Country Flirt (18 page)

Yet when he finally spotted Sam’s straw bonnet coming in at the gate, he felt such a jolt of anger stab him that he knew he would not be so suave as he had intended.

“Here they come!” he said, and took his mother’s elbow to lead her forth.

“No, Monty. Not yet. We shan’t go running after them. Let them come to us. Is Clifford holding her elbow?”

“Clifford isn’t with them.”

“Good!”

The tardy duo were in no hurry to seek out their host and hostess. The Brights stopped and were stopped to exchange a few words with so many friends that at last Monteith could endure it no longer and went forth alone.

He thought Sam had never looked more beautiful. This was the proper setting for her, a country party, with the sun casting dappled shadows on her face through the loose weave of her bonnet. It glinted on her curls and shone full on her gown, whose provincial cut went unnoticed. Monteith’s gaze didn’t get below her chin. Her eyes glittered like star sapphires, and her lips, half open in nervousness, spoke to him of ripe cherries.

“Welcome to the f
ê
te!” He smiled, and had to force his attention to the older lady to include her. “Mama has sought refuge under the awning. I’m sure she’d like to see you, Mrs. Bright.”

“We’ll step along and say good day,” Mrs. Bright decided.

Monteith placed himself between the ladies with a hand on each one’s elbow to hurry them toward the awning.

Lady Monteith lifted her snapping hazel eyes and said, “Well, Nora, you came alone, I see. I expected you would be with your new beau.”

“I came with Samantha. Clifford should be along shortly. A lovely party, Irene.”

“And Sam,” Lady Monteith continued, shooting sparks at the daughter. “You, too, are bereft of your fiancé. It must seem quite like old times, both of you without a man.”

“You, on the other hand, always have dear Monteith to keep you company,” Mrs. Bright retaliated.

“A blessing, I’m sure.” Sam smiled demurely.

“Get us some wine, Monty,” his mother ordered. “Not that wretched orgeat, mind. Do sit down, Nora. At our advanced age, we can’t be standing in this heat.”

“No, indeed!” Mrs. Bright agreed, with seeming timidity. She sat and added, “I must reserve some energy for the ball this evening. Clifford has asked me to save him the first dance.”

Foreseeing a verbal fencing match, Samantha agreed to go with Monteith to fetch the wine. “Let them go to it,” he said, leading her away.

“Your mother started it!” Sam said quickly.

At the refreshment booth, Monteith asked a footman to take a bottle of wine to the ladies. “Sam, what will you have?”

“Wretched orgeat will do for me.”

He got two glasses and looked around for a private bench. “Don’t let me keep you from your duties, Monteith,” she said primly.

“The party’s been under way for hours. My duty is done for the present. And I want an opportunity to apologize for yesterday’s outbreak of poor manners. You were quite right to chastise me.”

She waited, hoping to hear why his temper had reached such a pitch. At length she replied, “No permanent harm done. A storm will often clear the air.”

“You arrived very late. We began to wonder if you were coming at all.”

“An entire day of sun and noise and squealing children is a little more than I enjoy.” With a sudden urge to enliven the conversation, she added, “I find I prefer the calm of older companions now.”

Her goad had the desired effect. Monteith’s precarious calm was shattered. “You refer to the calm bellowing of your fiancé, I assume? Do you prefer it with or without the theatrics of
creese
and
tulwar?”

“Ah, you are learning the language! Too late, Monteith. The damage is already done.”

“No, only instigated. You haven’t got him to the altar yet, milady.”

“Well begun is half done,” she taunted.

“Damage is an odd way to speak of your coming marriage.”

“I was considering it from your point of view. Unlike some, I don’t always think of myself.”

“I personally never stood to gain anything from the nabob, if that is what you’re referring to.”

“Not precisely to gain, but it would prevent a loss. You wouldn’t have to provide for the boys if Howard did it for you, I suppose.”

“I found having him around the house was too high a price to pay. I hope you don’t make the same discovery, when it is too late.”

“Kind of you to be concerned for me. Shalimar will be big enough to lower the din by distance. If the clashing of swords becomes too tiresome, I can always retire to my toy mansion on the lower hill.”

Monteith set his glass aside and frowned into the distance. “I had hoped we wouldn’t come to cuffs today, Sam. I’ve had my say about you and Howard. I know I said it badly, but the intention was good, whatever you may think.”

It was a peace offering, and as an afternoon and evening of squabbling was too long to endure, Samantha let the argument fall to the ground. “I understand. It must have come as a shock, his offering for me so soon. I’m sure Howard will do something for the boys, Monty. He’s very generous,”

His head slewed around, and his anger was fierce. “I hope you don’t think that is my main concern!”

She looked a sharp question at him from her brightly glittering eyes. It almost seemed he might say the magic words to cut through the Gordian knot. With all her willpower, Samantha silently prayed that he would. Unfortunately, Mrs. Armstrong chose that inauspicious moment to intrude. Unsure of the polite hour for arrival, she had waited till she saw the Brights’ carriage leave before calling her own out. She came, apparently already dressed for the evening ball, in a green silk gown and bright gem-stones.

“What a grand frolic, Lord Monteith.” She simpered.

He rose and offered her a seat. “What’s that you’re drinking?” Mrs. Armstrong asked, before he had time to offer her a drink.

“Orgeat, but perhaps you’d prefer wine,” Samantha said.

Any suggestion that Mrs. Armstrong would not prefer the beverage of ladies was snorted aside. “What you’re having will suit me.”

Monteith went to fetch her orgeat, and Mrs. Armstrong turned to Miss Bright. “I hear you got an offer from old Lord Howard. Congratulations, Miss Bright. Can I see the ring?”

“I—I’m not wearing it,” Samantha said. It sat like a bomb in her reticule, but she didn’t want to bring it out for Mrs. Armstrong’s exclamations and, no doubt, comparison with her own. That Mrs. Armstrong knew Howard’s offer was about as good as saying the whole town knew.

Mrs. Armstrong rubbed her ruby carbuncle against her silk skirt and figured she had got all she was going to get out of Lord Howard. “Lud, what a ruckus,” she said, looking toward the races. “I have half a mind to slip home and come back for dinner. I wonder why Monteith entertains such a parcel of riffraff.”

“It’s a charity affair; the public is invited.”

“If this is John Q. Public, they can keep it. Ah, there is Mr. Beazely!” she exclaimed, and leaped up from the seat just as Monteith was returning with her orgeat. Hanging on to Beazely’s arm, she sallied forth, her peregrinations much enlivened by such a rich and single companion.

Monteith shrugged and drank the orgeat himself. It was difficult to get the conversation back on the track after this interruption. Discussion dwindled to isolated remarks about the party, and soon Samantha left. She was tired of the din and wandered around to the private gardens, where the unruly children weren’t encouraged to go, though a few adults strolled through the rows of rosebushes.

She sought out an isolated corner by the Italian fountain and sat with her chin on her hands, thinking. It was very odd, the way Monty had flared up at her for saying Howard would do something for the boys.
I
hope you don’t think that is my main concern!
But if not that—the money—then what? What else did the marriage involve, except herself? That was what bedeviled her as she sat alone, thinking. Twice now it had seemed Monty was on the verge of declaring himself. Was it her imagined status as an engaged lady that deterred him? Had she outwitted herself by letting him think she had accepted Howard’s offer?

As she sat inhaling the sweet aromas of the garden and looking at the roses and the silver shower of water tinkling in the fountain, a ripe rose fell apart before her very eyes. A shower of fleshy pink petals drifted slowly to the ground. Three wafted into the fountain, where they swirled in lazy circles. She took the fanciful notion it was Monteith, Howard, and herself adrift there. As she watched, the petals were pulled along toward the drain. They spun in dizzying circles a moment, before disappearing down the black hole—all three of them.

It wasn’t just her own life she was on the verge of ruining. What kind of a wife would she make Howard, disliking him as she did? And if Monty
did
love her... Three lives ruined, all for lack of someone speaking up and saying what was on her or his mind. It was insupportable for a colonel’s daughter to be so cowardly. But did Monteith love her? That was the overwhelming question.

Chapter 15

A prickly truce was established between the Monteiths and Brights. Mr. Sutton, perforce, was included in the uneasy peace. Mrs. Bright expressed the general feeling when she said after the afternoon f
ê
te, “I felt as though I were treading on eggs, but at least we didn’t break any.”

Mr. Sutton, still stinging from a few verbal wounds, modified it to, “Walking on broken glass was more like it.”

“Has it been decided whether we shall remain for supper after the intermission tonight?” Samantha asked. No further opportunity to sound Lord Monteith out on his feelings had occurred during the afternoon.

“That depends on whether we’re enjoying ourselves,” her mother said.

“And whether Irene is serving lobster patties and champagne,” Mr. Sutton added.

Such elegant treats would not be served at the barn dance for the whole town, but only for the elite at the ball.

As Samantha made her grand toilette for the evening, she realized that this might be her last opportunity to see Monty before Lord Howard returned. She had an instinctive feeling that once the nabob was back in town, the situation would become even more difficult. That gentleman had a knack of stirring up trouble.

As the party from the Willows planned to leave the dance early, they found it did not diminish their dignity to arrive on time. Mrs. Bright wondered if Clifford felt a pang when Irene opened the minuet without him. In former times, this honor had often fallen to him. Lacking an escort who could incite jealousy in her erstwhile lover’s bosom, Irene chose her son. This was a lapse from strict protocol, but at country dos the niceties were often bent. On this evening, for instance, the butler wasn’t announcing arrivals.

The party from the Willows slipped in unnoticed and joined a large table of friends, including the Sutton ladies and their husbands. Mrs. Tucker was decidedly displeased with Clifford’s new attachment, and showed her displeasure by staring with sad eyes and sighing at Irene as she performed the maneuvers of the minuet with her son. Samantha, on the other hand, was now a lady to be courted, and Mrs. Tucker offered her husband to Sam for the next set. After Mr. Tucker, Clifford had a round with Sam. Then it was the country dances that required a younger partner to withstand the strenuous exertion.

Clifford’s other sister, Mrs. Jenkins, put her husband forward to accompany Samantha for the cotillion. The dinner hour was drawing near, and still Monteith had done no more than stop by their table a moment, chatting to them all. As no champagne was being served, Sam feared they would leave before dinner. Though the dance thus far had been a tedious affair, she was eager to stay. It was Lady Monteith who unwittingly arranged it.

After the cotillion, Monteith got his mother aside and said, “You’re making a cake of yourself, Mama, pretending the Brights and Suttons aren’t here. For God’s sake, go and talk to them.”

She made a resigned grimace. “I intend to, Monty. Fiddlesticks, what do I care for losing a beau? I can always find another. Where shall I find two such good friends as Nora and Clifford? I’ll ask them to join us for dinner.”

And so it was arranged. They all sat hodgepodge at an informal round table. When Monteith rushed to draw Sam’s chair, she thought he would sit beside her, and her heart swelled in hope. Alas, Mrs. Tucker nipped into the next seat and pointed her husband toward Samantha’s other side. She had heard such marvels about Shalimar that she was eager to ingratiate herself with the future Lady Howard. Monteith took up the chair beside Mrs. Tucker, and spent the dinner hour looking at the back of the lady’s head, for Mrs. Tucker forgot to converse with anyone but her quarry. Samantha was forced for an hour to discuss the two subjects most distasteful to her—Lord Howard and Shalimar.

Lady Monteith enjoyed a few moments of high melodrama when, with a long and soulful glance, she passed the lobster patties to Clifford. “I had Cook make these for you,” she said. At least the rapscallion had the grace to blush! Clifford looked hopefully toward the footman for the champagne that usually accompanied them, but saw only white wine.

“Lovely, Irene,” he said. “Nora makes them a little spicier, but yours are always good.”

“It’s news to me if anything spicy is to be found at the Willows,” she snipped. “I must have been underestimating the cuisine of the Bright ladies. Howard appears to have found something to his taste there as well.” After this sledgehammer piece of irony she turned slowly away. No speed was necessary to avoid retaliation; Clifford was a slow top.

At last the leisurely meal was over. Monteith, determined to have the next dance with Samantha, rushed to draw her chair before Mr. Tucker could beat him to it.

“Is your card filled for the next set, Sam?” he asked with seeming casualness.

“You didn’t supply cards, Monty.”

“But may I have the pleasure?”

“Mama spoke of leaving right after dinner,” she said doubtfully, and looked toward her mother and Clifford.