The Earl Claims a Bride (18 page)

It would be the perfect gift for Angelina. She liked to take care of things. Taking in strays had proved that. She would enjoy finding the right place in her house to put the plant. He could see her adding a rich soil to it, watering it, talking to it, whatever the hell it was people did to bring plants back to life and make them flourish and bloom. What would she do with fresh flowers that needed no attention from her loving hands?

When he stopped under the overhang of the stoop, he reached for the door knocker but paused when he heard music. Someone was playing a fast melody on the pianoforte. He listened for a minute—and suddenly there came the most unbearable, high-pitched howling he’d ever heard. He squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered at the awful sound. Thank God it only lasted a few seconds. Then there was the beautiful peaceful music once more. He reached for the knocker again but jerked his hand down when the ear-piercing howling started anew.

“Damnation, what is that?” he whispered aloud to himself. Seconds later the yowling dog stopped and the melody continued.

Harrison looked from one side of the house to the other. Through the misting rain, a lone light shone from the front window on the left. If he was remembering correctly from his visit to the house last week, the music room was on the left. He glanced back at the street. His carriage was the only one he saw. His driver would never question him.

Throwing caution, reputation, and good sense to the wind, he stepped down off the stoop and walked over to the window. Harrison knew that spying on anyone, especially through a window, was against common decency’s rules, but of course he wasn’t known for following rules. Besides, curiosity was killing him.

He was tall enough to peek inside the room. The pane was foggy with condensation, but he saw Angelina sitting at the pianoforte, her back to him, with a small, white fluffy dog sitting beside her. That had to be Molly.

Harrison’s breathing kicked up a notch and his loins thickened instantly at the sight of her. A lamp placed on the edge of the pianoforte bathed her in a shimmery golden light. She was on a red-velvet-cushioned bench, her rounded bottom clearly outlined by the way she sat on the skirt of her dress. Her spine was straight. There was a gentle slope to her feminine shoulders. Her golden-brown hair had been swept up into a chignon, showing her nape and slender neck. The lamplight made her tresses sparkle.

It stimulated him to watch the way her nimble fingers danced across the ivories while her hands and arms moved gracefully from side to side. Her shapely bottom moved and swayed with each note she played. He could tell she took great pleasure from the music. His desire for her grew fast and hot.

Everything about her was inviting.

The room she and the dog were in held only the pianoforte and two wingback chairs upholstered in a dark-green, wide-striped fabric with matching pillows. A small table stood between them. As best he could see, there was no one with Angelina but the dog, who watched her with rapt attention.

Ear-piercing howling rent the air again and Harrison shivered. There was a reason dogs were supposed to stay outside. Angelina looked down at the Maltese. The dog was doing its best to impress her. Angelina smiled and nodded her agreement, never hitting a wrong note in the melody.

Harrison smiled, too, and then he laughed when he saw her bend her head and touch her nose to the dog’s nose; then she licked her chin. She laughed and patted her on the top of her head.

Now he knew what was going on. The dog would start howling at a certain place in the music. Angelina gave the Maltese her cue to chime in by nodding her head toward her. Watching Angelina play, he was beginning to wonder why he’d never liked music. As long as she was at the pianoforte, he felt he could listen to it for hours—or for a little while anyway.

He stood there watching her, listening, and thinking how he wanted to take those lovely hands of hers and place them on his bare chest and then slowly move them lower. He wanted to—

“What are you doing?”

Harrison swung around and saw an angry-looking Captain Maxwell standing on the stoop staring at him.

Bloody damn!

What were the odds of them both arriving at the same time? Fate was a nasty blackguard.

“Good afternoon, Captain,” Harrison said and casually walked over to join him. The first thing he noticed was that the captain held a large bouquet of brightly colored, vibrant-looking spring flowers. Just as Harrison had started to buy for Angelina.

Maxwell had noticed Harrison’s pot of half-dead violets, too.

The captain continued to stare at him with malice etched in every feature in his face. “Start explaining yourself.”

The soldier was coming out in the man. Harrison didn’t mind. He would have acted the same way if their roles were reversed.

Remaining calm, Harrison asked, “About what?”

Maxwell’s scowl remained in place. “Looking in Miss Rule’s window as if you were a Peeping Tom.”

Now, that made Harrison angry, but he wasn’t going to give the captain the satisfaction of knowing that. “She’s playing the pianoforte,” he said as the Maltese let loose with a shrieking howl that could have awakened the dead. “And the dog is singing for her,” Harrison added. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see Miss Rule.”

Angelina didn’t know Harrison was coming over. He wondered if she expected Maxwell or if he was showing up unannounced as well.

“What a coincidence. So am I,” Harrison quipped. He reached over, lifted the door knocker, and rapped it three times. Barking sounded from behind the door.

“Quiet now!” Harrison heard the ill-tempered housekeeper yell.

The captain looked at Harrison with a curled-lip stance much the way Sam had looked at him that first day. Harrison had won over Sam; he had no desire to do the same with the captain, but he would like to keep things between them friendly. Maxwell was going to have to do more than this to intimidate him.

“Don’t let me catch you looking in her window again.”

“All right,” Harrison said good-naturedly. “I won’t let you catch me next time.”

The door opened and Mrs. Bickmore looked startled for a moment to see two gentlemen standing on the stoop, both holding flowers. She recovered quickly. “My lord,” she said and curtsied and then turned to Maxwell and said, “Sir, may I help you?”

“I’m here to see Miss Rule,” the captain said.

Harrison smiled at the woman and said, “Me too.”

Mrs. Bickmore stepped aside. They both walked in, taking off their damp hats. Angelina came walking out of the music room holding the small long-haired dog. She glanced from Harrison to Maxwell and back to Harrison again, and he knew. She
was
expecting the officer. Harrison was the interloper. He wasn’t surprised, but he didn’t like the way his stomach clenched for a moment.

Lady Railbridge came out of the drawing room, and her father was walking down the corridor toward them.

“Lord Thornwick, what a pleasant surprise,” Mr. Rule said, smiling broadly and picking up his step.

“Good afternoon, Captain Maxwell, my lord,” Lady Railbridge said, taking the dog from Angelina’s arms.

“Lady Railbridge, Miss Rule, Mr. Rule,” Harrison and the captain said at the same time, neither of them willing to relinquish the right to speak first to the other.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your afternoon,” Harrison said to Angelina when all the greetings had been acknowledged by everyone. “I only stopped by to give you this.” He held the pot out to her. “I knew you would know what to do with it.”

She took the wilted blooms from him and looked at them, seeming to study them. Then, as if the meaning of his gift became clear, she looked up at him, smiled, and said, “Thank you, my lord. I’ll take care of the violets for you.”

“Now that you’re here, Lord Thornwick,” Mr. Rule said, “I insist you stay and have tea with us. I’ve been wanting to talk with you about the possibility of you becoming a member of a small gentlemen’s club I belong to. We don’t have any peers. You would be the first. It would be an honor to have you join us. We’ve already voted on it so you don’t need to do anything but accept.”

“I’m honored, Mr. Rule, but I’m afraid it’s not possible for me to stay today. Perhaps we can discuss it one day at the Heirs’ Club.”

Mr. Rule’s eyes widened. “The Heirs’ Club. Why, that would be splendid. I’ve never been there. I should like that invitation very much, my lord.”

Harrison said his good-byes and left. He stopped on the stoop and replaced his hat on his head. There would be other times for him to see Angelina. The next time he wanted to see her, he’d come on a Thursday afternoon since that was the day her grandmother was always out of the house; with any luck her father would be, too. He’d prefer the captain not be around either.

Harrison would be gentle, cautious, and persistent in his pursuit of Angelina. For now, it would be best if she didn’t know he wanted to make her his. He would let her continue to think he had no interest in her other than what she’d asked of him.

Considering that huge nosegay Maxwell gave Angelina, the soldier might think that he’d won that round. But Harrison knew Angelina better than the captain did, and he hadn’t.

Chapter 15

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

Othello,
Act II, sc. 3

Lord Thornwick was gone almost before Angelina knew why he’d been there. She looked down at the wilted violets and smiled again. That man was unbelievable. He wanted her to take his plant and make it bloom again, but why? Did he think that because she helped wounded dogs, she could help a dying plant? She had no skills in that area whatsoever, but she would see what she could do to save it for him.

But on further thought, she knew it was not like Lord Thornwick to care about a plant. It had to be that the violets were an excuse for him to come over. But why hadn’t he simply asked her the proper way? Because he seldom did anything the proper way.

What a devil he was.

“I brought you flowers,” Captain Maxwell said and extended the bouquet to her.

“Thank you, Captain, they’re beautiful.” She took them in her free hand and smelled them. “And very fragrant, too.” Handing both gifts to Mrs. Bickmore, she said, “Please put the flowers in water and bring them into the drawing room for us to enjoy. Put the violets in the kitchen for me to deal with later.”

Though she had no notion how. She supposed she could try her hand at pruning and repotting them. Maybe she would put them in her painting room so they would have a lot of light. But whether they would revive she had no idea.

She turned back to Captain Maxwell and said, “It appears that the rain is steady.”

“It is,” he said. “I’m sorry the weather hasn’t cooperated for a ride in the park this afternoon.”

“It doesn’t matter. We can do it another day. Let’s go into the drawing room.”

For the first fifteen minutes of Captain Maxwell’s visit her father kept him busy with conversation. She and her grandmother would chime in from time to time. More often than she could count, Angelina found her thoughts drifting to Lord Thornwick and his sudden appearance at her house. Was it possible that he had known the captain would be visiting her today and for some reason he wanted to make an appearance, too? But for what purpose? To put Captain Maxwell on edge?—for surely the officer was when he’d first arrived, and Angelina didn’t blame him. She had reserved this afternoon for him. The captain’s body had been stiff and his expression definitely irritated, if not angry. She supposed it had to be happenstance that he and Captain Maxwell arrived at the same time.

When the chatting had died down and the tea had grown cold, Granna excused herself and her father picked up a book and moved to a chair by the window as was the custom of not leaving a young lady alone with a gentleman.

She sat on one end of the settee and Captain Maxwell on the other. She really didn’t mind looking at his scarring or the patch. They didn’t bother her now that she’d gotten used to them. What did bother her was that she didn’t seem to have any eagerness to be with him or sit closer to him. She had been waiting for him to come home for over a year, so why wasn’t she feeling desperate to talk to him and be alone with him?

It was all Lord Thornwick’s fault. The timing of his arrival today had her and the captain feeling discombobulated.

“How well do you know Lord Thornwick, Miss Rule?” Captain Maxwell asked.

“Not very well,” she answered and as soon as she’d said it, she wondered if it was the truth. Somehow she felt as if she was fibbing because, in a way, she knew the earl very well. He was commanding, arrogant, and self-assured. “Why do you ask?”

“I hesitate to mention this, and maybe I shouldn’t.”

“What?” she asked curiously. “Surely you must know that once you say maybe you shouldn’t mention something, you have to. I will never sleep another wink now until you tell me what you are referencing.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t think about it like that,” he said. His expression turned serious. “It’s just that he troubles me.”

Angelina feared that Captain Maxwell was seeing Lord Thornwick as a rival. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The earl couldn’t have made it any clearer to her that he had no interest in vying for her hand. He was only making a show of interest in her because she begged him to do it for the Season. And she was certain he kissed her only to unsettle her, and he had. He always seemed to be quite happy to do that. Though she would never mention any of these things to Captain Maxwell.

Instead, she asked, “How did he trouble you?”

“It was most disturbing, and I’m not sure I want you to be disturbed by it, too. Perhaps I should tell your father instead.”

“Now you really have me curious and on the edge of my seat, Captain. You must tell me what you are talking about. If I feel my father should know we’ll alert him at once.”

“When I walked up to your house today Lord Thornwick was looking in your music room window.”