Kathryn Caskie (37 page)

Eliza laughed. “What a thing to say, Grace. You will surely frighten them away.”

“Our aunts will be fine, Eliza. You’ve no reason to worry,” Grace reassured before heading back up the stairs to collect a few more items for her own trunk.

Aunt Viola moved to a nearby table and lifted the
Rules of Engagement
into her hands. “Never you mind about us. We are prepared for Meredith. We have the rule book, after all.”

“You do indeed.” Eliza grinned broadly. She glanced into the passageway to be sure Grace was out of earshot. “But there is something I think you should know about
Rules of Engagement.”

“What do you mean, gel?” Aunt Letitia looked up at her, blinking innocently.

Eliza didn’t know why she was having such a hard time forming the words she’d wanted to shout for well over two months. “The rule book is—”

“A war manual?” Aunt Viola asked.

“W-why,
yes.”
Eliza was astounded.

“Oh, we knew that, Eliza.” Aunt Letitia laughed and waved Eliza’s concerns about hurt feelings away. “But strategy is strategy, Papa always said.”

“He did indeed, Sister,” added Aunt Viola.

Eliza brought her hand to her mouth. She couldn’t believe it. Her aunts had known the book’s true purpose all along! These two loveable old ladies never ceased to amaze her.

Outside, the slowing clop of horse hooves on the cobbles called Eliza to the window. “At last, Magnus has come for me.” She turned and gave each of her aunts a quick departing peck on the cheek, as Grace raced down the stairs toward the open door.

Magnus crossed the parlor threshold and Eliza smiled brightly at her husband. Since the moment they were married, she and Magnus had been afforded very little time alone, and Eliza was quaking with eagerness to board the carriage for Scotland and start their life together. She called out to Edgar. “Please ask the footman to fetch my trunks.”

Magnus caught the old man’s arm. “No need, Edgar. We’re not going anywhere.”

Eliza sank onto the window seat. “What do you mean? ‘Tis all arranged.”

Magnus dashed across the room and kissed her. Then he leapt up and kissed Grace, before whirling around to kiss both aunts. He rushed up to Edgar, who covered his mouth with his hand.

Magnus laughed. “I was only going to shake your hand, man.”

Eliza rose and moved to the center of the Turkish carpet. “My, you’re in a jolly mood.”

Magnus took Eliza into his arms and twirled her around the room as he laughed and laughed.
“The Promise,
she’s made port!”

Eliza stood there, utterly stunned. “How can this be?”

“Somehow, she survived the storm.”

Eliza shrieked with delight and hugged her husband tightly. “So Somerton—”

“Is saved—intact.” Magnus gave her an elated squeeze, then drew back and looked at her with all seriousness. “I need some time to handle the shipment and to settle my debts. Ye dinna mind postponing our departure for another month or two?”

A month or two?
Eliza let a smile turn her lips. “Of course not. The delay will give me time to complete Prinny’s portrait… and to buy a bit more paint. For I fear I do not have enough to realistically capture his rather… generous form.”

Both her aunts hooted merrily.

“Be sure to buy as much ye need. Brushes, canvas. Oils. Enough for a year.” Magnus was nearly bursting with excitement.

Eliza was puzzled. “A year?”

Magnus withdrew several papers from his pocket and handed them to Eliza. She opened the folds and gazed down at the print. Lord above. She couldn’t believe her eyes. “Italy? We are going to Italy?” Her heart began to ache.

“What better place to spend our first year as husband and wife?”

Eliza looked up at him slyly, then put her lips to his ear. “I can think of one place,” she whispered.

Magnus grinned and swept her up in his arms. “Ye are an original, Lady Somerton.”

“Why thank you, Lord Somerton,” she said, as he plucked her right out of her slippers and kissed her with such passion that she felt her toes blush.

Rule Twenty-two

Learn from each engagement, and apply successful strategies to future engagements.

London, April 1818

Meredith Merriweather’s vivid blue eyes rounded with great reverence as her aunt Letitia laid the great leather volume before her. She could smell fresh oil on its spine as she ran her fingers over the gilt lettering pressed into the crimson leather. She read the title.
“Rules of Engagement?"

She looked up at her aunts. They were smiling at her. “I do not understand.”

Aunt Letitia cleared her throat. “Our father acquired this rule book many years ago for our season. This same rule book provided us with the stratagem to direct your sisters into very successful marriages.”

It did?
How astounding. Meredith wondered why her sisters had never bothered to mention this to her.

Aunt Viola lifted her lorgnette to her eyes. “Now, we will use its wisdom to successfully see you through your first season. Are you ready to begin?”

Meredith nodded warily. What else could she do? Refuse and disappoint her aunts who had always been so kind to her? No, she knew she must listen carefully the same way her sisters must have done.

Aunt Viola cleared her throat quietly, then opened the cover and read the heading of the first chapter.

“Rule One.”

About the Author

Kathryn Caskie
has long been a devotee of history and things of old. So it came as no surprise to her family when she took a career detour off the online super highway and began writing historical romances full time.

With a background in marketing, advertising, and journalism, she has written professionally for television, radio, magazines, and newspapers.

She lives in a two-hundred-year-old Quaker home nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains with her greatest sources of inspiration, her husband and two young daughters.

Rules of Engagement,
winner of Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Golden Heart award, is Kathryn’s debut novel.

Readers may contact Kathryn at her Web site

www.kathryncaskie.com
.

Entry 1

Scientific Diary of Miss Genevieve Penny December 20, 1817

I have made an important scientific discovery
—
one that will change my life forever.

By crossing two particularly vigorous varieties of Mitcham peppermint, I have produced an essential oil of unmatched potency. Alas, which two varieties, I have no memory, having no mind for storing such dreary details. Hence, the introduction of my exquisite new scientific journal with fashionable marbled facings, satin page marker, and soft leather spine. I purchased it today, along with a gorgeous cairngorm brooch I saw in the window of Bartleby’s, which has fast become my favorite shop on all of Milsom Street, if not all of Bath. But I digress.

Through a most fortuitous accident, I found that this particular oil has the curious effect of causing the skin to flush with youthful vigor immediately upon contact. Thus far, there have been no ill side effects; therefore I shall commence blending a half dozen gallipots of the peppermint cream for the Featherton ladies. No doubt they will be pleased, as will the shopkeeper at Bartleby’s, for the guinea the Feathertons will likely gift me must be applied directly to my overdue shop bill before I am barred from the establishment forever.

Bath, England
January 2, 1818

Genevieve Penny spun around and stared, quite unable to believe what she was hearing. “What, pray, do you mean she used the cream down
there?
My God, Annie, it’s a
facial
balm. Did you not explain its intended use to her ladyship?”

” ‘Course I did, Jenny. I’m not daft.” Her friend, an abigail like herself, punctuated her words with a roll of her eyes and settled her plump behind on the stool before the herb-strewn table. “But how could I have known Lady Avery and the viscount had a more
amorous
plan for the cream?”

“And now she wants a pot of her own?” Jenny nervously tucked a loose dark curl behind her ear. “I gave the Feathertons’ cream pot to
you.
My gift was meant to be our secret. I never intended for the cream find its way above stairs.”

Above stairs?
What an awful thought. Jenny’s stomach muscles cinched like an overtight corset and she gasped for a breath.

What if the Featherton ladies learned of her little entrepreneurial endeavor born of supplies
they
paid for— blended in
their
own stillroom? Heaven forbid. She might find herself out on the cobbles without a reference! Where would she be then, hawking oranges on the street corner for her daily bread?

She seized Annie’s shoulders. “You did not tell your mistress that
I
gave you the cream.”

“Nay, of course not. Said a friend gave it to me.” But as she spoke, Annie’s keen eyes drifted across the table to the sealed clay gallipots on its edge. With a twist of her ample form, she broke Jenny’s grip and made her way across the stillroom.

“Have some made up, do you?” Prying open the lid, Annie lifted a pot to her nose and breathed deeply, letting out a pleased sigh. “Well, my lady wants two pots of the tingle cream to start—”

Jenny’s cheeks heated. “Lud, stop calling it that! It’s
not
tingle cream. It’s a peppermint
facial
cream.”

“You can call it what you like, but I tried a dab myself. You know …
there.”
Annie flushed crimson and looked away. “And I own, Jenny, the way it made me tingle … positively
sinful.
I do not doubt it revived my lady’s desire.”

Jenny heard Annie return the clay gallipot to the table, but then she heard something else. Her ears pricked up at a faint but unmistakable jingle of coins.

As Annie turned around, she withdrew a weighty silken bag from her basket and pressed it into Jenny’s palm. “My lady bade me to give the maker this,
if that
maker could be persuaded to oblige her with two pots today.”

Jenny loosened the heavy bag’s satin tie and emptied ten gold guineas onto the table. It was a fortune for a lady’s maid like herself. A blessed fortune! Her blood plummeted from her head into her feet and she sank onto a stool, unable to stop staring at the gleaming mound of riches.

“You do have two spare pots, don’t you, Jenny? Her ladyship would be most displeased if I returned to the house without her cream.”

Jenny nodded absently and pushed two of the three gallipots forward. This was certainly not the use she intended when she blended the cream. But what else could she do but oblige? This was more blunt than she’d ever seen in her lifetime.

“Jolly good. Knew you’d come around.” With great care, Annie wedged the pots into her basket and covered them discreetly with a square of linen. “Must run now. Haven’t much time, you know. I’ll be needing to dress Lady Avery for the Fire and Ice Ball this eve.”

“Of course.” Jenny glanced at the rough-hewn table and the lone gallipot sitting amid the crushed herbs. “Only one left,” she muttered to herself.

Annie set her fist on her fleshy hip. “One? You mean that’s all you have—at all? Well, dove, if I was you, I’d set about making more of that tingle cream right away.”

“Why should I need more?” Jenny raised her brow with growing suspicion.

Beneath the snowy mobcap, Annie’s earlobes glowed crimson. “Well… I
might
have overheard Lady Avery telling Lady Oliver about her thrilling discovery of an amazing cream. Of course, I knew she was talking about the tingle cream. And Jenny, Lady Oliver was
most
interested.”

A jolt raced down Jenny’s spine. “Do you not mean others in Society know of this? Lud, this is a bloomin’ disaster.”

“Oh, Jen, you’re getting all foamy for nothing. What’s so wrong with an abigail making a few quid on the side? Who knows, a Society connection could be the very thing to catapult your sales and help you remove yourself from debt for good.”

Jenny forced a snort of laughter, but as the idea settled upon her, she became very still.

Criminy.
The idea was intriguing, even if a little mad. But the more she thought about it, the more enticing the suggestion became to her.

No, no, this was ridiculous. She couldn’t possibly produce enough pots to clear her accounts—not without getting the sack from her employers.

Could she?

Rising, Jenny walked to her supply cupboard, twisted the wooden door wedge and peered inside. She was keenly disappointed at what she saw—or rather at what she didn’t see. The cupboard was nearly bare. She’d need more emulsifying agent. Plenty more. Gallipots, too. Of course she’d have to distill some more Mitcham peppermint.

This was going to be
real
work.