Leslie Lafoy (7 page)

Damnation, he didn’t want to disappoint Lady Baltrip this evening. And he certainly didn’t want to be disappointed, either. The only part the Rylands had left him of his grand plan was the traditional male freedom to bed whoever he pleased as long as he was discreet about it. But unless he put his foot down and insisted that Their Graces were perfectly capable of planning a string of gala affairs without his input on and approval of every piddling detail, he was going to lose that, too.

Lady Baltrip didn’t strike him as either the forgiving sort of woman, or the sort to cool her heels and patiently wait for him to come around. And while there wasn’t any doubt that he could find another woman to take her place, it would be difficult to find one as freely and openly willing as Lady Baltrip had proven to be.

“They say that misery loves company.”

At the sound of her voice, Ian vaulted to his feet and turned to face his bride-to-be, his heart racing at the possibility that he might have been thinking out loud. Thankfully, she didn’t look upset. Tired and strained, yes, but not wounded or angry.

“Or would you prefer that we wallow in it separately?” Lady Fiona asked.

“I don’t consider myself miserable,” he replied, gesturing to the seat he’d just vacated.

“Well, just as point of information, Your Grace, you’re a miserable liar,” she said, sitting down on the garden bench. “It doesn’t take a sixth sense to see that you’re just as unhappy as I am about being made the center of social attention.”

He sat on the far end of the bench and stifled the urge to heave a huge sigh of frustration. “I thought all women lived to bask in the glow of public attention and congratulations.”

“You thought wrongly.”

About a great many things apparently. “You don’t want an engagement ball?”

“It seems rather overblown since I don’t dance.”

“May I ask why you don’t?”

To his surprise, she abruptly stood and stepped away from the bench, then turned back to face him, her skirts fisted in her hands. Surely she wasn’t going to … Yes, she was. She lifted her hems quite deliberately, quite high, actually. High enough to give him a clear view of delicate feet and lovely ankles, as well as a tantalizing glimpse of silk-encased, perfectly shaped calves. A decidedly bold and provocative move for a woman who didn’t know him well enough to call him by his given name.

Ian cocked a brow and forced himself to quickly look away. “I would think,” he offered cautiously, “that you’d be a very graceful dancer.”

“You’re not looking close enough, Your Grace.”

Well, since she’d invited him to stare … He looked again. “I see nothing but perfection, Lady Fiona.”

She sighed and kicked off one of her mules, tossing it into the grass between them. Other than it being small, it was an ordinary-looking thing, the sort of shoe that a lot of women wore around the house during the day. Sometimes they even wore them to evening events as well, but those tended to be fancier, to have metal threads and pearls and …

She tossed her other shoe down beside the first one. The difference between them was immediately obvious, but he frowned and leaned forward for a better look anyway. If pressed for a judgment, he’d guess that the sole of the one shoe was a good five to seven centimeters thicker than the other.

He glanced at her feet. She stood there, her hems still raised, one foot planted firmly in the grass, the sole of the other barely brushing the tips of the green blades. He sat back, studying the shape of her foot. There being nothing wrong with it that he could determine by merely looking, he concluded that the problem was most likely in the length of either the lower or upper leg bones. Nodding and pinching his chin between his thumb and forefinger, he said, “I see.”

She didn’t reply, simply stepped forward on her shorter leg to slip her foot into the thin-soled shoe. Ian quickly looked up, noting that her expression wasn’t the least bit pained by the movement.

“Is it the result of an accident?” he asked as she put on the thicker-soled mule.

“I’ve been told,” she answered, sitting down beside him, “that I was born this way.”

“I gather that it doesn’t pain you in a physical sense.”

“Not at all.” She chuckled softly. “Which is not to say, of course, that the childhood tumbles I took as a result of it, didn’t hurt. Looking back, I can see that I was really lucky not to have broken my neck a time or two.”

Given what she’d told him this morning of the circumstances of her birth and early years, it was a certainty that she hadn’t been taken to a physician when a medical intervention might have corrected the problem. How long had she limped before someone had thought to differ the thickness of the soles of her shoes? he wondered.

“If you see the defect as cause for withdrawing your marriage proposal, I would understand completely.”

He looked over at her, stunned. “I beg your pardon?”

“When I came to live with Drayton and Caroline, they took me to see a well-respected doctor. He said that there was nothing to be done to fix the length of my leg and that I should accept the possibility that any children I might have could be born with the same deformity.”

“What a kind man.”

“He was just being honest,” she countered with a shrug. “But that aside, I can understand how you might be repulsed by the idea of our children being born deformed. If you want to rescind—”

“No,” he declared, stunned anew. Did she really think that he could be that shallow? “My proposal stands.”

“Well, if you should change your mind in the next few days, I—”

“I’m not going to change my mind, Lady Fiona.”

She nodded—in what looked to him like sad resignation—and gazed off across the garden. “With the soles of my shoes being as they are, walking is easy enough. But dancing requires me to step backward, and despite the efforts of the best dancing masters in England…”

She shrugged her delicate shoulders. “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve toppled over, the number of times I’ve twisted my ankles in trying to learn. And there comes a point when you have to accept that the end result simply isn’t worth suffering the process of achieving it.”

“There’s a great deal to be said for pragmatism,” he allowed. “But considering the realities, I have to ask … Why are your sister and brother-in-law so delighted at the prospect of planning an engagement ball for us?”

“I don’t have the foggiest idea.”

He, too, gazed out over the garden. “We should,” he muttered, “just run off to Gretna Green and be done with it.”

“We’d have to keep running for some time,” she countered. “All told, they’re in there mapping out a plan for an engagement ball, a wedding,
and
a reception dinner ball.”

“For some reason,” he admitted, “I never considered how complicated this getting married business is. I always thought it was a simple matter of showing up at the church on time, not making a cake of yourself when it comes time to say your lines, and then letting people squeeze your hand into a soft pudding while they congratulate you on having decided to jump off a cliff.”

She laughed. Not a soft little ladylike twitter, though. No, she tipped her head back and laughed outright and honestly. It was an amazingly delightful sound, full and rich and lively. Ian stared across the bench at her, captivated by the brightness of her smile and the sparkle in her eyes. He’d always known that she was pretty, of course. Any man would agree with him on that. But, Good God Almighty, when she was happy, she was nothing short of astoundingly beautiful.

She regained her composure by slow degrees, wiped a tear from her eye, and then moistened her lower lip with the tip of a pale pink tongue. He was marveling at how much she looked like a kitten when she said, “Better to be seen as jumping off a cliff than being asked if you’re sure you haven’t made a horrible mistake.”

“You’re kidding me.” Surely people had more tact. “They actually say that to a bride?”

She nodded. “Oh, yes. Both my sisters were asked that time and time again. And there are any number of variations of it. Hug, hug. Kiss, kiss. Congratulations, my dear. I hope you’ve done the right thing. Although it is a little late to have second thoughts, isn’t it?”

“How cruel.”

With a shrug, she replied, “Yes, well, I think women tend to get vicious when they’ve lost out on snagging the bachelor of the season. It’s their last chance to take a swipe at the victor.”

Did men do such things to each other? Maybe they did and he’d just never noticed. It wasn’t as though he’d ever paid much attention to the social pecking order in any respect. “One has to wonder why, given that tendency, one would deliberately have a party and invite them to it.”

“I presume it would have something to do with the satisfaction of you being the bride and not them. Rather like rubbing their noses in their failure. Which,” she quickly added, “doesn’t strike me as being a particularly nice thing to do.”

No, it wasn’t. But from the sounds of it, that didn’t prevent females from engaging in … well, a form of barely civilized warfare. And to realize that he hadn’t had the slightest inkling that it was swirling all around him. Good God, he was lucky he hadn’t bumbled into a cross fire at one point or another. He could have been seriously maimed.

“And of course all the details of the wedding and reception go to the same end,” Lady Fiona went on, deepening and broadening his education. “What flowers and decorations you have. What food you serve. Which orchestra you hire. Who designs your wedding dress and trousseau. It’s all terribly competitive, you know.”

“I had no idea, actually. And I doubt that any other man has the slightest clue, either. To us, a meal’s a meal and music is music. The only competition we care about is the one around the gaming table.”

“And who leaves on your arm at the end of the evening.”

Well, there was a can of worms he wasn’t going to open. “Only among those, Lady Fiona, who haven’t had the wisdom and good fortune to marry a beautiful woman.”

The look she slid his way said that she recognized ingratiation when she heard it. She slowly arched a brow, but instead of calling him on his too obvious dodge, asked, “Will we entertain a great deal after we’re married?”

Relieved to have been let off the hook so kindly, he replied, “As a duke I’m rather expected to flaunt the wealth on a regular basis. I’m sure, being the sister-in-law of a duke, that you’re more than familiar with the social expectations that go with the title.”

“No, not really,” she admitted. “Drayton entertains for political reasons. He doesn’t much care for the social whirl outside of that.”

Politics. Something else he had no real clue about, despite the fact that he held a seat in the House of Lords. “I’ve formed the impression that your brother-in-law is something of a reformer.”

“Do you consider that a good thing?” she asked, looking out over the garden. “Or a bad thing?”

“I don’t know much about His Grace’s views on specific issues,” Ian hedged. “I’ve been out of the country for the last few years. And to be perfectly honest about it, I haven’t paid much attention to the business of Parliament since my return. It reflects poorly on me, I know, but I find the speeches and droning on to be incredibly…” He shrugged and, not wanting to risk insulting her guardian, left the matter there.

“Utterly, mind-numbingly boring,” she finished for him with a smile and a twinkle in her eye. “Drayton says that if some of the members loved the people of England as much as they do the sound of their own voices, there wouldn’t be nearly as much in need of reforming.”

A statement that, if made publicly, would stir an ugly outcry, but one with which he could completely agree in private. “I’ll have to pay attention in the next session,” he offered as he contemplated the possibilities. “At least to what His Grace has to say. There’s a great deal wrong in the world and I happen to believe that it’s our duty to make life better in any way that we can. Since I’ve yet to see your brother-in-law’s eyes spin or his mouth froth, I’m inclined to think that he’s a sensible man with realistic goals I could support.”

Lady Fiona nodded, too, and then, still gazing out over the garden, said, “You mentioned that you’d been out of the country in the years just past. Where have you been? Anywhere interesting?”

“Everywhere is more interesting than England,” he groused before he could think better of it.

“Why is that?”

Since he’d broached the subject, he couldn’t very well ignore her response to it. Not and be considered anything close to a gentleman. “The food is definitely different, for one,” he offered, choosing his words carefully now. “Other countries tend to use spices freely. Spices other than salt and pepper. The cuisine of India is especially good. When I was summoned home to assume my father’s title, I made sure to bring an Indian cook with me.”

He smiled weakly and added, “I can only hope there will come a day when he and my English cook can reach some sort of compromise in the kitchen. At that point, I’ll offer you a meal. In the meantime, though, dining in is a largely mishmash sort of experience.”

“Our cook is very good,” Lady Fiona said, grinning. “He was Drayton’s regimental chef back in the day. When he was about to finish his service, he wrote Drayton and asked for a reference. Drayton took the carriage and went to hire him before anyone else could. He’s making chicken biryani for luncheon today.”

Chicken biryani? God, he could only hope that he wasn’t drooling. “I know it’s impolite to ask to be invited to a meal…” he began.

Chuckling softly, she assured him, “It’s been assumed that you’ll be dining with us. Chef Martin is preparing his specialty just for you.”

And how would Chef Martin know what his favorite dishes were? Maybe Harry was right and she could read minds. If she could, it was undoubtedly in his best interests to know just how extensive her abilities were. He summoned a casual smile. “How did you know that I enjoy spicy cuisine?”

“Everyone’s heard that you were a surgeon in Her Majesty’s Army medical corps,” she replied brightly. “Drayton considered the likely garrisons and concluded that somewhere in the Near East was logical.” She grinned and, her eyes sparkling, added, “After that it was purely a gamble.”