The Houseparty (15 page)

"I would think my word would have better credit than yours," Adolphus said stiffly.

"No doubt.
But you also happen to have a rather nasty scratch across your face that looks suspiciously like the marks from a lady's fingernails."

"And you'd no doubt back his word?" Adolphus demanded of Elizabeth sulkily.

"Without question."

"Trollop," he spat and found himself once more caught in Fraser's punishing grip.

"You will apologize to the
lady,"
he ordered grimly, "or I will be forced to give you the beating you've deserved for years."

"I . . .
I apologize," Adolphus gasped from his strangled throat, and
Fraser
released him abruptly. After a look of blind loathing, Sir Adolphus Wingert disappeared into the bushes, obviously in search of a more private entrance to Winfields.
Fraser
turned back to the shaken Elizabeth, and his expression was grim.

"You'd best get back to the jolly little party before your absence has been noticed by anyone other than the old witch. And where in the world was your protective St. Ives while I was molesting you?"

"He must have thought he could trust you to behave like a gentleman," she said stiffly.

"Not Rupert. He knows me far too well,"
Fraser
replied mysteriously.
"Back to the house with you."

"Yes, Captain," she said meekly, determined to follow him the moment he took off into the bushes again.

As if reading her mind, he continued, "I'll be right behind you. And for God's sake, destroy that dress of yours when you retire tonight!"

"But why?"

"The British Empire is in trouble enough with the so-called Corsican monster plaguing our shores. The sight of you in that dress is enough to turn any red-blooded British soldier shatter-brained."

"Are you a red-blooded British soldier?" she inquired, thinking more in terms of politics than lust.

Fraser
misread her question. "You know that I am," he replied shortly, turning her around with strong hands and giving her a little push in the direction of the drawing room doors. "And I would suggest you return to the drawing room before I prove it once again."

Elizabeth was sorely tempted, but for once she resisted. "You
will
be coming right in?"

"I told you that I would."

"Because if you decided not to," she continued inexorably, "I would be forced to ask Rupert to go outside and find you.
Much as I would dislike taking such a rash action."

He stared at her for a long, silent moment. "I'm still more than a match for Rupert St. Ives." His voice was cold and still.

"I'm sure you are. I would prefer not to have to put it to the test." Her eyes were beseeching in her set face, and Michael's grim expression lightened.

"I'll be right behind you," he said again in a softer tone.
"Unless you'd rather stay out here with me for a while longer.
We
were
interrupted."

Elizabeth's tense nerves
relaxed,
and she grinned up at him. "No, thank you, Captain," she said meekly, and reentered the warmth and light of the drawing room with only a faint feeling of regret.

"Well there you are at last, Elizabeth," Lady
Eifreda
 
announced
from across the room with her customarily piercing tones. "What in the world have you been doing out there in the garden on such a chilly night? You appear quite windblown."

Elizabeth put an absent hand to her hair, finding it comparatively sedate in its stern
pinnings
. She smiled sweetly at her nemesis. "The evening is quite delightful, Lady
Eifreda
. I am persuaded you would enjoy a brisk stroll almost as much as I did."

Her ladyship chose to ignore that suggestion. "Did you happen to see either Adolphus or Captain
Fraser?
They both disappeared around the time you decided to go for a walk."

The low hum of conversation had stopped by this time, and the small
group of guests were
no longer making any effort to conceal their interest. Rupert was eyeing her from one of the card tables with a particularly intimidating glower.

Elizabeth was irked. She simpered across the room at her ladyship, batting her eyes ingenuously. "Oh, la, your ladyship, it was monstrously exciting! There was I, merely seeking a breath of fresh air, when what should Captain
Fraser
do
but
leap out of the bushes, grab me, and kiss me quite fiercely. And then Dolph appeared, and threatened to knock Captain
Fraser
down, and started to escort me back to the house. But then Dolph tried to kiss me just as fiercely as Captain
Fraser,
and Captain
Fraser
appeared from out of the bushes and threatened to knock Dolph down, so I said—"

"You've said quiet enough already," Lady Elfreda snorted, much irritated. "Such a bunch of
farradiddle
I have never heard in my life."

"It comes from reading too many French novels," Elizabeth replied pertly, relief flooding her as she realized that Michael had entered the door directly behind her. "Why don't you ask Captain
Fraser
what the three of us were doing out there?"

Michael raised an inquiring eyebrow at the fascinated group. "Have you been divulging secrets, Miss Traherne?"

By this time Lady Elfreda appeared to have regretted the brouhaha she had instigated. "Well, I am certain that if both Dolph and Captain
Fraser
were present, then Miss Traherne was adequately chaperoned." She made a dismissing gesture with one
clawlike
hand, but Elizabeth chose to ignore her. She turned to Michael, smiling brilliantly.

"I was just telling them that both you and Dolph tried to kiss me and then decided to fight for my favors," she said impishly, daring him to refute it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rupert take a threatening step forward.

Fraser
didn't bat an eye. "What a bouncer! And you a vicar's sister! The truth of the matter is, Lady
Elfreda, that
Miss Traherne came across Sir Adolphus and me blowing a cloud and threatened to cause a disturbance if we didn't allow her a puff of our cigars. Needless to say, we had no intention of complying with such blackmail, and she threatened to tell everyone that we molested her. Did you actually do so, Miss Traherne?" He said all this in his usual cool manner, but Elizabeth could see the amusement lingering in those blue eyes.

She bowed her head contritely to hide her own laughter. "I did," she said meekly, and Rupert's shoulders relaxed a trifle as he sat back down at the table.

"Elizabeth!" Sumner's scandalized voice caused her to start guiltily. "Are you lost to every vestige of propriety? How could you? When Sir Adolphus and Lady Elfreda have been everything that's kind?" Words failed him, and he stood there, his mouth opening and closing like a beached fish.

"I am wretchedly ungrateful," Elizabeth rejoined, agreeing sadly. "What can I do to make up for such outrageous behavior?"

Sumner had known his sister far too long to be taken in by any show of contrition. His beautiful blue eyes were sharp as he scanned her demure face, and for the first time in twenty-four hours he forgot about the exotic
contessa
by his side. Before he could give his sister the sharp set- down she so rightly deserved, Sir Henry
Hatchett
stepped smoothly into the breach.

"You could play cards with a boring old gentleman," he suggested in a fatherly tone. "Can't abide whist, never could. Much prefer piquet or silver
loo
. Why don't you do penance by keeping an old soldier entertained for a bit?"

A great harrumphing sound issued forth from General
Wingert's
pouter-pigeon chest. "I was about to suggest the same thing,
Hatchett
," he said, and there was a slight
edge in his high-pitched voice and a glitter in his hot, dark little eyes.

Sir Henry smiled affably, taking Elizabeth's hand firmly in his own. "Then it's a great deal too bad that I beat you to it. However, your loss is my gain. Miss Traherne?" He gestured toward a deserted corner of the brightly lit ballroom.

She hesitated for a long moment. General
Wingert's
portly face had turned a dark, angry red, and his thin mouth snapped shut. The pressure on Elizabeth's arm
increased,
and she gazed at Sir Henry with real relief, summoning her best smile for him. "I would be charmed, Sir Henry," she said in dulcet tones, her troubled gaze wandering over her shoulder to the general's retreating figure. There was something about Maurice Wingert that disturbed her, though she couldn't quite fathom what it was. It seemed far more dangerous than a touch of misplaced lechery.

She turned back to Sir Henry, temporarily banishing the worry from her mind. "You are most kind to ask me. Though I must say I consider that more of a reward than a punishment."

"You haven't played with him yet,"
Fraser
said softly behind her so that no one else could hear. "Watch out he doesn't pinch you."

Elizabeth kicked backward, her heel connecting quite satisfactorily with Fraser's shin, before she moved gracefully across the room. Allowing herself a brief glance backward before she settled herself at a corner table, she was gratified to recognize an expression of pain around Fraser's dark blue eyes.

"What would you prefer to begin with, Miss Traherne?
A hand or two of silver
loo
to start?
Or would you prefer to go straight to piquet? Your brother tells me you are quite expert at it."

"My brother flatters me."

"Not too often, I would think. He appears to be a very disapproving young man," Sir Henry offered, shuffling with a practiced hand.

Elizabeth eyed him with open curiosity. He was an unassuming little man, with a balding pate surrounded by whimsical tufts of hair, a bulbous nose, grizzled eyebrows, and those surprisingly merry eyes. The white mustache drooped disconsolately, but Elizabeth was on her mettle. She was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Sir Henry was not the bumbling elderly gentleman he appeared to be.

"Why don't we start right off with piquet?" she suggested affably.
"Though I must warn you that I am not allowed to gamble.
Sumner considers it to be unbecoming in a vicar's sister, and I fear I am already in his black books as it is."

"Imaginary stakes, Miss Traherne?" he suggested.
"A shilling a point?"

"Well, if they're going to be imaginary, I consider that paltry.
A pound a point, at the very least."

"Done!"
He dealt the cards rapidly. "I wonder if your clerical brother's
reprobations
apply to your brother Jeremy. A soldier can often spend far too much time gambling, much to his regret. Young
Fraser
there is a good example, I'm afraid."

Elizabeth took the bait. "He is?"

"Got himself into terrible debt over in Vienna, I heard. Gambling for outrageous stakes, and then the cards turned against him. There was some question of whether
he might
he
able to pay up, but he came into some money unexpectedly."