When Harry Met Molly (26 page)

Chapter 35

The men were getting impatient. It was taking longer for the ladies to get ready than they’d anticipated, so they lit more cheroots and drank more brandy.

Sir Richard leaned over to Harry. “I still believe something’s not quite right with you and Delilah, Traemore, and I shan’t give up trying to find out.” He’d spoken loud enough for all the men to hear.

Now that Harry knew why Sir Richard disliked him more than he disliked everyone else, he tried to be—maybe not completely kind, but kinder. Especially as he was still not at liberty to divulge the truth to Bell about what had really happened to his sister.

“Try all you want, “Harry told him. “I couldn’t give a fig, to tell the truth. Would you like a light for that cheroot?”

“No.” Sir Richard scowled. “Not from you.”

“Do you really think any of us will be inclined to wish you good luck tonight when you are such a horse’s ass, Bell?” said Maxwell, blowing a smoke ring in his direction.

“I don’t need your good wishes,” Sir Richard replied. “You are obligated by oath to choose the best mistress tonight. I know how honorable you gentlemen are. You won’t allow personal differences to stand in the way of fairness.”

“If you mean we won’t let Bunny pay the price for your shortcomings, then I suppose you’re right,” said Arrow.

“See?” said Sir Richard. “I can count on you fools to be sickeningly honest in your assessments of the women.”

“We most definitely can’t count on
you
to do the same,” stated Lumley.

“An Impossible Bachelor stops at nothing to retain his lofty status as a man among men,” said Sir Richard. “My tactics are perfectly unexceptional and, sadly for you dolts, unidentifiable. They shall remain locked in the vault of my brain, only to be shared perhaps with the occasional by-blow who might seek advice about how to avoid the parson’s mousetrap.”

“Advice which includes ensnaring respectable virgins and seducing them,” said Arrow, “then threatening to deny everything if they dare tell their mamas how you crawled through their windows past midnight to deflower them.”

“And you object to that sort of thing?” Sir Richard said in that world-weary voice of his.

Harry stamped out his cheroot. Sir Richard was an enigma. He was angry because he was sure Harry had seduced his sister, yet his whole adult life he’d prided himself on seducing everyone
else’s
sisters.

“I object to
any
young lady being taken advantage of, Bell,” said Harry.

“I don’t believe that,” Sir Richard growled. “Your history says otherwise. Prove it by marrying one of those young ladies, Traemore. I’ll be laughing from the back of the church.”

Ouch. Harry knew he
should
marry Molly, shouldn’t he? He was suddenly unable to think of a single retort.

Lumley filled in for him. “Don’t be so sure
you
won’t be the one at the altar, Bell.”

Bunny came to the curtain and announced that the ladies were ready.

Harry stood, vowing not to let Sir Richard disturb his equanimity again tonight. Facing the other bachelors, he held up an envelope. “Tonight we come to our last competition. According to Prinny’s wishes, the women will perform dramatic readings they’ve selected themselves. I’ve a note from His Royal Highness that I must read aloud to you.”

He took a few seconds to remove the note from the envelope, and read:

My Impossible Bachelors, you shall judge the ladies tonight on many things: beauty, comportment, originality, charm, and dramatic skills. But, above all, before you cast your last vote for this year’s Most Delectable Companion, you might ask yourself the following crucial question:
Which lady, other than my own, is the most unforgettable, and why?

Of course, at the start of this week, you might have wondered why your Prince Regent takes so much interest in your lives that I would arrange this extensive wager and command you to participate.

Gentlemen, I write to you in confidence. The people claim the merry path I’ve chosen has exacted a great price not only on my country—but on my very soul. I am ceaselessly urged to bolster the health of both.

Well, my friends, you must know serious endeavors bore me. But in a nod to my detractors—and with a devilish wish to irk them as well—I created this frivolous bet as a means to share with you, the next generation of English gentlemen, what paltry wisdom I may have accrued in this lifetime.

You know as well as I how difficult it is to behave. A wastrel they may call me, but I’m not completely addled. And one thing I’ve learned in this wicked life of mine is that women don’t need us as much as we need them.

Lowering, isn’t it, to find that your own best destinies may very well lie in the hearts of those women who deign to love you?

My Impossible Bachelors, I leave you to ponder that possibility in your own brandy-soaked hearts. Good luck and Godspeed.

His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent

“Ye gads,” said Sir Richard.

Harry folded the note and put it in his breast pocket. “I rather like Prinny better when he’s not so acute in his perceptions,” he drawled.

“Those moments are brief, I assure you,” Maxwell commented dryly.

Lumley scratched his head. “The woman he was with at the club probably dictated that in his ear.”

“Must forget the letter ever happened,” Arrow muttered around his cheroot. He waved at Harry. “Let’s move on, as quickly as possible.”

There was a chorus of affirmatives.

Harry was glad to know he wasn’t the only bachelor discomfited by Prinny’s words. “Remember,” he said, “at the conclusion of the show, we shall tally the votes, add them to those accrued by the mistresses all week, and if all goes accordingly, present the title of Most Delectable Companion to one of these lovely ladies.”

He went to the curtain and pulled it to the side. “Let the finale begin!”

Chapter 36

Molly was last in the lineup, her stomach in knots. Last night, when she’d let slip that crazy idea that Harry should marry her, and he’d soundly but kindly rejected the notion, she’d faced up to facts. She and Harry were best together as friends. Friends who occasionally removed each other’s clothes and kissed each other senseless.

It sounded rather like an arrangement between a man and his mistress, didn’t it? A romp between the sheets, a good laugh, and…

No commitment.

If she won tonight, his inevitable fate—marrying Anne Riordan—would be delayed. But only for another year. Anne was bound to catch up with him sometime.

And if Molly lost, he would help her find another man to marry.

She released a shaky breath. Why was there no good solution? She was damned if she won and damned if she lost.

Either way, she and Harry would be apart. Forever.

But friends, she consoled herself, until one of them got married.

Friends of a special nature.

He didn’t know it, but that was what she was going to tell him after this week was over, that she would be his mistress. And just as he did last night when she’d suggested the same thing, he would balk, he would say no, and she would simply carry the day by kissing him and getting him to change his mind.

It was as fine a solution as any to her constant emotional turmoil.

Wasn’t it?

From behind the makeshift dressing room’s curtain, Molly could see Bunny walk on stage in her extremely revealing gown. She curtsied to her male audience, all of whom clapped madly for her and whistled. The light from the torches flickered over her body, highlighting her curves, exposing flesh beneath the gaping holes in her gown, and leaving shadows in all the right places. The jewels she wore in her hair, on her neck, and on her wrists glinted and sparkled.

She’d never appeared more beautiful, Molly thought.

The men quieted for a moment, the mood expectant, as Bunny opened the book
Tristram Shandy
. But when she began to read a portion of the familiar and hilarious tale of the long-nosed stranger from Strasbourg, they chuckled.

“‘I have made a vow to St. Nicholas this day, said the stranger, that my nose shall not be touched,’” read Bunny in a pompous voice, and as she continued the tale, the bachelors laughed—everyone but Sir Richard, that is. He sat with his arms crossed over his chest, and his lower lip stuck out.

And no wonder.
He
could be the long-nosed stranger from Strasbourg!

Molly wondered if that was Bunny’s intent all along.

When she exited the stage with a bright smile on her face, Molly hugged her. “Were you doing what I think you were doing?”

“Yes,” Bunny said, her voice catching, “and I’m never going to be alone with him again. Lord Harry’s promised me a footman to guard my bedchamber tonight, and he’s also informing Sir Richard he has the choice of sleeping in the stables or leaving this evening after the program. He assures me Sir Richard will stay far away from me from now on, and he’s teaching me how to shoot a pistol just in case he ever shows up again!”

“Wonderful!” Molly hugged her again.

Athena strode past them to the stage. “I need silence,” she hissed.

“Sorry,” whispered Molly—too late—and looked at Bunny.

They both had to bite their lips to keep from laughing. Athena, much as they’d come to appreciate her, was always…Athena.

She positioned herself center stage, her shoulders thrown back. And with a twist of her lips, an arch of her brow, and an unholy glint in her eye—transformed herself into Lady Macbeth.

“Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top full

Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood…”

Of course, Molly noted with envy, Athena had refused to
read
her passage. She’d memorized it, as all good actresses do. And at the moment she was living and breathing it, as all
great
actresses do.

She’d positioned herself so the torchlight cast shadows under her face, making her appear even more evil and demented than she sounded. The tattered, gaping dress added to the effect, especially when she swung her arms madly as she stalked about the stage.

“She appears possessed by a demon,” Bunny whispered, and grabbed Molly’s arm, which had gotten goose bumps as soon as Athena had begun speaking.

“Look at the men,” Molly whispered back.

The bachelors sat in stunned silence. Sir Richard loosened his cravat. Lumley cringed as Athena swept by him, and even Lord Maxwell’s stoic expression faltered. He blinked several times and drank from his flask when she demanded:

“Come to my woman’s breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers…!”

At one point, she made a face so frightening that Hildur announced quite loudly, “She is a hound from hell!” into a void of silence. For at that exact moment, Athena ceased her performance.

She stood there, trembling, and for a few seconds, no one spoke or moved. But Lord Maxwell began a slow clapping. And all the other bachelors joined in until they were all applauding madly—with admiration and possibly a little relief, Molly surmised.

She couldn’t help being glad the performance was over herself. When a moment later, a depleted Athena rejoined the mistresses, Molly swallowed and tried to say, “Well done,” but she only got as far as “Well—” before her throat tightened.

“Yes, very—” Bunny began, but her voice trembled so much, she shut her mouth.

“Oh, it’s just me now, you ninnies,” Athena said. “Not Lady Macbeth.”

But her lips curved in a self-satisfied smile. Apparently, she was well pleased to have frightened them so.

The whole mood changed when Joan walked onto the crude stage next.

“She’s so different now, isn’t she?” Molly asked Bunny. “She’s no longer bitter and angry. She seems…at peace.”

“Tonight, especially,” Bunny replied. “And she looks glorious.”

Yes, she did, thought Molly. Joan’s gown was slit every which way, a chaotic golden backdrop in deep contrast to her stark beauty.

“I shall read ‘Lullaby of an Infant Chief,’” she said in a clear, strong voice, and smiled serenely at her audience. “Composed by Sir Walter Scott.”

Molly drew in a sharp breath of recognition. She suspected Joan had chosen the poem in honor of her own son. No wonder she wouldn’t share any information with the ladies about what she was to read! Up until a few days ago, hers had been a private pain.

Joan knelt on the ground, bowed her head, and closed her eyes, as if preparing herself. When she opened her eyes a few seconds later, she made a curve of her left arm and gazed at the empty space there, as if she were cradling a baby.

“Oh!” said Bunny, and looked at Molly, little tears in her eyes.

Molly immediately welled up, too.

Joan began to rock slowly back and forth. And from a paper held in her right hand, she read:

“O hush thee, my babie, thy sire was a knight,

Thy mother a lady, both lovely and bright.

The woods and the glens, from the towers which we see,

They are all belonging, dear babie, to thee…”

The men were silent, but Molly could tell by their respectful faces they enjoyed Joan’s solemn but heartfelt reading. Lumley even surreptitiously wiped at his cheek with a handkerchief.

When she was done, the men again clapped madly. She curtsied, threw them kisses, and left the stage.

“You were wonderful!” Bunny told her.

Molly hugged Joan. “We’re so proud of you.”

“Thank you both,” she said with a sniffle.

Athena came running up. “Where’s Hildur? She goes on next! We can’t have a delay.”

But she’d disappeared. Molly’s heart skittered. She’d worked so hard with Hildur on her poem! What could have happened to her? Where could she be?

Thirty seconds passed, which was an age in the theater, according to Athena. With the aplomb of a seasoned actress, she walked onto the stage area, folded her hands, and said, “We shall have a brief intermission as it seems that Hildur is missing—”

“Wait!” Hildur cried from somewhere in the shadows. “I am
here
!”

And she entered stage left, a large scroll in one hand, as well as a stripped tree branch in the other.

Before Athena exited stage right, she threw a brief, concerned glance at the other mistresses.

“What’s Hildur about?” Molly said. “The scroll is her poem, but why the branch?”

“And the sly smile?” Joan added.

“I’ve no idea,” Bunny replied, “but I’m worried.”

Athena shuddered. “Up close, she had a fierce Icelandic look in her eye that almost struck fear in my bold English heart. I believe it was the same look her ancestors had when they invaded other countries.”

“Everything all right, Hildur?” Captain Arrow called out to her from the audience.

Hildur’s brow was smooth, like an ice queen’s, but then it furrowed. She stamped the butt of the tree branch on the ground and said, “No! It’s not all right!” And she threw the branch to the ground.