“But, sir …” Ford sputtered, his composure slipping for a mere second. “I don’t understand, you’ve only just arrived …”
“One day in Ireland is plenty long enough for me,” Kit snorted in contempt. “What the devil are you waiting for, man? Get cracking! Find them!”
“The gentlemen are in the main salon,” Ford answered. “Pardon me, sir, but you’re dripping wet. Let me take your coat and have someone draw you a bath. You barely had breakfast. You must be famished. Shall I prepare a plate for you? Tea? Coffee? A glass of brandy?”
“No, thank you.” Kit paused, trying to get his bearings. He’d only been in residence at Telamor one day and had yet to explore it. So far, he’d been in the vestibule, the second-floor study, the dining room, the yellow salon, his bedchamber, and the breakfast room. He knew where Ash’s and Dalton’s rooms and Mariah’s and Sister Mary Beatrix’s rooms were located, but all of the other rooms and their locations remained a mystery. “Where the hell is the main salon?”
“The second door down from the dining room. The main salon, the dining room, and the breakfast room connect to form half of the ballroom,” Ford told him. “The yellow salon, the blue salon, and the music room across the hall connect to make the other half of the ballroom.”
Kit entered the main salon and stopped in his tracks. Bloody hell! He had forgotten all about Mariah’s appointment.
He had expected a larger version of the yellow salon across the hall. He had expected the main salon to be a big, airy room with the usual collection of sofas, chairs, and tables sitting on floral carpets and neatly arranged in conversational groupings in front of the windows and the fireplaces. What he found was a dressmaker’s shop to rival anything to be found on Bond Street in London.
A half dozen women scurried back and forth from the dining room to the main salon carrying bolts of silk and satin fabrics, spools of threads, boxes of buttons, beads, paste jewels, trims, and ribbons. Some of the women held the heavy bolts, wrapping and unwrapping yards of material, as the seamstress offered suggestions and Mariah made selections. Others traced dress designs onto heavy brown paper, then disappeared in the dining room only to return minutes later with paper patterns that the dressmaker fitted to Mariah’s body.
And the chaos didn’t end there. Several crates filled with pattern books were stacked near the only visible piece of furniture in the room—a brocade sofa with a multitude of paper-pattern cutouts scattered upon it.
In the center of the room sat a box, and on top of the box stood Mariah Shaughnessy, dressed in a low-cut evening gown of pale, almost translucent blue silk.
The soft blue silk shimmered in the light. The full skirt was fit tightly at the waist and then draped over a small crinoline. The neckline was wide and scooped to frame the collarbones and breasts, and the sleeves were bare wisps of silk trimmed with silver embroidery. The dress fit her like a second skin. It molded to the curves of her body, making her waist appear to be smaller than it was while it thrust her breasts into prominence.
A small, birdlike woman in a day dress of dark blue wool trimmed in black velvet, with a measuring tape around her neck and a mouth full of straight pins, fluttered about Mariah, tucking, pinning, adjusting, measuring, like a sparrow building a nest.
As Kit stood in the doorway and watched, Madame Sparrow whipped the measuring tape from around her neck, wrapped it around Mariah’s waist, and called out the number in heavily accented English: “Seventeen.”
Her assistants dutifully recorded Mariah’s measurements in a big, black leather ledger as the seamstress produced a needle and matching blue thread and adjusted the seams along the side to make the dress fit more snugly.
Seventeen? That had to be a mistake. What woman had a seventeen-inch waist? Kit looked at Mariah and found his answer. A woman built like a goddess. He blinked, amazed that he hadn’t noticed it before. Amazed at how much an ugly black dress could conceal.
“Turn,” the sparrow lady ordered.
Mariah turned.
The dressmaker clapped her hands in rhythm. “Again. Again. More.” She knelt on the floor and looked up at Mariah. “Again. We must see how the crinolines move so we know how much of the lace on the hem of your pantalets to let show when you dance.”
Mariah turned again, executing a perfect pirouette on the box. The pale blue silk of her crinoline skirts fanned out around her, exposing her stockinged feet and a fair amount of ankle.
Sensing his presence, Mariah looked up as Kit walked through the door. “What do you think? Isn’t it lovely? Isn’t it the most beautiful dress you’ve ever seen?”
The dress wouldn’t have been anything special by itself. He had seen lovelier ball gowns on even lovelier women. But something about the way this particular silk ball gown looked on Mariah made it one of the most beautiful dresses he’d ever seen. The lightweight silk caressed her body, revealing as much as it concealed. And it revealed a great deal.
Kit was fascinated by the change. He couldn’t seem to keep his gaze off her. He made a valiant effort, but he failed.
There was no doubting the fact that the gown was simply made. Simply made to torture him, Kit thought as he attempted to focus his gaze on something other than her silver-edged décolletage. His sudden fascination was centered there upon the soft, creamy white expanse of cleavage the dress exposed. Cleavage he hadn’t realized Mariah possessed.
The neckline was modest compared to some of the necklines he’d seen recently. But not modest enough. His height gave him a unique vantage point and were it not for the fact that she was standing on a box, Kit knew it would be almost impossible for him to look down at her and not feast on the enticing display of cleavage.
The idea annoyed him. How the devil had everything gotten so turned around so fast? The day had started off normally enough, but everything had changed. And some things had changed beyond recognition. She was his ward, dammit. He wasn’t supposed to want to kiss her. He wasn’t supposed to look at her cleavage. Nor should she be exposing it that way.
“I think the bodice is cut too low.” Glaring at the offending part of the dress, Kit swallowed hard. Perspiration dotted his upper lip. His body felt tight and hot and achy. He needed a drink. Hell, he needed several.
“Oh, no, my lord,” the dressmaker protested. “This style of bodice is the height of fashion in Paris and in London.”
“We aren’t in Paris or London,” he snapped. “We’re in Ireland and she’s showing too bloody damn much bosom. And she shouldn’t be showing any lace on her pantalets when she dances. Unless you want all the men at the dances to refrain from partnering the ladies in order to sit on the sideline and stare at it.”
“Kit!” Mariah struggled to keep from stomping her foot.
“You, madame, are supposed to be engaged in the business of creating a wardrobe suitable for a young lady, not some dockside whore.”
“You go too far, Kit! How dare you?” Mariah’s voice vibrated with outrage. She turned to the seamstress and began to apologize, “Madame Thierry, I beg your pardon for His Lordship’s rude behavior—”
“How dare I?” Kit’s voice rose. “How dare you, Miss Shaughnessy? I don’t recall granting you permission to address me by my pet name. Nor is it your place to offer apologies for my behavior!” he shouted.
“Someone needs to!” she shouted back. “Because your manners are appalling.”
“You presume to lecture me on manners? A girl who hasn’t yet learned to identify the proper eating utensil to use much less …”
Mariah blanched, recoiling as if he’d struck her.
Realizing what he’d done, Kit turned nearly as white as she did.
“How could you?” Mariah backed off the box she was standing on and would have fallen if the dressmaker hadn’t reached out to steady her. She righted herself, then lifted the hem of her skirt, turned her back, and walked out of the room.
“Mariah!” Kit started to run after her, then thought better of it and stayed where
he was. “Miss Shaughnessy! Come back here! Stay and fight! Don’t walk away from me! I’m not a fool, you know!” he yelled up the stairs after her. “There is no Saint Elizabeth of Bohemia! And whether you know it or not, your hair smells like freshly baked bread.”
Her gasp echoed down the stairs.
Kit allowed himself a smug smile, then turned and discovered that Madame Sparrow and her assistants continued to go about the business of selecting patterns and fabric, all the while pretending they hadn’t noticed that he was behaving like a madman.
The news would most likely be all over the village come morning. It seemed he was carrying on the family tradition by providing the gossips with a juicy bit of scandal of his own.
“Bloody hell!”
Chapter Seventeen
Friendships multiply Joys and divide Griefs.
—THOMAS FULLER, 1654–1734
“That’s enough, Kit!”
Kit turned to find Ash standing in the doorway to the dining room with Dalton and Ford at his back.
“How the devil do you know what’s enough?” Kit lashed out. “And what do you know about it anyway? You’re my friend, not my bloody father!” He looked at Ash. “Of that, I’m certain.”
“Have you been drinking?” Ash asked incredulously.
Kit shook his head. “Not yet, but it sounds like a fine way to conclude what’s become one bitch of a day.” He looked around for a drinks table.
“I beg your pardon, ladies,” Dalton acknowledged the mixed company before nodding to the butler. “Ford, make arrangements for Madame and her assistants to spend the night.”
“Very good, sir.” Ford bowed, then withdrew to speak to the dressmaker.
Dalton waited until the butler and the dressmaker were out of earshot before continuing in a fierce whisper. “Blast it all, Kit! What the devil is going on here? We haven’t seen you all day. When we left you last night, you were scribbling a letter to your father and planning to attend church this morning. Where the blazes have you been?”
“Mind your own business!” Kit shot back.
“This is our business,” Ash retorted. “We’re your friends. If we don’t tell you when you’re acting like a horse’s arse, who will?” He walked over to Kit, gripped his arm, and hustled him out of the salon, up the stairs to the second-floor study. Ash opened the door, shoved Kit inside and onto one of the leather chairs.
Dalton followed, closing the door behind him, twisting the key in the lock, and leaning with his back against the door for good measure.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Kit gave Ash a bone-chillingly cold stare. “This is my house.”
Ash wasn’t intimidated by it. “I know precisely who I am,” Ash replied. “I’m the ninth marquess of Everleigh. I outrank you. And I’m exercising my prerogative to make myself at home. The question is: Who the hell do you think you are to treat a lady and a shopkeeper in that manner? What’s the matter, Kit? What happened to put this kind of burr up your arse?”
Kit propped his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. He leaned forward in his chair, and his shoulders began to shake.
Ash and Dalton exchanged looks. They didn’t know whether Kit was laughing or crying, and they found the idea of him doing either horrifying.
Kit sat up.
He was laughing. But it was laughter born of pain and confusion. “Well, Lord Everleigh, you always hit the nail on the head. That is the big question of the day. Who the hell do I think I am? Christ! I wish I knew!”
He hadn’t meant to spill his guts to his friends, but before Kit knew what was happening, he’d related his conversation with the parish priest to Ash and Dalton. “What have you heard?”
Dalton sighed. “We’ve heard the same rumors you’ve heard.”
“Kit,” Ash said gently, “this can’t have come as a complete surprise. You’ve always known something unusual happened.”
Kit nodded. “I just can’t believe that my parents didn’t tell me the truth.”
“Perhaps they did,” Dalton suggested. “You’ve only heard one side of the story today. Who’s to say that Lord and Lady Templeston haven’t told you theirs? It may be that you chose not to believe them. Or that you’ve forgotten.”
Both Kit and Ash turned to look at him. Dalton wasn’t normally given to making such profound observations. “Well, like Ash said, you’ve always known there were unusual circumstances surrounding your birth. For one thing, there’s always been gossip about the fifteenth marquess.” He paused. “I mean, we’ve all heard those rumors for years. It’s the part about your mother that’s come as a surprise. But perhaps it isn’t as big a surprise as you think. I mean, we all know things that no one has ever actually spoken aloud. I know my father and mother always detested the sight of each other.” Dalton continued, “I’ve known it all my life, and no one ever had to explain it. Or the fact that my eldest brother and my second eldest brother are most likely the only two sons my father has.”
“He’s right, Kit,” Ash agreed. “Every family has skeletons in its closets. Like the father who sleeps with a succession of governesses and household servants. The brother who drinks to excess. The ancestor whose carnal tastes ran to farmyard animals. No family is without their secrets. But your life isn’t what happened when you were born or what was done to it when you were a child. Your life is what you make of it. Your family’s skeletons have been seen in public more often than most, but no family is perfect. No one’s parents are perfect.”
“Even though you want them to be,” Kit said softly, before rubbing at the ache forming in his left temple.
“Yes, well, everyone wants their parents to be perfect,” Dalton said. “Everyone wants their parents to be good parents and to love their children.” He looked at Kit. “But few of us ever get that. You’ve been lucky.”
Ash leaned against the edge of the Hepplewhite desk.
“We live in a system that pits fathers against heirs, eldest sons against the younger ones, and the females against their husbands and male relations. It’s no wonder our families are so buggered.” He lifted a heavy stone paperweight cut in the shape of Ireland off the desk. The family name of Kilgannon and the family crest were carved upon it. Ash stared down at the stone and sighed. “We promise ourselves that it will be different when we marry, but the truth is that it rarely is. Too often we marry for all the wrong reasons and none of the right ones.”
“In that, your family is different. It’s obvious that both the fifteenth and the sixteenth Lords and Ladies Templeston married for love,” Dalton pointed out. “Perhaps they made mistakes. Perhaps they tried to protect the children they loved. Perhaps …”
“They did what they did because they loved me,” Kit finished Dalton’s thought. “And if that’s the case, they certainly deserve the benefit of the doubt. If anyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, it’s the parents who loved me. And if I require answers to my questions, they are the ones I should ask.”
“Precisely,” Ash replied and put the paperweight down to punctuate his word.
“Damnation, but I’m an idiot.”
“At times,” Dalton agreed cheerfully. “But not very often.”
Kit stood up and walked over to give Dalton an affectionate poke in the arm. “My friends, I owe you an apology for my behavior this afternoon.”
“No, you don’t,” Ash told him. “We’ve seen you like this before. Your apologies should go to the people who haven’t.”
Kit weighed Ash’s advice and took his time answering it. But he didn’t disappoint them. “You’re absolutely right. My behavior today was most ungentlemanly.”
Dalton chuckled. “Reminds me of the time you pounded that Pool fellow. The rector’s nephew. What was his name? Albert? Alton?”
“Alden,” Kit pronounced, remembering. “He composed some nasty little verse about my mother.”
“He was nearly twice your size, and you socked him right in the eye before Dalton could get the chance.” As
h laughed.
Kit had always been small for his age. And the boys at school had tried repeatedly to take advantage of that. It wasn’t until he entered university that Kit had finally matched Ash in size and strength and surpassed Dalton. Now that he stood well over six feet tall and weighed in at twelve and a half stones, it was hard to believe that he’d ever needed Ash and Dalton to defend him. But he had. And Dalton and Ash had always been there to protect him.
“You and Dalton were sent to the headmaster’s office for a caning,” Ash continued.
“Where I was also subjected to the ‘Lord Ramsey, your conduct today was less than gentlemanly’ speech.”
“You didn’t get your caning until later,” Dalton remembered, grinning at Ash.
“That’s because I generally refrain from brawling and fisticuffs in public,” Ash said, in a perfect imitation of the headmaster’s voice. “I’m subtle.”
“That’s why you’re a diplomatist,” Kit said.
“I don’t think that filling the Pool chap’s rinse pail with piss was all that subtle,” Dalton remarked. “I’d say it was decidedly less than subtle.”
“Maybe,” Ash agreed. “But you must admit that the punishment fit the crime. You did say ‘Piss on that and piss on him’ when the headmaster told you to shake hands and apologize.”
“Piss on that and piss on him!” The three of them chanted in unison. “I don’t shake hands with or apologize to anyone who insults my mother.”
Dalton laughed. “We got another caning for that.”
“It was worth every swipe of that old hypocrite’s rod,” Kit said. He pointed to Ash. “And the next morning you bribed Sanders into letting you take his place in the bucket brigade so that you could pump the rinse water into the bath pails.”
Ash bowed from the waist and smiled. “I worked damned hard that morning. I had calluses on my hands from all the other buckets I had to fill just to get to Pool’s. But I’ll never forget the look on Pool’s face when he realized he’d just rinsed the soap off his body with the bucket full of piss. Or that he’d have to go to chapel that way because there was no time to fill another bucket.”