Elizabeth Boyle (46 page)

She glanced over her shoulder and found all four occupants of the study shamelessly watching the proceedings from the window.

If anything, she had some measure of satisfaction as Adam Saint-Jean stepped out of the carriage. She hadn’t missed Webb’s dismissing glance in her direction. He still thought her nothing better than a troublesome child.

Well, take a good look, Mr. Dryden
, she thought,
at the kind of man who does find me attractive.

Adam Saint-Jean raked a lazy hand through his jet-black hair. At three and twenty, he was just growing into his tall, elegant frame, which he now stretched out of the confines of the carriage. He stepped toward Lily immediately, a wide, sensual smile at his mouth, his bearing testament that, despite his mother’s questionable heritage, the gallant blood and breeding of his French forebears, courtiers and noblemen every one, coursed through his veins.

“Adam, listen quickly, I haven’t much time,” she said, leaning close to his ear as he bent to kiss her outstretched hand. “There has been a mishap in our plans.”

At this Adam looked her straight in the eye. “Problems? Lily, you worry too much. And besides, if there are any, that is why I am here and at your most willing service.”

She nodded at his usual gallantries. “I can’t explain it right now, there isn’t time. But to avoid a … a family matter that would take me away for several months, I told my sister and brother-in-law a small lie.”

Lily had been able to pull him away from the carriage a few steps and hopefully out of earshot of his mother, who was taking her time alighting.

“A lie? I like this better and better,” he said grinning.

“This isn’t a laughing matter, Adam. You need to play along with my deception. Seriously. Our lives depend upon it.”

While Adam’s father traced his family lineage back to the time of Charlemagne, his mother’s was an entirely different story. It was told that the elder Saint-Jean, while serving in the Americas with Lafayette, had found the unpretentious Imogene Evermont a captivating change from the coquettes of the French court. Though it was easy to see why the third and unlanded son of a French baron would stay on in the new country, given all the opportunities it offered, it was hard to understand why he’d chosen to marry his serving-wench mistress. Yet, the couple had three sons and four daughters as proof of the lusty nature of their relationship, and they had lived, for all intents and purposes, quite happily in Virginia since the end of the American Revolution.

“What is this, Adam, what is this?” Mrs. Saint-Jean interjected. “What are you two saying? I need help out of this wretched contraption. My bones are weary and I’ve the most aggravating case of vapors from being jostled about for the last eight hours.” She glanced up at the impressive walls of Byrnewood, her nearsighted eyes squinting as they took in the width and breadth of the large stone house. “A regular Sodom and Gomorrah, isn’t it? Well, the rich do like to flaunt their gold before the hard-working of the world.” She sniffed and glanced back at the elegantly appointed Trahern carriage Giles had graciously dispatched to convey them to Byrnewood. “Well, I can see now we’ve been sorely treated. Sorely treated, Mrs. Copeland. Why we’ve spent hours of extreme discomfort in this … this … horse cart, when it is obvious your relations could have sent something much finer for us to travel in.”

Lily gritted her teeth against Mrs. Saint-Jean’s familiar complaints and glanced up at the study windows to gauge her timing. To her distress she found the panes deserted. She flinched again, this time because she wagered her sister and brother-in-law had just heard Mrs. Saint-Jean’s crass statements and were more than likely no more than a stone’s throw away from this disastrous scene.

She’d forewarned Sophia and Giles about Mrs. Saint-Jean’s forthright manners, but she hadn’t intended to introduce the offensive woman as her future mother-in-law.

Not that she wanted to now.

She closed her eyes and turned her head toward the front door. As she opened her eyes, she found everyone lined up awaiting an introduction to her betrothed and his mother.

“There is no time to explain,” she whispered to Adam, as his mother turned to harry the footmen about their mishandling of her trunks. “We’re engaged. If my family says anything we are planning on getting married in London the first week in January.”

“Engaged?” Adam glanced up toward the house, and Lily could see him weighing his audience. His mouth broke out in a wide grin. “Engaged it is.” With that he lowered his head and took advantage of the situation by claiming his betrothal kiss.

“Engaged? Who’s engaged?” Mrs. Saint-Jean asked, her voice loud enough to carry not only to the porch but probably to the next property. “Adam! Stop kissing Mrs. Copeland immediately.”

Adam did so, but not after a few more seconds of taking his liberties. When he finally deigned to lift his mouth from hers, he grinned, like the last time he had stolen a kiss from her.

Though this time she couldn’t very well box his ears, as she’d done then.

And dammit if he didn’t know it. “Smile, my love. You look anything but convincing right now.”

With her back to her family, she shot a glare at her newfound fiancé and then turned a radiant smile on her approaching relatives.

As much as she wanted to think it was for Sophia’s and Giles’s benefit, an annoying tug at her heart told her this performance was for one man and one man only.

Webb Dryden.

Sophia and Giles, with Webb trailing behind, had left their place on the porch and were now crossing the gravel yard.

“Who is getting married?” Mrs. Saint-Jean repeated, her shrill voice growing louder.

“Why, your son and Lady Lily,” Webb told her, his gaze locked with Lily’s. “We just heard the happy news.”

Mrs. Saint-Jean’s mouth fell open and then the woman wavered, looking as if she were going to faint. A quick glance told Lily that Adam looked more likely to try another swipe at her lips than to save his mother.

Lily dodged Adam’s errant embrace and rushed to the lady’s side. “Yes, Mrs. Saint-Jean, I’m sorry to have it so rudely thrust upon you like this,” she said, “but aboard ship I consented to be your dear son’s wife.”

The woman’s stubby eyelashes fluttered, as her mouth gaped for air like a freshly caught mackerel. “First, I agree to come to this royal Sodom and Gomorrah—placing my very soul at risk, I do say, with the temptations of nobility and all. But this! My dear boy, marrying some highborn miss,” she huffed. “Lady Lily, indeed! I expect, Mrs. Copeland, you’ll be badgering my Adam for a grand new house back in Virginia. Well, you are in for quite a comeuppance. If Waterton,” she said, referring to the stately Saint-Jean plantation, “was good enough for me, it will have to be good enough for you.” She turned her piercing gaze onto her grinning offspring. “How can you do this to your mother, Adam?” She clasped her son to her great frame, nearly crushing him in a hug. “Oh, my heavens. How proud your father would be.” The lady turned her watery gaze to Webb. “I never dreamed of my Adam marrying royalty. Why I can hardly believe it!”

“And neither can I,” Webb whispered into Lily’s ear.

“A
h, port and cigars,” Webb said as the gentlemen entered the male-only sanctuary of the Trophy Room later that evening, “the true blessings of a civilized society, eh, Mr. Saint-Jean?” He clapped the man across his wide shoulder blades with a hearty thump.

Mr. Saint-Jean smiled broadly. “Oh, yes. I have a terrible weakness for good liquor. Especially someone else’s!” He brushed past Webb, his features appreciative of the obviously male decor surrounding them.

Byrnewood’s Trophy Room, the pride of Giles’s hunt-mad grandfather, boasted a terrifying and unusual collection of stuffed beasts and glittering weapons.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Adam said, the awe and admiration in his voice tangible. “Did you kill all of them?”

Giles shook his head. “This was my grandsire’s work. He loved to hunt and hated it when no one would believe his tales. So he convinced the local upholsterer to stuff his prizes.”

“I’d say he was quite a marksman,” Adam said, nodding at the collection. “How lucky you are to have them.”

“Don’t let my lady wife hear you,” he told the younger man. “She despises this room. Claims it’s a bother to keep clean since none of the maids are brave enough to venture in here to dust.”

They all laughed.

“I fear my addition to the room is only the billiards table,” Giles said, reaching for a cue that hung on the wall next to a collection of pikes and handing it to Webb’s father, Lord Dryden.

“Before you start, I propose a toast to the luckiest man amongst us,” Webb said, crossing the room to the tray of spirits the butler had just left next to a stuffed fox atop an armory chest. The upholsterer had posed the poor animal in a state of perpetual flight, its spindly legs racing from the hounds, its narrow nose twisted in fear.

Mr. Saint-Jean, Webb hoped, would soon resemble the fox.

He poured four glasses of port, whistling a hunting song he remembered from his school days.

“Why, thank you, Mr. Dryden,” Adam said. “Stop me after four or five, as I tend to make an ass out of myself if I drink too much.”

Webb, well pleased at his adversary’s admission, made a note to keep Adam’s glass topped off.

“Mr. Dryden? That is too formal for such an occasion,” Webb told him. “Call me Webb. I have a feeling that before this night is over,” he said, pouring another measure into the man’s glass, “we will be the best of friends.”

Mr. Saint-Jean smiled in a vague sort of way. “Then you, sir, may call me Adam.” He tipped his glass and drank deeply.

“Adam it is!” Webb told him with a hearty laugh. “And if we are to be friends, my first obligation is to drink to your good fortune on finding such a bride.” He raised his glass to his father and Giles.

His father and Giles reached for their own glasses.

“To Adam and his expedient marriage,” Webb said.

“To Adam.”

The three of them downed the port, and after they were finished, Adam finished off his glass as well, which Webb quickly refilled. Adam strolled through the room, admiring the trophies and other hunting pieces.

Out of the corner of his eye, Webb studied the man, much as he had for most of the evening. If there was one thing he’d learned in all his years of working for the Foreign Office, it was to wait and watch, for opportunity arrived eventually, and patience always rewarded those who respected her rules.

At dinner Lily had appeared cleaned up and dressed in another oversized gown of black. Hardly the appropriate dress for a newly engaged woman, he thought, though he hadn’t said anything.

Mrs. Saint-Jean had dominated the conversation, decrying the gluttonous amount of food at the table while eating plentiful portions from each dish.

Webb had sat mutely through the unbearable meal, knowing full well after the last course was served, he’d be able to get Mr. Saint-Jean away from his mother, and more importantly, Lily, when the gentlemen retreated for their port.

“Do you play, Mr. Saint-Jean?” Giles asked, holding out a cue.

The man nodded. “I’ve been known to play from time to time. But I think I will defer tonight. I would rather admire your family’s fine collection of guns.” His fingers ran over an old musket. “May I?” he asked, his fingers poised over the butt.

“Certainly,” Giles told him. He glanced over at Webb and shrugged, before handing the stick to Lord Dryden. The two of them commenced their game in silence, but Webb knew their real attention was fixed on his planned interrogation of the unwary bridegroom.

“I take it you like hunting,” Webb asked.

“Immensely,” Adam said quite enthusiastically. He held the gun up to his shoulder, pointing it toward the fireplace and siting one of the boars. “Though I haven’t had much time of late.”

“Ah, with the betrothal?”

Adam paused for a moment. “Yes. That’s it. The betrothal. My Lily keeps me very busy.” He replaced the musket on its pegs and turned his attention to a jeweled blade.

“Hmm,” Webb said, reaching for the decanter again, “I would have sworn she said you hadn’t become engaged until you were aboard the ship.”

Adam stilled for a moment.

Webb sensed the other man’s tension. Caught in a tiny lie, but a lie just as well.

But the man’s features immediately spread wide with his affable smile. “Ah, yes, that we did. But the courting—now that took all my time and wits, if you know my Lily.” He tipped his nearly empty glass at him.

The challenge had been laid down and Webb admired the way the man had covered his tracks. That is, almost. And with that he refilled the man’s glass.

“Certainly you’ll need all your wits about you once you take our Lily as a wife,” he told Adam. “She’s a cunning little minx. I know it only too well. It took all my wits just to avoid that fate. That is, marriage to Lily.”

If Adam took any notice of his admission, that Lily had once been interested in him, he gave no indication, nor did he seem to mind the implied insult.

“Fate, you say? I call it fortune,” Adam said, his soft American drawl never losing a bit of its languid tones, as he strutted back and forth in front of a collection of dueling pistols. “I have much to gain by taking Lily to wife. The land she inherited adjoins mine, and together we will have one of the largest plantations in the county. Not bad, eh. Just for letting her marry my best friend and waiting.”

His casual, laughing manners stopped Webb.

Could it be true—did Lily intend to marry this self-absorbed popinjay? Webb shook off the unlikely thought. No, Lily didn’t want to marry this man, of that he was sure. He’d watched throughout dinner and she’d shown no indication that she returned this man’s obvious passion.

So why had she claimed this engagement to keep from going to Paris?

“Besides,” Adam said, running his hand over the hilt of a Seville blade. “There is a certain air about her, a grace, you might say, that is so elusive, that to ever possess it would be a life’s accomplishment.” His tone suggested he’d possessed that grace and found it to his liking.