“Was she terribly ravishing in her underclothes?” Livia asked craftily.
“Yes,” Marcus said without thinking, and then scowled. “I mean,no. That is, I didn’t look at her long enough to make an assessment of her charms. If she has any.”
Livia bit the inside of her lower lip to keep from laughing. “Come, Marcus …you are a healthy man of thirty-five—and you didn’t take one tinypeep at Miss Bowman standing there in her drawers?”
“I don’t peep, Livia. I either take a good look at something, or I don’t. Peeping is for children or deviants.”
She gave him a deeply pitying glance. “Well, I’m dreadfully sorry that you had to endure such a trying experience. We can only hope that Miss Bowman will stay fully clothed in your presence during this visit, to avoid shocking your refined sensibilities once again.”
Marcus frowned in response to the mockery. “I doubt she will.”
“Do you mean that you doubt she will stay fully clothed, or you doubt she will shock you?”
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“Enough,Livia,” he growled, and she giggled.
“Come, we must go and welcome the Bowmans.”
“I don’t have time for that,” Marcus said curtly. “You welcome them, and make some excuse for me.”
Livia stared at him in astonishment. “You’re not going to… oh, but Marcus, you must! I’ve never known you to be rude before.”
“I’ll atone for it later. For God’s sake, they’re going to be here for nearly a month—I’ll have ample opportunity to placate them. But talking about that Bowman girl has put me in a foul mood, and right now the thought of being in the same room with her sets my teeth on edge.”
Shaking her head slightly, Livia regarded him in a speculative way that he did not like. “Hmm. I’ve seen you interact with people that I know you dislike, and you always manage to be civil—especially when you want something from them. But for some reason Miss Bowman provokes you excessively. I have a theory as to why.”
“Oh?” Subtle challenge lit his eyes.
“I am still developing it. I will let you know when I’ve come to a definitive conclusion.”
“God help me. Justgo, Livia, and welcome the guests.”
“While you hole up in this study like a fox run to ground?”
Standing, Marcus gestured for her to precede him through the doorway. “I’m leaving through the back of the house, and then I’m going for a long ride.”
“How long will you be away?”
“I’ll be back in time to change for supper.”
Livia heaved an exasperated sigh. Supper this evening would be a heavily attended affair. It was the prelude to the first official day of the house party, which would begin in full force tomorrow. Most of the guests had already arrived, with a few stragglers due to arrive soon. “You had better not be late,” she warned. “When I agreed to act as your hostess, it was not with the understanding that I was going to handle everything by myself.”
“I am never late,” Marcus replied evenly, and strode away with the eagerness of a man who had suddenly been spared from the gallows.
Marcus rode away from the manor, guiding his horse along the well-traveled forest path beyond the gardens. As soon as he crossed a sunken lane and ascended the incline on the other side, he gave the animal its head, until they were thundering across fields of meadowsweet and sun-dried grass. Stony Cross Park possessed the finest acreage in Hampshire, with thick forests, brilliantly flowered wet meadows and bogs, and wide golden fields. Once reserved as hunting grounds for royalty, the estate was now one of the most sought-after places to visit in England.
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It suited Marcus’s purposes to have a more or less constant stream of guests at the estate, providing ample company for the hunting and sports that he loved, and also allowing for quite a bit of financial and political maneuvering. All kinds of business were done at these house parties, at which Marcus often persuaded a certain politician or professional man to side with him on important issues.
This party should be no different from any other—but for the past few days, Marcus had been deviled by a growing sense of unease. As a supremely rational man, he did not believe in psychic premonitions, or any of the spiritualist nonsense that was becoming fashionable of late…but it did seem as if something in the atmosphere at Stony Cross Park had changed. The air was charged with expectant tension, like the vibrant calm before a storm. Marcus felt restless and impatient, and no amount of physical exertion seemed to pacify his growing disquiet.
Contemplating the evening ahead of him, and the knowledge that he would have to hobnob with the Bowmans, Marcus felt his unease sharpen into something approaching anxiety. He regretted having invited them. In fact, he would gladly forgo any potential business deal with Thomas Bowman if he could just be rid of them. However, the fact was that they were here, and would stay for well nigh a month, and he might as well make the best of things.
Marcus intended to launch into an active negotiation with Thomas Bowman about expanding his soap company to establish a production division in Liverpool or, perhaps, Bristol. The British soap tax was almost certain to be repealed in the next few years, if Marcus’s liberal allies in Parliament were to be trusted. When that happened, soap would become far more affordable for the common man, which would be good for the public health and, conveniently, also good for Marcus’s bank account, hinging on Bowman’s willingness to take him on as a partner.
However, there was no escaping the fact that a visit from Thomas Bowman meant enduring his daughters’ presence as well. Lillian and Daisy were the embodiment of the objectionable trend of American heiresses coming to England to husband-hunt. The peerage was being set upon by ambitious misses who gushed about themselves in their atrocious accents and constantly angled for publicity in the papers. Graceless, loud, self-important young women who sought to purchase a peer with their parents’
money…and often succeeded.
Marcus had become acquainted with the Bowman sisters on their previous visit to Stony Cross Park, and had found little to recommend either of them. The older one, Lillian, had become a particular focus of his dislike when she and her friends—the wallflowers, they called themselves (as if it were something to be proud of!)—had engineered a scheme to entrap a peer into marriage. Marcus would never forget the moment when the scheme had been exposed. “Good God, is there nothing you won’t stoop to?” Marcus had asked Lillian. And she had replied brazenly, “If there is, I haven’t discovered it yet.”
Her extraordinary insolence made her different from any other woman of Marcus’s acquaintance. That, and the rounders game they had played in their drawers, had convinced him that Lillian Bowman was a hellion. And once he had passed judgment on someone, he rarely changed his opinion.
Frowning, Marcus considered the best way to deal with Lillian. He would be cool and detached, no matter what provocation she offered. No doubt it would infuriate her to see how little she affected him.
Picturing her irritation at being ignored, he felt the tightness in his chest ease. Yes…he would do his utmost to avoid her, and when circumstances forced them to occupy the same room, he would treat her with cold politeness. His frown clearing, Marcus guided his horse over a series of easy jumps; a hedge, a fence and a narrow stone wall, rider and animal working together in perfect coordination.
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“Now, girls,” Mrs. Mercedes Bowman said, regarding her daughters sternly as she stood in the doorway of their room, “I insist that you nap for at least two hours, so that you will be fresh for this evening. Lord Westcliff’s dinners usually start late, and last till midnight, and I don’t want either of you to yawn at the table.”
“Yes, Mother,” they both said dutifully, regarding her with innocent expressions that did not deceive her in the least.
Mrs. Bowman was a rampantly ambitious woman with an abundance of nervous energy. Her spindle-thin body would have made a whippet look chubby. Her anxious, hard-edged chatter was usually directed toward advancing her main objective in life: to see that both her daughters were brilliantly married. “Under no circumstances are you to leave this room,” she continued sternly. “No sneaking about on Lord Westcliff’s estate, no adventures, scrapes, or happenings of any kind. In fact, I intend to lock the door to ensure that you stay safely in here andrest.”
“Mother,” Lillian protested, “if there is a duller spot in the civilized world than Stony Cross, I’ll eat my shoes. What possible trouble could we get into?”
“You create trouble from thin air,” Mercedes said, her eyes slitted. “Which is why I am going to supervise the pair of you closely. After your behavior on our last visit here, I am amazed that we were invited back.”
“I’m not,” Lillian rejoined dryly. “Everyone knows that we’re here because Westcliff has an eye on Father’s company.”
“LordWestcliff,” Mercedes corrected with a hiss. “Lillian, you must refer to him with respect! He is the wealthiest peer in England, with a bloodline—”
“—that’s older than the queen’s,” Daisy interrupted in a singsong tone, having heard this speech on a multitude of occasions. “And the oldest earldom in Britain, which makes him—”
“—the most eligible bachelor in Europe,” Lillian finished dryly, raising her brows with mock significance.
“Maybe the entireworld. Mother, if you’re actually hoping that Westcliff is going to marry either of us, you’re a lunatic.”
“She’s not a lunatic,” Daisy told her sister. “She’s a New Yorker.”
There were an increasing number of the Bowmans’ kind back in New York—upstarts who could not manage to blend with either the conservative Knickerbockers, or the highly fashionable crowd. These parvenu families had garnered massive fortunes from industries such as manufacturing or mining, and yet they could not gain acceptance in the circles that they aspired to so desperately. The loneliness and embarrassment of being so thoroughly rejected by New York society had fueled Mercedes’s ambitions as nothing else could have.
“We’re going to make Lord Westcliff forget all about your atrocious behavior during our last visit,”
Mercedes informed them grimly. “You will be modest, quiet, and demure at all times—and there will be no more of this wallflower business. I want you to stay away from that scandalous Annabelle Peyton, and that other one, that—”
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“Evie Jenner,” Daisy said. “And it’s Annabelle Hunt now, Mother.”
“Annabelle did marry Westcliff’s best friend,” Lillian pointed out idly. “I should think that would be an excellent reason for us to continue seeing her, Mother.”
“I’ll consider it.” Mercedes regarded them both suspiciously. “In the meantime, I intend for you to take a long, quiet nap. I don’t want to hear a sound from either of you, do you understand?”
“Yes, Mother,” they both chorused.
The door closed, and the outside key turned firmly in the lock.
The sisters regarded each other with a shared grin. “It’s a good thing that she never found out about the rounders game,” Lillian said.
“We would be dead now,” Daisy agreed gravely.
Lillian fished a hairpin from a small enameled box on the vanity table and went to the door. “A pity that she gets so upset about little things, isn’t it?”
“Like the time we sneaked the greased piglet into Mrs. Astor’s parlor.”
Smiling reminiscently, Lillian knelt before the door and worked the pin into the lock. “You know, I’ve always wondered why Mother didn’t appreciate that we did it in her defense.Something had to be done after Mrs. Astor wouldn’t invite Mother to her party.”
“I think Mother’s point was that putting livestock in someone’s house does little to recommend us as future party guests.”
“Well, I didn’t think that was nearly as bad as the time we set off the Roman candle in the store on Fifth Avenue.”
“We were obligated to do that, after that salesman had been so rude.”
Withdrawing the pin, Lillian expertly crimped one end with her fingers and reinserted it. Squinting with effort, she maneuvered the pin until the lock clicked, and then she glanced at Daisy with a triumphant smile. “That was my fastest time yet, I think.”
However, her younger sister did not return the smile. “Lillian…if you do find a husband this year…everything’s going to change. You’ll change. And then there will be no more adventures, or fun, and I’ll be alone.”
“Don’t be silly,” Lillian said with a frown. “I’m not going to change, and you won’t be alone.”
“You’ll have a husband to answer to,” Daisy pointed out. “And he won’t allow you to be involved in any mischief making with me.”
“No, no, no…” Lillian stood and waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “I’m not going to havethat kind of husband. I’m going to marry a man who either won’t notice or won’t care about what I do when I’m away from him. A man like Father.”
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“A man like Father doesn’t seem to have made Mother very happy,” Daisy said. “I wonder if they were ever in love?”
Leaning back against the door, Lillian frowned as she contemplated the question. It had never occurred to her before now to wonder if her parents’ marriage had been a love match. Somehow she didn’t think so. They both seemed entirely self-contained. Their partnership was at best a negligible bond. To Lillian’s knowledge, they seldom argued, never embraced, and rarely even spoke. And yet there was no apparent bitterness between them. Rather they were indifferent to each other, with neither evincing any desire or even aptitude for happiness.
“Love is for the novels, dear,” Lillian said, trying her best to sound cynical. Easing the door open, she peeked up and down the hallway, and glanced back at Daisy. “All clear. Shall we slip out the servants’