Wallflower (Old Maids' Club, Book 1) (30 page)

~ * ~

Mother and Glastonbury had left to
begin their honeymoon a quarter of an hour ago and, apart from
family, only a few stragglers lingered. Miss Faulkner stood next to
the remnants of the cake, casting her ever astute eyes over the
room. When she thought no one was looking, she dipped her finger
first into the frosting and then into her mouth.

Noah stifled a chuckle as he made his
way across to her. He required her assistance, so it wouldn’t do to
have her think he was laughing at her. Even if he was doing
precisely that.

“
Have you enjoyed yourself
this morning, Miss Faulkner?”

She jumped slightly at his question,
but hastily covered her surprise at his appearance by her side. “It
was a lovely wedding and breakfast, my lord. Thank you for inviting
me. And give my thanks to your mother and Lord Glastonbury as
well.”

Noah smiled. “I’ll be sure to do
that.” He dipped another strawberry in cream and ate it. “Tabitha’s
birthday is coming up, is it not?”

Miss Faulkner gave him an arch look.
“Why do I get the impression that you’re fishing for
information?”

“
Now I see where Tabitha
acquired her penchant for answering questions with more questions.
Or is that something you’ve picked up from her?”

With a cluck of her tongue, she said,
“You’re a cheeky one, aren’t you? That’s good. She needs someone
who can keep her on her toes. Very well, I’ll concede this round.
Tabitha’s birthday is in two days.”

“
Thank you. I promise to
let you take the next bout.”

“
That’s very kind of you,
my lord,” Miss Faulkner said equably, “but I can promise you I
don’t need anyone to
let
me win. Give me your best barbs, and I promise
you I’ll dish back better than I get.”

Noah laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.
May I ask one more favor?”

“
Ask away.”

“
I need to know what I can
give to her, or what I can do for her, to make her feel loved. What
is the thing she wants more than anything else?”

Miss Faulkner colored up prettily. “I
shouldn’t tell you this.” She lowered her voice and leaned close to
him, so no one could overhear. “She’ll know that I’m the one who
told you, and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“
Please? Don’t make me beg
you. I need to know.” It might be the one thing to turn the tide in
his favor.

She wrung her hands and glanced around
to see who was nearby. “I’ll tell you, but you will owe me a favor
in future.”

“
Anything you want that is
in my power to grant,” Noah promised.

Miss Faulkner nodded, still casting
her eyes about. “Poetry.”

He couldn’t have heard her correctly.
“Poetry?”

“
Yes. Tabitha is quite the
romantic, my lord.”

“
Does she have a favorite
poet, perhaps?” he asked. “Byron? Keats? I suppose I could read
some poetry to her on her birthday.”

“
Oh, no, no, no. You
misunderstand me, Lord Devonport.” Miss Faulkner looked across at
him with a wholly sincere expression. “She desperately wants a
gentleman to write a poem for her. And to recite it to her. In
front of her entire family. There is nothing her heart desires
more.”

“
You’re joking.” She had
to be. “Aren’t you?”

“
As earnest as the
plague.”

By Jove.

~ * ~

For the first time in her now
twenty-nine years, Tabitha thought she might escape her birthday
fete without experiencing the desire to strangle a member of her
family as they slept. Even Toby had been on his best behavior all
day, not even bothering to needle her more than a few
times.

The family supper had just come to an
end, and Father’s liveried footmen were carefully removing the
Wedgwood china dessert plates. While things seemed well within her
family, however, she’d noticed some queer occurrences with regard
to Noah. Several times during the course of the meal, Tabitha had
caught a glimpse of him looking across to Jo, almost as though
seeking reassurance.

Try as she might, Tabitha could think
of nothing—nothing at all—about which Jo ought to be encouraging
Noah. This could only mean one thing: Jo had accepted Noah as part
of the family already.

And if Tabitha knew anything at all
about her dearest cousin, it was that Jo always did anything and
everything possible to torment the men in the family. She was far
more sincere about the perceived responsibility than Tabitha and
Bethanne combined.

Some havey-cavey business or another
was afoot, Tabitha was sure of it. Something else of which she was
sure: Noah was in trouble. Depending upon how serious Noah’s
trouble turned out to be, Jo would have the devil to pay...unless
Tabitha was somehow able to weasel the truth out of her cousin and
stop it before it happened.

She couldn’t very well do that with
Noah sitting beside her and Jo all the way down the vast dining
table, however. Tabitha smiled and called out to the table at
large, “Ladies, shall we adjourn to the parlor and leave the
gentlemen to their port?” A footman rushed forward to pull out her
chair. She rose and the other ladies followed suit.

Blast, this was one of those moments
she loathed having such a mammoth family. Tabitha wanted to
hurriedly link her arm with Jo’s, but her cousin latched on to
Miranda on one side and Aunt Vanessa—Miranda and Bethanne’s
mother—on the other, making Tabitha’s plan impossible. She’d have
to wait until they were in the parlor. Jo couldn’t avoid her the
rest of the night.

Lavinia, Jo’s older sister, took
Tabitha’s arm and dragged her along. “Quite the catch,” she said
appreciatively. “Lord Devonport is a handsome devil, isn’t he? I
always knew you’d make a good match for yourself once you gave up
on all that old maid foolishness.”

“
Thank you,” Tabitha
murmured. Was that an appropriate response? There was no telling,
with Lavinia. “Any idea what your sister is up to?”

“
Oh, the usual. Avoiding
Lord Leith and pretending she’s better off without him.” Lavinia
said nothing about what Jo might be doing to Noah, though. Clearly,
she didn’t know. Not that Tabitha had expected any differently.
Lavinia had never been part of their schemes and plans before, so
why should it be any different now?

They passed the grand stairway and
turned down a wide corridor, then entered the parlor. Tabitha’s
mother had decorated it years before, filling it with Louis XIV
chairs and plush ottomans, covering the walls with silk to go
alongside the silk draperies, and decorating with bronze statues of
Greek gods alongside marble busts of Mozart and Haydn. The parlor
had always felt overly decadent to Tabitha—lavishness and opulence
to the extreme.

When they made their way inside,
Lavinia excused herself to speak with her sister-in-law, Helen, and
Elaine. Tabitha located Jo seated by the bay window, surrounded by
her mother and Bethanne’s sister-in-law, Arabella. A sinking
feeling settled in Tabitha’s stomach that Jo was intentionally
avoiding her.

With everyone else occupied, Tabitha
took up conversation with Miranda and Aunt Vanessa, taking a glass
of sherry from the passing footman’s tray. She hardly paid
attention to what the two were saying—something about the gathering
of soldiers near Vienna, a subject which couldn’t be further from
Tabitha’s mind at the moment—and she never took her eyes from Jo.
The moment she saw her duplicitous cousin alone, Tabitha intended
to pounce.

But minutes ticked by, and then the
door to the parlor opened again. Tabitha’s chance had passed her
by; the gentlemen had finished with their port and cheroots and now
flooded into the parlor, filling the delicate space with their
bulkier frames. Noah took up position beside her, easing his hand
to the back of her waist as he’d been wont to do of late in a
half-possessive, half-protective gesture that invariably instigated
a bout of gooseflesh on the skin of her arms.

Miranda’s husband, Lord Pickford,
joined them, followed by her brother, Isaac. Noah eased himself
into the conversation with practiced charm. Tabitha studied him
instead of the discussion. He looked none the worse for wear after
his time with the Shelton men, so clearly whatever web Jo had been
spinning to trap him had not yet come to pass.

After several minutes had passed, out
of the corner of her eye, Tabitha noticed Jo get up from her seat
and sidle over to where Tabitha’s father stood. She whispered
something in his ear, and then resumed her seat.

Father finished the conversation he
was having with his brother, Jasper, and then cleared his throat
for silence. “Josephine has issued me a gentle reminder that we’ve
yet to give Tabitha and Tobias their gifts. Shall we proceed with
that?”

“
Why don’t we gift Toby
with a kick in the arse on his way out the door?” Patrick, Jo’s
youngest brother, called out to the general laughter of the
room.

Uncle Thad cuffed him on the ear.
“Mind your language in front of the ladies.”

“
They’re family, not
ladies,” Patrick grumbled beneath his breath, garnering a scowl
from his father and a series of snickers from most of the rest.
“And they’d likely all step in line to do the kicking, if we’d let
them.”

He had a point.

Father chose to ignore the side
conversation and proceeded with the gift-giving. He handed Tabitha
and Toby each a package, which they ripped into. Toby’s held a
pocket watch (“So you can no longer complain you did not know the
time when I ask you why you are infernally late,” their father had
said) and Tabitha’s contained a set of pearl and garnet ear bobs.
Soon, they were both inundated with package after package until
Tabitha could no longer remember who had given what to
whom.

When Tabitha and Toby had opened all
of their gifts and thanked everyone graciously, Uncle Jasper and
Aunt Vanessa stood to take their leave, followed soon behind by
Christopher and Helen. Noah rose from his seat beside Tabitha on
the sofa. “Please don’t leave just yet,” he said, and they all
turned to look questioningly at him. “There is one more gift yet to
be given.”

He took a knee before Tabitha and
pulled one of her hands into his own, sending the color racing up
the back of her neck and depositing itself high in her cheeks. This
could not be good. Oh, damn and blast, she would have to smother Jo
with a pillow if Noah made a cake of himself in front of the entire
family. Surely, her influence was involved here. “I understand you
have always wanted a gentleman to write a poem for you,” he
began.

“
I have?” Tabitha couldn’t
stop herself from blurting out. Good God in heaven, he could not do
this. Not here. Not now, with the entire family looking
on.

Over near the hearth, Owen and Toby
snickered, earning them each an elbow in the ribs from Elaine.
Patrick was not so subtle—he let out a loud guffaw, and his
brother, Graham, choked on a sip of port he’d snuck under his
father’s nose into the parlor.

“
Ignore them, Lord
Devonport,” Jo called out. “These imbeciles haven’t a romantic bone
in their bodies.” Tabitha glared across at her.

Noah hesitated only for a brief
moment. “I took it upon myself to compose one for you. I hope
you’ll enjoy it.”

“
I assure you, this is
entirely unnecessary,” Tabitha rushed out quietly. “Perhaps it
would be best to do this without an audience.”

His jaw was set, though, and his eyes
sincere. Lud, he was going to do it.

“
Amidst the gems of life’s
elite, a paragon on the edge awaits—
”

At Uncle Jasper’s unabashed cackle,
Tabitha had to act. She pushed abruptly to her feet, forcing
herself to ignore at least for the moment the pained expression in
Noah’s eyes as he stood beside her. “Stop it. Stop this right now.
This is very poor form, from the lot of you.”

“
This isn’t what you
wanted,” Noah murmured where only Tabitha could hear him. “I’m
sorry. I should have asked you.”

“
Oh, come off it,
Tabitha,” Toby said. “A little ribbing never hurt
anyone.”

“
A little ribbing? You’re
trying to humiliate him. And me. I’ll not stand for it.”

“
If Lord Devonport can’t
handle a bit of playfulness, how will he ever last as part of this
family?” Jo asked.

Tabitha planted her hands on her hips,
directing the brunt of her wrath in Jo’s direction. “He’s done
perfectly well since Elaine and Owen married. I hardly think
anything needs to change now.” She couldn’t let them torment him in
such a way. Noah was unaccustomed to the particular brand of
teasing banter her family often used as a twisted sign of their
affection. Placing her hand on his arm, Tabitha led him toward the
door. “Excuse us, please. We’re leaving.”

Noah didn’t follow her immediately, so
she tugged on his arm. “Where are we going?” he asked, but she
didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. She didn’t know where she was
taking him, other than away from her irksome family. Finally, he
gave in and went along with her. She wound her way through the
halls of her father’s town house, until they reached the servants’
kitchen exit leading out to the back gardens. Tabitha didn’t stop
there; she kept walking through the winding paths, taking Noah past
fountains and trellises, and the statues of cherubim dotting the
way, until she reached a pillared portico covered in white roses
with a stone bench beneath it.