Charles had never known his mother to smile so much.
But Stella matched her, smile for smile. “I do not doubt it for a moment.”
“There are all sorts of holiday festivities.” Beatrice adjusted the ruby-and-diamond necklace that adorned her thin chest, though Charles hadn’t noticed it move. “Isn’t that so, Charles?”
“Yes.” He nodded, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, trapped as it were, between the two women. “Yes, many events.”
“We shall host a party immediately for Stella,” his mother announced. “She shall meet your friends within the week.”
“A party?” Charles felt a terrible gnawing in the pit of his stomach, the pointed teeth of trouble.
“I made the plans and sent invitations from New York. It shall be the very first Christmas party of the season.”
“You are a wonder, Beatrice dear,” Stella marveled.
His mother acknowledged Stella’s compliment with another bright smile and dismissive wave of her hand. “Undoubtedly we will be invited to attend a round of parties. We shall visit our country house and, of course, we must be at the Cabots’ Snow Ball.”
“I look forward to all of the Christmas festivities,” Stella assured his mother.
“You will be the star of every gathering. Won’t she, Charles?”
Charles shifted in his chair. Agitated almost beyond endurance, he felt as if he might jump out of his skin any minute. An invisible noose was tightening around his neck. “Most certainly,” he agreed, taking a more than appropriate swallow of his wine.
The truth was, his wife Maeve was far more comely than Stella.
“Stella is just coming out of mourning, you know. She’s a widow.”
The pale woman by his side gave him a doleful smile.
“My condolences.”
“Thank you.” Stella inclined her head. Her brown eyes regarded him with a melting sweetness. “I hope my visit won’t interfere with any plans you’ve already made. I should dislike being a bother.”
“Tish!” Beatrice rocked back. “You could not be a bother if you tried. Could she, Charles?”
“No, Mother. No bother.” Charles felt like a man caught in a vise which was about to squeeze the very life from him. “Ah, how long do you plan to stay in Boston, Stella?”
She smiled, of course. “I’ve not restricted myself with a return date.”
He forced a smile. “How wise of you.”
“On the other hand, I promise not to wear out my welcome.”
The dog opened one eye and, growling softly, leveled a hostile gaze at Charles.
Beatrice took up the dinner conversation, going on about the excellent meal the cook had prepared while Charles wondered if Maeve, alone in her rooms, was enjoying the roast and Yorkshire pudding as well. Had she been served wine? Did she enjoy French burgundy? Were the apple dumplings to her liking?
He decided to find out for himself. Nearing the end of the meal, he dabbed at his mouth with the linen napkin and prepared to make his getaway. “I beg your forgiveness, but I don’t seem to be feeling well at all tonight. Will you excuse me?”
Stella’s mouth turned down. Her dog looked up.
A suspicious light sparked in Beatrice’s eyes. “Whatever is ailing you, dear?”
“A fierce headache, Mother. I’m certain it will pass by morning.”
“I will look in on you later.” His mother’s tone left him unsure whether it was a promise or a threat. She could not be pleased with him. Plainly, Beatrice had expected him to spend a pleasant, fireside evening with Stella and her.
Charles almost made good on his getaway. He’d reached the stairs when there came a loud knocking at the door. Not expecting a visitor and fearing yet another disaster, he waited in the foyer while Stuart the butler opened the door.
Two men, one big and the other small, stood on the small stoop. A surge of excitement shot through Charles’s veins. These might be the thieves who stole his sketch of St. Nick come to demand a ransom. Charles stepped closer but stopped when he recognized the voice.
“Me name is O’Malley and this here is me boy, Shea. I’m wantin’ to see me Maeve.”
“Da!”
Charles turned from the male O’Malleys to Maeve, who stood midway on the staircase behind him. His anger at her for once again disobeying his orders dissolved in a heartbeat.
She was stunning.
A striking vision in blue silk, Charles regarded Maeve as if he were seeing her for the first time. The pleated ruching about the gown’s low neck could not hide an abundant and delicious display of creamy cleavage. A natural deep blush colored Maeve’s cheeks and her midnight mane cascaded in an enchanting tumble of curls. Her large jewel eyes sparkled in the gaslight.
Time and place ceased to exist. For the first time in his life Charles was mesmerized.
“Da, what are ye doin’ here?”
Before Mick could answer, Charles heard a rustle of skirts and looked to see Beatrice scurry to his side.
“Do we have visitors?” His mother looked from the men on the doorstep to Maeve still poised on the stairs. She zeroed in on Maeve. “May I ask who are you, young lady?”
Maeve lifted her chin. “I am Mrs. Charles Ashton Rycroft.”
Beatrice’s gasp was quite audible.
Chapter Four
“Smelling salts! I need my smelling salts!” Beatrice cried, sinking against her son.
“We brought ye yer things, me cailin,” Mick barked using the Gaelic for girl, a word he used as an endearment of sorts. With eyes only for Maeve, he ignored Beatrice Rycroft’s distress. Waving a paper sack in the air, his mouth turned up in a silly, broad grin.
Maeve’s gaze flashed from her father to Charles. Her eyes narrowed on her husband as her little hands balled to fists at her hips and her fair complexion took on an ominous crimson flush.
“Ye haven’t even told yer own mother!” she bristled. Her dark, arched brows burrowed into a furious frown.
Dear God, what next?
A single man living alone was unused to this…this pandemonium. Up until the moment he’d awakened to find himself in bed with Maeve O’Malley, Charles had lived in quiet contentment. He’d been satisfied with his well-ordered life and the gracious predictability of his days. From dawn until dusk he’d known exactly what to expect.
Although little more than skin and bones, Beatrice weighed heavily against him. Charles eased his mother into the only vestibule chair just as Stella Hampton rushed in to join the melee. She carried her poor excuse for a dog under one arm. The miniature canine’s high-pitched yapping proved immensely irritating.
The last drop of color drained from Stella’s face as her gaze flitted from one person to the next. “What’s happened? Who screamed?”
“That was Mother.”
“Oh, dear!”
Charles felt Maeve’s blistering gaze upon him as he turned to Stella. But the young widow had become an innocent victim of this disturbance and she deserved an explanation. A Rycroft always did the right thing — even when in danger of losing his life, as Charles was now if the look in Maeve’s eyes was any indication.
“There’s been a misunderstanding,” he told Stella with a forced, but hopefully reassuring, smile.
“What ‘ave ye done to me girl?” Mick O’Malley growled, attempting to brush by the butler.
Beatrice reared back as if she were being attacked by a mad dog. “Who is this man?”
“Me name is Mick O’Malley an’ who would ye be?”
“Oh!” Beatrice gasped.
Unaccustomed to rudeness of any kind, Charles’s mother appeared to be on the verge of swooning.
“Hush, Baby, hush,” Stella crooned to her detestable, pointy little dog as she hurried to Beatrice’s side.
Charles drew in a deep breath. Dear God, let this madness end.
Stuart remained at the door, steadfast and stoic, blocking the O’Malley men from entering. The cold winter wind swept in, an icy intrusion of an uninvited caller, but the group gathered in the gleaming marble foyer took no heed.
“Close the door,” Dolly ordered as she bustled into the increasingly crowded entryway. After one bewildered look, the housekeeper made her way to Charles’s mother.
“Have you brought my smelling salts?” Beatrice asked in a small, pathetic voice.
“In my pocket, Mrs. Rycroft. Don’t you worry.”
As Dolly gathered up Beatrice, Stella slanted a distrustful glance toward Mick and Shea before turning her attention to Maeve. The Irish beauty stood as still and proud as a Michelangelo sculpture while Stella blatantly scrutinized her from head to toe. At length the chalky complexioned widow raised an eyebrow and lifted her chin in a haughty cut. Without a word, she turned on her heel to follow Dolly and Beatrice up the stairs, cradling her bared-teeth, growling dog.
Charles felt as if he were locked in a nightmare from which there was no escape.
Scowling impatiently, Mick O’Malley pushed Stuart aside. Nonplussed, Charles’s butler simply stared as Mick strode through the door trailed by his son.
With a curt nod, Charles dismissed Stuart. Obviously vexed, the tight-lipped butler took his leave.
Old man O’Malley smelled faintly of whisky as he took another menacing step toward Charles. “What ‘ave ye done to me Maeve?”
“I have done nothing to hurt your daughter. As you can see, she looks...” Charles voice trailed off as he dared another glance to where Maeve stood on the stairs.
His heart lurched, a soft leap that took him by surprise.
Maeve looked like a princess stepped from the pages of a fairy tale. She was the same girl she had been moments ago but somehow not the same. With head held high, she clutched the banister with one hand. Despite the murderous look still flashing in her eyes, she was startlingly beautiful. The flush of her cheeks contrasted against her delicate porcelain complexion put Charles in mind of rose blossoms drifting on a blanket of snow.
His rather uncommon poetic thought was quickly followed by another. Her soft colors were in marked contrast to Maeve’s headstrong nature. And she was humming, a characteristic Charles had come to recognize as manifesting itself when she was nervous. And when Maeve was nervous, anything could happen.
“Your daughter looks splendid in her new dress, don’t you agree?”
Maeve’s father grunted.
“He is ashamed of me, Dad!”
“No!”
“Aye.”
“I am not —”
But Mick O’Malley cut Charles off, speaking about him as if he were invisible. “The man’s damn lucky to have ye!”
“Damn right,” Shea agreed.
Charles rubbed his forehead. Torture was too good for the culprit who robbed and beat him and left him at the mercy of the O’Malleys. The villain should be forced to spend eternity with Mick O’Malley in particular. Nothing seemed cruel enough for the thief or thieves who had stolen his prized sketch and left him with an Irish shrew and her contentious family.
Nevertheless, a Rycroft must do the right thing. If only he knew what that might be in a situation like this.
Shea stepped forward to stand beside Mick. Maeve’s brother was a big, broad man, almost as tall as Charles. His shabby jacket did nothing to hide his brawn. The young, handsome Irishman possessed the same coal black curls as Maeve’s but his eyes were a blue-gray shade.
“Me sister is a good woman and deserves the best,” Shea said, aiming a cool gaze at Charles. “If ye don’t treat her with respect, sir, ye’ll be answerin’ to me.”
“I assure you, Maeve will be accorded all due respect,’’ Charles replied. To his relief, Shea spoke softly and appeared more levelheaded than either his cantankerous father or spirited sister.
A movement above shifted Charles’s attention.
Holding her dress up so that her ankles showed in a most indecent manner — Charles overlooked her breach of etiquette to admire their slim turn —Maeve skipped down the steps to join the small circle of men.
She lashed into her father and brother.
“Saints above! Now tell me true, what are ye doin’ here?”
“We wanted to make sure ye were all right,” Shea replied.
Mick held up the sack he carried. “And we brought some things ye might be needin’.”
“Like what?” Her hands went to her hips.
“Yer knittin’ an’ nightshirt, most important.”
Maeve’s stomach knotted with an unpleasant blend of tension and frustration. Her father would be her undoing yet. Maeve slept in a man’s nightshirt, a secret she did not take kindly to having shared with her high society husband.
In the hopes Charles hadn’t heard the nightshirt announcement, she took up another evil. “Me knittin’?”
Blue-blooded Boston ladies did not knit.
“The cranberries and ribbon, too.” Mick lowered his voice. “Ye’ll still make the decorations for our Christmas, won’t ye?”
Her father was in his cups. Maeve turned on Shea. “What was ye thinkin’, bringing his own here after he’s been drinkin’?”
“I thought it was better than him comin’ without me.”
Swallowing her embarrassment, Maeve looked to Charles for his reaction, knowing she would be mortified if she found disdain in his expression.
But her taciturn husband did not evidence displeasure, nor hesitate. “I’ll have Stuart take Maeve’s things to her rooms.”
Lowering her voice, Maeve spoke to her father in soft, gentle tones. “Da, go now. I’ll come by and visit with ye soon.”
“Yer a good cailin.”
She turned to Shea then. “Are you stayin’ out of the ring?”
Her brother gave a wag of his head. “There’s a big bout bein’ scheduled. The pot is growin’ so heavy that it might make a man rich enough to buy his own boat.”
“My brother wants to get off the docks and become a fisherman,” Maeve explained to Charles. “He yearns to work for himself.”
“Someday I’ll have me own fleet,” Shea declared with a confident grin.
“If ye live,” Maeve scoffed. “I’m not one for grown men fightin’ in the ring — or anywhere else for that matter.”
“I have never met a lady yet who is fond of the sport,” Charles said.
Maeve embraced her father. She worried at being away from him. She loved him dearly, this small curmudgeon of a man who was both her father and her child.
Although Maeve had only been a ten-year-old lass when her mam died, Dad and Shea depended on her to take care of them. She’d done the mending and cooking, the cleaning and all that needed doing. For the past four years she’d brought home a steady income as well.