Page 215 of The Ladies Least Likely
“Lady Renwick.” Harriette curtsied. She could not suppress a small thrill when the countess responded in kind. The action was stiff and forced, as if she bobbed on marionette strings, but to Harriette’s satisfaction, the countess achieved the requisite depth to acknowledge the daughter of a duchess. Oh, some of this was going to be great fun.
“My son is eager to welcome you to our home,” the countess went on. Harriette noticed she did not saywe.
“Myhome, Mother,” Ren said steadily, but Harriette flinched. She caught the trace of a prior argument in the thin lines around his mother’s eyes and the way she would not look at her son directly. Humble pie was clearly not her ladyship’s favorite meal.
“But I’m afraid my daughter is not well. She is in no condition to receive guests.”
“Amalie was p-p-perfectly well when I l-left her fifteen minutes ago,” Ren replied. “She has agree—agreed to receive Rhette. In fact she said she is eager to m-meet her.”
His mother appealed to Ren, something haunted and desperate in her eyes. “Renwick, don’t do this to her. Don’t subject her to—to stares, and talk, and?—”
“Did you not see her groom outside?” Ren snapped. “Have you not seen her sketches of me?” Anger made him eloquent; the stammering his mother usually caused vanished. “Harriette is not going to sh-shriek and faint at the sight of deformities.”
Harriette tightened her grip on his arm. She hated being the cause of discord between Ren and his mother, but she would not abandon Ren by ducking away. Curiosity drove her as well. She wondered what tiny flaw made the countess want to hide her own daughter from sight. She had hidden Ren in Shepton Mallet as if she were ashamed of him for nothing more than a clubfoot and stammer. Worse, she had impressed her shame upon her son, so convincing him of his inadequacies that even now, as a man grown into his full magnificence and beauty, Ren flinched before his mother’s disapproval.
“I do not care what your tart thinks,” the countess snapped. “I care that my daughter not be humiliated and exposed.”
The muscle under Harriette’s fingers grew taut with Ren’s fury. “You will apologize for that insult.”
The countess stood, a lone, small figure on the great twisting stair, the tall portraits of her husband’s ancestors looming above her with blank, disinterested eyes. The blonde lace over her neckline fluttered as she drew a sharp, angry breath.
“I won’t have any part of this.” She rushed from the stairs through a door across the foyer, into what looked like a dining parlor.
Harriette tugged gently at Ren’s arm, drawing him out of his glower. “Perhaps I ought to go.”
He tightened his elbow about her hand, keeping her from escape as he drew her down the hall toward the morning room at the rear of the house. “You just arrived.”
“I seem to be upsetting everyone. And if your sister doesn’t wish to receive me…”
“That was my mother talking. Amalie wants to meet you.”
He turned and faced her before the paneled door that led to the morning room, across from another set of doors that let out into the gardens. He was sobigwhen she was close to him. The lanky boy had filled out to a man of impressive proportions, though she overlooked the sheer breadth of him because his nature was so gentle. Frustration and turmoil brought out the blue of his eyes.
“Yes, but should she? Meet me, I mean. The stares we received today, Ren, just out and about, and the people collected across the street—you saw them. I’m not just notorious now. I’m—I’m something worse.” She gripped his forearms, trying to reason with him.
He cupped his hands over her elbows. Heat rose through the thin fabric of her sleeves, anchoring her to him. “Rhette.” He struggled to keep his breath even, his words fully formed. “This is imp-portant to me. P-please.”
She stared into his eyes, caught in the silver shafts that radiated through the iris. Those blue eyes were an unfairadvantage, especially over females. Why could she not resist him, even if it was in his best interest for her to leave him alone? Look at what happened in her studio. She’d listed all the reasons they couldn’t give into passion, and in the next instant she was throwing herself headlong into passion, inhaling him as if he were her life’s breath, rubbing herself against that beautiful body like some wanton cat, trying to pull him into her arms as if she meant to keep him there forever.
Heaven help her, but she had the urge to do so again. Right now.
“All right,” she whispered. “Be it on your head if your mother is right and I ruin your sister.”
“Thank you.” His lids lowered, hooding his eyes, and she recognized the instant that his emotion shifted into desire, as if sparked by her lascivious thoughts. She lifted her chin to meet his lips as he bent to kiss her. Common sense fled the moment his warm breath touched her cheek.
It was a chaste kiss, his lips plucking hers as if sipping nectar from a flower. He held her elbows, no other part of their bodies touching, and yet this tender embrace left her in flames hotter than any of the others. It was more than a simple animal craving to be close to him. It was a seal on the bond that had formed between them that long-ago summer, that connection, that companionship, that absolute trust.
A shimmer of new knowledge moved down her throat and circled her heart, then settled in her belly. She would never be able to resist Ren. She would lay down anything he wanted, his for the asking. Her body. Her future. Her life.
Best not let him know that. She pulled away, lifting her chin and patting cautiously at her curls. Her hair alone had been the production of an hour, with Melike wielding the hair irons, Natalya directing the placement of pads and pins, and Sorcha standing by with her favorite lavender powder. This hair neededto be taken to Marylebone Pleasure Gardens; it was a work of art.
Besides, she couldn’t stand here kissing Ren all day, much as she’d like to. “I’m read—” She trailed off.
“Oh. Dear me. I’ve interrupted.”
In the doorway to the morning room stood a young lady, tall and slender and very pale. She had a cloud of white-blonde hair, the color Ren’s had been when he was younger, though his had now darkened to a brown with honey streaks. Her wide blue eyes held surprise and curiosity—no, only one eye was blue, Harriette realized as she stared. Her left eye was brown. The girl wore an open robe of pale primrose silk over a delicate white petticoat, white lace over her bodice, and a prim white scarf pinned atop the lace. Her face was as white as her linens, though her lips were red, or what Harriette could see of her lips behind the slender hand she held over her mouth.
“Amalie,” Ren said warmly. “This is my Rhette.LadyHarriette of Löwenburg, I am p-pleased to say. Rhette, this is my sister, Lady Amalie Matheson, lately of Bolton Abbey, currently of London for now and, I hope, a good deal longer.”
