“
I
couldn’t possibly do that,” Jeannie said.
“
Why
ever not?” asked the captain, tossing in his morsel. “I would have
thought such economizing measures to have a great natural appeal to
one of your—shall we say it?—shrewd background?”
Jeannie could only
stare. “Larinda, next you will tell me that Beau Brummell himself
waits below.”
Larinda clapped her
hand to her mouth. “I forgot!” She shook her head at Jeannie’s
alarm. “No, no, it is not the Beau, but that Scottish captain. You
know, the one with the marvelous shoulders who is so hard to
understand? He waits below.”
“
Not
any longer,” said the captain. “Well, well, Captain MacGregor, join
the menagerie.”
Bartley MacGregor
filled the doorway, taking in the clutch of humanity sitting on
Jeannie’s bed. He was resplendent in full regimentals, his kilt
pleated to a nicety, his plaid draped just so over his shoulder and
secured there with a massive brooch that would have weighed down an
average fellow. Larinda sighed and scooped more invitations toward
her as she gazed at all that Celtic splendor.
“
Jeannie?” MacGregor said, the uncertainty in his voice at odds
with his total magnificence.
“
The
very same, Bart.”
“
Wapping told me ye were indisposed, fancy that.”
“
It’s
hardly any wonder, is it,” said Summers, “considering the glut of
flesh in here. I only hope no one carries typhoid
fever.”
Bartley MacGregor
strode forward. The glint in his eyes set off clanging bells in
Jeannie’s already overtaxed brain.
“
No,
Bart, not here,’’ she warned, but he waved her to
silence.
“
Jeannie, light of my life,” he voice boomed out, “won’t you
let me take you away from all this? I would like to marry
you.”
Larinda sighed again.
Edward shook his head in utter disgust. Captain Summers tugged at
his chin. Jeannie put her hand to her temple and then slowly sank
down in the bed.
“
Bart,
ye meikle kail! Not again!”
C
aptain MacGregor blinked, looked from one member of
the household to another, and managed a small laugh, even as a
fiery blush spread across his face and into his blond hair, where
it showed through like a bad sunburn.
“
I did
not mean to declare myself with such suddenness,” he said finally.
He came closer to Jeannie’s bed. “It has been over three years
since I have proposed, Jeannie, light of my life, and I fear I am
dreadfully out of practice.”
“
Not
discernibly,” the captain murmured.
Jeannie glanced his way
in surprise, wondering at the slight note of petulance in his
voice.
Captain MacGregor bowed
to no one in particular. “As a rule, I do not generally propose in
crowds. Egad, it was startled right out of me.”
Jeannie patted the only
empty spot left on the bed. “You might as well join us,” she said,
“and my answer is still no, you marvelous man.”
He shook his head at
her offer and remained on his feet. “Not ever, Jeannie?” he asked
softly.
“
Oh,
Bart!” She hesitated. “If you were to sell out,
perhaps.”
“
I
won’t do that, Jeannie me light,” he replied, his voice no louder,
but with a conviction in it that carried his words throughout the
room. “Not while Boney strides about the continent and we fight the
world alone.”
“
Hear,
hear,” the captain murmured. “How well I understand you, Captain
MacGregor.”
Bartley looked around
in surprise, as if he had forgotten there was anyone else in the
room but Jeannie. ‘‘It becomes a personal matter, eh, Captain
Summers?”
“
As
you well know.” Captain Summers started to clap his hands together
again, but a look at Jeannie’s white face stopped him. “Sir, let us
go below and leave this lady to button herself up. We have an
expedition planned to the Admiralty House and Deptford Hard.” He
rose and patted Jeannie in a gesture that did not offend her in the
least, to her later amazement. “You are welcome to accompany us,
Captain MacGregor.”
Bartley shook his head.
“As a rule, I avoid the water, sir.”
“
Wise
of you.”
“
But I
wish to go to sea,” said Edward.
Bartley looked down at
him in his lazy, indulgent fashion. “Laddie, you’re daft.”
“
So I
tell him,” Captain Summers agreed, “and tell him again. What will
it take, I wonder, to convince him otherwise?”
“
I am
not sure you can do it,” Larinda said. She rested her head upon
Edward’s shoulder with a gentle gesture, and he looked at her in
real surprise. “Papa used to say so.” She raised her eyes to her
uncle’s and did not waver. “In fact, he once told me he thought
Edward would come to no good because he was as stubborn as you,
Uncle.”
Jeannie held her
breath, waiting for an explosion of monumental proportions, but the
captain only stood there, his face expressionless.
“
Then
there is no hope for the lad, Larinda.” He touched Edward, too, and
went to the window. “I think we will include Greenwich in our
expedition, Mrs. McVinnie. If that does not do it ….” His
voice trailed off. He stood at the window, hands behind his back,
and no one spoke or looked at anyone else.
He turned around
finally. “Niece,” he said, “let us escort this wounded lover to the
breakfast parlor, where there is all manner of bacon, ham and eggs.
Excuse me, Jeannie, but some of us are hungry.” He winked at her.
“I believe there is even dum pluff.”
Jeannie laughed in
spite of her discomfort and pressed her hand to her forehead.
“
Ah,
and here is Mary, looking for her lost lamb. Lively now, Clare,
lively.”
“
All
this room lacks is my aunt,” said Larinda as she steered Edward
toward the door.
Captain Summers rolled
his eyes. “Agatha is indisposed,” he said. He twinkled his eyes at
Jeannie. “Although, if she is put in charge of all those modistes
waiting below, she may recover. Dare I, Jeannie?”
“
Certainly,” she replied promptly. “But she lacks my
measurements.”
“
I can
supply them,” said the captain with a perfectly straight face while
Bartley blinked his eyes again and the red flush rose from his
shirt collar a second time. “Mrs. McVinnie, I squirrel away all
manner of statistics. Madame Amalie was kind enough to furnish them
yesterday when I picked up the dress, and who knows when one might
require such information?”
“
Who,
indeed?” asked Jeannie. I wonder, she thought, if ever a time will
come when this man will not surprise me. Life with him would never
be dull.
“
Come,
Clare,” said the captain to Clare, who had scrunched herself down
in the bed. “If you do not, you will be left to languish on the
dock.”
He plucked Clare from
under the covers and handed her to Mary, who curtsied and flashed a
grin at Jeannie as she bore her charge away.
The door closed behind
them all and the room was mercifully quiet but strangely empty.
Jeannie scooted to the edge of the bed and dangled her bare legs
over the edge. Captain Summers’ brew had settled her stomach, but
her head still floated a foot off her neck. For someone who
attended all of Dr. Wyslip’s temperance lectures in Dumfries last
year, you are remarkably profligate, she told herself. Demon rum,
indeed. No one had ever warned her about brandy.
Or about Captain Will
Summers, either, she thought as she gingerly balanced on her feet
and waited for her head to reach her neck again. Devil take the
man, was there ever such an odd collection of honest compassion and
imperial decree? I wonder that anyone tolerates him, she thought as
she carefully trod a straight line to the window seat and sat
down.
“
Mrs.
McVinnie?”
It was Captain Summers
again. “Come in,” she said, and tucked her feet under her
nightgown.
He merely stuck his
head in the door. “Agatha has fallen all over herself to order the
modistes about. I hope you do not mind, but I am discovering that
when she is occupied, Larinda’s life is smoother.” He came into the
room and leaned against the door, shutting it. “Her taste may not
equal yours, my dear, but for the Lord’s sake, she will be
occupied.”
“
You
are kind to think of it, Will,” Jeannie said simply.
“
Don’t
let it get about,” he said, and the hard edge crept into his voice
again.
“
And
if I do?” she asked.
He had no answer for
her, but merely regarded her in silent contemplation from the other
side of the room.
As she watched him, she
saw another light creep into his eyes, one she had not seen in a
man’s face in well over a year. Jeannie did not even think he was
aware that his expression had changed. She had seen the same light
in Tom’s eyes many times before he blew out the candle and came to
bed.
She was wise enough not
to be offended. It was a man’s totally instinctual compliment to
her womanhood. As sure as she sat there with a vast headache, she
knew that if she held her hand out to him, he would be at her side.
It was an intensely powerful feeling, and one not at all
unpleasant. Quite the contrary.
She made no move, and
he came no closer.
“
I’ll
save you some tea and toast,” he said finally, and his voice
sounded rusty.
“
Very
good, sir,” she replied. “And you’ll promise to have me back here
by five of the clock?”
And then the little
flame in his eyes was gone. “I had forgotten,” he said. “You are
promised to Brummell, then, are you not?”
“
So it
would seem.”
With a cursory nod, he
left the room. Jeannie gathered herself together in the window seat
and rested her chin upon her knees until her head cleared. As she
slowly dressed herself, a glance in the mirror told her that her
face was destined to be fashionably pale this morning. A pity it is
not a prettier face, she thought as she turned her head from side
to side, even if Tom did declare it the most beautiful visage he
had ever seen. Tears started in her eyes and she wished fervently
that she was home, where it was safe.
How missish I am
becoming, she thought as she piled her hair on her head and
attacked it with hairpins. I have not felt so giddy since, oh Lord,
since I fell in love with Tom. This will never do.
She glanced around the
room before she left it, and noticed the emerald necklace on the
bedside table. She picked it up and put it back in the leather
pouch, then almost stuffed it in a drawer, but changed her mind and
tucked it under her pillow.
Jeannie could smell the
roses as she came slowly down the stairs, yesterday’s roses from
Brummell by the dining-room door and the bouquets in the best
sitting room. She peeked in the room and clasped her hands together
in delight. The room, sunny with the morning’s light, seemed to
breathe out the peppery fragrance of roses in full bloom, and roses
with petals furled and waiting. As she took in the scene, her
headache finally disappeared.
This is better than
your nasty brew, Captain, she thought as she walked from bouquet to
bouquet, reading the names on the cards, names that meant nothing
to her, but everything to Larinda and her hopes of a Season.
Jeannie heard laughter
from the breakfast room and she smiled to herself, remembering the
shouts and anguish of her first night in Wendover Square. How could
I have been so afraid of that man? she asked herself.
There was one last
bouquet in the corner of the room on top of the harpsichord. It
caught her eye because of all the bouquets; it was not roses. It
was only a little nosegay of violets with a note attached. She held
the note up to the light. “To a Genuine Article. Until this
afternoon. Brummell.”
“
And
what role do you perform in this peculiar drama, sir?” she said out
loud as she twirled the little bouquet between her fingers and then
sniffed it. “I am never clever or witty, and I trust you will tire
of me soon.”
By averting her eyes
from the cold plum duff that the captain was knocking back like a
starving man, and by focusing her whole heart and brain on dry
toast and scalding tea, Jeannie accomplished breakfast. Lady Smeath
fluttered around her, animosity forgotten, nattering on about sprig
muslin and half-dresses and a domino—“Oh, Lord yes! Every woman
needs one!”—until Jeannie felt her headache returning.
The captain grunted
with pleasure as the last bit of plum duff disappeared, and he
leaned back in his chair, at one with the world. “Really,
Captain …. Oh, hang it, man, may I call you Bartley?”
“
Certainly, sir,” replied Bartley with a grin and a last swipe
of toast around the egg on his plate.
“
Well,
then, Bartley, I would be honored if you would join us on the trip
to Whitehall.” The good humor left his voice. “It will be
educational in the extreme.”
Bartley shook his head
and glanced sideways at Larinda. “Miss Summers has made me a better
offer. We are to adjourn to the bookroom and sort through these
invitations.”
“
Pick
the juiciest one for tonight,” Jeannie teased.
Larinda opened her eyes
wide. “Mrs. McVinnie, are you faint of heart? I shall choose at
least three! We can strategize and grace three events at
least.”
“
It is
a simple matter,” agreed Lady Smeath with all the aplomb of
Wellington. “I’ll have Cook prepare us a little restorative before
you start out that will keep you moving along.”