The Waltzing Widow/Smith Read online

  “About your brother-in-law, Avedon, you can ease up on the scandal-mongering. That matter is taken care of.”

  “My scandal-mongering?” Avedon asked, his brows lifted up to his hairline. “I can’t imagine what you mean, sir.” They both laughed. “Can I consider that positive?” Avedon asked. “I am eager to return to Chenely.”

  “It’s not for me to say. I’m only a cabinet member, but I think you can go home with a light heart. Rutledge hounded you into this unusual summer visit to London, did he?”

  “No, Lady Sara.”

  “Ah—of course. She is up to all the rigs. Give her my regards.”

  By leaving the next morning Avedon and Mr. Carlton reached home late in the afternoon. Bigelow left a little later. He invited his friends down to Milhaven for a few days, and you couldn’t ask a lady to set out at first light.

  At Chenely Lady Sara took one look at her brother’s smiling face and threw herself on his chest.

  “Adrian, you have done it! You are the best brother in the world.”

  “Morton was a great help. Prinny bit his ear to the tune of fifty guineas. Cheap at the price.”

  Lady Sara blissfully ignored this talk of guineas and said, “I have not been idle while you were away, dear. You will find a certain young lady on thorns, waiting for you to call.”

  “You’ve seen Lucy?” he asked eagerly.

  “Oh, my dear, seen her! We have virtually lived in each other’s pockets. I like her tremendously. She is not one of those bold, forthcoming chits, and even if the family is only genteel, she has such a good fortune. Sixty thousand, I learned from Norris. Not many noble ladies bring that sort of blunt with them—and an uncle who is John’s bishop.”

  “Lucy is expecting me to call?”

  “You have time to speak to her before dinner, if you move quickly. You’d best wash up and put on a clean shirt.”

  “And my best jacket.” Avedon laughed, already darting for the stairs.

  Lady Sara made a run to the pantry to select a ham and have it placed in her carriage, for she would leave tomorrow early to take the news home to John, before he heard it through official channels.

  Lucy, loitering near the parlor window that gave her a view of the road, saw a yellow curricle dashing toward Rose Cottage. It’s reckless pace led her to believe Tony was holding the ribbons, and her heartbeats did not accelerate unduly. His coming, however, suggested that Avedon, too, might be home. Naturally he did not come galloping to see her.

  The curricle made a wild, reckless turn into the entrance to Rose Cottage. Tony was going to fall right into the ditch if he didn’t slow down. Lucy mentally prepared a lecture for him. As the curricle drew closer, she saw that the head and shoulders belonged not to Bigelow but to his uncle. She gasped and fled from the window. She had no intention of being caught in such flagrant spying. When Higgs admitted the caller, she sat leafing desultorily through the latest issue of La Belle Assembleé.

  She looked up with every evidence of disinterest when Avedon was announced. “Oh, you are back,” she said. “We did not expect you so soon. Lady Sara mentioned you might have to go to London as well. I hope your meetings were successful.”

  He advanced into the room, smiling warmly. “Entirely successful.”

  “Good.” She reached for the bell cord. “I shall ask Higgs to bring us some wine, and call Mrs. Percy.” But she didn’t do it. Her hand hovered on the cord, not moving it an inch.

  “No!” he exclaimed, and hurried forward. Lucy assumed a haughty expression. “You can have nothing to say to me that my chaperon might not hear, Avedon.” Her hand remained motionless.

  Avedon took it and removed it from the cord, then closed his fingers firmly over it. “You’re right, of course. This time I mean to do the thing properly. The bishop himself would find nothing to object to.” His voice was warm, and his eyes were hot. He took her other hand, drew her to her feet, and proceeded toward the door.

  Lucy thought he meant to go in search of her aunt, and was furious with him. He closed the door, and turned back to her. “I don’t think we want Higgs listening, however,” he said.

  There was a crackling feeling of tension in the air and a very determined light in Avedon’s eyes. Lucy lifted her chin and said, “What is this great secret we must keep from Higgs?”

  “That I have subverted the entire government. Rutledge is going to be the archdeacon,” he announced.

  “Avedon! Is that all you have to say?” she exclaimed angrily. “Is that why you left? To sneak around, scheming to get a job for your brother-in-law?”

  “We don’t want Sal around our necks when you come to Chenely.”

  “Why should I be going to Chenely?” she asked, with studied obtuseness.

  Avedon looked around the little parlor. “Because I don’t think we would be happy here, and you have already sold Fernbank.”

  A flush crept up her neck and tinged her cheeks to rose. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “I think you do.”

  “I made the error of mistaking you for a gentleman on former occasions,” she reminded him. “This time I shan’t have to walk home at least.”

  “You didn’t walk the last time. You stole my curricle.”

  “It served you right! How dare you come here without even apologizing! And telling Lady Sara I would weed the knot garden,” she charged.

  “Knot garden?” He frowned. “We’ll forget that non sequitur for the time being. I confess I have behaved abominably, Lucy, and so have you. Had you not led us to believe you were a widow, none of those things would have happened—the arguments, the carte blanche, the tiling of the meadow.”

  “The ultimatum regarding the garden party, the brawl at the cathedral,” she added helpfully.

  “Really quite a litany of my sins you have prepared. And I used to be considered a very proper gentleman.”

  “Well, you aren’t! You’re a proud, conceited, arrogant—lecher!”

  “And you have been, within the space of two weeks, a war wife, a widow, a runaway bride—”

  “And a victim,” she added.

  He smiled at her temper tantrum. “There’s only one thing left for you to be.”

  “A corpse, I suppose.”

  “Eventually, but meanwhile, it was my fiancée I had in mind.”

  “You sound as if I have been everyone else’s.”

  He drew her into his arms and gazed at her upturned face. He watched, entranced, as she tried to stop her lips from trembling by pulling the lower one between her teeth. “I don’t give a damn if you have. You’re mine now,” he said, and lowered his head to claim his prize.

  Lucy’s lower lip eased free and was crushed against the assault of his embrace. Her frustrations melted into acceptance as the kiss continued. No memory of Ronald Pewter marred the sublimity of that kiss. It was enhanced by a foretaste of pleasure to come. When he released her, she looked dazed.

  “You might have asked me first,” she said, pouting.

  “I was afraid you’d say no, for spite.”

  “I’m not talking about that kiss. I mean, to be your wife.”

  Avedon lifted her hands and kissed her knuckles. “You have to marry me now. You’ve spoiled me for anyone else. What would I want with some prim and proper bride, when I have gotten accustomed to a delightful baggage like you? I love you so much, I turned into a raving madman when I thought you and Morton—”

  The last vestige of opposition dissolved at his earnest declaration. “Oh, Adrian.” She laughed. “How can you be so foolish? I only went to show you a lesson. I have been wanting to give you one ever since you cut up so stiff at me in the village, before you even knew me.”

  “I knew even then you were going to be trouble. Too pretty by half. Perhaps I was already a little jealous of Tony.”

  “Only a little?” she asked with a smile.

  “Yes, I saved my major fit for Morton. A lucky thing your uncle didn’t recognize me. Shall we te
ll him the news?”

  “Oh, yes. He will want to perform the ceremony.”

  “So will Archdeacon Rutledge,” Avedon said, with a leery look, and went to the door.

  “You mean Lady Sara will want him to.”

  “If worse comes to worst, we can always elope,” Avedon decided. “A dash to Gretna Green, an elegant match over the anvil... All the crack.” He turned a startled face to Lucy. “Good Lord!”

  “Don’t look at me like that. It was your idea.”

  “That’s what amazes me,” he said, and laughed in surprise. “And what amazes me even more, I meant it. You’ve depraved me, Lucy Percy. How can I ever thank you?”

  Certainly Higgs, peering in through the keyhole, thought them both past reclaiming. And with a bishop in the house, too!

  Copyright © 1991 by Joan Smith

  Originally published by Fawcett Crest (ISBN 0449217299)

  Electronically published in 2014 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

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  This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.