Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Dinner that evening was to be a formal affair. Thankfully, Augusta had brought plenty of clothes, anticipating that it might take time for Mason to find Lionel.
She’d chosen her best evening gown of white silk with a bodice ornamented in pearls, the modest neckline only showing the very tops of her breasts.
She hoped she would still look suitably attired for dinner with a man like Mason, who moved in loftier circles than she ever had.
She would proudly wear her gown to the grand ball held in Woolsey every year, but London was different.
Nervously, she awaited Mason in the drawing room. He probably wouldn’t even notice what she wore. He still only thought of her as his wife’s younger sister.
His butler stepped into the drawing room. “The master has just returned, Miss Hunt, and is changing for dinner. He said to tell you he’d be with you shortly. May I pour a drink for you? Some sherry, perhaps?”
“A glass of sherry would be wonderful, thank you.” She needed something to calm her nervousness. “Did he happen to say if he was successful in his mission?”
“I’m afraid not. But I gather his lordship means to discuss that with you at dinner.”
Oh no. Did that mean he hadn’t been able to stop the press from printing Lionel’s notice?
She forced herself not to worry as she took the glass of sherry the butler offered her. Mason had promised to take care of it, and he would do so. He always kept his promises … when she could get him to make them in the first place.
Now a new cause for concern swept over her. She and Mason would be dining together. Alone. Sipping her sherry, she struggled to tamp down her reckless thrill at the thought.
Let me shift this burden from your shoulders, sweetheart.
The memory made her breath catch in her throat. Mason had called her sweetheart.
Her reserved brother-in-law had never called her anything so intimate.
She’d always assumed he saw her as another burden, a leftover duty to Esther.
And if sometimes he shot her a look oddly akin to yearning, she’d chalked it up to her own wishful thinking, born out of gratitude for how he’d taken her and Lionel in.
Never mind that during her come out, she’d compared all her suitors to him and found them lacking.
Never mind that even before Esther’s death, Augusta had felt a growing and decidedly un-sisterly fascination for her enigmatic brother-in-law.
She’d told herself it was only natural. He was older, wiser. It meant nothing.
Except it meant everything. After so many weeks away from him, seeing him again today had brought the truth painfully home. She was quite desperately in love with him.
But women had been throwing themselves at Mason ever since Esther’s death—beautiful women, with smaller waists, less brassy hair, and bigger bosoms than hers. How could she hope to compete?
Still, he’d called her sweetheart. Did she dare hope he meant anything by it?
Her heart did a little skip. Which was ludicrous.
After what Lionel had done, Mason might not even want to see them ever again.
And even if he did, he was too sensible to take up with his deceased wife’s sister.
The world considered such unions immoral.
Scandalous. Why, even the church did not deign to perform a marriage of a man to his late wife’s sister.
She sighed. Now she was really putting the cart before the horse, dreaming of him marrying her.
Yet the very idea of being with him built a sweet pressure in her chest that made it increasingly hard for her to breathe.
The word sweetheart rang in her head, a persistent bell tolling a most unreasonable hope.
“Good evening, Augusta,” Mason said in that throaty voice that never failed to thrum excitement along her nerves.
She turned so quickly to face him that she spilled some sherry on her bodice. “Good lord,” she muttered, looking around for something to blot it up with. He handed her his handkerchief, then watched as she tried futilely to banish the stain while he looked transfixed by the sight of her attempt.
“Is there something I can give you to … help with … whatever you’re doing?” he said in an oddly choked voice.
“No, no, I’m afraid it’s hopeless.” She sighed. “Sherry and silk clearly don’t belong together.”
“You still look beautiful in that dress,” he murmured. “And it’s just the two of us, so no one will care if you have a little … spot on it.”
He thought she looked beautiful? Her pulse started hammering. “When your mother sees it, she will almost certainly care. She had the gown made specially for me.”
“Oh, I can always pacify Mother. Don’t worry about that.” He smiled. “You could wear a brooch to hide it. I think I might even have one of your sister’s—”
“No, thank you. I-I have plenty of brooches of my own.” She could only imagine how she’d feel wearing her late sister’s brooch while coveting her husband.
But he’d never looked so cursedly appealing as he did right now—chestnut hair tousled by the March winds, cheeks still flushed from his earlier exertions, and eyes the silver of moonbeams in the candlelight.
Stop gawking at him, for pity’s sake. She forced a smile. “So, how was your trip to the London Monitor?”
“I made it in time to get our altered announcement inserted instead of Lionel’s.”
“I still don’t understand how—”
“Dinner is served,” the butler said.
Mason offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
Unable to think, much less speak this close to him, she bobbed her head and took his arm.
She swallowed a sigh. Mason had the most spectacular arm, finely muscled the way a man’s should be, and his scent, a heady mix of bergamot and brandy, made her wish she could just bury her nose in his shoulder. Which, of course, would be quite rude, not to mention odd.
They took their seats at the end of the table set for them.
“So, what is this great plan you have for making sure Lionel never does this again?” she asked without preamble as the footmen placed bowls of turtle soup before them.
“You said something earlier about giving him an address we could control?”
“Right.” He ate a spoonful of his soup. “I own a town house in Park Street, which I lease to a family. The tenants have agreed to let us take it over for a few hours in exchange for box seat tickets to the theater next week, even after I explained what I want to do.” When she lifted an eyebrow, he added, “I mean to turn the place into a house in mourning.”
She stared at him. “I don’t understand. Why would that— Oh!”
He smiled. “Yes. I mean to shame Lionel by showing him what the consequences of his actions could be.”
“Assuming that Lionel hurries to the misprinted address after learning of the error, he’ ll surely be mortified to find the house beleaguered by strangers at a time when such chaos would be reprehensible to a family. And he would feel it is all his fault.”
“Exactly.”
She blotted her lips with her napkin, noticing that Mason’s gaze followed the motion before he dropped it to his food once more. That was curious. “But how will you prepare the house so that he might notice from the outside? You don’t want to depend on his going inside for it to make an impact.”
He smiled. “First of all, I’m heading over there early tomorrow morning, long before the newspaper hits the streets. A few footmen will accompany me with plenty of black crape to drape over the doors and windows.”
“You keep those handy, do you?” she quipped.
He shrugged. “The ones we used for Esther’s funeral are still in the attic.”
A sobering thought. Esther had been dead two years, and Augusta missed her sorely. She could only imagine what Esther would think of this new situation with Lionel. Esther had adored their brother.
Mason cleared his throat. “I also have the funerary hatchment from when your sister passed away. Do you think Lionel would recognize it?”
“I’m not sure I would, so I’m sure he wouldn’t.”
“Then I’ll hang that on the door, too.”
“We. We will hang it. I’m going with you.”
He stiffened. “If he sees you there …”
“It would have the same effect as if he sees you there. I’ll stay out of sight. But I want to be there to pick up the pieces afterward.”
He drew himself up. “You don’t approve of my plan,” he said coolly.
“That’s not it. I just know he’ll be devastated, and I want to make sure he understands that we’re doing this out of love. Or at least I am.”
Mason frowned. “And if he’s not devastated? If he doesn’t even show up?”
“He’ll show up.”
He reached over to cover her hand with his in a gesture of sympathy that made her blood run hot and her heart thunder in her chest. Her gaze shot to his.
He was staring at her with compassion in his eyes. “And if he does come, but merely walks away without so much as an apology to the family?”
She was having a hard time concentrating on what he was saying, with his hand atop hers, feeling far too much like a caress, although she knew he was just feeling concerned for her, under the circumstances..
Just answer him, peabrain. This is about Lionel, remember? “I-I don’t think he’ll do that. He does have a conscience, you know.”
“I pray that he does. But I don’t want you to be disappointed if he behaves more like the heedless young man he’s showing himself to be right now.”
“We’ll find out, won’t we?”
The footmen came in, and he jerked his hand back from hers. The servants changed out their bowls for plates heaped high with big slices of chicken pie, fried potatoes, and braised leeks.
She stared at all the food. “Your cook doesn’t do courses?”
With a shrug, he cut into his chicken pie. “Seems like a lot of bother for a widower.”
“Do you always eat alone then?” she asked, her heart breaking for him.
He avoided her gaze. “I used to have my fellow bachelor friends over, but once I was married, I rarely socialized with them, because we had nothing in common any longer. And now I don’t socialize with them because they don’t understand what it’s like to be a widower.”