Heather and Velvet (7 page)

Sebastian shrugged the old man’s hand away and strode from the chamber, twirling the cane as if it were only an affectation. D’Artan watched through the window as his grandson crossed the rolling lawn, his gaze dark and thoughtful.

An enraged shriek shattered the quiet. Prudence’s spine went rigid. Her book slid from her lap.

“Prudence!” The high-pitched screech was followed by a bellow. “Prudence! Come get this damned beast out of my wig!”

Prudence’s eyes widened behind her spectacles. “Sebastian,” she breathed.

She leaped out of the chair and pelted down the corridor toward her Aunt Tricia’s bedchamber, skirts held high. Before she could reach the door, the kitten barreled around the corner, wig caught between his teeth. As his paws hit the waxed parquet, he slid. His claws shot out in a vain attempt to slow his skid, gouging a web of scratches across the precious inlay. He slammed into the opposite wall in an explosion of powder, then sat there, shaking head and wig until it was impossible to distinguish between them. Prudence dove on him, separating wig from kitten just as her aunt flung herself from her chamber in an avenging cloud of disheveled silk.

Tricia pointed a shaking hand at Sebastian. “That beast … that monster … that vicious creature …” As Sebastian licked the powder from his paws with wounded dignity, she sputtered into incoherence. Tricia refused to call the cat by name, or even acknowledge that he had a name.

Seeing that her aunt’s hysteria was rapidly approaching a swoon, Prudence offered her the matted wig.

She snatched it from Prudence’s hand, squealing anew
with dismay. Her eyes narrowed. “I should have had Old Fish feed that beast to Boris while I was in London.”

Prudence thrust the cat behind her back, blinking guilelessly. “Auntie Tricia, don’t frown so. It emphasizes those tiny lines in your brow.”

Tricia’s face smoothed instantly, as if a porcelain mask had dropped over it. She touched the delicate skin beneath her eye with a long, crimson fingernail before breathing a sigh of relief. The careless frown had not crumpled it.

Cat forgotten, she fluttered back toward her chamber. “Come, Prudence. You may watch me dress.”

“My heart’s desire,” Prudence said softly. She kissed the naughty kitten on the nose before freeing it, and followed her aunt.

The bedchamber reeked of powder and lilac water. Gowns littered the room like the helpless victims of a gruesome explosion. Prudence shuddered at the thought. She swept a lace petticoat from a brocaded stool and sat at her aunt’s feet, resting her chin on her palm.

As she watched, Tricia smoothed lamp black over her auburn brows, darkening them to graceful wings. The trick gave her an expression of continual surprise, as ingenuous and natural as her use of cosmetics was artful. “My face is a canvas,” she delighted in telling Prudence. “It is my responsibility to make it an unforgettable work of art.” Prudence agreed that it was a work of art, although Tricia used more paint than Michelangelo, yet it was done in such a subtle way, she never appeared garish or overly made-up in the fashionably pale circle of society.

“You know, my dear Prudence,” she said, dotting her puckered lips with carmine rouge, “this is the most important day of my life.”

“I thought the most important day of your life was the day you married the viscount.”

Her aunt sighed heavily. “Ah, yes, my poor Gustav.”

“Gustav was the German prince,” Prudence reminded her. “Bernard was the viscount.”

Tricia looked momentarily perplexed as she hooked a lace collarette around her alabaster neck. Prudence imagined her counting her former husbands on mental fingers.

Tricia threw up her hands with a girlish flutter. “Gustav. Bernard. What does it matter? The past, however sweet, is past. Today we welcome my new fiancé to Lindentree.” She cupped Prudence’s chin in her soft, white hand. “He is eager to meet you. I’ve assured him you won’t be a burden to us after we’re wed. I told him how my poor Gustav adored you.”

“That would have been poor Rutger. Gustav was already dead when I came to live with you. And Rutger didn’t adore me. He simply tolerated me because I kept the household accounts. Bernard adored me.”

Tricia leaned over. Her cheek missed Prudence’s by several inches. The brief squeeze of her hands on Prudence’s shoulders assured her she would have liked to kiss her if it wouldn’t have mussed her powder. “
I
adore you. You are as dear and reliable as my Boris.”

Prudence frowned. Being compared to a slobbering and fitfully stupid Great Dane was a dubious compliment at best.

Tricia clucked her tongue against her teeth. “Do stop grimacing, dear. You’re not getting any younger.” The crunch of carriage wheels on the cobblestones sent her into a frenzy of activity more befitting the second coming of Christ. “Oh, dear God, it’s him!” She threw a cashmere stole around her shoulders. “Why don’t you go powder that mop of yours? And straighten those dreadful spectacles. Do you want him to see you squinting like a Chinaman?” Without waiting for Prudence’s reply, she tucked a perfumed rosette into her bodice and sailed from the room, hiking her rustling skirts to show off the tiny bows on the back of her slippers.

Prudence remained seated for a moment, a row of faceless wig stands surveying her. At last she stood, sighing. She could not seem to shake the cloud of depression that had beset her since the night she had dared to cross the Scottish border. It was as if some other border in her life had been crossed. Now the road before her loomed straight and gray and unbearably long. Her gaze wandered to the window, drawn by the trilling song of a thrush and the haunting scent of the honeysuckle twining up the trellis.

Beside the window, four gilt angels clutched a pier-glass in their chubby paws. As Prudence surveyed her reflection, their petulant smirks mocked her. She smoothed streaks of powder from the unadorned poplin of her skirt, bracing herself to meet yet another of her aunt’s suitors.

In the seven years that she had lived at Lindentree, Prudence had grown accustomed to the steady parade of doddering dukes and deposed princes. They all shared three characteristics. They were foreign, wealthy, and preferably infirm. Tricia did have her standards too; she had never married two men from the same country. She had amassed quite a fortune in this fashion, as well as the titles of countess, baroness, and princess of a tiny Austrian country Prudence had never been able to locate on any map.

If her aunt chose to believe she was marrying for love, who was Prudence to enlighten her? The old gentlemen carried to their graves the memory of happy days spent in the embrace of a doting, beautiful, and relatively young bride. Most of them were too nearsighted to notice Tricia’s steady stream of lovers. Prudence just hoped this one could walk and did not drool.

She tucked a stray piece of hair back into its tight knot and adjusted her steel spectacles with a defiant jerk.

“Come, Prudence.” She curtsied to her reflection. “Shall we go meet your future uncle? I have no doubt he will simply adore you.”

The afternoon sun slanted across the rolling lawn. As Prudence stepped out onto the porch, a coach rattled past, heading for the yawning door of the stable. Boris danced around its wheels, barking hoarsely. A wiry coachman tipped his wide-brimmed hat at her. Prudence lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the sun’s glare, and looked around for her aunt.

At the bend of the long, sweeping drive, Tricia and a man stood in the shaded embrace of a willow. Shadows dappled his broad shoulders. This one must be better preserved than most, Prudence mused as she caught her skirts in her hands and started across the lawn. His back was
neither swayed nor humped. He wasn’t excessively tall, but the width of his shoulders dwarfed Tricia’s dainty grace. Although he stood with legs planted firmly apart and held a slender cane in one hand, he gave no impression of being bandy-legged. As Prudence drew nearer, she could see he wore no wig. His hair was powdered a sandy gray and caught in a neat queue at the nape of his neck.

Tricia’s laughter tinkled like a bell. No man, Prudence thought, not even a man aged to insensibility, could fail to appreciate the charm of that laugh. Tricia’s skirts swayed in the teasing breeze as she laid a hand on the sleeve of the man’s frock coat. She tilted her face to him, listening to his low, murmuring voice with obvious avidity. As the man bent to touch his lips to hers, Prudence ducked behind the nearest tree, embarrassed to be intruding on such a tender scene.

Old Fish emerged from the house at that moment, bearing a silver tray of glasses.

Tricia’s voice rang out. “Here comes the wine. And there’s my niece behind that tree.”

Prudence silently cursed the slenderness of the birch.

“Come, my darling,” Tricia continued, “and join in our celebration. I hope it will be the first of many for the three of us.” She added sotto voce to the man, “My niece is rather shy. You shall have to overlook her.”

Why not? Prudence thought, having heard her aunt perfectly clearly. Everyone else did. She doubted if her aunt’s fiancé would be overjoyed at the prospect of adding the burden of a spinster niece to his household. She edged out from behind the tree and followed the curve of the cobbled drive, resisting the urge to drag her feet and kick at rocks like a stubborn child.

Old Fish reached the willow when she did. The stranger plucked a wineglass from the tray and turned to greet her.

Gray eyes laced with the mists of the Highlands sparkled down at her.

Prudence stood hypnotized as he made a courtly bow and brought her hand to his lips. The most terrible thing was not that he was the Dreadful Scot Bandit Kirkpatrick. The most terrible thing was not that he was going to marry her
aunt. The most terrible thing was that he did not remember her.

His polite expression was as blindly indifferent as a mole’s. The vacant sweetness of his smile was more painful than if he had pulled out a pistol and shot her dead right there.

Tricia linked one arm in Prudence’s and one in his. Prudence’s arm hung limply as Tricia beamed up at her fiancé. “There. I knew the two of you would be fond of each other.”

He murmured a noncommittal agreement and sipped his claret.

“After all,” Tricia prattled on, “it would have been tragic if the two people I adore most in the world did not come to love each other.”

“Simply dreadful,” Prudence murmured.

Her voice brought his head upright. Wine dribbled down his white stockings into his buckled shoes.

Tricia squeezed both of their arms. “I knew you’d get along famously. My dear Sebastian and my dear, dear Prudence.”

He met her gaze over the top of Tricia’s wig. As his eyes widened, a shiver raked Prudence’s spine. How could she have remembered the exotic attraction of his eyes without remembering the paralyzing danger that lurked in their smoky depths?

S
ebastian could not take his eyes off Prudence.

“Sebastian. Sebastian, dear, would you please pass the butter?”

Tricia’s voice was no more than the nagging whine of a persistent mosquito. Sebastian handed her the gravy tureen. A table full of inquisitive eyes blinked at him. He jerked his attention back to Tricia and swapped gravy tureen for butter dish, chuckling feebly.

“Forgive me, darling. The long journey has addled my wits.”

He would have to take more care, he thought. It would not do for anyone to notice his intense preoccupation with the prim creature dining on the other side of the table. He silently cursed Tricia’s wretched sense of hospitality. She had invited not only the neighboring Squire Blake and his simpering daughter Devony, but the county sheriff, Sir Arlo Tugbert, to celebrate his arrival at Lindentree. If Tricia’s niece dared to speak, the sheriff would have more to celebrate than an engagement before this interminable supper was done. Sebastian picked at his smoked herring
and satisfied himself with studying Prudence beneath the sweeping veil of lashes he had always detested.

From Tricia’s description of her unmarried niece, he had fully expected to meet a bucktoothed hag. A perplexed frown crinkled his brow. He could not look at her without having the enchanting vision of a lass soaked with rain and breathless with laughter superimposing itself over her now flawless composure. It was like watching a misty water-color run over the harsh but simple lines of a pencil drawing. The effect was jarring. Sebastian gripped the crystal stem of his wineglass without realizing it.

Her every gesture captivated him as he searched for some hint of that other girl, the girl who had haunted his dreams since that rainy night.

She ate with head bent, seemingly oblivious to the bright titter of conversation and tinkle of silver on crystal. She cut her herring into tiny bits before tucking each neat square between her delicate lips. She ate so slowly, Sebastian began to count each chew under his breath.

She paused between bites to push the heavy spectacles back up her slender nose. Her thick hair was caught in a tight chignon at the nape of her neck, and Sebastian felt unaccountably angry. What right did she have to go around looking like someone’s maiden governess? He hungered to loosen her hair, to drive his hands through it and see if its softness was as compelling as its memory.