, springing Maria on the party to create maximum disruption, but it was hardly Sinjun’s fault. He couldn’t have known, or he would have prevented it. Covington picked his moment well, because Lady Anne was such an untried hostess and would probably not have any idea how to handle the situation—even if she had an inkling of her guest’s discomfort—while Sinjun was the peacemaker, always wanting everyone to get along and avoiding confrontation.

  Now Anne continued her playing, and they all sat stiffly, pretending not to feel the tremors of discontent filling the room.

  ***

  A light supper buffet was served. Although a footman offered, several times, to refill her glass, Molly only sipped her wine, anxious not to lose any control. She felt as if she was being tested tonight and would need all her wits about her.

  The large ruby earrings swaying in the Baroness Schofield’s ears every time she gave that shrill laugh seemed to flare in the corner of Molly’s eye, drawing her attention when she would rather look at anything else. The woman kept touching them too, then letting her fingers drift down the side of her elegant neck. Finally, when Lady Anne politely asked about them, she explained they were a recent gift from an admirer, and she threw a pointed glance at Carver.

  Molly looked at her lap. Of course they must have been a parting gift. She knew he always gave his ladies jewelry when he moved on. But each time the baroness ran her fingernails down the side of her neck, Molly thought of Carver’s hands once following the same path. Touching that woman as intimately as he lately touched her.

  When Mrs. Slater gently asked if she was all right, Molly forced a smile, not wanting to spoil anyone else’s evening. Fred and Lady Anne seemed to be the only guests who were not troubled in some way by the late arrivals. Their hostess was possibly oblivious to the fragile air and undercurrent of drama. Fred was his usual entertaining self. Thank goodness for Fred, she mused glumly.

  At one point, the Duke of Preston, who had escorted the baroness into the party, began a conversation about horse racing. It was nothing Molly could take part in or, indeed, have any possible interest in. But as talk turned to wagers lost and won, the baroness suddenly raised her fan to her lips, caught Molly’s eye, and then leaned over to Lady Anne and whispered in her ear.

  The young lady instantly glanced over at Molly too, so she knew—had she been in any doubt—that the whisper was about her.

  She raised a hand to her hair, anxious that it should not let her down by unraveling to her shoulders, as was its tendency whenever Molly was agitated. The room seemed very large suddenly, but there was not enough air in it. Like one of those bitter cold midwinter days when the breath was sucked out of one’s chest. Her body was shrinking into the upholstery of the sofa, her veins freezing and cracking.

  A low giggle slipped out between Lady Anne’s gloved fingers as she held them to her rosy lips and exclaimed in a gasp of part horror and part amusement, “Danforthe won her in a wager?”

  All other conversation faded away. The baroness fanned herself rapidly, beaming from one ruby to the other. Everyone now looked at Molly.

  “Is that true?” Lady Anne demanded. “Jumping Jacks! How positively scandalous. And yet so like you, Danforthe.”

  She couldn’t feel anything. Sinjun Rothespur looked mortified, but the Duke of Preston, who had clearly imbibed too much liquor even before he came to the party, bellowed with laughter. “Not exactly the case. He didn’t win her in the wager. Miss Robbins was the wager.”

  Molly couldn’t look at Carver, who still stood behind her. If his good friend Sinjun was not staring at the carpet and wiping sweat from his brow, she would not have believed the nasty remark. Rothespur’s guilt-wracked countenance, however, suggested it was true, and then the duke added, “Seems I owe you my best hunter, Danforthe.” He blew out a cloud of gray cigar smoke and coughed. “You worked that one in record time.”

  Although only the duke was laughing, that sound echoed around the drawing room until it felt as if they all laughed. She was surrounded by faces that were either embarrassed for her or ready to mock. Even Lady Anne, of whom she’d grown fond, was looking as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or frown.

  “You know that’s not true, Covington.” Carver’s deep, angry voice passed over her head while Molly sat very still and straight, unable to move or even swallow. “Apologize to Miss Robbins. Now.”

  “You always said you could have anyone you wanted,” the duke replied. “So I challenged you to get her into bed. Next thing I know, you’re canoodling with her at Vauxhall Gardens.”

  “I never accepted your stupid wager.”

  She saw a movement in the corner of her eye and knew Carver had sprung forward, but Sinjun Rothespur jumped up from his seat and put himself in the way. “I think you’d better leave, Covington.”

  “Why’s ’at?” The portly drunk slurred, “’S the truth. The damn truth, I say.”

  The baroness stood and closed her fan with a snap. “I’m quite ready to leave. I’ve never been to such a dull party. Really, I thought it might at least be interesting in a morbidly curious way—a novelty—but I was wrong. It seems the poor can be just as tedious company as some immensely rich folk of our acquaintance.” She sauntered to where the duke sat and offered her elegant hand to help the corpulent fellow to his feet. “Let’s leave, Fletcher darling. We’ve done our part for charity this evening. If he chooses, Danforthe can pander to that talentless little seamstress and prop her up with every penny of his fortune. That doesn’t mean we all have to treat her as if she’s something other than what she is.”

  Mumbling under his breath, the tipsy duke got up and let her lead him to the door, only a few paces ahead of Sinjun, who signaled to a footman to escort them out, and even fewer paces ahead of Carver, who would have caught them at the door if his friend did not waylay him seconds before he made contact with the Baroness Schofield’s arm.

  Molly was relieved he didn’t reach her in time. The last thing she wanted was to see him touch that woman, even in anger. After all, had he not said to her once that there was only a slender leap from anger to desire? She would much rather he ignored that woman from now on. That was surely punishment of the worse kind for a creature who wanted to be the center of attention however the place was earned.

  But tonight she’d done her damage successfully. The villains had stayed just long enough to fire their cannon, and now they sailed away, leaving their victims to pick up the pieces.

  ***

  Carver took Margaret and her friends home, after another half hour of everyone trying to act as i
f nothing unpleasant had taken place. Lady Anne, at her brother’s gentle urging, had apologized to Margaret and made several indignant exclamations about the rudeness of Covington and his guest. The young lady had been an unwitting pawn in a cruel game, and the baroness knew exactly what she did when whispering her vulgar lie into the inexperienced ear of the loudest squeezebox in the room. Margaret said very little in the carriage returning to Mrs. Lotterby’s house. Her artist friend made a valiant effort to keep the silence from becoming oppressive, but even he lost breath by the time the house was in sight. When the carriage drew to a halt, her two friends went inside, leaving them alone for a moment.

  “You do know that was a lie. There was no wager, Margaret.”

  She studied his face, her own countenance giving nothing away, closed off from him again. “The baroness told Lady Anne that she heard every word of it while you played billiards.”

  “Then she heard half of what happened. I never took that wager. It was Covington acting like an ass, and I never took him up on it.”

  She nodded, but her lips were pressed tight, well guarded again.

  “I daresay Maria’s vanity wouldn’t let her believe I threw her over for you unless there was some game involved.”

  “I daresay,” she muttered, her shoulders wilted, her eyes forlorn.

  “If you let her upset you, she’s won,” he added.

  “Yes.” But her voice trembled, and he knew she’d been deeply wounded by those spiteful remarks at the party. She might have strong, capable bones, as she liked to say, but she was not made to withstand the force of those cruel blows. Margaret was more fragile than she liked to think.

  He curved his hands around her face and lifted it so the lamplight gave him a better view of her features. If those were tears in her eyes, she wasn’t letting them fall, but the sight of several shining droplets caused his heart to ache. He never wanted to see her unhappy. Never. He kissed her. Right there in the street. It was dark, but for those few street lamps, and he did not care who saw anyway. “Tell me you believe me, Margaret.”