Chapter Sixteen

T wo days later, the Duke of Abercorn drove to his office in Westminster and dropped Harry and Jane off at Parliament. When the sisters climbed to the visitors' gallery, they were happy to find it empty.

"Since Parliament has just reconvened after the August break, visitors will be few and far between. The first week back is notorious for being slow and boring."

Jane fixed her eyes on William Montagu. "I'm not bored."

Harry spotted Thomas Anson immediately. His black curly hair made him stand out from the other members. She dragged her glance away from him when Lord John Russell stood and addressed Prime Minister Aberdeen. It took her a moment to realize the topic of discussion was the Crimean War that Britain and France were fighting against Russia. Her uncle John was advocating that Aberdeen should adopt a more aggressive policy in the war.

The minute John sat down, Lord Palmerston was on his feet, criticizing Aberdeen for his policy of appeasement. Palmerston was even more insistent than Lord John that Britain must be more aggressive in the war they were waging.

Harry lost focus on the talk of war, and her glance soon became riveted on Thomas Anson once again. Jane sneezed and Harry opened her reticule to find her a handkerchief. She was surprised that none of the men below even looked up.

Her mouth curved in a mischievous smile as she took an acorn from her fringed bag.

Harry hung over the railing, took careful aim, and let it fly.

When Anson looked to see what had just fallen from above, he spied an acorn sitting beside him on the green leather bench. He glanced up and saw a dark young lady with scarlet poppies in her hair.

The audacious Irish beauty is back! My prayers have been answered.

When Parliament recessed at five, both sisters were eager to go downstairs and wait for the members to leave the floor of the House and gather in the large foyer. They greeted Lord John, and Jane hoped Will Montagu would stop to talk with them. If Harry hadn't given up betting, she would have wagered a guinea that Thomas Anson would be drawn to her.

"Hello, Thomas." Harry didn't offer him her hand to kiss. Instead she spoke to her uncle. "I was delighted to hear you give Aberdeen a hard time."

"My comments were mild compared to Palmerston's." Lord John kissed Harry and Jane on the cheek. "How was Ireland?"

"Eventful."

"Indeed. Your mother wrote to tell me our sister Rachel married Lord James Butler. She also shared the unfortunate circumstances. I approve the match, and hope she is happy."

Harry glanced at Thomas. "Rachel is exceedingly happy. Her husband loves her deeply. Jane, why don't you tell Johnny about our visit to Kilkenny Castle?"

She stepped closer to Thomas to explain the circumstances of Rachel's marriage.

"When James was with us at Barons Court, he received word that his brother John had had an accident and was in a coma. Before he left for Kilkenny, he and Rachel were married. He knew that if his brother died, they wouldn't be able to marry until the mourning period was over." It would be wicked of me to ask after his father's health.

"Yes, I heard that the Marquis of Ormonde had died suddenly." Her words brought home to Thomas his own dire predicament.

"You didn't speak on the floor today."

Thomas lowered his voice. "Lord John and Palmerston are playing a lethal game. They're trying to bring Aberdeen down. Palmerston has ambitions to become the next prime minister."

Will Montagu joined the group. "Lady Harriet, Lady Jane, how lovely to see you both. Were you watching from the gallery?"

"Oh yes, Will," Jane said fervently. "I was able to see your every move."

Montagu's brows shot up in amusement. "All I did was observe the machinations of Lord John and Palmerston."

His remark went over Jane's head, but Harry smiled knowingly. Her glance moved from Thomas to Will as she compared the two young nobles.

Montagu is a gentleman with everything to recommend him. He is already Earl of Dalkeith, and heir to the dukedom of Buccleuch. His family is not only aristocratic; they are extremely wealthy and own Dalkeith Palace to boot. Will is already half in love with me, and would propose marriage if I encouraged him.

Her glance moved back to Thomas. On the other hand, Anson is not always a gentleman. He is heir to the earldom of Lichfield, though you could hardly call his father aristocratic. There is no wealth, but he will inherit Shugborough.

Harry glanced at Montagu . I'm very fond of Will—he will make someone an excellent husband, but not me, I'm afraid.

Harry glanced at Anson. Thomas sets my blood on fire. She realized in that moment she had fallen in love with Thomas Anson. He has stolen my heart!

"Will you need a ride home?" John asked his nieces.

"No, thank you—Father's at his Westminster office today. If we show up, perhaps he'll come home for the night, rather than attend Prince Albert at the palace." As Harry bade the trio of males good-bye, Anson murmured, "Ride with me." Their eyes met, and without further words, Harry knew when and where. Is that an invitation or a command?

She gave no indication whether she would join him or not, because she pretended that she hadn't yet made up her mind.

At dinner that night Lady Lu had an announcement. "I sent Hobson, the footman, to Montagu House with the dinner invitation for tomorrow evening, and Charlotte immediately accepted."

"Did you include Will in the invitation?"

"Jane, having Will Montagu come to dinner is the whole point of the invitation." She glanced at Harry. "Did you see Will when you visited the House today?"

"Yes, we had just greeted Uncle John when Will Montagu joined us."

"Wonderful. Now, Harry, don't think I'm being critical of you, but when Lady Charlotte is here, I would appreciate it if you refrained from vulgar Irish expressions, and stuck to Anglo-Saxon."

"Well, I assume the Irish expression you wish me to refrain from using is shyte. I believe the Anglo-Saxon noun would be shit. And there is a classic Anglo-Saxon verb that begins with the letter f . Would that be acceptable?"

"Depends on whether you're saying it or doing it," young James declared.

Lady Lu looked from her son to her daughter. "If the pair of you are trying to shock me, you will be sadly disappointed. I am thoroughly familiar with the classic Anglo-Saxon verb, both in expressing it and indulging in it. Please pass the salt."

Abercorn grinned. "You should know better than to try to spar with your mother. She was taught by an expert."

Lady Lu smiled. "Cocksure devil."

Harry was up before the lark. When Jane stirred, she told her to go back to sleep. "I have an assignation to go riding and it isn't with Will Montagu." She slipped a snood beaded with crystals over her long dark hair and pulled on a pair of green riding gloves. She had debated whether to wear the same riding dress she'd worn last time, or don the brighter burnt orange outfit. Green is better; it won't show grass stains.

In the stables, she assured Riley that she could saddle her own mount, and they exchanged a look that confirmed his trust that she would not indulge in foolish behavior. A thought tugged on her conscience. You shouldn't trust me, Riley. She thrust the thought away.

When Harry arrived at the Cumberland Gate of Hyde Park, it looked deserted, and for a moment she wondered if she had misinterpreted Thomas's words: Ride with me. Then Victorious emerged from the darkness, and she sighed with relief.

Without exchanging a word, they rode in tandem through the park, across the Serpentine Bridge, and past Kensington Palace.

"It is desecration to let the palace fall into decay," Harry declared.

"We think alike, at least about architecture. It is far less expensive to keep a building in good repair than to let it go to rack and ruin before it gets restored."

"For all we know, we could think alike on other matters. . . . We just haven't explored them yet," she said lightly.

"On the other hand, I've come to believe that opposites can attract to an amazing degree."

"Mm, that's certainly something we could explore."

They rode toward the river, crossed the Thames on Hammersmith Bridge, and followed the river toward Richmond Park.

"Today, we'll eat first before we take our wild gallop."

Harry gave him an appraising look. "You never ask. You make declarations."

"I am decisive by nature."

"Some might call it determined . . . even dominant."

"I am those things too."

"It is admirable to recognize one's faults."

"Those aren't my faults. They are my strengths."

Harry threw back her head and laughed, and it felt good.

When they got to the inn, they drew rein, and just as before, Thomas dismounted in one fluid motion and held up his arms. She looked into his eyes as he lifted her down. They stood with their bodies touching for long moments, enjoying the closeness, and rekindling the intimacy they had once shared.

After the hostler came to take their horses, they walked hand in hand behind the inn, and Thomas opened the door to the walled garden. Because the season had changed, the flowers were different. Bees and butterflies were busy among the anemones, the Michaelmas daisies, and the roses that climbed in profusion up the stone walls.

They sat down at the same rustic table, and when the mobcapped maid came, Thomas ordered them a full breakfast, including fried bread and a jug of ale. When it was served, he ate quickly so he could sit back and observe Harry enjoying her food.

"Can you cook, Harry?"

"In Ireland, I sometimes go to the kitchen and try. Why do you ask?"

"Because you enjoy food. I'd like to teach you to cook. Kitchens have a wonderful, warm atmosphere that panders to all the senses."

She remembered the smell and the taste of the freshly baked bread he'd fed her at Shugborough Hall. Panders to all the senses ... what a sensual phrase. From there, her mind flew to the scene she'd witnessed in the long grass between Rachel and her lover. A sigh of longing escaped her lips, and she was brought back to the present only when Thomas captured her hand across the table.

"Marry me."

Her heart began to hammer. He never requests; he simply declares: Ride with me.

Marry me.

"I would marry you, if I were certain that you loved me, Thomas." She held up her hand. "No, please don't make another declaration. Words cannot convince me."

"What will it take?"

"If . . . if you make love to me, I will know." Your tenderness will show how much you love and cherish me.

He controlled his features, masking the surprise and the shock he felt. "Harry, are you suggesting that I procure a room for us?"

"No." She was breathless. "Nature offers the most romantic setting for making love."

He looked into her eyes and smiled. He knew she was indulging a fantasy, and he was perfectly willing to go along with it, to a point. "Drink up, Harry."

She relished the strength of his arms as he lifted her into her saddle, and savored the power of his thighs as she watched him mount his own horse. Her excitement at what was to come made her pulse race wildly and her heart begin to sing.

Thomas led the way to one of his favorite places. He had always enjoyed it alone, but knew instinctively that Harry would be enchanted. When they came to water, they drew rein together. "This is Barn Elms wetlands. It attracts migrating wildfowl from across the world."

Harry pointed. "Swans."

"They are mute swans—they have black faces. This place has crested grebes, and tufted ducks, as well as teal and goldeneye." A spotted woodpecker flitted from the trunk of one elm to another, and the leafy branches were alive with buntings and warblers.

"This is a magical place. Just look at the butterflies!"

Thomas dismounted and lifted Harry from her saddle. He pointed at some wildflowers. "That's a golden skipper butterfly." He tied the reins of their horses to a tree and pointed to the ivy growing up the trunk. "This is a holly blue."

"How exotic. I've never seen a blue butterfly before. Oh, look, its legs are striped!"

"Dip your hand in the water and hold it out."

Harry did as he bade and was delighted when a butterfly came to her fingers to take a drink. "It's a purple hairstreak from Ireland, but I've never seen one in England before."

He took her hand and kissed it. The butterfly moved to her hair. Thomas reached up and removed the crystal-beaded snood, and her dark hair cascaded onto her shoulders in wild disarray. He cupped her face gently in the palms of his hands and dipped his head to capture her lips in a kiss designed to steal her senses. When he finally withdrew his mouth, she raised her lashes and he saw that her green eyes were dreamy.

Thomas took her hand and led her beneath a spreading elm. As lapwings cried overhead, he knelt in the lush grass and pulled her down before him. He removed his jacket, undid the buttons on the bodice of her riding dress, and laid her back in the grass. He came over her, brushed his lips across her temples, kissed her eyelids, and trailed the tip of his tongue across her cheekbones. When he took possession of her mouth, she opened her lips, inviting his ravishment.

He did not withdraw his mouth until she had been thoroughly kissed, and her lips were bee-stung. As he gazed down at her, her tattooed wrist reached out and she undid the buttons on his shirt. He found it amazingly erotic. Her palm stroked the hard muscles of his chest and she threaded her fingers through the black hair that furred his flesh.

"I once imagined what it must feel like to have my naked breasts pressed against your wide chest. . . . At last I'm about to find out."

He opened the bodice of her riding dress and then unfastened the ribbon on her chemise, freeing the luscious globes from their confinement. He caressed them with his eyes, then his hands. He bent slowly and anointed her breasts with his lips. Then he gathered her against him, rubbing his chest against her nipples until they stood erect with arousal.

"Undress me and make love to me," she gasped.

Thomas brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek and shook his head. "No, Harry. I won't make love to you until you are my wife."

"Why not?" she cried.

"Because there will be pain."

"I don't care!" she cried passionately, thumping his chest with her fist. "I won't agree to marry you until I have irrefutable proof that you love me."

"How can giving you pain prove that I love you? You are being willful, Harry."

Her anger flared and she tried to sit up, but Thomas wouldn't allow it. "You dominant devil! You need to be in control—that's why you won't make love to me."

"Say you'll marry me."

"No!"

Her shout startled the wildfowl into taking wing.

"You've frightened the ducks off the pond, you tattooed little wanton."

The amusement in his eyes caused her anger to melt away, and she began to laugh.

"Marry me."

"Perhaps." Green eyes looked into silver. "But first I want proof that you love me."

"Why the hellfire would I saddle myself with an outrageous baggage who flies in the face of all my principles if I didn't love you?"

Harry gave him back his own words: "Perhaps because I am the daughter of wealthy nobility . . . and I am the most attractive, maddening female in London."

"And perhaps, just perhaps , it's because I love you."

Harry shook her head thoughtfully. "It may not be love. The attraction between us may be the challenge we symbolize to each other. You want to tame me . . . and I want to make you wild! "

"You once told me that if I laid a finger on you, Abercorn would have me thrashed within an inch of my miserable life." Thomas covered her breasts and retied the ribbon on her chemise. Then he buttoned the bodice of her riding dress. He donned his jacket and held out his hand. "We are at an impasse."

She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. Her eyes sparkled with audacity.

"A duke's daughter trumps an earl's son any day of the year."

"I am about to make another declaration. You will marry me, Lady Harriet."

Thomas held out his mother's chair before the pair sat down for dinner together for the first time since he had returned from Staffordshire.

Barbara Anson glanced anxiously at her son and then confessed, "Before you returned, I was sorely tempted to give your father an overdose of laudanum."

Thomas almost choked on his soup. "For God's sake, don't do that, Mother. He can't live much longer, so don't blacken your immortal soul over him."

Barbara gave a mirthless laugh. "After being married to him for so many years, I have stopped believing that we have souls. In any case, if there is such a thing as a loving God, he would give me absolution for ridding the world of such vermin."

Thomas hadn't wanted to tell his mother of his father's vilest threats, but it was obvious he must now reveal at least a half-truth. "Father has signed an affidavit to disinherit me unless I marry an heiress before he dies. If and when I comply, Fowler has instructions to burn the affidavit."

"Surely it wouldn't hold up legally?"

"Attorneys know all sorts of devious methods to make things legal." He tried for a lighter note. "So please don't bump him off until I'm wed."

"Do you have someone in mind, Thomas?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. I am paying court to Lady Harriet Hamilton, the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Abercorn."

His mother's eyes widened in surprise. "You are reaching high, Thomas."

"I will inherit no wealth. I must wed an heiress for the upkeep of Shugborough."

"Do you and Lady Harriet love each other, Thomas?"

Love means different things to different people. We both love Shugborough. "There is certainly a mutual physical attraction."

"Have you asked her to marry you?"

"I asked her this morning." He saw hope dawn in his mother's dark eyes. "She said perhaps. She is hesitant, but I have no doubt that I will be able to persuade her to marry me. The question is, will I be able to do so in the short amount of time that I have?"

"Welcome to Hampden House, Lady Buccleuch." The Duchess of Abercorn smiled warmly and gave her hand to Charlotte's husband, Walter.

"Louisa, please call me Charlotte." She gestured toward the window. "You are directly across from Hyde Park. . . . How very convenient."

Harry and Jane curtsied to the duchess, and then they flanked Will and led him into the drawing room. Though he was enamored with Harriet, he was far too polite to show favoritism in front of her young sister Jane.

"I take it you visited your constituents in Midlothian," Harry said. "August is usually a glorious month in Scotland."

"The weather was good. I'm sorry your family didn't get to visit Scotland this year."

"No, we went to Ireland, which I love and adore. Jane is the one who missed Scotland the most, I believe." Harry gave her sister a speaking glance. I'll do my very best to make you irresistible in Will's eyes.

Jane finally found her tongue. "Did you stay at Dalkeith Palace?"

"I did indeed, for the most part."

"Does it make you feel like a prince to live in a palace?" Jane asked ingenuously.

His eyes lit with amusement. "Scottish princes didn't fare too well in history."

"Well, certainly Macbeth didn't," Harry teased.

Young Hamilton joined them. "Hello, Will. Been to Hazard House lately?"

"That is not a fit subject for mixed company," Harry admonished.

"Just because you've sworn off gambling doesn't mean the rest of us are going to sit in the corner and eat pickled Bibles."

"Actually, James, your sister has a point. The gaming house has an unsavory reputation. I'd stay clear if I were you."

"Oh well, I'm off to Oxford shortly. Just thought I might have one last fling before I'm submerged in academia."

"James, when you get there, start up a petition that they accept women scholars," Harry suggested.

"If I start a petition for females, it won't be for scholars," he jested.

Harry glanced at Will. "You'll have to excuse my brother. He's just discovered the opposite sex, and is rather obsessed at the moment."

When dinner was announced, Abercorn partnered Charlotte Montagu and led the way into the dining room. Louisa threaded her arm through Walter Montagu's and followed. Will, ever gallant, offered his arms to both Harriet and Jane and the trio went in to dinner, with James bringing up the rear.

When Harry saw that her mother had placed Will between her and her brother, she quickly moved the place cards so that he would be seated between her and Jane. The grateful look her sister gave her told Harry that she was the happiest person in the room.

The dinner conversation ran the gamut from Ireland to Scotland, from weddings to funerals, from politics to war, and finally to horses and racing. When the guests moved into the drawing room for after-dinner drinks, the conversation moved on to the royal family, then to art, literature, and finally opera.

"I'm taking Louisa to the ballet on Saturday. Marie Taglioni is performing La Sylphide ," Abercorn declared.

"I always think the male dancers' costumes rather risqué," Charlotte Montagu said repressively. "Didn't you used to dance, Your Grace?"

"She still does," Abercorn said before Lady Lu eviscerated their guest with a rapierlike riposte. "When we were married, I had a stage built for her at Barons Court, Ireland."

"How extraordinary," Charlotte murmured. "Do you dance, Lady Harriet?"

"Only in the ballroom, Your Grace. My dancing is not proficient enough to perform onstage. My sister Jane is the one who has inherited my mother's graceful talent."

Will spoke to Harry quietly. "I'd like to escort you to the ballet on Saturday."

"Thank you so much, Will," Harry said softly. "In all fairness, and before I accept, I must tell you that Thomas Anson and I have made up our quarrel."

Will gave her a look that told her he understood how she felt about Thomas. "I'm glad that you are friends again, but I'd still like to take you to the theater."

"Then I accept your invitation wholeheartedly, Will."

When the Montagu family took their leave, Louisa, Harriet, and Jane escorted them downstairs to bid them good night.

"You behaved delightfully. I was proud of you, Harry. Jane, whatever happened to the lovely material we brought from Ireland? It is high time you had some new dresses."

Harry noticed an envelope on the floor underneath the table where the post was placed each morning. She bent down to pick it up. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw it was addressed to her, and that it was stamped with the Anson monogram.

She opened it quickly and scanned the letter. It's not from Thomas; it's from his mother.

My Dear Lady Harriet:

I hope you won't think me presumptuous if I invite you to supper on Friday evening.

My son will not be at home. It will be just the two of us. I hope you will accept. It will provide the opportunity for us to meet and become acquainted.

Barbara Philips Anson,

Countess of Lichfield

Harry went to the drawing room, sat down at the desk, and penned her acceptance. The thought of being invited to St. James's Square to meet Thomas's mother filled her with curious anticipation.