Page 65 of The Truth About Lord Stoneville
“Perhaps you should stay out of it, Minerva,” Mrs.Plumtree cut in, her voice frigid. When they looked to her, she added, “They’remydaughter’s pearls, after all. If anyone should say who gets them, it’s me. At least Miss Butterfield has the good sense to realize that.”
As an awkward silence fell upon the company, Maria felt her cheeks heat with mortification. The arch look Mrs. Plumtree shot her grandson showed that she didn’t at all approve of his giving so important a family heirloom to a nobody.
Occasionally during the past week Maria had thought she saw Mrs. Plumtree looking at her with a certain softness in her face, but clearly she’d imagined it.
“They belong tome,Gran,” Oliver snapped. Removing them from the velvet box, he walked behind Maria and clasped them about her neck. “And I will give them to whomever I wish.”
“Please, Oliver,” Maria murmured as the heavy weight of them settled about her throat. “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble.” He moved up beside her to offer her his arm, with a dark scowl for his grandmother.
Maria stole a glance at Mrs. Plumtree, but the woman wouldn’t look at her, obviously still appalled by Oliver’s reckless gift. Why did it matter what the woman thought anyway? It wasn’t as if Oliver actually meant to marry her. If Mrs. Plumtree despised her, then Oliver was more likely to win his strategy, and Maria would be done with this at last.
Yet itdidmatter. Truth was, Maria had grown to likeMrs. Plumtree. She couldn’t say why, except that the lady’s acerbic remarks often matched exactly what Maria herself was thinking.
Two carriages pulled up in front. Freddy announced that he wished to ride in the first one with Jarret and Gabe, whom he’d clearly begun to idolize, and Celia said she’d go along. The young woman did always seem more comfortable with the men than the women.
As Freddy climbed up into the carriage, Maria couldn’t resist one last bit of advice. “Remember to follow the lead of the other gentlemen at the ball. They may do things differently here than in America.”
Freddy thrust out his chin with youthful belligerence. “I’m not a child, Mopsy. I know how to handle myself.”
When that carriage left, and the next one pulled up for her, Oliver, Minerva, and Mrs. Plumtree, Oliver patted Maria’s hand. “Freddy will be fine,” he reassured her in his smooth-as-chocolate voice. “I’ll make certain of it.”
As Oliver was handing his grandmother up into the carriage, Minerva laughed.
With an arch of one eyebrow, Oliver handed Maria up next. “You find that amusing, Minerva?”
“Given the trouble you and Foxmoor and the others routinely got into when you were Mr. Dunse’s age, don’tyoufind it amusing?”
It was the first time any of his family had mentioned Oliver in his youth. Maria tried not to be intrigued but failed. “I can only imagine the sort of havoc Oliver must have wreaked as a boy.”
Oliver handed Minerva in, then climbed in to sit beside her. “We weren’t that bad.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Minerva exclaimed, her eyes twinkling. “One dull evening, he and his friends went to a ball dressed in the livery of the hired footmen. Then they proceeded to drink up the liquor, flirt and wink at the elderly ladies until they were all blushing, and make loud criticisms of the entertainment. After the lady of the house caught on to their scheme and rounded up some stout young men to throw them out, they stole a small stone cupid she had in her garden and sent her a ransom note for it.”
“How the devil do you know that?” Oliver asked. “You were, what, eleven?”
“Twelve,” Minerva said. “And it was all Gran’s servants could talk about. Made quite a stir in society, as I recall. What was the ransom? A kiss for each of you from the lady’s daughter?”
A faint smile touched Oliver’s lips. “And she never did pay it. Apparently her suitors took issue with it. Not to mention her parents.”
“Great heavens,” Maria said.
“Come to think of it,” Oliver mused aloud, “I believe Kirkwood still has that cupid somewhere. I should ask him.”
“You’re as bad as Freddy and my cousins,” Maria chided. “They put soap on all the windows of the mayor’s carriage on the very day he was supposed to lead a procession through Dartmouth. You should have seen him blustering when he discovered it.”
“Was he a pompous idiot?” Oliver asked.
“A lecher, actually. He tried to force a kiss on my aunt. And him a married man, too!”
“Then I hope they did more than soap his windows,” Oliver drawled.
The comment caught Maria by surprise. “And you, of course, have never kissed a married woman?”
“Not if they didn’t ask to be kissed,” he said, a strange tension in his voice. “But we weren’t speaking of me, we were speaking of Dartmouth’s dastardly mayor. Did soaping his windows teach him a lesson?”
“No, but the gift they left for him in the coach did the trick. They got it from the town’s largest cow.”
