Chapter 16
Mr. McCormick deftly caught Jo before they both went down in a mortifying tangle of limbs. He turned the collision into a brisk dance, steadying Jo on her feet.
Jo gaped, for once speechless. Mr. McCormick returned her shocked look with a warm smile as he released her.
“I beg your pardon, miss.” He gave her a modest bow.
“Her Highness, Princess Josephine of Osagard,” Singleton announced wearily as he came off the stairs. “Might I take your wrap, Your Highness?” He glared at Mr. McCormick, silently berating the man for his gaffe.
Jo didn’t respond to Singleton’s question. She gazed at Mr. McCormick as though she’d never seen him before, never mind that she’d chatted readily with him at her mother’s ball.
“Do you often linger like a boulder in other people’s front halls?” she demanded.
Caro recognized that Jo was embarrassed and flustered, the only situation that would make her rude.
“Do you often run pell-mell into other people’s homes?” Mr. McCormick countered.
“Caro is a very dear friend,” Jo said icily.
“Aye, a kind young woman, which is why I’ve come to speak to her. I was here first, Your Royal Highness, which you might have seen if ye’d opened your eyes.”
“Not Royal Highness, just Highness,” Jo corrected him. “In Osagard, no one is Royal Highness except the heir, which is my father.”
“Thank ye very much for reminding me of both my manners and your position,” Mr. McCormick returned.
Singleton took a step forward, as though ready to show Mr. McCormick the door, but Caro put a light hand on his arm and shook her head. Singleton’s heavy brows furrowed, but he subsided.
Neither Jo nor Mr. McCormick seemed to note Caro’s and Singleton’s presence. They fixed on each other, Jo’s cheeks bright pink, Mr. McCormick stiff-backed and annoyed.
“You’re welcome,” Jo said with lofty sarcasm. “I believe you need the instruction. Perhaps you ought to schedule a few lessons.”
“With you?” Mr. McCormick opened his blue eyes wide. “You’d like to tutor a rude Scotsman, would you?”
“I believe you said you were from Shetland. And of course I would not presume to teach you. That would be highly improper. I meant to leave you at Singleton’s mercy.
” Jo jerked her attention from Mr. McCormick and returned it to Caro, but Caro sensed she did so with reluctance.
“Might we go up, Caro? The hall is a bit crowded.”
Mr. McCormick’s face was as red as his hair now, but he bowed and backed away as Jo swept past him toward the stairs. Jo seized Caro’s arm in passing, turning her around and half dragging her up the first flight of steps.
Caro called down from the landing. “Singleton, please show Mr. McCormick to the gallery, where Mr. Stone is. I will speak to him later.”
She nearly missed Singleton’s unhappy, “Very good, Your Grace,” because Eamon had appeared from the shadowy gallery, capturing her attention. From his amused expression, he’d witnessed the entire exchange below.
Eamon gave Jo a polite bow then shot Caro a good-natured grin that flashed heat through her, before Jo’s determined stride pulled Caro up the next flight of stairs.
Jo’s anger receded the higher they climbed, and she was her usual chipper self by the time they reached the fourth-floor drawing room.
“Where Mr. Stone is,” Jo repeated, mimicking Caro’s cool tones. “Such richness, my friend.”
“Such prickliness between you and Mr. McCormick.” Caro closed the door in the empty room, the dowager in her own chambers writing her letters. “The poor man came here to ask for a post, I believe.”
“A post?” Jo untied the ribbons on her bonnet and pulled it off, blinking as though she’d never heard of such a thing.
“Yes, a post.” Caro gestured her friend to the sofa. “A paying job. Did you think I meant a pillar?”
Jo plopped down in a flutter of skirts. “Why on earth would he ask you for a post?”
“I imagine he needs the money.” Caro sat more gently next to her. “He was with Mr. Stone in the army, and none of them had a bean when they left it.”
“You say that so airily, as though money doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t. Not really. It is very useful for paying one’s bills and buying potatoes, but one doesn’t need riches to have kind friends.
I’ve discovered that one knows very quickly who one’s true and dear friends are as soon as we are in straitened circumstances.
Such as you and your family and darling Louise and her sons. ”
“And now you’ve made me feel frivolous and shallow.
” Jo balled her hands in her lap. “I apologize, dearest. I am behaving abominably. I didn’t see the wretched man until he was very solidly in my way.
” She rubbed her shoulder. “I meant it when I called him a boulder. Mr. McCormick is quite strong.” Her voice lost irritation and admiration crept in. “And rude,” she added quickly.
“He did not expect to be dashed into by a princess,” Caro said. “An adorable one, at that. I imagine you flustered him.”
“Perhaps,” Jo conceded.
Caro hid her amusement. Jo wasn’t used to gentlemen like Mr. McCormick, who didn’t fawn over her or try to ingratiate himself with excessively courteous sentiments.
Mr. McCormick hadn’t been awed by the grandeur of the Portman Square house or daunted by the lofty company he’d found himself in, either. He was a plain-spoken man, from what Caro had seen, who wouldn’t scrape and bow if he did not believe the person in front of him deserved it.
Caro found him refreshing, but Jo apparently did not know what to think.
“What did you rush into the house to tell me?” Caro asked. “It must be important, to risk Singleton’s ire.”
“Singleton is a sweet man, and we both know it.” Jo’s dimples returned as she scooted closer to Caro and locked her arm through hers.
“I came to find out what happened when you disappeared with your Mr. Stone last night. Merry told me,” she explained when Caro drew a startled breath.
“I didn’t have a chance to speak to you after Lady Carmichael took you as her prisoner. ”
“I was grateful to her,” Caro said. “She spared me much unpleasantness. She is another friend I now know is true.”
“You are evading the question with your usual adroitness. Tell me everything. Merry said she led Mr. Stone to the room where you were hiding and that you were alone together in there for quite some time.”
Caro’s face flamed so fiery hot that Jo burst into peals of laughter.
Caro knew Jo would not release her until her curiosity was fulfilled, so she tried to sketch what had happened in that room in a few short sentences while revealing as little as possible.
In the end, however, she found herself leaning on Jo’s shoulder, confessing the elation that had seared her at Eamon’s touch.
“I am glad, darling.” Jo stroked Caro’s hair. Caro’s lacy cap, which she’d neatly pinned on this morning, had come all the way loose and now lay in her lap. “You deserve some passion in your life. Will you have an affaire de coeur with him, as Merry suggested?”
The question was put quietly, with no eagerness, a friend asking what decisions Caro would make.
Caro popped her head up. “An affair? It was only a kiss. Hardly worthy of an operatic drama.”
“Mr. Stone is a man,” Jo said in a reasonable tone. “A handsome one, yes, but a man all the same. A gentleman either wishes to marry a woman or be her lover. As Mr. Stone is not wealthy, he likely will not propose. But he might agree to a liaison.”
“You are very cool.” Caro regarded her friend in surprise. “When Leopold courted me, you couldn’t contain your excitement, saying you knew he’d marry me. He was in straitened circumstances as well.”
“Yes, but Leopold was a duke, and you were an unmarried miss. Now you are a widow, and Mr. Stone is an intriguing but penniless gentleman.”
“He has made no mention of a liaison,” Caro said, flustered. “It sounds quite temporary, in any case. What would be left of my reputation if he made me his lover and then disappeared?”
The practical part of her mind said this, but the emotional side was all aquiver. To be Eamon’s lover would be astonishing, glorious, a brief moment of happiness in Caro’s drab life.
“Nonsense,” Jo said with adamance. “We both know lovers who have been devoted to each other for years and years. There is Lord Carew and Mrs. Watkins, for example.”
Jo named two prominent members of the ton who, both widowed, had been together for so long that everyone thought of them as married, though they were not. They’d met when very young, had been forced into different marriages by ambitious parents, and still managed to be together in the end.
“They are in their eighties,” Caro reminded Jo. “It was more permissible in their day to carry on outside of wedlock.”
“They weren’t always in their eighties.” Jo grinned. “Mama remembers them from when she was a girl. They were quite naughty, she says, and I say, good for them. Then there is the Prince Regent and Mrs. Fitzherbert.”
“Who are highly scandalous,” Caro argued. “And the Regent has taken other mistresses besides her. Even though he’s married to poor Princess Caroline.”
“But they were still devoted, at first.” Jo waved gloved hands.
“Never mind. I am trying to explain that a liaison needn’t be temporary.
You could live out the rest of your life surrounded by admiration and passion, doted on by a handsome gentleman with very blue eyes. They are quite nice, his eyes.”
Jo’s tone turned appreciative, and Caro felt a puzzling dart of jealousy. Why should she mind if Jo thought Eamon attractive?
“This is all building castles in the air.” Caro pretended to revert to her sensible self. “It was one kiss. Well, a series of kisses.”
Jo’s smile deepened. “So you said. My question is, what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing at all. What do you expect me to do? Follow Mr. Stone through the halls and entice him into more kissing?”