Chapter Fifteen
Yet again, Malcolm could not forget it.
None of it, in fact.
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 sure which lady 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.”
“Your farm?” 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’s close friendship with 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.
Sally understood these complications very well and she would not announce the arrangement of her family to anyone at this party for that reason.
They had all agreed—Sally had, in fact, suggested it—that if anyone here asked questions about his only illegitimate sister, they would say that she lived with her husband, Fred, and his brother, Charles.
But it still made Malcolm feel guilty that his sweet sister had to hide amongst these outsiders, who would see her as disgraceful, even potentially disqualifying of the match with George, if they knew the truth.
He approached Sally and her family, greeting Charles and Fred and the little children, who let out cheers upon seeing him. He frequently let them lark about on his farm and visit with the animals, so he was, he must admit, something of a favorite amongst his nieces and nephew.
He chucked the girls and boy underneath their chins and said hello to the two puppies they had brought, both of whom seemed extremely rambunctious.
“You must keep the puppies on their leads, my darlings,” Sally said to her children. “We must not disrupt the party.”
“Yes, we couldn’t have such a levelheaded proceeding as this one ruined for anything.”
Sally quirked her brow at him. “I would think you would have stopped such a happening, Malcolm, for the sake of your fields.”
“I tried,” he said with a sigh. “Now I can only hope that no one loses their life to this foolishness.”
“Surely the balloon is not as dangerous as that,” Sally retorted.
“You won’t see me in it,” he grumbled.
“Mama! Mama! I want to see the balloon up close,” his nephew crowed.
“We’ll take them,” Charles said, with that air of easy indulgence that distinguished, in his experience, the contented family man from the bachelor. “And we’ll let your Mama cheer up Uncle Malcolm.”
“Mama is the best at cheering up,” Victoria, his youngest niece, said.
“Yes, she is,” Fred said, a mischievous smile playing about his lips.
Sally playfully swatted his arm. “Go on, all of you.”
Once Charles and Fred were out of earshot, Sally turned to him, “How has it been, Mal?”
Only Sally called him Mal. There were certain things, he felt, that only Sally could understand about him, and his discomfort with the fine people from London was one of them.
Sally had been raised in part by her grandparents, too, after the death of her mother, and they had been cottagers, no different from the laborers on his farm.
Malcolm and Sally had both worked at Parkhorne—before her marriage, Sally had served as lady’s maid and companion to Beatrice—unlike their younger brothers, who had been raised as something closer to gentlemen.
Not to mention that Sally had married a former footman and a man who owned a small freehold, where they all lived now.
“Tolerable,” he said heavily. “Uncomfortable, at first. But I am more used to it now.”
“And how is the fine lady you’ve been asked to attend?”
“She’s—” His mouth went dry, and he found himself unable to speak for a moment, but he didn’t worry about Sally judging him for his lapse. He coughed and swallowed. “She isn’t what I expected. She’s intriguing.”
“Mmm,” Sally said with a smile. “Well, that doesn’t sound bad at all.”
Here was why he loved his sister. Anyone else in the family would tease him or make a remark. But Sally took it easily. She didn’t see the need to pry.
“I am glad to see that Maven Larchman is here,” Sally continued lightly, nodding in the direction of the redheaded girl across the meadow. “I know Eleanora has felt badly about leaving her out of the dinners.”
“Yes, it is good to see her. Although I don’t know how happy it will make Philip.”
Sally looked up in alarm. “Why do you say that?”
Malcolm felt guilty gossiping about his brother—but it was just Sally. “Don’t mention it to him. But I caught them having a row the other day.”
“About what?”
“She objects to his interest in some of the ladies of the party.”
“Ah,” Sally said. “Poor girl. Although she hardly seems the type to moon after Philip.”
“No, indeed,” Malcolm concurred. If anything, in the past, Malcolm would have guessed Philip would be the one to find his affection unrequited. Maven Larchman had never been a young lady with her heart set on matrimony. Everyone knew that.
At their distance, he saw George and Gertrude being led into the basket of the balloon.
“Come,” he said to Sally. “I must go closer.”
She nodded and they walked toward the balloon, reaching the little crowd around the basket just in time for it to leave the ground. When it lurched, Gertrude grabbed onto George’s arm with a squeal.
Malcolm observed a funny expression cross his brother’s face—it was almost one of panic. However, Malcolm was sure that George had no fear of heights, and that the strange contortion had more to do with Miss Wallington than the rise of the basket.