Kasey Michaels (27 page)

“Simon,” she said, smiling at her son, who was still on his knees beside her, then reaching out one beringed hand to run her fingers through the lock of dark hair that had fallen forward onto his forehead—or been knocked there by one of the feather plumes. “Aren’t you just adorable? You are, you know. Just altogether adorable.”

Callie’s involuntary and quickly smothered giggle brought her to the viscountess’s attention, so that she lifted her hand to her head, further dislodging her plumes. “Why, hullo, Callie. What are you doing here?” Then Imogene frowned, looking up at the ceiling. “And what am I doing here? Where am I?”

“Somewhere between being sent to the country with a keeper and being hauled off to Bedlam, Mother,” Simon supplied dryly, slowly getting to his feet. “You fainted.
Again
.”

“I did? Oh, dear, I suppose I did.”

“Yes, Imogene—oh dear,” Callie scolded, righting the disheveled plumes, which actually only made the matter worse, as Simon had been in the process of leaning over to kiss his mother’s cheek and ended up with another feather stuck in his eye. Callie chose to ignore his low curse. “Imogene, this has to stop, do you hear me? For one thing, you’re much too substantial to be swooning. You look silly, rather like a Great Dane attempting to make himself into a nervous lapdog, if you don’t mind the comparison. And you almost smothered Lester this time. For another, you’ll never catch yourself a husband by falling over on him, now will you?”

The viscountess pulled a face and began to laugh, a deep rumbling laugh that came from her belly and served to make her shoulders shake. “You’re right, Callie. A Great Dane. Or a great hulking tree trying to play at being a delicate rosebush. I like that comparison better, although I understand what you’re trying to say. Marry Simon here, and I’ll stop. Truly I will. I’ll make do being both a dowager and a grandmother, I suppose, and perhaps even grow posies or some such silliness, and give up any thoughts of having myself a fine—”

“Imogene!” Callie broke in quickly, knowing the woman, still slightly woozy from her faint, was about to say the sort of thing that routinely sent Lester scampering, red-faced, from her presence.

“Mother...” Simon echoed, not understanding Callie’s nervousness, she was sure, but merely trying to avoid another lecture on the subject of marriage.

“No? You won’t do this one small thing for me? Then the stays
stay
,” Imogene said, shrugging again as she winked up at Callie as if to say she was better, had herself back under control. She allowed her son to haul her up to a sitting position, as Callie hastily threw a shawl over the woman’s shoulders to preserve her modesty. “I’ve heard that the earl of Mitcham has come up to town, and I invited him to your ball, Callie. I’ve known Freddy for forever, even if I haven’t seen him in dog’s years. His wife died two seasons back, not that he ever liked her above half. It was money he wanted, you see, not the gel. I’ve got plenty of money, loads and loads of it. He might have me. Of course, he hasn’t seen me since I’ve gone to fat. So handsome, Freddy is, and
thin
. Not that I ever liked him above half, but needs must, you know.”

She looked at Simon again, her complexion about four shades above stubborn. “You hear me, Simon? The stays stay. That’s all there is to it.”

Simon threw up his hands, both physically and figuratively. “All right, Mother, if that’s what you want. I’ll just have Roberts follow you around with a chair, so that you can fall into it whenever you feel faint. That ought to make for a pretty picture at Callie’s ball.”

“He called you Callie again,” the viscountess said, smiling up at her as Simon stomped from the room, obviously in high dudgeon, and good riddance to bad rubbish, Callie thought meanly. She could hear him call for his friends so that they could be off for a night of gambling until dawn, or so Roberts had earlier told her. “I think we’re making progress, don’t you? A few more fainting spells and we’ll have him.”

“I think you’ve squeezed all the blood out of your brain-box, Imogene, that’s what I think,” Callie told her as she walked around to the front of the couch and sat down beside the woman. “Please, Imogene, if you feel any affection for me, any small affection at all, stop this silliness about Simon and me making a match of it because it simply isn’t going to happen. Why, I sometimes think I don’t even very much
like
your son.”

“Miss Johnston,” Simon imperiously called to her from the doorway as a flustered Kathleen rushed into the room to minister to her mistress. “I returned to make certain that my mother is in good hands before excusing myself for the rest of the evening. However, now that she does appear to be feeling more the thing, perhaps you could get on with your instructions in deportment in preparation for your debut? Among your other failings when it comes to the social graces, I see that learning to be sure of the number of your audience when you speak is one lesson that needs to be brought home to you.”

That said, and looking smugly superior, Simon turned and quit the room.

“I take that back, Imogene,” Callie said as she collapsed against the cushions. “I
know
I don’t like your son. I don’t like him so much as a little bit!”

—William Shakespeare

Chapter Twelve

S
imon might have been deluding himself but, as his reality had become something that confused him mightily and was, at times, dashed uncomfortable to contemplate, he had decided to believe that a second dancing lesson was in order. A day apart following their harsh words to each other during Imogene’s badly timed swoon should, he hoped, have both smoothed the waters and reminded Callie that she still needs must learn to dance before Simon would allow her out and about to entice and then destroy Noel Kinsey.

After all, she wasn’t to know that he had already put his plan into action the previous evening after storming out of the house. She also didn’t know that Kinsey was already feeling the pinch in his pocket after gaming against him until dawn at White’s, so that Simon had decided to give the man a good four and twenty hours to recover his breath, and to begin to champ at the bit, longing for another go, aimed at recouping his losses.

And so, Simon would spend the entire evening at home, bolstered by his friends throughout dinner and afterward. It was a good plan, a safe plan, a workable plan.

As it turned out, Callie, achingly lovely in mint green, spent the entire hour before dinner and dinner itself chattering with everyone, but him. Smiling at everyone, except him. Asking the opinion of everyone, excluding him.

But that was all right. He could forgive her some small, female fit of pettiness. He was a man, after all, a gentleman. He could be magnanimous. Even if he had longed to climb up onto the dinner table, march down its length, careful not to tip over the immense silver saltcellar or bang his head on the chandelier, and throttle the impudent chit!

After dinner, with Imogene safely barricaded upstairs with Kathleen and the dye pots, and Bartholomew picking out the tunes in the music room, Armand graciously took over Odo Pinabel’s role. He put Callie through her paces in the quadrille and the few country dances she did know, before moving on to the waltz.

Simon, not trusting himself to come within ten feet of Callie without either shaking her or kissing her, remained on the sidelines, trying to appear as avuncular as possible. It was unsettling for a time, seeing the appreciative look in Armand’s eyes as the man held Callie’s hand, his right palm resting lightly against her dainty waist. It was decidedly unnerving watching Armand as he watched Callie watch her feet as they practiced the steps.

But then, after tipping up her chin so that she was forced to look at him, converse with him as they dipped and swirled, Armand’s appreciation seemed to be replaced by an unaccustomedly youthful gleam in his eye and a broad smile on his handsome face.

Simon, intrigued, left his seat and walked forward a few paces, careful to keep out of the dancers’ way, but coming close enough to hear what they were saying as they whirled past. After all, Callie was supposed to be practicing her social graces as well as her dancing. He was certainly justified in checking to see if she had learned anything in the way of polite, harmless, unprovocative conversation.

“Have you ever had anyone walk the plank, Mr. Gauthier?” he heard Callie ask, and had to cover his unexpected smile with his hand. Because, clearly, Callie was not practicing polite conversation. She was practicing her flirting. And, by the look on Armand’s face, she was gaining high marks for her efforts.

The minx. The brat. The incorrigible, maddening, infuriating brat! It was all Simon could do not to laugh out loud.

“Only on Tuesdays,” Armand replied in mock seriousness, neatly executing another turn. “And only, as I believe we’re supposed to be chatting about the weather as we dance, if it was sunny.”

“Of course,” Callie answered logically, and without missing a step even as she caught out Simon as he was belatedly trying his best to play the chaperon, glaring at her in dark warning. “After all, it would already have been a rather
damp
occasion, wouldn’t it? Now, tell me more about
booty
, if you don’t mind?”

By their third turn around the small floor, Simon could hear Armand calling her Callie and she was responding with his Christian name, and it was obvious that a warm friendship had been struck between them.

Which was a good thing, Simon concluded much to his own shock, as he suddenly knew he would give Armand Gauthier half his fortune if the man asked, and with no explanations necessary, but he’d be damned if he’d let the man near Callie again if he thought, for even a moment, that Armand might decide to make a run at her.

After a while, with Callie clasping her waist and protesting that she was breathless and more than a little dizzy, Armand coaxed Bartholomew from the bench and took over for him. Callie dragged the reluctant man to the floor for a second practice of the quadrille, the dance that would open her ball. Bartholomew had protested mightily at first, prophesying smashed toes and bruised insteps. But, in the end, he performed quite well—he, too, put at his ease by Callie’s light banter, her friendliness.

Why, she even deigned to smile a time or two at Simon himself, which he considered to be eminently preferable to the expression he had seen on her face when last she’d looked at him directly during dinner—the word
mulish
most easily coming to mind.

It was all very convivial. Relaxed. Friendly. Comfortable. Even
safe
—a word that, when Simon thought of it, brought on his only real frown of the evening. Because if he had learned nothing else, knew nothing else, wished to investigate his feelings at all, he knew that “Callie” and “safe” had no business occupying the same sentence. Not where he was concerned.

Still, the evening was a success, and then ended fairly early—with everyone saying their good nights and going off on their own pursuits as Callie, who had begun to yawn into her hand before eleven, excused herself and went up to bed.

Yes, a most convivial evening all in all, an unexpected pleasure that had gone a long way to ease the strain between Callie and him. So cheered was he that he rashly had promised to take her out for an early-morning drive through the city and countryside the following morning.

And, if Simon had been the sort to believe in omens, he might have canceled that small excursion the moment he walked into his dressing room, already pulling at his neckcloth, to see Silsby ducking behind the modesty screen in the corner, his head wrapped in a towel.

“Silsby?” he ventured, hopeful of coaxing the man out again. “What’s that on your head? Do I smell something? Yes. Yes, I do. What
is
that foul odor?”

“I-I thought you’d be gone until at least midnight, milord,” the valet put forth almost accusingly as he inched out from his hidey-hole, his feet dragging, his gaze firmly on his reluctant toes.

“I can imagine that you did, as that’s what I’d told you when I went down to dinner. Forgive me for disappointing you. And now that I’ve found myself in the strange position of having apologized to my own valet—what the devil is on your head that is smelling up the room?”

“You don’t want to know, milord,” Silsby mumbled tragically, his voice barely above a whisper. “Truly, sir, you don’t.” Simon finished untying his neckcloth and slid the long linen piece from his throat.

“On the contrary, Silsby, I believe I would perish of disappointment if you were to deny me. Now, take off that towel, if you don’t mind.”

Silsby’s hands flew to his head, as if the viscount’s very words were enough to remove the coiled towel if he didn’t clamp it firmly to his skull. “I can’t, milord!” he exclaimed, clearly horrified at the suggestion. “Not for another hour. Lord knows what will happen if I don’t do just as she said.”

Simon considered this for a moment, wondering if it might be best if he tamped down his curiosity. He decided not. “Just as
who
said, Silsby?”

“Kathleen, milord,” the valet answered sorrowfully, taking a single step closer to the light, and toward Simon, who immediately backed up two paces, his eyes beginning to sting from the foul odor assaulting his nostrils. “It—it’s to help grow new hair, milord,” he continued, each word leaving his lips slowly, as if he had to force them out. “For Scarlet, milord.”

“You’re
that
smitten, Silsby?” Pursing his lips as if considering the valet’s words—but in reality trying to keep from laughing out loud—Simon nodded sagely a time or two, then said, “I see. And, to help you in this quest to, um”—he struggled to find just the correct word— “
improve
your hair, you naturally applied to the woman who turned my mother into a fourteen-stone
canary
?”

Silsby pulled the makeshift turban from his head then, so that the brace of candles standing on a table behind him made a sort of halo around his head. This halo highlighted the four inch-long, greasy, tangled spikes of thinning hair the valet usually combed straight back from his forehead in the hope of camouflaging his fairly shiny pate. And the stench intensified, which was probably a good thing, as Simon’s eyes were now watering, both from the smell and his barely suppressed hilarity.