“We were not,” Perth said, sounding vaguely insulted. “That’s my best mate you’re talking about.”
“You went after him with an axe,” his wife said mildly.
“A minor misunderstanding. And it was a butcher’s knife, not an axe.”
Lenora lifted a brow.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “You’ve made your point. Can I have my drink back, now?”
“No. Now, we have to go circulate amidst our guests.IncludingMr. St. Clair.”
“But–”
“Shhh.” She silenced him by laying her finger across his mouth. When he tried to bite it, she squealed and jumped back, nearly spilling his scotch.
“Be careful with that!”
“Or what?” Her blue eyes lighting with a mischievous gleam, Lenora raised her arm holding the glass and tipped it ever-so-slightly to the side, sending the amber liquid within perilously close to tipping over. “Don’t come any closer.”
This was a side of his duchess that Perth loved more than any other. Lenora was a somber, serious woman by nature. Circumstances had forced her to be. But when she loosened up her corset and indulged in a little play….his attraction towards her knew no bounds.
Moving with the stealth and speed of a lion, he snatched the scotch out of her hand while simultaneously pinning her against the window.
“P-Perth,” she protested weakly when he kissed her neck. “The guests–”
“Will have to wait,” he growled. “I’m busy.”
“Your scotch–”
“To hell with my scotch. You taste far better.” Tossing the glass over his shoulder, he dropped to his knees, yanked her skirts over his head, and proceeded to prove a point of his own.
Over the courseof her various studies, Eloise had read about plagues.
There was the Black Death, of course.
Everyone knew about that one.
Followed by the less creatively named Great Plague of London, a terrible outbreak of smallpox, spotted fever, smallpox again, typhus, cholera, and last but not least, measles. What most doctors knewnowthat they hadn’tthenwas that quarantine–the measure of separating the sick from the healthy–was the best act of defense against bacteria so tiny it couldn’t even been seen with a microscope, let alone the naked eye.
For Eloise, the first day of the house party was her own personal plague. And just as the doctors had advised, she did her best to avoid it at all costs.
Unlike the measles, which began with a fever and cough, the Rosewood’s annual house party started with a reception of champagne and frosted cakes in the back garden off the terrace. As guests arrived, they were ushered through the house and out a pair of French doors onto a stone patio. Beyond the patio was a flat green lawn, decorated with an assortment of tables and surrounded by a row of hedges. Beyond the row of hedges was a fledgling apple orchard. Beyond the fledgling apple orchard was a gnarled old oak tree. And high up in the oak tree, perched on a broad limb with her legs dangling down on either side and her spine resting comfortably against the wide trunk, was Eloise.
A warm summer breeze, carrying muted notes of wildflowers and freshly harvested hay, stirred through her hair as she idly pulled at a loose thread on the breeches she wore under her dress. The pants were cast offs from her brother and tailored in secret to fit her slim frame. Quite literally theonlytime her embroidery lessons had actually proven useful, despite her tutor vowing that whenever she turned around a crisis needing to be solved by needle and thread would magically arise.
With adulthood and the natural changes in her body–curves where she didn’t want them, breasts that were more burdensome than beautiful–the breeches fit a tad more snugly than they had when she was a stick thin girl of fifteen, but she still preferred them to corsets, crinolines, and the dreaded bustle…a medieval torture device if she’d ever seen one.
Artfully hidden beneath her dress, James’s breeches gave her the freedom to run, skip, jump, and climb. All the things that boys were encouraged to do and girls were chastised for. When she was little, hardly past the age of five, Eloise vividly remembered asking her mother why James was able to go riding whileshehad to remain indoors and practice her scales on the pianoforte.
‘Because, my dear, a young lady is required to learn different skills than a young man. That is just the way it is.’
Eloise was fairly confident that that was when her grudge against the opposite sex had begun, and it had been slowly festering ever since; a pot left to boil on the lowest heat. She genuinely did not understand how her sisters–raised in the same household, by the same parents–did not feel as she did. Where was their indignation at the unfairness of a world that favored men over women? How could they have permitted themselves to be so easily turned by a handsome face and a good set of teeth? Especially Lenora, who had sworn that she wouldn’t marry until she saw her siblings settled. Now Lenora, Bridget, and Annabel were on the terrace with their husbands, and Eloise was in a tree. All things being equal, she liked to think that she’d ended up with the better part of the deal.
“What’syouropinion the matter?” she asked the twittering birds above her head.
But it wasn’t the birds that replied.
“My opinion is that you need to get down from there before you break your damned neck,” said Adam sternly.
