How to Seduce a Scot (3 page)

“Catherine Middlebrook is coming to tea tomorrow,” Mary Elizabeth said.

Alex felt a strange sense of elation at the thought of seeing Catherine Middlebrook again. A simple family tea with a lovely debutante should not matter to him, but the idea of that serene angel in his home brought him simple pleasure, as if tomorrow had become suddenly brighter.

“Who?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

“The only girl you danced with tonight—the sweet blonde from Devon. She hardly has a thing to say, but I think that's because she's been taught to mind her tongue in company.”

“What an idea.”

“Indeed.” Mary Elizabeth nodded as if he had agreed with her on the foolishness of that. “I will have to train that out of her.”

“Is she your new hound dog, then?”

Mary Elizabeth smiled at her brother fondly. “Alex, you know I don't hunt with dogs.”

He was feeling oddly lighthearted now that her friend's name had been mentioned, and he did not like to think of why. His eyes were full of the sight of her back turning on him, just as his nose was still full of the scent of warm roses and sunlight. He tried to force himself to think of the cold running waters near Glenderrin, of the icy North Sea his brother often sailed—anything but that honeyed angel and her warm green eyes.

“I tell you that she is coming to tea tomorrow with her mother and her sister so that you and Robert know to be on your best behavior. She is my first friend in London, and I want to make a good impression.”

“Will you serve her barley cakes and honey?”

“No, you rascal. The duchess's French pastry chef will come up with some comfit or other. Maybe a cake stuffed with cream. I'll bet Catherine would like that.”

“Catherine, is it? You know her so well then.”

Mary Elizabeth leveled a sharp look at her brother. “She is lonely and has no one. I am taking her in. I am going to help her find a husband who will love her all her life.”

Something about his sister's simple, heartfelt words made him catch his breath. He swallowed hard, a lump coming into his throat from he knew not where.

“And where will you find this paragon?” he asked.

“Among the English, of course. Catherine's from Devon, but she is willing to make do with what we have.”

“Thank God somebody is,” Alex groused.

Mary Elizabeth ignored him, happily humming to herself, no doubt thinking already of pastries and cream.

Alex raised his hand to push his hair back into its queue and saw that it was shaking. Too much talk of marriage, no doubt. It always made him nervous. Of course, spending any time at all among the English put him on his guard. He'd known the assignment of getting Mary Elizabeth married off would be a difficult one when his mother had given it to him. He just hadn't realized how difficult.

Nor had he thought to find any of the girls he met in London even remotely entertaining, much less entrancing. If he wanted to get back on the sea, he would have to keep his eye firmly on the prize, and he would have to stay as far away from Miss Catherine Middlebrook as possible. He could not be in the house when Angel Catherine and her mother came to call.

He also knew that he would be nowhere else on earth.

God help him.

In spite of staying up late at the assembly, Catherine rose while the dew was still on the grass to cut lilac and thyme in her garden. They had been forced to let their Town gardener go after her father died, and did not have the funds to replace him. While Charlie, their boy of all work, did his best in the small, enclosed yard, Catherine enjoyed keeping up with the garden herself.

She loved their London town house, though it always made her think of her father and miss him. He had been dead over five years, but she could still remember the sound of his laughter and the scent of his pipe tobacco. She had an old handkerchief with his pipe wrapped in it that she kept buried under a pile of shawls. She rarely looked at it, but she knew it was there.

When she came back, the house was in an uproar, as usual. Instead of sleeping late as Catherine had thought she might, her mother, Olivia, was up with the dawn, shrieking in the breakfast room for hot water. Little Margaret, twelve years old now, was trying to quiet her mother down in a futile effort to spare the servants. Their butler, Giles, had broken his leg the month before, falling down the wine cellar stairs, and now reclined in annoyed splendor in his room at the top of the house. Catherine brought him fresh flowers every day and apprised him of the day's crises before teatime. In the Middlebrook household, there was always a crisis.

Catherine sighed at the thought of how quiet her own household would one day be. She would marry a sweet, genteel man who kept to himself in the library, save for dinnertime, when he would escort her downstairs to their own dining room with a little flourish of his arm. Over dinner, he would regale her with tales of the City and perhaps his favorite hunting sport while she listened in silence, nodding her approval, grateful to be happy and well cared for.

Of course, where her mother was in these scenarios, she was not sure. For Catherine would only marry a man who would take in her mother and her sister too, no questions asked. A kind man who would welcome them into his home, allowing it to be theirs as well. Catherine sighed as she laid her flower basket down on the hallway table and took off her gardening gloves and bonnet. No household would be quiet as long as her mother was present.

Still, a girl could dream.

Catherine had tried to be very strict with herself, fighting valiantly to keep her mind on Lord Farleigh and the dozen or so other polite gentlemen she'd had the pleasure of dancing with the night before. They had all been agreeable, very quiet, almost bland, like weak tea that was a bit too tepid. She did her level best not to think of Alexander Waters—a deep mug of the finest chocolate cut with heated cream. There was nothing tepid about Alexander Waters. Not in the least.

Catherine was about to step into the breakfast room to save the footman, William, from having to answer her mother when the door knocker sounded. She almost knocked her flower basket onto the marble tiles. She blinked, catching the wicker before the lilac and thyme could fall across her slippers. The door never sounded this early. She wondered for one horrible instant if someone was dead and a constable was bringing the bad news.

Jim, the tallest footman, had been promoted to under butler in Giles's absence. He stepped into the hall from parts unknown, his wig askew, his dark clothes coated with a thin layer of toast crumbs. He bowed to her in a stately manner before opening the great mahogany door.

A boy from the florist stepped in with three great bouquets that hid him almost completely from view. She should have sent him back downstairs to come through the servants' hall below, but she had never seen so many beautiful store-bought flowers in her life. Her garden was lovely but yielded nothing that could rival these.

Her mother flew in from the breakfast room, diving on one of the bouquets like a bird of prey. She slipped it out of the delivery boy's hands, carrying it to the center table in the hallway and giving it pride of place.

“Margaret! Come and look! Catherine has received her first bouquets of the Season! How lovely!”

Margaret ran pell-mell into the room then, her slippers sliding along the polished floor. “Mama, how beautiful. You say they are all for Catherine?”

“Surely not,” Catherine replied. “There is no doubt some mistake.”

“No mistake, miss,” the delivery boy said. “They are for this household, and welcome.”

Jim stood by in silent, crumb-laden glory, not moving to tip the errand boy. Catherine drew a sixpence from the lacquered box on their front table and slipped it into the boy's palm as she saw him out. “We thank you. Good day.”

She closed the heavy door behind him with only a little difficulty. “You should let me tend to the door, miss,” Jim said, his accent heavy with the sound of home.

Catherine sighed, and smiled. She would have to ask Giles to give Jim another lecture about the duties of an under butler. As it was, she did not have the time, nor could she hear herself think over her mother's latest shriek.

“Catherine, these lilies of the valley are from Lord Farleigh! My word, girl, you have made a conquest there.”

Catherine felt a warm light come into her chest, and she smiled. But there was no exultation, no exuberance. She realized two things then: that she could one day marry Lord Farleigh, or a man very much like him…and that she would be disappointed to do so.

She pushed those nonsensical thoughts out of her head to better hear her mother read the card from the second bouquet. “These forget-me-nots and primroses are from
A. Waters
. My word, the Highland gentleman who waltzed with you last night!”

Catherine felt her skin heat. The warm light in her chest turned into a conflagration, and spread in a blush up her chest and neck and into her cheeks. She suddenly felt light-headed, though she had never fainted in her life. Mr. Waters had not spoken to her again after their dance and her presentation to Lady Jersey. Surely, out of all the men she had met the night before, those flowers could not possibly be from him.

She stepped forward and took the note in her hand. The slanted
A
made her think of an eagle in flight, and the terse
Waters
made her think of the burn behind their castle in Scotland. Catherine wondered what a burn was. Mary Elizabeth had mentioned fishing in it, so perhaps it was some sort prehistoric stream that led to wild delights, like the Loch Ness Monster or some such fanciful creature. Mr. Waters had written nothing but his name, but Catherine was certain that he had written the note himself.

Before Catherine could completely lose herself to giddy fancy, her mother cawed anew. Catherine saw her brandishing the note from a third bouquet of deep red roses.

“These flowers are for me!”

Catherine felt her color rise even as her stomach sank. What gentleman would send vulgar red roses to a respectable widow? She swallowed hard, trying to hide her sudden nerves. Surely they had not run across some unsavory cad in the middle of Almack's who might prey on her mother's sensibilities? As her mother was in raptures over the inappropriate flowers before her, she did not notice Catharine's concern, but Margaret did. She sidled up silently to Catherine and took her hand.

Mrs. Middlebrook was still speaking, beginning to preen. “I am still an attractive woman, girls. I am not completely off the market yet.” She tittered. “Perhaps they are from the Duke of Wellington. How romantic!”

“God forbid,” Catherine murmured under her breath while Margaret laughed.

“The duke is married, Mama,” Margaret said. Catherine herded both her mother and her sister back into the breakfast room, determined to get some food into them. Mrs. Middlebrook refused to relinquish her flowers, and brought the vulgar bouquet with her. Catherine wanted to bring Mr. Waters's flowers too, but that would have been foolish. She shut the breakfast door on the bouquets with a decided click.

“Of course the duke is married,” Mrs. Middlebrook said. She took a large bite of buttered toast while Catherine poured her a fresh cup of tea, adding a liberal number of sugar cubes and cream, just as her mother liked it. “He took a wife for purely dynastic reasons, as all great men do. Our liaison would be pure romance, a love for the ages, like Tristan and Isolde.”

“Or Romeo and Juliet,” Margaret added, taking another dollop of blackberry jam.

Catherine shot her sister a quelling look, which Margaret blithely ignored.

“Those characters all ended up dead,” Catherine pointed out.

“Your soul has no romance.” Her mother sniffed, taking a sip of her fresh tea.

“I'm sorry, Mama. No doubt you are right.” Catherine drank her own tea and watched as her mother dimpled, ire forgotten just as suddenly as it appeared. In spite of her advancing years of eight and thirty, her mother was still a lovely woman. Catherine said a small prayer to the Holy Mother to keep scoundrels and their ilk far away.

“I am pleased that handsome Scotsman sent those primroses for you, little miss.”

“Yes, Mama.”

For some reason, Catherine did not want to talk about Mr. Waters. She felt herself blush again and sipped her tea, trying to force her mind into the calm, bland waters of Lord Farleigh—and failing.

“He's a fine-looking man, but foreigners are never ideal. Still, he may be rich. I'll make inquiries among my acquaintances. Perhaps he is worth looking at.”

Catherine choked on a bite of scone. Margaret hit her forcefully between the shoulder blades.

“I don't think Mr. Waters is appropriate, Mama,” she managed.

Mrs. Middlebrook smiled, licking the butter off her lips like a cat just out of the dairy. “Indeed, my dear, I agree with you. There is little about Mr. Waters that is appropriate. Men like him, once tamed, make the best husbands.”

“He is not a hound dog, Mama, or a spaniel.”

“Heavens no, dear. But all men must be tamed before you let them in the house, or you'll have nothing but mayhem and trouble all your life. No woman of sense wants that.”

“No indeed,” Catherine agreed, trying desperately to make her blushing stop. She had never learned to control her coloring, and she supposed she never would. She had better get all her blushing done and out of her system, for they were due to take tea with the Waterses at five o'clock.

She swallowed a sip of tea and this time did not choke. “Margaret will have a fine time meeting your new friend, Miss Waters, this afternoon,” Mrs. Middlebrook said. “What a merry party we shall make!”

“Maybe they have a puppy,” Margaret said.

“Scotsmen always keep dogs. No doubt they have a dozen.” Her mother offered this sage bit of wisdom while adding clotted cream to another scone.

“I am sure only Miss Waters will be there,” Catherine said.

Mrs. Middlebrook cut her eyes at her eldest daughter. “Are you indeed? We will see, little missy. We will see.”