Taming Beauty (2 page)

“I offered you up as the next Baroness Malleville.”

“My God, you’ve a set of ballocks big enough to float an army battalion across the channel,” Lilith said in mingled shock and awe.

“Alas, Malleville wanted apples for apples, an eye for an eye and all that.”

“An innocent girl to replace the one you plucked from his grasp.”

“Rose may have been a virgin, though I am in no way conceding the point, but she was by no means an innocent girl by the time I got around to sampling her charms.”

“Tell me you didn’t attempt to fling that argument in Malleville’s face.”

“You wound me, love. Even I would not be so foolhardy as to call the lady’s virtue into question, all things considered.”

In truth, Lilith was surprised he hadn’t attempted to paint Miss Rose Parkhurst as a harlot in order to save his own skin. And doubly surprised the baron hadn’t heard the rumors surrounding the pretty little flirt he’d nearly taken to wife.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Dunaway said with a chuckle.

“I rather doubt it,” Lilith answered.

“You’re thinking you might have played the innocent for a titled husband, even if he is only a baron, and a big, ugly one at that.”

Lilith burst out laughing, amused despite her frustration at his wily attempt to barter her happiness as payment for his transgressions.

When she’d reined in her mirth and wiped the moisture from her eyes she looked across the table to find Dunaway watching her with a toothsome, dimpled smile, his eyes bright with amusement.

“You are a ridiculous man,” she chortled. “What would you have done had Malleville agreed to take me in Sissy’s place?”

“Seeing as I don’t hold your purse strings, you mean?” Dunaway reached across the table to lay his hand over hers.

“Or anything else you might use as leverage to force me to your will.”

“What of affection?”

“Your affection waxes and wanes,” she replied, smiling to soften the words. “I would hardly risk my future on something so inconstant and unsubstantial.”

Dunaway’s lips twisted into a wry grimace. “I was speaking more of familial affection.”

Lilith tugged her hand free with a weak laugh. “What on earth do I know of familial affection?”

“My lord, if I might have a word?”

“Not now, Dervish.” Jasper Edward Grimley, the ninth Baron Malleville, ignored his butler as best he could, his attention focused upon the column of numbers running the length of the ledger page.

“I do apologize, but—”

“Can’t it wait?” He traced a blunt-tipped finger down the column, willing the figures to add up to more than they had the last time he’d tallied them.

“I’m afraid not, my lord.”

Jasper tossed down his quill, narrowly missing the inkstand sitting atop the organized clutter on his desk, and lifted his head. “What is it, man?”

Dervish blinked, but then the man always blinked when confronted head on with the scar running down the right side of Jasper’s face from temple to jaw.

Which begged the question of what was so bloody important the man would not only interrupt him in his study, but be so insistent as to necessitate his undivided attention. “Well, what is it?”

“Today is Saturday, my lord.”

“Yesterday was Friday and tomorrow will be Sunday,” Jasper replied. “What of it?”

“Your intended is due to arrive today.” Dervish scrubbed one gnarled hand over his bald head.  “Along with his lordship, the Earl of Dunaway.”

“Have they arrived?”

“No, my lord.”

“Do not bother me again until they do.” Jasper returned to his ledger, fully prepared to put the matter of his intended and her wastrel of a father out of his mind.

“If I may, my lord—”

“Damn it, what must I do to get you to go away?” Slapping the ledger shut, he rose to his feet and planted both hands on the desk. “Tell me and you shall have it, if you will only leave me in peace.”

“The bedchambers. That is, after the wedding…but what about before?” Dervish stammered and shifted about in agitation. “Where are we to put Lady Priscilla?”

“Are the dungeons habitable?”

“Breckenridge House hasn’t any dungeons,” the butler argued. “Leastwise none I’ve ever seen, and I been here nigh on sixty years.”

“Isn’t there an entire wing for guests?”

“Miss Amelia and Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter are occupying the west wing.”

“All six chambers?”

“Only four of the chambers are…er, habitable.”

“There, that leaves two unoccupied.”

“Begging your pardon, but Mrs. Rossiter said as how her husband is to have his own room, on account of his snoring.”

Jasper suspected the separate bedchambers had less to do with Rossiter’s snoring than Susan’s desire to enjoy a London Season before she was shuffled off to the country for yet another confinement. “Put Lady Priscilla in the fourth chamber and her father in the one across the hall from mine. Matthew and his friend can bunk together if we’ve a cot somewhere about.”

“And the companion?”

“What companion?”

“Er, there is a woman traveling with his lordship and Lady Priscilla,” Dervish replied, his tone indicative of some great scandal he was bursting to share. “A Miss Aberdeen, I believe.”

The name tugged at some long forgotten memory from his days in London, before misplaced honor had exiled him on the Cornish coast. Jasper pushed the memory away, the same as he’d done to all such memories of bygone times.

“Put the lady in the bachelor’s apartments.”

“Those rooms haven’t been occupied in years on account of they’re far removed from the house proper.”

“Precisely.”

Dunaway would have to descend two flights of stairs, traverse dark halls, open and close a heavy wooden door with rusty hinges, pick his way through the overgrown garden, climb a spiral staircase and navigate the warped, old boards of the narrow balcony running the length of the building to get to his ladybird.

With Jasper’s chambers being situated directly across from the old bachelor’s quarters, he would have a box seat, in the form of his own balcony for the entertainment. Or the terrace just off his study, if the performance was to be a matinee. “See how easy that was, Dervish?”

“Quite, my lord,” the old man replied with a bow that set his back to creaking.

The butler departed but before the door had quite closed behind him, an elfin, ginger-haired girl slipped into Jasper’s study, never mind the room was off-limits to anyone below four feet in height.

She stopped just inside, tilted up her face and looked at him from huge cornflower-blue eyes.

“Good afternoon, Uncle,” greeted the devil disguised as an angel.

“Shouldn’t you be in the nursery?” Jasper asked in his most gravelly voice, hoping beyond hope the creature would take herself off forthwith.

“I don’t like the nursery.” Meghan Rossiter smiled, showing off the empty space where her two front teeth had been knocked out during her last visit to Breckenridge. “There’s only babies and they’re always napping.”

“Where are Charlie and Henry?” Her brothers didn’t meet the height requirement either, but Jasper would gladly allow them into his study long enough to round up their little sister.

“Papa took them to walk the cliffs.”

Meg was no longer allowed anywhere near the cliffs since she’d jumped into the ocean in a mad attempt to swim to China. That was two visits past.

“Mama says you’re marrying a princess.”

“Lady Priscilla is an earl’s daughter.”

“What’s an earl?”

“A man puffed up on his own importance.” Even as he spoke the words he knew the five-year-old would repeat them the first chance she got.

“When I eat too many tarts my belly gets puffy.” Meg started forward, taking little mincing steps as if her uncle wouldn’t notice the sneak attack.

“Stop right there,” Jasper ordered.

“I just want to look at the globe.”

“You just want to spin it until it twirls from its axis and goes careening around the room, knocking over everything in its path,” he contradicted, stepping to the side to put his considerable bulk between the demon and the world, metaphorically speaking.

“That only happened the one time,” the little fiend replied with a pout that would, one day, lay waste to all manner of men’s good intentions.

“Once was quite enough.”

The door at the girl’s back opened and Susan’s dark head appeared, the same cornflower-blue eyes scanning the interior. “What are you doing in Uncle Jasper’s study, Meghan Elizabeth Rossiter?”

“Nothing, Mama.”

“Well, come along.” Susan motioned her daughter out of the room while mouthing the words, “Carriages coming up the drive.”

“Damn.”

“Uncle Jasper said a bad word,” Meg cried in glee as her mother towed her down the hall. “Did you hear him, Mama? Wait until I tell Charlie and Henry.”

Jasper contemplated rushing upstairs to put on a coat and cravat before discarding the idea as a waste of time and effort. If his bride didn’t already know he was a rustic without an ounce of town polish, she would find out soon enough.

He left his sanctuary and turned toward the front door, pushing aside the butler and hauling the portal open.

“I would have gotten it, my lord,” Dervish protested on a wheezing breath.

“You’d have been ten minutes wrestling with the damn thing.” Jasper tossed the words over his shoulder as he stepped outside.

Spring had come early to this corner of Cornwall, a welcome relief to the fishermen and farmers after the unusually harsh winter. The ever-present wind was little more than a stiff breeze and the sky a vast cerulean expanse but for a few low-hanging clouds scuttling along the horizon.

A compact, black carriage pulled by two shaggy horses of indeterminate lineage trundled up the drive, followed by a luxurious traveling coach led by a quartet of perfectly matched grays, a big black gelding tied behind. The carriages circled the fountain that for years had functioned as little more than a breeding ground for algae and a pool for little children to fall into while walking the stone bowl.

Before either vehicle had come to a complete stop on the dusty drive, two servants dressed in the earl’s scarlet and gold livery hopped down from the second carriage while another manservant, the earl’s valet presumably, and two maids piled out of the first.

“I suppose we’ll be expected to squeeze his lordship’s servants in with us?” Dervish asked and it was all Jasper could do not to groan as he considered feeding two maids, a manservant, two footmen and two coachman along with his own servants, his visiting family and the various guests he’d invited for dinner over the coming twelve days. His larder would be so empty he’d be forced to serve freshly-caught fish and a few withered turnips for the wedding breakfast.

While the drivers saw to the horses and the maids and footmen began to offload dozens of trunks of various sizes, the valet whipped open the door to the earl’s brougham.

Dunaway bounded from the conveyance with more agility than a man closing in on fifty ought rightly to possess. “Good afternoon, Lord Malleville and family.”

It was then Jasper realized his sisters stood on either side of him, Susan with a sleepy Davie on her hip while Amelia cradled baby Annie in her arms. Meg was on Rossiter’s shoulders, her feet tapping out a beat on his chest. Charlie and Henry stood side by side, bumping shoulders and trying to knock one another over. Matthew and his university chum, Pritchett, were no better, whispering and snickering and jabbing each other.

“Dunaway,” Jasper greeted with as much civility as he could manage.

The earl turned back as the manservant assisted a golden-haired lady from the carriage. Carefully, as if she might break if jostled in the slightest, Dunaway laid her gloved hand on his forearm and led her slowly to the portico where Jasper waited.

Big, blue eyes peered up at him from beneath a fringe of pale lashes. A wash of color crested faintly plump cheeks beneath elegantly slanted cheekbones, and a pretty cupid’s bow mouth trembled around a smile.

Lady Priscilla was a pretty little thing, but damn, she was young.

He’d known her age when he made up his mind to marry her, but somehow he hadn’t expected a lady of eight and ten to be quite so bloody young.

Oh, her figure was fully developed, and then some. In fact, she was almost too curvaceous for her dainty stature, her hips lushly round and her bosom nearly spilling over the beribboned and ruffled bodice of the pink gown she wore beneath a matching pelisse she’d left open in deference to the balmy weather.

Perhaps if she weren’t wearing all those ruffles, she might appear older.

Or maybe it was all the pink. Or the wide-set blue eyes, so like Meg’s but for the sheer terror in their depths.

“Allow me to present my daughter, Lady Priscilla Josephine Worcester,” Dunaway said into the silence that had sprung up on the front lawn. Even Meg had ceased beating out a tattoo upon her father’s person. “Sissy, this is Baron Malleville, your betrothed.”

“How do you do?” Lady Priscilla squeaked out, dipping a quick curtsy.

“Very well, thank you.” Jasper bowed. “How was your journey?”

“Very fine.”

“Very good.”

Could the moment grow any more awkward?

But of course it could, and did.

“Look, Uncle Jasper!” Meg cried, bouncing about on her father’s shoulders and pointing. “There’s the princess.”

Jasper followed her finger and froze.

A woman, all long, slender limbs and feline grace, alighted from the carriage with the assistance of one of the footmen while the other bent down to whisper in her ear. She tossed her head with a throaty chuckle and swatted the servant playfully on the arm with a scarlet silk fan. A matching shawl sporting black fringe and tassels fell from one to pool in the bend of her elbow.

Honey-gold curls threaded with whiskey brown and burnished amber spilled from a twisted, looping coil atop her head, a black feather tucked into the thick mass. Her profile was all soft angles, her skin sun-kissed and her neck a long, graceful column.

The woman, Dunaway’s mistress no doubt, wore a gown that even Jasper, who hadn’t the vaguest interest in ladies’ fashion, recognized as elegant in its simplicity. Unadorned by so much as a single ruffle, ribbon or bow, the gray silk draped her svelte form, hugging her breasts before falling away to drape and cling and caress her slim waist and gently rounded hips.

Jet beads dangled from her ears, swaying when she turned as if only just realizing she held an audience enthralled upon the lawn.

Christ in heaven and all the saints. The woman’s beauty stole the breath from Jasper’s lungs, and all the breathable air for miles, leaving him gasping and lightheaded. High, gently sculpted cheekbones and gracefully arching brows created a perfect frame for vivid green eyes faintly tilted up at the outer corners and surrounded by dark, dense lashes. Her nose was slim and straight, her chin delicately square. And her mouth. Good Lord, her mouth was wide and full, her lips decadently lush and curled up in a faintly mocking smile.

“Well, goodness, aren’t you a lovely lot?” The woman’s voice was warm and husky, the embodiment of all things wicked.