“The piano is part of the set, I assume?”
She nodded. “It’s nothing compared to the costumes, I’m afraid.”
He could barely bring himself to ask.
“It was my job to affix the horn to the unicorn.”
He tried not to laugh, he really did. And he almost managed.
“I’m not sure how Frances is going to get it off,” Iris said with nervous expression. “I glued it to her head.”
“You glued a horn to your cousin’s head,” he repeated.
She winced. “I did.”
“Do you like this cousin?”
“Oh, very much. She’s eleven and really quite delightful. I’d trade Daisy for her in a heartbeat.”
Richard had a feeling she would trade Daisy for a badger if given the option.
“A horn,” he said again. “Well, I suppose one can’t be a unicorn without one.”
“That’s just the thing,” Iris said with renewed enthusiasm. “Frances loves it. She adores unicorns. She’s quite convinced they are real, and I think she would become one if she were so able.”
“It appears she has taken the first step toward that noble goal,” Richard said. “With your kind assistance.”
“Ah, that. I’m rather hoping no one tells Aunt Charlotte that I was the one to wield the glue.”
Richard had a feeling she was out of luck there. “Is there any chance it will remain a secret?”
“None whatsoever. But I shall cling to my false hope. With any luck, we shall have a terrible scandal tonight, and no one will notice that Frances has gone to bed with her horn still attached.”
Richard started to cough. And then kept coughing. Good Lord, was that dust in his throat or a boulder of guilt?
“Are you all right?” Iris asked, her face drawn with concern.
He nodded, unable to voice his answer. Dear God, a scandal. If she only knew.
“Shall I fetch you something to drink?”
He nodded again. He needed to pour liquid down his throat almost as much as he needed not to look at her for a moment.
She would be happy in the end, he told himself. He would be a good husband to her. She would want for nothing.
Except the choice in marrying him.
Richard groaned. He had not expected to feel so bloody guilty about what he was going to do.
“Here you are,” Iris said, holding out a crystal goblet. “A bit of sweet wine.”
Richard nodded his thanks and took a fortifying sip. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Iris made a sympathetic noise and motioned to the woodsy piano. “The air is probably dusty from all those twigs Harriet brought in. She was out collecting them in Hyde Park for hours yesterday.”
He nodded again, draining his glass before setting it down on a nearby table. “Will you sit with me?” he asked, realizing that while he had assumed she would, he owed her the politeness of an invitation.
“I would be delighted,” she said with a smile. “You shall probably need someone to translate, in any case.”
His eyes grew wide with alarm. “Translate?”
She laughed. “No, no, don’t worry, it’s in English. It’s only . . .” She laughed again, her smile wide in her face. “Harriet has her own singular style.”
“You’re very fond of your family,” he observed.
She started to make a reply, but then something caught her attention behind him. He turned to see what she was looking at, but she’d already started saying, “My aunt is signaling. I think we’re meant to take our seats.”
With some trepidation, Richard sat next to her in the front row and regarded the piano, which he assumed marked the stage. The audience’s voices dimmed to whispers, and then to silence as Lady Harriet Pleinsworth stepped out of the shadows dressed as a humble shepherdess, crook and all.
“O beautiful, brilliant day!” she proclaimed, pausing to bat away one of the ribbons on her wide-brimmed bonnet. “How blessed am I with my noble flock.”
Nothing happened.
“My noble flock!” she repeated, quite a bit louder.
There was a crashing noise, followed by a grunt and a hissed “Stop it!” and then five small children dressed as sheep ambled forth.
“My cousins,” Iris whispered. “The next generation.”
“The sun shines down,” Harriet went on, spreading her arms wide in supplication. But Richard was too fascinated by the sheep to listen. The largest of the lot was bleating so loudly, Harriet finally had to give him a little kick, and one of the smaller ones—good God, the child could not be more than two—had crawled over to the piano and was licking the leg.
Iris clamped her hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh.
The play continued in this vein for several minutes, with the fair shepherdess extolling the wonders of nature until somewhere someone crashed a pair of cymbals and Harriet shrieked (as did half the audience).
“I said,” Harriet ground out, “that we are lucky it’s not likely to rain for the next week.”
The cymbals crashed again, followed by a voice yelling, “Thunder!”
Iris gasped, and a second hand flew up to cover the first, which was still wrapped over her mouth. Eventually he heard her utter the word, “Elizabeth” in horrified whisper.
“What’s happening?” he asked her.
“I think Harriet’s sister has just changed the script. All of act one will be lost.”
Luckily, Richard was saved from having to stifle his smile by the arrival of five cows, which on closer inspection appeared to be the sheep with brown splotches of fabric pinned onto their wool.
“When do we get to see the unicorn?” he whispered to Iris.
She shrugged helplessly. She didn’t know.
Henry VIII trundled forth a few minutes later, his Tudor tunic stuffed with so many pillows the child within could barely walk.
“That’s Elizabeth,” Iris whispered.
Richard nodded sympathetically. If he were forced to wear that costume, he’d want to skip the first act, too.
But nothing compared to the moment the unicorn burst onto the scene. Its whinny was terrifying, its horn tremendous.
Richard’s jaw went slack. “You glued that to her brow?” he whispered to Iris.
“It was the only way it would stay on,” she whispered back.
“She can’t hold her head up.”
They both stared at the stage in horror. Little Lady Frances Pleinsworth was stumbling about like a drunkard, not quite able to keep her body erect under the weight of the horn.
“What is that made out of?” Richard whispered.
Iris held up her hands. “I don’t know. I didn’t think it was that heavy. Maybe she’s acting.”
Richard watched, aghast, half expecting he’d have to leap forward to stop the girl from accidentally goring someone in the first row.
An eternity later, they reached what he thought might be the end, and King Henry waved his turkey leg in the air, loudly proclaiming, “This land shall be mine, henceforth and forevermore!”
And indeed, it seemed that all was lost for the poor, sweet shepherdess and her strangely changeable flock. But just then, there was a mighty roar—
“Is there a lion?” Richard wondered.
—and the unicorn burst onto the scene!
“Die!” the unicorn shrieked. “Die! Die! Die!”
Richard looked to Iris in confusion. The unicorn had not thus demonstrated an ability to speak.
Henry’s scream of terror was so chilling, the woman behind Richard murmured, “This is surprisingly well acted.”
Richard stole another look at Iris; her mouth was hanging open as Henry leapt over a cow and ran behind the piano, only to trip over the littlest sheep, who was still licking the piano leg.
Henry scrambled for purchase, but the (possibly rabid) unicorn was too fast, and it ran headfirst (and head down) toward the frightened king, plunging its horn into his la
rge, pillowed belly.
Someone screamed, and Henry went down, feathers flying.
“I don’t think this was in the script,” Iris said in a horrified whisper.
Richard could not take his eyes off the gruesome spectacle on stage. Henry was on his back with the unicorn’s horn stuck in his (thankfully fake) belly. Which would have been bad enough, except that the horn was still very much attached to the unicorn. Which meant that every time Henry thrashed about, the unicorn was jerked about by the head.
“Get off!” Henry yelled.
“I’m trying,” the unicorn growled in return.
“I think it’s stuck,” Richard said to Iris.
“Oh, my heavens!” she cried, clapping her hand over her mouth. “The glue!”
One of the sheep ran over to help, but it slipped on a feather and got tangled in the unicorn’s legs.
The shepherdess, who had been watching everything with as much shock as the audience, suddenly realized she needed to save the production and jumped forward, bursting into song.
“O blessed sunlight,” she sang. “How your warmth doth shine!”
And then Daisy stepped forth.
Richard turned sharply to Iris. Her mouth was hanging open. “No no no,” she finally whispered, but by then Daisy had launched into her violin solo, presumably a musical representation of sunshine.
Or death.
Daisy’s performance was cut blessedly short by Lady Pleinsworth, who rushed onto the stage when she realized her two youngest children were hopelessly stuck together. “Refreshments in the other room, everyone!” she trilled. “We have cake!”
Everyone stood and applauded—it was a play, after all, no matter how startling the finale—and began to file out of the drawing room.
“Perhaps I ought to help,” Iris said, casting a wary glance at her cousins.
Richard waited while she approached the melee, watching the proceedings with no small amusement.
“Just remove the pillow!” Lady Pleinsworth directed.
“It’s not that easy,” Elizabeth hissed. “Her horn goes right through my shirt. Unless you want me to disrobe—”
“That will be enough, Elizabeth,” Lady Pleinsworth said quickly. She turned to Harriet. “Why is it so sharp?”
“I’m a unicorn!” Frances said.
Lady Pleinsworth absorbed that for a moment, then shuddered.
“She wasn’t supposed to ride me in the third act,” Frances added petulantly.
“Is that why you gored her?”
“No, that was in the script,” Harriet said helpfully. “The horn was supposed to come off. For the purpose of safety. But, of course, the audience wasn’t supposed to see that.”
“Iris glued it to my brow,” Frances said, twisting her head in an attempt to look up.
Iris, who was standing at the edge of the small crowd, immediately took a step back. “Perhaps we should get something to drink,” she said to Richard.
“In a moment.” He was having far too much fun to leave.
Lady Pleinsworth grabbed the horn by both hands and pulled.
Frances screamed.
“Did she use cement?”
Iris’s hand wrapped around his arm like a terrified vise. “I really need to go now.”
Richard took one look at Lady Pleinsworth’s face and hurriedly guided Iris out of the room.
Iris sagged against the wall. “I’m going to be in so much trouble.”
Richard knew he should try to reassure her, but he was laughing too hard to be of any use.
“Poor Frances,” she moaned. “She’s going to have to sleep with that horn on her head tonight!”
“She will be fine,” Richard said, his laughter still peeking through his words. “I promise you, she will not walk down the aisle at her wedding with a horn on her head.”
Iris looked up at him in momentary alarm, and he could only imagine what was racing through her imagination. And then she burst out laughing. She laughed so hard she doubled over right there in the hall.
“Oh my goodness,” she gasped. “A horned wedding. It could only happen to us.”
Richard started to chuckle again, watching in amusement as Iris’s face turned red from her exertions.
“I shouldn’t laugh,” she said. “I really shouldn’t. But the wedding—Oh my heavens, the wedding.”
The wedding, Richard thought, and it all slammed back to the forefront of his mind. Why he was here tonight. Why he was with her.
Iris wasn’t going to have much of wedding. He needed to get back to Yorkshire too quickly for that.
Guilt pricked along his spine. Didn’t all ladies dream about their weddings? Fleur and Marie-Claire used to spend hours imagining theirs. For all he knew, they still did.
He took a breath. Iris wasn’t going to get her dream wedding, and if all went according to plan, she wasn’t even going to get a proper proposal.
She deserved better.
He swallowed, tapping his hand nervously against his thigh. Iris was still laughing, oblivious to his suddenly serious mien.
“Iris,” he said suddenly, and she turned toward him with surprise in her eyes. Maybe it was the tone of his voice, or maybe the fact that it was the first time he called her by her given name.
He put his hand at the small of her back and led her away from the still-open doorway to the drawing room. “Might I have a moment of your time?”
Her brows came together, and then they rose. “Of course,” she said, somewhat haltingly.
He took a breath. He could do this. It wasn’t what he’d planned, but it was a better way. This one thing, he thought, he could do for her.
He dropped down to one knee.
She gasped.
“Iris Smythe-Smith,” he said, taking her hand in his, “will you make me the happiest man alive and consent to be my wife?”
Chapter Seven
IRIS WAS STRUCK dumb. She opened her mouth, but apparently it wasn’t to say anything. The back of her throat tightened and closed, and she just stared down at him, thinking—
This can’t be happening.
“I imagine this is a surprise,” Richard said in a warm voice, stroking the back of her hand with his fingers. He was still on bended knee, gazing up at her as if she were the only woman in all creation.
“Ahdebadeba . . .” She couldn’t speak. She well and truly could not speak.
“Or perhaps it isn’t.”
No, it is. It really is.
“We have known each other but a week, but you must be aware of my devotion.”
She felt her head shaking, but she had no idea if that meant yes or no, and either way, she wasn’t sure which question she was answering.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this fast.
“I could not wait any longer,” he murmured, coming to his feet.
“I—I don’t—” She wet her lips. She’d found her voice, but she still could not manage a complete sentence.
He brought her fingers to his lips, but instead of kissing the back of her hand, he turned it gently over and laid a featherlight kiss on the inside of her wrist.
“Be mine, Iris,” he said, his voice husky with what she thought might be desire. He kissed her again, allowing his lips to brush along her tender skin. “Be mine,” he whispered, “and I will be yours.”
She couldn’t think. How could she think when he was staring at her as if they were the only two souls left on earth? His midnight eyes were warm—no, hot, and they made her want to melt into him, to throw over everything she knew, all good sense. Her body quivered, and her breath quickened, and she could not look away from his mouth as he kissed her yet again, this time moving to her palm.
Something tightened within her. Something she was sure it was not proper to feel. Not here in her aunt’s hallway, not with a man she’d only just met.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
No. Something was wrong. It was too soon. It did not make sense that he would love her so q
uickly.
But he did not love her. He had not said he loved her. And yet, the way he looked at her . . .
Why did he want to marry her? Why could she not trust him?
“Iris?” he murmured. “My darling?”
And she finally found her voice.
“I need time.”
DAMN IT.
This was exactly what he had thought would happen. She wasn’t going to agree to marry him after only a weeklong courtship. She was far too sensible for that.
The irony just killed him. If she weren’t the intelligent, sensible creature she was, he wouldn’t have chosen her.
He should have stuck to his original plan. He’d come here tonight with every intention of compromising her. Nothing extreme; it would be the worst sort of hypocrisy if he stole anything more than a kiss.
But a kiss was all he needed. One witnessed kiss, and she was as good as his.
But no, she’d mentioned the word wedding, and then he’d felt guilty, and he knew he damn well should feel guilty. A romantic proposal was his way of making it up to her, not that she knew there was anything for which he must atone.
“Of course,” he said smoothly, rising to his feet. “I spoke too soon. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” she said, stumbling on the words. “It was just so surprising, and I hadn’t considered, and you’ve only met my father just once, and in passing at that.”
“I will, of course, ask his permission,” Richard said. It wasn’t exactly a falsehood. If he could get Iris to say yes in the next few minutes, he would happily seek a private audience with her father and do things in the proper manner.
“May I have a few days?” she asked, her expression hesitant. “There are so many things I don’t know about you. And at least as much you do not know about me.”
He let his eyes burn hot into hers. “I know enough to know that I shall never find a more worthy bride.”
Her lips parted, and he knew that his compliments were well aimed. If he only had had more time, he could have wooed her the way a bride ought to be wooed.
He took both of her hands in his and gave them a gentle squeeze. “You are so precious to me.”
She appeared not to know what to say.
He touched her cheek, stalling for time as he tried to figure out how to salvage this. He needed to marry her, and he could not afford a delay.