Lords of Scandal: The Beleaguered Lord Bourne / The Enterprising Lord Edward. Кейси Майклс
he rallied quickly, “it was not I who then fell apart like soggy tissue paper in the rain and confessed to every tiny detail of our meeting at Bourne Manor—right down to that truly sickening, simpering recital of what in fact had amounted to nothing more than a simple stolen kiss. Miss Latchwood nearly swooned dead away.”
“No she didn’t. She wouldn’t do anything so self-defeating—it might cause her to miss some juicy bit of gossip. Lord!” Jane shuddered at the memory. “I was hard-pressed not to offer her the loan of my handkerchief, she was drooling so copiously.”
“So you instead offered her the notion that poor, innocent Miss Jane Maitland might just have been compromised by that nasty Lord Bourne,” Kit sneered. “Lord!” he pressed, aping Jane’s exclamation. “You may as well have gone traipsing over the countryside ringing a bell, calling: ‘Kit Wilde kissed me in the Home Wood; Kit Wilde kissed me in—’”
“Don’t!” Jane begged, clapping her hands over her ears. “Papa never told me the names of our guests, you see, and I didn’t ask, as our dinner guests tend to be limited to Miss Latchwood, Squire Handley and his sister, or the vicar, and knowing beforehand just whom I shall be facing across the table does nothing to enliven my appetite. I only found out you were to be present a moment before I was announced. Under the circumstances I believe I did my best—”
Kit, plucked a stray thread off his sleeve as he interrupted wearily, “Your best? How very sad. Please, Miss Maitland, I beg you to refrain from bringing my attention to your shortcomings, as I am depressed enough as it is without—”
“When I am saying something, Lord Bourne,” Jane cut in with some heat, “you will oblige me by restraining your lamentable tendency to interrupt!”
With his head still lowered, Kit raised his eyebrows and peered at his adversary. “Welcome back, my little tiger cat. I was wondering how long it would take for Jennie to loose her claws on me.” Temper definitely became the chit, Kit mused to himself, admiring the flush on Jennie’s cheeks and the way the slight breeze set the blond curls around her face to dancing as her agitated movements caused her casual topknot to come half undone.
Jane looked back at him in disgust. She had requested this meeting with him this morning in the hope that together they would be able to find a way out of the muddle they had bumbled into the night before, but it was obvious now that she might just as well have saved herself the bother of eluding Bundy and engaging in what that very proper lady would only construe as yet another “tryst.”
“If you are quite done salving your wounded ego at my expense, I suggest we either put our heads together to find a way out of this ridiculous coil or else terminate our meeting so that you can return to Bourne Manor and barricade the doors against Papa’s wrath.”
If Sir Cedric’s wrath were all that was to be faced, Kit would have been more than capable of dealing with it in short order. But no. Once Jennie (he refused to call her Jane) had been escorted to her room by the soproperly outraged Miss Bundy and Miss Latchwood had been sequestered in the morning room with a half decanter of her favorite cherry brandy, Sir Cedric had confessed to Lord Bourne that he suffered from a “disky heart,” and any scandal surrounding his dear old child would as surely put him underground as would a bullet through the brain.
Kit was prompted to wonder aloud about how such a hearty-looking specimen—a man who rode to hounds with such vigor—could possibly be in ill health, a tactical error that sent Sir Cedric tottering posthaste to a nearby chair, a hand clutching at his ample bosom as he called weakly for his manservant. While Kit looked on, his face still showing his skepticism, Sir Cedric’s solicitous valet administered a draught to the panting gentleman and, with the help of two sturdy footmen, had his employer hoisted aloft in his chair and carted off to his bed—a move that put quite an effective period to any hope of rational discussion.
Galloping home, sans one promised dinner, the earl had barked out orders for food and drink to an astonished Renfrew only to react in a most violent manner when the platter of succulent rabbit smothered in spring onions was placed before him, rudely tossing the rabbit, platter and all, smack against the nearest wall. Hours later, just before the quantity of port he had ingested lulled the young earl into heavy slumber, Renfrew heard his master proclaim sorrowfully: “Rabbits are the root of all that is evil in this world. If I were king there would not be one of the fuzzy-tailed monsters left on this whole bloody isle. Damned if there would.”
Upon awakening the next morning Kit did not remember this particular profound statement, a punishing hangover being his only lingering souvenir of a truly forgettable evening; but Jennie’s note served to bring his dilemma into sharp focus and he had rallied sufficiently to agree to the meeting now taking place in the Maitland herb garden. Not that their discussion had so far produced anything more tangible than a mutual agreement as to the total unsuitability of both parties for the roles of husband and wife.
And yet, his head still pounding as if a blacksmith had set up shop between his ears, and his ears ringing with Jennie’s condemning accusations, Kit found himself coming to the reluctant conclusion that his carefree bachelor days could be numbered on the fingers of one hand. There was no retreat for a man of honor, no possible avenue of escape without bidding his good name a permanent adieu. Between them, the naively candid Jennie and her determined Papa had trussed him up all right and tight and delivered him neatly into the parson’s mousetrap. All that remained now was to convince his “intended” of the futility of resisting the inevitable.
“Well?” Jennie demanded, breaking into Kit’s thoughts. “Have you been struck dumb?”
“While I will admit to feeling slightly less than my usual intelligent self,” Kit replied, a note of bitter self-mockery in his tone, “I am not about to oblige you by descending into imbecility, as even being forced to wed you, my dear Jennie, cannot make me forget I am a Wilde, and as such above any such cowardly dodge. Not that the idea is entirely without appeal, you understand.”
“Then you are going to simply knuckle under, marry a woman you obviously detest—making the both of us totally miserable in the process—rather than make the least push at settling the matter another way?” Jennie’s huge eyes were staring at him incredulously.
“What other way would you suggest?” Kit asked politely, taking Jennie’s hand and placing it on his arm before guiding her in a leisurely stroll along the garden path.
Jennie’s brow creased in concentration as she cudgeled her brain in a quest for some splendid burst of inspiration. Sadly, none was forthcoming, and upon reaching the gate at the bottom of the path, she admitted she hadn’t a clue as to where to search for salvation.
“I’d be inclined to suggest prayer,” Lord Bourne said, tongue in cheek, “but I doubt the Lord grants entreaties that have to do with transporting earls to the far side of the moon.” Turning so that they faced each other fully before he uttered the fateful words, Kit then intoned solemnly, “Miss Maitland, I have admired you from the moment of our first meeting and can only hope that you have come to return my esteem at least in part. Please, Miss Maitland, do me the honor of making me the happiest man on earth by consenting to become my bride.”
As a proposal of marriage it lacked nothing in composition, although condemned men must have sounded more cheerfully animated speaking their final words before mounting the scaffold. And if his mention of their first meeting was taken at face value, devoid of any intentional double meaning, Jennie supposed it was a much nicer proposal than she could have expected under the circumstances. It was not, however, the proposal she had dreamed of ever since reading her first Minerva Press romance.
If her heart beat faster, it was with the frantic flutterings of a trapped animal, and not the accelerated rhythm all romantic heroines experienced at the very sight of their beloved. If her breathing was swift and shallow, it was panic, not passion, that set her young breast to heaving rapidly up and down. And if her milky English complexion was very prettily set off by a sudden blush of dusky rose suffusing her cheeks, it should be remembered that agitation should not automatically be construed as excitement.
Jennie looked searchingly into Kit’s