The Houseparty (13 page)

"But of course, Mama," he said indulgently, reassured as to his loveliness.
"Contessa'"
He held out one plump arm, and that lady accepted it, smiling demurely into his rosy face.

The couples arranged themselves swiftly. Too swiftly, Elizabeth thought disgustedly. Lady
Elfreda
immediately commandeered both elderly gentlemen,
Brenna
grabbed for an absentminded Sumner, and Elizabeth, by rising and greeting Adolphus, found
herself
squarely in between the two remaining gentlemen, Michael
Fraser
and Rupert St. Ives. They both moved swiftly, but
Fraser
was the faster of the two. She found that she had no choice but to accept his arm, despite the belligerent glower on his tanned face. But apparently the glower was for Rupert, not her.

"You know, you needn't accept
Fraser
as your dinner partner, Elizabeth," he said coldly, ignoring Michael completely.

"Miss Traherne knows that perfectly well," Michael replied
,
placing a possessive hand over hers as it rested on his arm. She had little doubt that if she tried to pull away, the fingers would tighten unmercifully.

"If you'd prefer not to associate with traitors, Elizabeth, you could take my arm," Rupert grated out.

The fingers tightened anyway as rage flooded Fraser's usually impassive face. "Are you interested in fighting for the lady, St. Ives?"

"I have some consideration for my hostess," he replied stiffly. "I am waiting to hear from Elizabeth."

Elizabeth found that despite the nervousness such a bellicose air was arousing in the area of her
stomach,
she was actually enjoying having two exceedingly handsome gentlemen fight over her. But she knew she would be deceiving herself if she really believed Elizabeth Traherne was the bone of contention between these two snarling beasts.

"Captain
Fraser
claimed me first, Rupert," she said gently. "If my hostess accepts him, then I must do so too."

"Very well, Elizabeth. But remember, I'll be nearby if you require assistance." He marched out of the room without a backward glance, leaving Elizabeth alone with Michael
Fraser.
There was a dangerous expression on his face, one that didn't soften when he looked down at his dinner partner. He wasn't wearing his uniform tonight, and his somber black coat did nothing to detract from the strong back and shoulders. Here was one who'd have no need of corsets and buckram padding in his shoulders. The only thing that would improve him, Elizabeth thought objectively, would be a more amiable nature. He glowered down at her as disagreeably as he had glowered at Rupert, and she responded with an impish smile.

"Are we going to be at dagger drawing again?" she inquired. "I thought we had declared some sort of truce this afternoon."

"Then you mistook the matter. What happened this afternoon was an even stronger declaration of war. Unless you've thought better of my suggestion and decided to keep that delightful nose out of things that don't concern you.

Elizabeth
couldn't resist reaching to touch that feature, having never had the felicity of hearing it described as delightful in her short life. "I hadn't realized it was merely a suggestion on your part," she said sweetly. "It sounded more like an order to me."

"An order you chose to ignore."

"I don't happen to be your subaltern, Captain," she fired back. "I'm certain there's nothing you'd like better than to have me under you and forced to obey your commands." The moment the unfortunate words were out of her mouth, she stopped, horrified, a deep red suffusing her features.

Fraser
smiled down at her, a glint of laughter in his eyes. "I am certain you would rather have me not reply to that remark," he said gently, his low, deep voice amused.

"Yes," she said in a strangled tone of voice. They had almost reached the great dining hall. Surely he wouldn't say anything outrageous as long as they were in earshot of the others.

"Let me know when you'd like an answer to that question, Lizzie," he requested calmly.
"Perhaps once this weekend is over."

She could feel the betraying color subsiding as he held the chair for her. "Yes," she said limpidly. "I shall be very busy this weekend." She smiled up at him defiantly.

It was a spur of the moment thing, Elizabeth realized, and
foolish beyond permission. Lady Elfreda had ordered her guests into the ballroom. General Wingert had started off alone, and Elizabeth, hoping to gain some insight into the enigma of Michael
Fraser,
followed the elderly
gende
- man willy-nilly into a long deserted hallway running along the side of the gardens.

"General Wingert, I wonder if you could help me?" she began in her prettiest tone of voice, running to catch up with him.

The stout little fellow turned and stared
measuringly
at Elizabeth out of dark, protuberant eyes as he ran his tongue over his thin pink lips. "And which chit are you, hey?" he barked, moving closer and pressing that large, commanding stomach against her. "Not a favorite of
m'sister's
, are you, gel?"

As she tried to edge away, one pudgy, surprisingly strong hand reached out and caught her arm in a viselike grip, and he moved even closer. He exuded an unpleasant odor of
a nauseatingly
sweet cologne, his fingers dug into the tender flesh of her arm, and to her amazement and indignation she felt a fumbling hand reach behind and pinch her.

"Why don't we take a small stroll in the garden? We can talk out there. I'll help you, and then you can help me," the general suggested in a tone that failed to allow for refusal. "Nice
night,
and you're a taking thing. A bit too tall, but you've a
demmed
nice
figger."
And he began pulling her toward the French doors off the hallway as Elizabeth foundered helplessly for excuses.

"General Wingert!" Like
a deus ex machina,
Michael Fraser's voice broke through the aging lecher's concentration, and with a particularly foul curse he released Elizabeth so abruptly that she fell back against the wall, staring in wonder as
Fraser
caught up with his superior. "Sir Henry wondered if you could spare him a few moments, sir. He says it's urgent."

The general's beady little eyes ran over Elizabeth's trembling figure with a lingering glance. "Not now,
Fraser,"
he barked. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

The rebuke didn't faze Michael in the slightest.
"Yes, sir.
But Sir Henry was quite insistent."

"What was he insistent about?" The
contessa's
lazily amused voice drifted past them as her elegant, black-clad figure moved into the hallway. "There you are, Miss Traherne! I had been wondering where you got to. Your brother tells me you play divinely, and unfortunately Lady Elfreda failed to arrange for musicians. We cannot dance unless we can prevail upon your generosity." Taking the same arm that the general had so recently manhandled, she led Elizabeth down the corridor without a backward glance.

Once they were out of earshot, she dropped Elizabeth's arm, the feline smile still in place. "You ought to watch out for the general, my dear. He has a fancy for very young ladies. I wouldn't suggest you encourage him. He has some rather exotic habits that I fear would both alarm and disgust you.
Much better to leave him to an old campaigner like me."

"Contessa,
I assure you, I have no interest in the general whatsoever," Elizabeth stammered, both horrified and fascinated by the
contessa's
hints.

By that time
Fraser
had caught up with them, a fierce glower on his dark face. "If you don't watch your step, Miss Traherne, you'll have no say in the matter. The general isn't one to be balked of what he wants. Keep away from him."

Elizabeth's temper flared. "Is that an order?" she inquired sweetly.

"If you choose to see it that way," he rejoined. "Or you can see it merely as a piece of friendly advice."

"I hadn't realized you were my friend," she shot back,
then
bit her tongue as she caught the
contessa's
entertained expression. "I beg your pardon," she murmured, color high in her face. "I thank you both for your concern.
I . . .
I believe I'm needed in the ballroom." And she vanished into the room.

The
contessa
smiled up at
Fraser,
greatly amused. "So the wind sits in that
direction,
does it, my friend?
How very interesting."

What Lady Elfreda had no doubt considered an absolute whirl of dissipated pleasures struck Elizabeth as deadly
boring.
Three couples had been added to the uncomfortable little party in order to make up several tables of whist and allow for dancing. As the three couples—the
Marshbanks
; Sir
Junius
Harford and his meek wife, Lady Helena; and the
Dantons
—were all of Lady Elfreda's generation and temperament, the additions were not a success. It was soon discovered that Elizabeth was the only guest who had the slightest claim to musicality, and therefore she found herself spending the next few hours after dinner playing the pianoforte with stolid determination while Sumner and Rupert took turns waltzing with the flirtatious
contessa, Brenna
suffered Adolphus to tread all over her toes, and the elderly couples played whist with gimlet-eyed determination. Michael looked on from a spot in the corner, not even offering, Elizabeth thought disconsolately, to turn the pages for her. She could comfort herself with the realization that at least he didn't choose to dance with the
contessa.

One look at Brenna's great green eyes and the expression of acute misery therein convinced Elizabeth that her brother was even a greater fool than she had first imagined. If such a thing was possible, she added, missing a note in her amusement. If there was ever such a cod's head!

Another missed note, and Elizabeth redirected her attention to the pianoforte for a few moments. When she looked up again, Michael Fraser's tall, lean figure had disappeared from the wall where he had been leaning nonchalantly; he was nowhere in sight.

Immediately deciding that the man was up to no good, Elizabeth speeded up the tempo, disconcerting the couples no end, and then brought the waltz to an abrupt halt. She rose from the bench hastily before her audience could demand an encore that would give them an excuse to hold a member of the opposite sex in their arms for a longer period of time.

"I need a short rest," she said somewhat breathlessly as Sumner cast
her a
glowering look, reluctantly releasing the
contessa's
clinging black form.
"Perhaps a breath of fresh air."

None of the gentlemen seemed disposed to accompany her, which, though offensive, was just as well. Adolphus had taken advantage of Sumner's temporary inattention and claimed the
contessa's
hand, and Sumner had more pressing duties than squiring his
unencouraging
sister about a
springlike
garden. Besides, it was dashed raw out there. Even Rupert had wandered off to oversee the aging card players.

The terrace was deserted as Elizabeth made her solitary way across it. In the sparse moonlight the towers loomed in the distance above her head, giving her an uneasy little shiver of apprehension.

One of Winfields'
s
most innovative and pretentious remodelers, the fourth Adolphus Wingert (the current incumbent was the sixth of that name), had decided that the Wingert family residence needed something truly impressive to inform the entire countryside of their consequence. Therefore, he had ordered the erection of four enormous towers of ancient Norman design at each corner of the rambling building. As it was the mid-eighteenth century, and Norman towers looked attractive only when they were crumbling, Adolphus had incorporated a cunningly crumbling effect over the stonework. Sadly enough, the crumbling had proved more thorough than one could have hoped so that, less than a hundred years later, all but one of them had been declared unsafe.