How to Capture a Countess (Duchess Diaries 1)

  Sin doubted that there would be anything “little” about a competition that included both Rose and Miss Isobel, who were out on the archery course eyeing each other with hostility. I might as well pass the time waiting for the tournament between Rose and me by drinking a glass of port. That’s far better than waiting here in the sun. Sin turned to Munro. “The billiards room it will be.”

  “Excellent!”

  “I’ll join you in a few moments. I just thought of something I should tell Miss Balfour.”

  “Ah. Giving her a hint or two, are you? Lord Cameron was doing the same for Miss Isobel earlier, so it’s only fair that someone give some assistance to the other contestants.”

  Munro turned a thoughtful gaze toward Rose, who was now regarding her arrows, which had been painted a garish bronze, with distaste. “Perhaps I should give her a hint or two, as well. I haven’t shot an arrow in years, but I used to be quite good at it.”

  Sin doubted that. “You are welcome to advise Miss Balfour in my place. I was only doing so in order to appease my aunt, even though I expressly told her I’d rather be shot in the foot with a blunderbuss.”

  Munro looked amazed. “You don’t wish to advise Miss Balfour? Why not? I’d jump at the chance, myself.”

  “Because I know exactly what will happen if she doesn’t listen to what I tell her—which she won’t—and instead does what she wishes.”

  “Ah. You think that if she loses, she’ll blame whoever gives her advice beforehand.”

  “I know that’s how it will be and she’ll be damned angry about it, too. And so I told my aunt, but she could care less whether Miss Balfour speaks to me for the rest of our visit.”

  Munro smacked Sin on the shoulder. “You’re on your own then, lad. Just don’t be too late or the port will be gone.” Munro hurried on his way, obviously happy to have escaped a potential pitfall.

  Sin crossed the lawn toward Rose. Off to one side stood Lady Charlotte and the two Misses Stewart, all of them drawing their bows, though with varying degrees of proficiency.

  As Sin approached Rose, she touched the tip of an arrow and then winced and sucked on her pricked finger. The wind ruffled the bow on her small capote and tugged at the dark curls that fell beneath it.

  He came to a complete standstill, noting how her plump lips curved around her finger. Damn. I’d like to see her try that on my—

  He shook off the image that flew through his head. He was as randy as a stallion, and it was all the fault of the winsome woman standing before him.

  Sin had always been attracted to voluptuous women, the sort who never allowed one to forget they were just that—women. And yet, for all of Rose’s slenderness and lack of curves, he’d never been more aware of any woman. How does she appear so feminine without employing womanly wiles? She doesn’t flirt, hasn’t once given a silly giggle or pretended to drop her handkerchief in an effort to lean her breasts against my arm . . . and yet I cannot stop thinking of her. Perhaps she’s just naturally sensual? A woman who’s had the blessing of experience and yet manages to exude an innocent-seeming sensuality. Whatever it is, it works.

  At that moment, Rose turned to return the arrow to the quiver. As she did so, she looked up and their eyes met. Surprise flickered through her gaze, followed swiftly by a smile. She pointed to the quiver and called out, “What do you think?”

  He closed the distance between them and eyed the painted arrows. “Her grace has made a spectacle of your contest, I see.”

  “On her grace’s orders, the footmen tried to affix ribbons on our bows. No one could have made a decent shot with those ribbons flapping about, yet it still took Miss Isobel ten minutes to convince her grace that it was a bad idea.”

  On hearing her name, Miss Isobel left Lady Charlotte and Miss Muriella and came forward, a superior smile on her angular face. “Despite its decorative appearance, I’m quite happy with the tension on my bow. Are you satisfied, Miss Balfour?”

  Rose nodded. “The bow is fine. I’m not so certain about the arrows. The tips are sharp, but the paint . . . ” She curled her nose.

  Miss Muriella and Lady Charlotte joined them. “I like the silver arrows,” Lady Charlotte said.

  “Me, too.” Miss Muriella drew her bow and struck a pose much like those seen in thousands of fountains and gardens across Scotland, the wind ruffling her gown about her plump ankles as she said with genuine enthusiasm, “Behold! I am Diana, goddess of the hunt!”

  Then her fingers slipped and she accidentally let go of the wrong side of the bow. The entire thing seemed to pounce on her, tangling over her head as she screeched.

  A footman hurried forward to help Miss Muriella free and Rose sent a laughing look Sin’s way, which made him smile in return. God, she is lovely.

  The thought caught him by surprise. She was lovely when she smiled and when she talked about how much she loved to ride and when—

  “Och, Lord Sinclair, there ye be.” MacDougal bowed as Sin turned to face him. “’Tis a lovely day for some billiards, is it not, me lord?” There was no missing the note of censure in the old man’s voice.

  Sin gifted the butler with a cynical smile. “I take it that her grace sent you.”

  MacDougal sent a quick glance at the pavilion and then leaned forward to say in a low voice, “Her grace is in a mite o’ a taking tha’ ye’re here. She thinks ye’ll be a distraction to the competition.”

  He’d have his time with Rose later. And oh, how well I’ll use it, too.

  He turned to MacDougal. “Certainly.” He walked beside the butler to the terrace doors. “I hope you’re prepared for the tournament.”

  MacDougal’s expression turned gloomy and he said in a voice tinged with long suffering, “As best we can, me lord. We’ve locked the shutters on the lower floor to protect the windows, and have the poor pugs safely tucked awa’ in the stable. There’s no’ more to be done except hide.”

  Sin chuckled. “Perhaps it’s not a bad thing to be in the billiards room, after all.”

  “If I thought her grace wouldna notice, tha’ is where I’d be, too,” the butler said fervently.

  Laughing, Sin left. In the billiards room he was met by a cloud of cigar smoke and the convivial greetings of his well-satisfied fellow guests. In no time at all, he was afforded the amusement of watching the three elderly men halfheartedly hitting billiards while telling lies about their sporting abilities.

  Sin took his glass of Scotch to an alcove of windows directly across from the archery contest. He pushed the curtain back and leaned against the window frame. Below, a footman seemed to be explaining the complexities of archery to Miss Muriella, who looked confused and kept interrupting him to ask questions. Off to the side, Miss Isobel was practice-aiming to decide which fit her better, a tall green- and gold-striped bow or a smaller blue one.

  Lady Charlotte was there, too, looking like a demonic cherub with her plump cheeks and her quiver of glittering arrows adorned with a knitted gold cover.

  But it was Rose who caught Sin’s eye and kept it. While the other three women wore bonnets to keep the sun off their faces, Rose’s small lace-trimmed capote did little to keep her nose from freckling. However, the shell-like hat framed her face and held back her curls, and the small brim wouldn’t get in her way when she drew her bow. Well done, Rose.

  Sin watched as Rose lifted her face toward the wind that rustled across the grass, teasing the hems of the ladies’ skirts and trying to lift hats from heads. Was she wondering how it would affect her shots? A footman paused beside Rose and asked a question. She answered and he bowed and moved on.

  Sin unlatched the window and raised it a few inches, and found that he could hear quite clearly. He pulled a chair over to the window and sat down.

  “Dear me,” Lady Charlotte said as she squinted across the lawn. “Where’s the target?”

  Rose looked at the large wooden target sporting a painted red square over a purple background. “It’s in the center. Can’t you see it?”


  The older woman bent forward at the waist, her eyes squinted almost shut. “I think I . . . ah! There it is.” She pointed to the large fountain close to the house.

  Miss Muriella tittered. “That’s the fountain.” She took Lady Charlotte’s arm, and repositioned her a quarter turn away from the fountain. “That’s the target.”

  Sin heard Rose mutter, “Oh dear.”

  Miss Muriella had turned Lady Charlotte toward the vicar’s buggy, which was tied up by the door, waiting for a groom to drive it around to the stable.

  A footman gave a startled exclamation and hurried to show the target to Lady Charlotte.

  Sin stifled a laugh.

  Aunt Margaret clapped her hands. “Ladies! It’s time to begin! Lady Charlotte will shoot first.”

  And so it began. As the shooting commenced, arrows rained into the nearby woods. Some hit the ground. One or two went almost straight in the air. Another plunged into a closed shutter. One hit the fountain, and one embedded itself in Aunt Margaret’s tent.

  Sin didn’t know when he’d ever been so entertained. His laughter drew the other men to the windows, and soon they were watching the contest, too, port and cigars forgotten.

  By the end of the third round, only five arrows had made it to the target, and three of them were Rose’s.

  Lady Charlotte stepped forward to take her turn, but just then there was a loud bang, followed by a shout, and then a flurry of fur bounded across the lawn.

  The Roxburghe pugs were on the loose.

  A footman holding a tray of strawberries tripped over a small brown pug. His tray flew into the air and landed on a large bowl of jam, splattering those sitting under the tent, while the strawberries rained upon Mrs. Stewart, who futilely batted at them with her fan. Another footman, distracted by the fall of the first footman, tripped over the end of Lady McFarlane’s chaise, hit the corner of the serving table, and knocked over a small burner used to heat the teapot. The resultant flames caused additional mayhem, until her grace had the presence of mind to throw her wool shawl over the burning tablecloth and put out the fire.

  Meanwhile, two pugs had found the ribbons that wafted from one of the tent poles and had begun a no-holds-barred tug-of-war. Yet another pug, growling as if ready to kill, chased a screeching housemaid around the fountain.

  “Good God,” Lord Cameron said, laughing as he pulled a chair next to Sin. “It’s madness!”

  The pugs tugging on the ribbons suddenly began to pull in the same direction and, with a spectacular whoosh, the entire tent collapsed.

  Startled, Lady Charlotte released her arrow up into the air, and it landed in a small thicket near the lake.

  Munro, holding his sides, wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. “That was the best entertainment I’ve had in some time!” He chuckled for some more moments, regaining control enough to say, with a quiver in his voice, “I hope no one was hurt.”

  Mr. Stewart, whose wife was still struggling to free herself from the tent, puffed his cigar. “None of the poles are even close to where they were sitting.”

  “Should we go down and help?” Lord Cameron asked, leaning forward to better see the commotion.

  “No,” Mr. Stewart said flatly. “MacDougal is already helping the ladies out and they seem fine.”

  MacDougal and his legion of footmen had indeed raced to assist her grace and her guests from the collapsed tent. The duchess was the first to appear and, except for her temper, she seemed none the worse for wear. She’d miraculously kept her wig upon her head, too, a feat that impressed Mr. Stewart so much that he mentioned it more than once as the duchess and her newly rescued pets gathered on the lawn.

  Soon everyone was freed from the tent and MacDougal escorted them all to the terrace, where a hurried tea had just been placed for their delectation.

  “I suppose now Miss Balfour will be glad of the advice you gave her before the contest,” Munro told Sin. “I wish I’d taken the time to offer my advice, too.”

  “I doubt it,” Sin returned. “They didn’t get to play an entire round, so no one won.”

  Mr. Munro nodded but didn’t look convinced. Indeed, his expression bordered on gloomy as he watched the scene outside slowly return to rights, his gaze following Rose as she sat next to Mrs. Stewart on the terrace.

  MacDougal set the legion of staff to collect the pugs, carry the chaises back into the house, and find missing arrows. Two footmen folded up the tent with its colorful ribbons, while two more removed the target and bow stands. The archery tournament was over.

  As the equipment disappeared, so did Sin’s amusement. Damn it, now he’d have to ask MacDougal to set the archery course back up. He looked around at the group of men who were gossiping around him, and then his gaze flickered to the gathering on the terrace. Perhaps now wasn’t the best time for their contest, anyway.

  With a tight smile, he made his excuses to the other gentlemen and left.

  Twelve

  From the Diary of the Duchess of Roxburghe

  Lord Munro has been very useful. All it took was a small hint—Charlotte is to be commended for orchestrating it—and he began his pursuit of Miss Balfour in earnest.

  I expected Sin to take this in very bad part, but he seems more upset over the weather than over Munro’s constant presence.

  I vow, should I live to be a hundred, I’ll never completely understand that man.

  “Miss Balfour?”

  The voice seemed to come from a very distant place, which she rather liked. She snuggled deeper into her pillow.

  “Miss Balfour?” The voice was more insistent now. She scowled. Couldn’t they see she was asleep?

  “Miss Balfour!”

  She jolted upright and found herself staring into Mr. Munro’s beaming face. She threw her hands over her eyes and rubbed them.

  “Sorry to wake you,” he said, “but you fell asleep.”

  Blast, this isn’t a dream. She dropped her hands to her lap and looked around, trying to regain her bearings. She was slumped in the corner of the settee in the small salon, while a light rain tapped upon the windows.

  Lady Charlotte sat in the chair nearby, her knitting needles clacking a steady rhythm, three of the Roxburghe pugs at her feet. She smiled encouragingly at Rose. “Did you have a pleasant nap, dear? I daresay you were still tired from the archery tournament.”

  “That was two days ago. It’s more than likely just the weather.” And the company.

  She’d been disappointed when their archery range had been removed so quickly. After a difficult dinner where Rose felt every glance Sin threw her way while the paper on which they’d recorded their wager seemed to burn a hole in her pocket, she’d pleaded a headache and escaped to her room early. There she spent the night tossing and turning, wondering if she were making a fool of herself over Sin. When she’d finally fallen asleep, her dreams had been filled with him, and she’d relived their kisses over and over. Each time it threatened to become more, she’d awakened, panting and hot.

  The next morning, despite barely sleeping half the night, she’d risen with a sense of pleasant urgency, ready to meet the day and finish their wager, only to discover that the rain had come to destroy her plans. Dispirited, she’d gone in search of Sin when she’d run into Mr. Munro, who’d attached himself to her side as firmly as a barnacle upon a ship. He’d managed to remain there for the last day and a half.

  Sin seethed at the circumstances, as did Rose, though not as visibly. Sin had been in a raging mood since the archery tournament, snapping at everyone. Twice now he and his aunt had engaged in an argument that in other households would have been described as a “huge row,” but here it didn’t even cause Lady Charlotte to stop buttering her bread.

  “Perhaps I should read some more?” Mr. Munro said. She longed to just grab the book from his hand and throw it across the room. “I fancy that I can pronounce some of the Shakespearean terms better than most.”

  “Another time, perhaps. I’ve a few things I m
ust see to this afternoon. In fact, if you’ll pardon me, I should excuse myself now.” She stood and tried not to yawn again as the pugs all leapt to their feet and came to stand beside her, staring up at her as if she were their queen.

  “Where are you going?” Munro asked, a definite point in his voice.

  She patted each pug. “I wish to speak to Miss Isobel about a reticule she has a pattern for.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Munro was on his feet, the book discarded, before she could frame a suitable rejection. He proffered his arm. “Shall we? I believe Miss Isobel is in the library with her sister and Lord Cameron.”

  Rose sighed and started to agree, but a sudden awareness of the quiet made her turn toward the windows. “It stopped raining!”

  Lady Charlotte looked out the window. “So it has.”

  The heavens cracked open and a ray of sunshine slanted over the lawn, directly where the target had been set up the day before.

  “It’s a sign,” Rose breathed. “Lady Charlotte, do you know where Lord Sinclair might be?”

  Lady Charlotte’s brows lowered. “I believe he’s in the library, too, but I don’t think you should—”

  Rose was already headed toward the door, Munro following.

  He tried to engage her in banter as she hurried down the hallway to the library. Rose smiled politely, though inwardly she screamed. She’d never been so tired of one person in her life, mainly because his line of conversation revolved around himself and no one else.

  They reached the library and she walked through the open door. Miss Muriella, apparently lulled by the rain, too, was sound asleep on a corner of the settee, a book open on her knee, while Miss Isobel and Lord Cameron stood by the terrace doors.

  “I don’t see Sinclair,” Munro said rather unnecessarily.

  “I haven’t seen him today,” Cameron said with a shrug.

  “Nor have I,” Miss Isobel agreed. “Perhaps he is indisposed? He did drink a great deal of port last night.”

  Rose frowned. “He didn’t have any more than Lord Cameron.”