Not how Miss Scarlett Perkins had gasped and moaned on his lap, or how he had been so moved by those sounds that he had found his own release.
For as long as he lived, he was pretty sure some part of him would live in that closet with her.
Good God, was there any way—would it be possible to convince her—
No, and he was a scoundrel for thinking it…
Well, last night, in his dreams, he had been unable to control such thinking.He had dreamt of her.Of their collection of minutes in that closet.Except, in his dream, she had been completely bare, and he had been thrusting into her, about to—
“Malcolm, are you even listening?”
Beatrice’s voice broke through his reverie.
They were standing five hundred yards back from the meadow and Malcolm was staring at a hot-air balloon, this unwieldy upside-down pear of red silk currently marring the Parkhorne landscape.But he could hardly focus on this ridiculous sight.No, his mind kept wandering to what it would be like to tup Miss Scarlett Perkins in earnest.
“Yes,” he said, even though it was a lie.
“No, you aren’t,” Beatrice said with a little laugh.“If I didn’t know you better, I would think one of the ladies here had caught your attention.And that’s why you’re daydreaming.”
“Absurd,” he growled.
“The only problem,” Beatrice continued, “is that I am not surewhichlady it would be.You’ve expressed so little interest in any lady that I haven’t a distinct idea of the type that catches your eye.”
“Stop,” he warned.
“Is it Miss Wallington?Now she is a beauty—and I would think capable of firing any man’s imagination.”
“She’s a child,” he scoffed.“The same age as Philip.”
“Ah, so an older lady, then.”
Malcolm felt himself blush and wished he hadn’t said anything.
“There is no lady.I have merely heard everything that you’ve said about the balloon before.It won’t damage my grass or any future crops I grow here, so I shouldn’t be cross that you’ve insisted on this absurd contraption being foisted onto my farm.”
“Yourfarm?”Beatrice said sweetly.“And here I thought it was George’s.”
“In a manner of speaking,” he grumbled.
The truth was that he would like a farm of his very own.He could never desert Parkhorne, but he wouldn’t mind a small plot that truly belonged to him.He had the money saved by now—he just hadn’t found the right piece of land.
“Well, you don’t understand that these people from London expect something spectacular.We can’t drag them out here to the countryside for a month and give them nothing.”
“It is certainly a spectacle,” Malcolm scoffed.“I just hope no one falls out.”
“Don’t let it be you,” Beatrice retorted.“In your absent-minded daydreaming about no lady at all, you might get distracted and slip.”
“If you think I am going in that basket, Beatrice, you belong in Bedlam.Not that you aren’t equal to the place on most days anyway.”
He did not care for heights—and so he would let the others enjoy the balloon.
However, since he had promised Beatrice that he would help oversee the men running the balloon, he was one of the party when they all congregated a few hours later in the same spot.
Beatrice and Mrs.Salisbury had set up a luncheon spread for the guests.People could pick their way through their meal while they waited for their turn to go up in the balloon.Fortunately, in a stroke of uncharacteristic caution, Beatrice had instructed the men to not untether the balloon from its ropes, so the “flight” that the guests would undertake would be extremely controlled.
Now, the ladies and gentlemen assembled on the grass exclaimed at the balloon, clapping their hands.A few of the ladies—Miss Marburry and Miss Jones among them—swore they could never go up, and a few of the gentlemen—Mr.Marburry and Mr.Barstow among them—agreed.But the rest of the party seemed eager to take to the sky.
Malcolm was pleased to see amongst the crowd Sally and her family.His sister was flanked by Charles and Fred, her two husbands, as Malcolm thought of them, and their three children.Sally was one of the most delicate parts of the entire operation of George marrying.While many fashionable families included illegitimate offspring, and these offspring were tacitly accepted, even embraced, certain things would be harder for a new bride to swallow.Any girl that George married could accept that he had several acknowledged, illegitimate siblings who lived and worked around Parkhorne Hall.And Mrs.Salisbury’sclose friendshipwith Mrs.Westmore could be written off as an eccentricity of mature widowhood.But it would be harder to explain Sally’s unusual family to the blushing maiden who would be George’s bride and the new mistress of Parkhorne.
