Marrying the Marquis (7 page)

“A pleasure to meet you, Dodger.”

“The pleasure is mine, Miss Flambeau.” The majordomo headed down the corridor to fetch their tea.

“The dinin’ room is this way,” Ross said, leading her in the direction the majordomo had gone.

“Do you usually introduce guests to Dodger?” Blaze asked.

“Dodger has never requested an introduction before,” Ross answered. “The old sneak usually eavesdrops on conversations.”

“Tinker knows more than anyone else what is happening at home,” Blaze said. “I swear that man would be richer than my father if he resorted to blackmail.”

The MacArthur dining room reminded her of her father’s. The rectangular mahogany table with matching chairs stood in the middle of the dining room. Overhead hung a crystal chandelier. Even the blue and white porcelain Worcester service in the center of the table seemed eerily familiar.

Blaze thought the social elite were monkeys mimicking one another. No one dared to be different in words, deeds, or possessions.

“Hercules will win no races if you send Juno to the slaughterhouse,” Blaze said, sitting beside the marquis.

A smile touched his lips. “He told ye so.”

Dodger arrived with the tea and pastries, saving her from answering. “Will there be anything else, my lord?”

“Privacy.”

“Yes, my lord.” The majordomo started to leave.

“Close the doors, Dodger.”

“Leave the doors open,” Blaze countermanded the order.

“Yes, Miss Flambeau.”

Ross winked at her and whispered, “Ye do realize Dodger will be eavesdroppin’ on our conversation.”

“No eavesdropping, Dodger,” she called.

“Yes, Miss Flambeau.”

“Tomorrow mornin’ after practice, I’ll take ye to the Rowley Mile,” Ross said, his voice low. “Pegasus must pick up speed before the Devil’s Ditch because the race ends uphill.”

“Peg’s problem is not speed.”

“There’s a copse of trees beyond the finish,” Ross told her. “If ye win, ride straight into the path to switch places with Rooney.”

“Why do we need to switch places?”

“Ye canna take yer place in the winner’s circle if yer ridin’ her,” Ross answered. “I’ll be waitin’ with Rooney and hurry ye back to the winner’s circle. Wearin’ yer gown beneath breeches and racin’ silks will even the weight between Rooney and ye.”

Blaze could not suppress her doubts. “Do you think this will work?” She believed in her horse but not their ability to succeed in deception.

Ross shrugged, his black gaze holding hers captive. “Do ye believe Pegasus can win?”

“Yes.” No hesitation there.

With their tea finished, Ross rose from his chair. “I’ll take ye home now.”

Blaze stood when he did, her thoughts on the lonely mare in the pasture. “Will you please sell me Juno?”

“I’ll consider yer offer,” Ross said, stepping closer, “if ye allow me a kiss.”

Staring into his dark eyes, Blaze remained silent for a long moment. Surely, one kiss was a small price to pay to save the mare’s life.

“What should I do?” she whispered.

The innocence of her question brought a lazy smile to his lips. “Close yer eyes, darlin’.”

When she did, Blaze felt his fingers caress her cheek. She heard him murmur, “Soft and sweet.”

And then their lips touched.

His lips were warm and firm, his scent reminding her of mountain heather. The muscular planes of his body pressed against her, his warmth heating her, and Blaze relaxed against his powerful frame.

“Are you bringing your doxy into my home?”

“Mind yer manners, Celeste.”

Blaze leaped away from the marquis and whirled toward the intruders. The image of Ross as an older man stood there. Beside him was a middle-aged woman.

The Duke of Kilchurn possessed the same black hair and rugged good looks as his son. And he was smiling at her, warmly, as if he knew her.

The Duchess of Kilchurn was an attractive blonde, graying at the temples. And she was definitely
not
smiling at her. In fact, the duchess appeared hostile.

“Yer Graces, I present Miss Blaze Flambeau,” Ross said, holding her hand. “Blaze, the Duke and Duchess of Kilchurn.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintances,” Blaze said, managing an ambiguous smile.

“We’re happy to meet ye,” the duke said. “Celeste?”

“Ecstatic.” The duchess’s frigid gaze shrieked the word
bastard
at Blaze.

“Child, ye resemble yer father’s aunt Bedelia,” the duke told her. “We shared high times with Bedelia and her long-sufferin’ husband, Colin.”

“My father told me.” Blaze smiled at the duke, adding, “I wish his aunt Bedelia hadn’t given me her freckles, though.”

“Freckles do handicap to a young lady’s appearance,” the duchess agreed, and then looked at Ross. “You will dine with us this evening?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Ross ushered Blaze toward the door. “I will be movin’ my belongin’s into the Rowley Lodge.”

“The girls want to visit with you,” the duchess said.

“I’ll see them before leavin’. By the way, where is the Feathered Flock?”

“The flock is soarin’ in the village,” the duke answered, and then looked at Blaze. “Tell yer father I’ll see him soon.”

“I will, Your Grace.” Blaze smiled with genuine pleasure at the Duke of Kilchurn. She flicked the duchess a frigid glance and then walked out of the dining room.

Standing in the foyer, Dodger opened the door for them. “Enjoy your ride home, Miss Flambeau.”

“Thank you, Dodger.”

Climbing into the phaeton beside her, Ross asked, “Well, did ye enjoy the tour?”

“I never appreciated my own wonderful stepmother until I met yours.”

“In a bygone era, the villagers would have burned Celeste as a witch,” he agreed.

Ross drove the phaeton down the private lane leading to Fordham Road. They retraced the route taken earlier.

“What is a Feathered Flock?” Blaze asked.

“The flock consists of my sister Mairi, my stepsister Amanda, and their friends,” Ross answered, steering the phaeton onto Bury Road. “I dubbed them the flock cuz of all their preenin’ and twitterin’.”

“Preening and twittering like canaries?” Blaze giggled at the provoking picture. “Your stepmother doesn’t like me.”

“What makes ye say so?” Ross gave her a sidelong smile. “Did Hercules tell ye?”

“Very funny.” Blaze was silent for a moment and then told him, “I saw hostility in her eyes.”

“Celeste dislikes everyone,” he said. “Besides, she was hopin’ for a match between Amanda and me.”

Ross halted the phaeton in the Inverary courtyard. “I’ll see ye at the track in the mornin’.”

“I need to ask you something.” Blaze stared into his black eyes, hoping to discern the truth in his answer. “Did you ever kill an animal?”

“I canna lie to ye,” Ross said, his expression serious. “I’ve stepped on my share of ants.”

“I knew I heard screams coming from the direction of MacArthur House.” Blaze smiled at him and walked away.

His laughter followed her into Inverary House.

“Hello, Tinker.” Blaze held her hand out.

The majordomo passed her the bonnet. “I trust you enjoyed your outing.”

“I did enjoy myself,” Blaze told him, “but the marquis’s stepmother makes mine seem like Little Bo Peep.”

“Her Grace prays only for your happiness,” Tinker said, smiling.

“Do you know my father’s whereabouts?” she asked.

“His Grace is meeting with business associates,” the majordomo answered. “He has another meeting scheduled afterwards.”

“Thank you, Tinker.”

Blaze climbed the stairs to the second floor, her thoughts on her mission of mercy. This scenario was better than she could have hoped. Her father’s business meeting was divine intervention. He could not refuse her request in front of others. Doing so would show him in a bad light. After all, no gentleman would conduct business with a man who refused to rescue a defenseless animal from certain death.

Pausing outside the office’s closed door, Blaze took a deep breath. She needed to appeal to his kind heart and logical business mind, and she needed her wits.

Dealing with her father could sometimes prove difficult. He resisted rebellious challenges but appreciated mental agility and boldness. Like all men, her father caved when faced with feminine tears, but she would save that as her last resort. For once in her life, resembling his adored aunt Bedelia could prove useful.

Blaze tapped on the door, opened it without waiting for permission, and stepped inside. Princes Rudolf and Lykos Kazanov glanced over their shoulders. Her father raised his gaze to her.

“I apologize for interrupting,” Blaze said, her smile sheepish, “but I must speak with you, Papa.”

The Duke of Inverary gestured to the princes. “We are discussing business, and I have scheduled another meeting directly afterwards.”

“My emergency cannot wait,” she told him.

“In my vast experience, women scream during an emergency,” Prince Rudolf teased her. “Why are you not screaming?”

Blaze narrowed her gaze on him, her expression warning him to silence. “You have never experienced me in an emergency.”

Prince Rudolf grinned. “True enough.”

“Can this emergency wait?” her father asked her.

“This concerns life or death,” Blaze answered, “and I will take only a few minutes.”

The duke rolled his eyes at the smiling princes. When Lykos started to rise from his chair, the duke gestured him to remain where he was and then beckoned her forward.

“Do you need privacy?”

“No, Papa.”

Blaze sat in the vacant chair between the princes. She paused before speaking to acknowledge Prince Lykos with a smile.

The duke cleared his throat.

Blaze shifted her attention to him. Her gaze touched the glasses of whisky and vodka on his desk, reminding her of her mother.

“What is the emergency?” the duke prompted her.

“I need money,” Blaze blurted out.

The Russian princes burst into laughter, which made her father smile. She hadn’t meant to speak so abruptly and definitely needed her stepmother’s instruction concerning feminine wiles.

“Running out of pin money with more than three weeks remaining in the month is an emergency of epic proportions,” Prince Rudolf teased her.

Blaze ignored him.

“How much do you need?” her father asked her, his tone long-suffering.

“You should ask her the reason before opening your pockets,” Prince Rudolf said. “My children receive a monthly allowance and no more.”

“If I agree to her request,” her father said, “then she will leave us to our business.” He shifted his gaze to her, saying, “How much do you need and why do you need it?”

“I need enough money to buy a horse,” Blaze told him.

“I gave you Pegasus,” he reminded her. “Purchasing a horse does not qualify as a life-or-death emergency.”

“You don’t understand,” Blaze said. “Ross MacArthur plans to sell Juno to the knackers unless we buy her.”

“MacArthur is sending a horse to the slaughterhouse?” Prince Lykos echoed in surprise.

Blaze nodded. “Papa. I must save Juno. The marquis is selling her because he believes her barren.”

“I commend your tender heart,” her father said, his tone softening, “but horse racing is a business. A barren mare does not contribute to the owner’s profit.”

“Her Grace and you do not have children,” Blaze argued. “Will you be sending Her Grace to the knackers?”

At that, the Kazanov princes shouted with laughter. Her father did not look pleased, but the corners of his lips twitched as if he wanted to laugh.

“Going to the knackers is no laughing matter,” Blaze scolded the princes.

The Kazanovs laughed even harder. Even her father chuckled.

This negotiation was not succeeding. She needed another path to her goal. Tears. Though she disliked weeping in public, Blaze knew Juno was depending on her.

Bowing her head, Blaze raised a hand to her eyes and willed herself to weep. Her bottom lips trembled when she thought about the kitten she’d been unable to save all those long years ago. That poor broken kitten reminded her of her mother’s death, which did send warm tears rolling down her cheeks.

The masculine merriment ceased. A good sign.

“I will send Ross a note.”

Blaze looked at her father, an expression of misery etched across her face. “Thank you, Papa.” Her voice was an emotion-choked whisper. “I knew you would understand.”

When she moved to stand, her father gestured her to sit. “How will you repay my generosity?”

“I will refrain from baiting Her Grace,” she promised.

Smothered chuckles erupted from the princes.

“Will you marry the man of my choice?” her father asked her.

Blaze paused for several moments, considering his words, and then stared straight into his eyes. “Let me answer this way,” she said. “Were you planning to learn this year’s winners from me?”

The princes’ chuckles were no longer smothered. Their amusement was not helping her.

Father and daughter stared at each other, and then he grinned. “You remind me of Aunt Bedelia.”

“I take that as a compliment.” Blaze gave her father her sweetest smile. “You will pay MacArthur’s asking price without haggling?”

“I will do what is necessary.”

“Thank you, Papa, but I need one more tiny favor.”

Blaze heard coughing on either side of her and knew the princes were laughing again. Her father’s expression said she was pressing her luck.

“I want Juno mated with Zeus,” Blaze told him, and then blushed at her own frankness.

“What?” the duke exclaimed, his tone incredulous. “In thoroughbred circles, we breed the best to the best. That means I cannot send my champion to the breeding barn for a barren mare.”

Blaze leaned forward, ready to haggle for what she wanted. “I will pay for the stud service”—she blushed again—“with my winnings from The Craven next week.”

Her father smiled, hopefully reminded of his beloved aunt Bedelia. “I agree to your terms, but if you lose, will you marry the man of my choice?”

“Trust me, Papa,” she sidestepped his question. “Pegasus will win The Craven.”

“I hope she does win,” her father said, “but do you agree to my terms?”

“I agree.” No hesitation there.

“You may now leave us to our business.”

“I met the Duke of Kilchurn at MacArthur House,” Blaze said, standing to leave. “I wonder the reason he speaks with an accent, but you do not.”

“Aunt Bedelia decided I needed to sound English in order to move successfully through life.” The Duke of Inverary smiled at the memory. “Jamie and I took elocution lessons but tormented the tutor. Bedelia banished Jamie, and without an accomplice, I lost my taste for bad behavior.”

A knock on the door drew their attention. Tinker walked into the office, announcing, “The Marquis of Basildon and Constable Black have arrived.”

“Ask them to wait ten minutes,” the duke instructed his man. He looked at Blaze. “Run along and let me finish this meeting.”

“You won’t forget about Juno?”

“I doubt you will allow me to forget.”

“Wager on my filly,” Blaze advised the princes. “You will win a fortune.”

“How can you be certain?” Prince Rudolf asked her.

“Pegasus told me.”

Two miles west of Inverary House, shorter as the crow flies, Ross MacArthur lifted the satchel and left his bedchamber. He would return another day if he’d forgotten anything.

Descending the stairs to the foyer, Ross set the satchel down beside three others. “I want these delivered to Rowley Lodge,” he instructed the majordomo, “and send someone to bring my horse around.”

“Yes, my lord. Their Graces are expecting you in the drawing room.”

Ross grimaced. He should have known his stepmother would delay his escape. “Thank ye, Dodger.”

“You don’t look thankful,” Dodger drawled. “I can tell them I forgot to relay their message.”

“I wouldna put ye in that position,” Ross said.

“I have lied for you before,” the majordomo reminded him.

“True, but we need to save lyin’ for emergencies.” Muttering to himself, Ross climbed the stairs and marched down the corridor to the drawing room.

The scene was worse than he could have imagined. Though his sister’s twittering friends were missing, Dirk Stanley had arrived. He preferred the twitterers.

“Here comes your son,” Celeste MacArthur told her husband. “Ross, sit on the settee beside Amanda. Perhaps the girls will entertain us on the pianoforte and the harp.”

“I dinna have time for a concert.” Ross dropped onto the settee beside his stepsister and smiled a greeting.

Amanda Stanley returned his smile. “Good to see you, Ross.” Blond and green-eyed like her mother, Amanda shared her brother’s angel face and could have posed for one of the masters.

“How are ye, Poppet?” Ross teased his sister.

“How are ye, Aged Sibling?” Mairi countered, a sparkle of merriment in her dark eyes.

Dark-haired like him, Mairi MacArthur was petite and had inherited their mother’s fire instead of his own easy nature. Her pure Highland blood emboldened her unlike the shy blonde by his side.

Dirk Stanley sat on the settee beside Mairi while he sat beside Amanda. Ross would bet his last shilling his stepmother was trying her hand at matchmaking. Celeste MacArthur had never accepted that he did not want to marry her daughter, a sweet twit who deferred to her mother in all matters.

Ross always took himself to the Rowley Lodge lest Celeste engineer a compromising situation that would force him to marry Amanda. Perhaps he should warn Mairi to bolt her chamber door at night.

“Dark and light make a pleasing picture,” Celeste was murmuring. “Don’t you think so, James?”

“I suppose so,” the duke answered, sounding bored.

“Where are the missin’ twitterers?” Ross asked his sister.

“We dropped them at their family estates,” Mairi answered.

“Ross, help yourself to a cucumber sandwich,” Celeste said. “Shall I pour you tea?”

“No tea.” Ross reached for a sandwich from the platter. He disliked cucumber sandwiches.

Blaze Flambeau popped into his mind. The petite redhead would adore them. No meat, no poultry, no fish.

“Dirk tells us you dined with the Inverarys last night,” Celeste remarked.

His stepmother was fishing for information.

Eating precluded conversation. Ross swallowed the last bit of cucumber sandwich and reached for another.

He lifted his gaze to the portrait of his own mother with her dark eyes, so much like his sister. God, he missed her. If she’d lived, Celeste would not be sitting here playing at being a duchess.

“Ross dear, you are hungry,” his stepmother said. “Stay for dinner.”

“I’m meetin’ Douglas Gordon,” Ross said in a polite refusal.

“The Inverarys are hosting the Jockey Club Ball this year,” Celeste told the younger women. “We met the poor Flambeau girl this afternoon.”

That got his attention.

Ross snapped his black gaze to his stepmother. “Why do you call her poor?”

“Red hair and freckles are quite unfashionable,” she answered.

“Red hair?” Mairi exclaimed.

“Freckles?” Amanda echoed.

The stepsisters looked at each other and burst into giggles.

“Laughing at the less fortunate is unseemly,” Celeste told them, but the giggling continued.

“Blaze Flambeau is
not
less fortunate,” Ross insisted.

Dirk Stanley bobbed his head in agreement. “Miss Flambeau is quite lovely.”

Celeste looked at Ross. “You realize that she and her sisters were born on the wrong side of the blanket?”

“Dinna repeat old scandals,” the duke interjected.

“Inverary acknowledged his daughters,” Ross told his stepmother, and reached for another cucumber sandwich.

Celeste gave him a haughty smile. “Even His Grace cannot erase Society’s memory of Gabrielle Flambeau’s suicide.”

Ross choked on a bit of cucumber and coughed. “Her mother committed suicide?”

“Inverary buried the slut on his estate because consecrated ground was forbidden,” Celeste added.

“Damn ye, Celeste, enough.” The Duke of Kilchurn poured himself a whisky and gulped it down in one swig. “Gabrielle Flambeau was a countess and the mother of my best friend’s daughters. Her death devastated Inverary, and I dinna want anyone”—the duke looked at each of them in turn—“anyone discussin’ her tragic ending.”

“Mairi and Amanda, do not gossip about this with your friends,” Celeste ordered them.

Did his stepmother actually believe she could drop a bit of juicy gossip and the girls would never whisper it to their friends? At first opportunity, he would send the Duchess of Inverary a warning note that Celeste was spreading gossip. Even his stepmother feared Roxanne Campbell.

“In his younger days, Magnus Campbell was never known for controlling his desires,” Celeste was saying to his father. “I heard Prince Rudolf Kazanov is Inverary’s natural son.”

“You heard correctly, Your Grace.”

Everyone whirled toward the doorway. Prince Lykos Kazanov was standing there. Dodger looked ashen, mortified that the prince had overheard a slur on his family.