Mrs. McVinnie's London Season (22 page)

Her face red and
humiliated, she could only shake her head, stand in front of him,
and sob. Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her tight and
just held her. She cried and cried and he did not flinch or try to
draw away or do anything but rub her back and then press her face
gently into his shirtfront, which was rapidly becoming quite damp.
She cried until there was not a tear left in her entire body, and
then she rested her head quietly against his chest and listened to
the steadiness of his heartbeat.

When she was silent
finally, except for hiccups, he took her by the shoulders and held
her away from him.

“
What,
doesn’t it fit?” he asked.

She stared at him and
then managed a watery chuckle. She sniffed and he gave over his
handkerchief. She blew her nose obligingly and wiped her tears.

“
I’m
sorry,” she said. “That was silly of me.”

“
I
suppose you’ve come to tell me that you can’t possibly accept such
a dress.”

She nodded. “Something
very like that.”

Without a word, he took
her by the hand and walked her to the stairs, where he sat down and
patted the tread beside him. She sat, not daring to look at
him.

But the captain wasn’t
looking at her, but down at his hands. “Do you know, Jeannie, I
have something of a reputation in the Channel Fleet. It’s a
chuckle-headed thing, I suppose, but there you are.”

Mystified, she tilted
her head toward him. There was nothing but kindness in his eyes—no
quarterdeck scowl, no look of a man counting to ten and still
angry. She relaxed and leaned against the railing.

“
I’ve
been known—when there’s time, of course—to put on my best uniform
before sailing into a fight. There’s something so insolent about
dressing out in silk stockings and white breeches, my best sword
just so, my Knight of the Bath star polished to a fare-thee-well.”
He smiled down at his hands. “I suppose it makes me feel brave,
Jeannie, for I am not a brave man.”

“
But,
Captain,” she protested, “such a dress!”

“
Made
completely to my specifications, I might add, and don’t I have
excellent taste! Who would have thought it? Not I, surely.” He took
her hand in his, kissed it, and placed it back on her knee.
“ ‘I want something totally remarkable for a redheaded lady,’
I told them at Amalie’s. ‘Something so beyond the ordinary that
everyone in the theater will notice.’ ”

Jeannie smiled and
dabbed at her eyes again. “It is so kind of you.”

He looked about him in
all directions and put his finger to her lips. “Don’t spread the
word about, Jeannie,” he whispered. “I have a reputation to
maintain.”

She laughed out loud.
“Very well, sir. I will wear that ‘totally remarkable’ dress into
battle tonight and pile my hair up high and look like Boadicea at
the head of her charioteers.”

“
At
least that. After all, I am certain Daniel did not set foot into
the lions’ den wrapped in a Turkish towel. Which reminds me,
somehow. Don’t move.”

He got up and hurried
to his room, coming back in a moment with a small canvas bag, which
he dropped in her lap. She pulled apart the leather ties and drew
out a necklace unlike any other she had ever imagined, green and
square-cut, with a startling flaw like a wound, running through it.
Her eyes widened and she sucked in her breath.

“
Will,” she breathed, not taking her eye from the single stone
that blazed back at her. “What is it?”

He didn’t answer. She
looked at him, impatient for a reply, and saw a peculiar light in
his eyes. “What is it?” she prompted him again.

“
You
called me Will,” he said simply.

“
Oh,
dear,” she replied. “That was vastly impertinent. Do forgive me. I
suppose I was carried away by this pretty thing.”

“
No.
No. I like it.” He was looking at her then, but also beyond, at a
time past or future she could not tell. “No one has ever given me a
nickname, and I like it. Please call me Will from now
on.”

She considered the
matter, a frown creasing her forehead. “William is too formal, and
Willy too childish. Will has a certain resolution about it.” She
rolled her eyes. “Oh, dear, such a dreadful pun. I should be
ashamed.”

“
Yes,
you should,” he agreed affably. “And I will call you Jeannie, which
I have been doing anyway and which you have been so polite as to
overlook. Are all Scottish lassies so well-mannered?”

“
I am
hardly a lassie anymore,” she corrected him. “But, yes, of course
we are all well-mannered.”

“
You
are very much a lassie,” he insisted, and then he just looked at
her, the slight smile on his face breaking up the hard lines around
his mouth and nose. “Even though you feel a century and more
old.”

She glanced at him
quickly. “Yes, I do. How did you know?”

“
Oh, I
know.” The smile was gone then. “Ask anyone who has been to war.
Ah, well.”

Jeannie waited, and
then she waved the necklace in front of him. “What is it,
please?”

He leaned close to her
in conspiratorial fashion. “Treasure from the Spanish Main,” he
confided. “Truly, Jeannie,” he said. “Don’t look at me like my wits
have gone wandering. It was from my very first prize ship, a
Spanish merchantman bound for the dons of Cadiz, God bless them. I
was just a midshipman then. I think I was fifteen. And didn’t
everyone laugh when I insisted that I wanted that stone. But I did.
It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.”

He took it from her and
held it up so it caught a little light from the stairwell window.
He ran his finger over the flaw that cracked across its surface
like a lightning bolt. “A magnificent stone. And do you know, the
emerald is the only stone I know that is enhanced by a flaw.”

The captain put it back
in her open palm and curled her fingers around it. “I wore it in a
little bag about my neck. I suppose it became rather a good-luck
piece for me. I hung on to it through two years of Spanish
captivity.” Again his expression deepened. “Oh, God, I could have
traded it for a crust of bread on some days.” The moment passed.
“When I was paroled and commissioned lieutenant, I had the stone
placed in that setting.”

He leaned back and
rested his elbow on the landing. “George and Agatha both teased me
to have it valued and then shoved into the family vault at
Critchlow and Doubt’s, but that seemed a sad fate for something so
extraordinary.”

Jeannie traced her
finger around the square-cut stone. “I wonder that you did not make
a present of it to the lady in Oporto,” she said, almost to
herself.

He did not appear
surprised at her words. “I did consider it, Jeannie, but … I
don’t know. It didn’t seem right, for some reason.”

“
Someday, if you marry, you can give it to your wife,” she
said.

“
I
expect I will. Someday. But tonight, it’s yours,” he said. “If it
hits you too low, I can take out a link or two. Nothing simpler.”
The captain got to his feet and pulled her up to him. “Of course,
to do it justice, you must hold your head very high.”

“
I’ll
do that. Thank you, Captain.”

He raised his
eyebrows.

“
Will,” she corrected, “but only when we are alone. It still
seems so impertinent.”

“
Much
better. And now, my lady Jean, I recommend that it is time to dress
for dinner. I intend to look quite splendid myself tonight, and as
I am older than you and wanting in your high looks, it takes me a
bit of time.” He laughed. “It takes time to arrange every lock to
make it appear that I have more hair than I do.”

She waved him down the
hall, but stood where she was a moment longer, gazing down at the
magnificence that sparkled in her hand. She closed her fingers
around it finally, a smile playing about her lips.

No matter what happens
tonight, no matter how dreadful the set-down, I will have this to
remember always. I will tell Galen about it later, when we will
have it to warm ourselves this coming fall. And perhaps he will
think me brave.

She dressed slowly,
thoughtfully, giving herself a good wash first, wishing that she
could once and for all scrub off the little light-brown freckles
that dotted her shoulders and chest. She pulled on her silk
stockings, appreciating the way her legs felt. “This could become a
sinfully extravagant habit,” she said. “How grateful I am there is
no Pantheon Bazaar in Kirkcudbright.”

Mary and Clare knocked
on the door and she ushered them in, sitting Clare, towel doll
clutched tight, on her bed to watch, and to drape the emerald
around the doll’s neck, while Mary arranged her hair.

But it wasn’t right.
Even Mary could feel it. “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “You
looked finer than sunrise with your hair up last night, but I don’t
know.”

Then Jeannie laughed
softly to herself and took out all the pins. Swiftly she brushed
her red hair until it crackled, and plaited one long braid down her
back. She talked Clare’s doll out of the necklace and secured it
around her neck, and then stepped back for Mary’s appraisal.

Mary observed her and
then a smile came to her lips. “I don’t know why that looks
perfectly right, but it does,” she said slowly. “You will be a true
original tonight.” She stepped back, too. “And this dress is a
perfect fit,” she said as a puzzled look came into her eyes.
“Almost as if you were standing right next to the captain when he
gave his orders.”

“
Now
that is food for thought,” Jeannie declared. “Oh, Mary, am I late
for dinner again?”

“
Not
if you hurry. Come on, Clare.”

They descended the
stairs, Mary clattering ahead with Clare, and the little girl
looking back at Jeannie, her eyes bright with appreciation.

Jeannie looked down at
herself and blushed. Goodness, Mrs. McVinnie, she scolded herself,
only Tom has seen this much of you before. Goodness, she said
again, I must remember not to bend over for any reason, and heaven
help me if I should bob about! What can the captain have been
thinking?

She descended the
stairs and came face to face with a bouquet of red roses that
filled the small table by the dining-room door. The others stood
about, Larinda lovely in pink, but her eyes stormy, Lady Smeath
dressed in fading beige that precisely matched her complexion, the
captain entirely awe-inspiring. Only Edward was missing, and this
did not surprise her.

But there was the
bouquet. No one said anything as she moved slowly toward the table.
There must have been fifty roses in the bowl, each one red and
still flecked with droplets of water. The scent was almost
overpowering.

And there, in the front
of the arrangement, was a single white rose. Jeannie reached for
the white card propped against the china bowl. With cold fingers,
she picked it up.

“ ‘
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,’ ” she read out
loud.

She turned the card
over. There was nothing more. No signature, no indication of any
kind where the flowers had come from.

But she knew.

Jeannie crumpled the
card in her hand. The Beau was going to such lengths to ensure that
this would be a memorable evening. How dare he?

She would have turned
away, but the dining-room door opened and Wapping stepped out.

“
Dinner is served, Lady Smeath, Sir William,” he
said.

D
inner began in silence so extraordinary that even
Wapping permitted himself the luxury of surprise. The only inmate
of the dining room who seemed at peace was the captain. After a
long, slow wink at Jeannie, which sent the color rushing back into
her cheeks, he addressed his attention to the soup.

The soup was removed in
silence and replaced by the fish, and then Lady Smeath could stand
it no longer.

“
Those
roses, Mrs. McVinnie,” she ventured, her voice at the same time
casual and remarkably contrived. “I wonder where they could have
come from.”

Jeannie smiled at
Wapping, who set the fish in front of her. She held her silence
until butler and footman left the room. “They are from Beau
Brummell, I believe,” she said calmly as she picked up her
fork.

In the act of raising
her glass to her lips, Lady Smeath sloshed wine on the tablecloth.
Larinda choked and put her napkin to her lips.

“
Bless
me,” said the captain. “I never imagined François to leave a bone
in the sole, Larinda. Let me only speak to him and he will never
dare again.”

In a masterful moment,
which Jeannie could only regard with awe and some admiration, Lady
Smeath regained control of herself. “I wonder why he can have done
such a thing.”

“
Indeed, yes,” said the captain. “Bones in fish are
discouraging to one’s digestion.”

Lady Smeath’s fork
grated on the plate. “Brother, you are driving me beyond
distraction. You know I was referring to the Beau.”

“
And
not the bone?” the captain inquired.

Jeannie fixed the
captain with a stare that could melt rocks, and set down her fork.
“I can only credit Mr. Brummell’s behavior to two notions, my lady,
neither of them palatable.”

“
Like
the fish,” Summers inserted.

With the greatest
effort, Jeannie ignored him. “Either Mr. Brummell is playing a huge
joke on someone in this room, likely me, or he plans to make wild,
mad love to me at some later date.”

Captain Summers grinned
and reached for his wineglass. He raised it high and said,
“ ‘Beauty ashore.’ ”