Regina Scott - The Captain's Courtship

“Sing?” Claire persisted.

“I haven’t heard her, but her speaking voice is pleasant enough.”

“Paint?”

He raised a brow. “Paint?”

She pursed her lips, and he had to look away as memories flooded in like a high tide. What was wrong with him? Even after ten years, he found it far too easy to remember how soft those lips had felt against his, how easily they could form words that cut him to the quick.

“Well,” she said, blithely unaware, as usual, of the turmoil she was causing inside him. “I suppose painting is optional. She is versed in the latest dances?”

Richard struggled to focus on her questions. “I wouldn’t know.”

Her frown was back. “Has she ever attended a local assembly?”

He hadn’t realized such things would be important. “Not to my knowledge.”

“A party at her own home, then.”

The party his uncle had held every year came to mind. Samantha and her governess, Adele Walcott, who had married his brother Jerome last week, spoke of an event each summer, when his uncle entertained all his neighbors, great and small, on the grounds of Dallsten Manor in Cumberland. While the locals toasted his health, he’d met with other men inside the manor, and no one knew what they had discussed or who had been invited, except for his uncle’s closest friend, the Marquess of Widmore. But Adele had made it sound as if Samantha had always been sent inside in the evening, when the locals held a dance.

“I suspect she’s never danced with a partner,” Richard told Claire.

She shook her head at such a ramshackle upbringing, and one of her curls came free from her bun. It hung between her ear and cheek, a strand of silky sunlight in the dark kitchen. He grabbed his cup of tea and made himself take a sip of the cooling brew rather than reach out to touch the gleaming gold.

“Then she must have a dance master, before she reaches London,” she declared. “I’ll write to Monsieur Chevalier immediately.”

“Chevalier?” Richard asked, setting down the cup but keeping his fingers anchored to the handle.

“Henri Chevalier, a dance master of some note. He’s trained any number of young ladies the last few years, including a foreign princess.”

Just what he needed, a swell-headed fop teaching Samantha to take on airs. “We can put an ad in the Carlisle paper and find someone in Cumberland.”

She raised a delicate brow. “Certainly we could do that, if Lady Everard was coming out in the wilds of Cumberland. As she is making her debut in London, under my tutelage, only a London master will do. Chevalier is the best, the son of a deposed French count. I’m sure you wouldn’t want your cousin to make do with less.”

And how was he to answer that? Of course he wanted the best for Samantha. That was one of the reasons he hoped Claire would sponsor her. “Very well,” he conceded. “See if your fancy London fellow is available to come with me to Cumberland. I planned to leave tomorrow morning.”

“That,” she said, “we shall discuss in a moment.”

“So you even intend to dictate my travel, madam?” Richard challenged.

She tsked. “Come now, sir. If you wish to bargain, you must be willing to put everything on the counter.”

“Bargain, madam?” What more did she want? Ready for the worst, he braced his hands on the hard wood of the table.

“A turn of phrase, sir,” she assured him, but she straightened in her ladder-back chair as if making a decision. “Allow me to sum up our discussion for you. You wish me to sponsor an untried girl of indeterminate skills, a girl I have never met, and shepherd her through her first Season, including being presented to Her Royal Majesty.”

“And be welcomed everywhere,” Richard added, remembering the requirements of his uncle’s will, which his cousin Samantha was trying so hard to fulfill. “And garner at least three offers of marriage from suitable gentlemen.”

She trilled a laugh. “Why stop at three, sir? Why not a dozen?”

Richard gritted his teeth. “Three will be sufficient. Then you’ll do it?”

She held up a hand. “Perhaps you should hear my requirements first.”

“I heard them—a new wardrobe for Samantha; a carriage and team with coachman, groom and riding horse; the town house refurbished and staffed; and the services of a dance master.”

“The services of Monsieur Chevalier,” she corrected him. “And all that you will need for your cousin regardless of who sponsors her. I’m sure you’ll agree that I deserve something for my struggles.”

So she truly would bargain with him, just as she’d done with the tradesman. He wasn’t sure why that so disappointed him. She was right. He was asking her to change her plans, risk her reputation. Yet he couldn’t help thinking that Claire was the one who had gone back on her word ten years ago. It seemed only fair she do him this favor now.

“What struggles?” he protested. “Samantha is a beauty. Your work will not be onerous.”

“You, sir, have never been a girl on her first London Season. Besides, beauties often require the most effort from their sponsors. I will need a new wardrobe.”

Richard eyed her black dress. “What you’re wearing ought to scare off obnoxious suitors.”

Her smile remained polite, though he thought he saw her eyes narrow just the slightest. “Doubtless. But I’m certain you’d like me to reflect well on Lady Everard in public. You did say I was to be an example. Or do you intend to gown her in black as well?”

Neither his uncle nor his cousin would have stood for it. “My uncle insisted that she enjoy her Season,” he told Claire.

She inclined her head. “And I shall see that she enjoys it thoroughly. I will also require a maid. French, I think.”

Richard gaped. “What possible good can that do?”

She tapped her finger on the table by his cup. “Think, Captain Everard. Your cousin has been raised in the wilderness. Her personal maid cannot possibly be versed in the latest styles.”

“As far as I know, she doesn’t even require a maid!”

She shook her head. “Every lady requires a maid. You, sir, have never had to pull on a ball gown alone. Having a maid to serve your cousin and me will solve that problem, won’t it?”

He hated it when she sounded so reasonable about such a triviality. “Very well.”

She nodded as if pleased by his answer. “And when the Season is over, you will set me up in a house, anywhere I want to go.”

A house? She had to know what she asked. Any lady who took such an offer from a gentleman would no longer be welcomed by the ton. Besides, he couldn’t believe she truly wanted to leave London, or that she lacked the funds to do so herself.

“That’s a tall order,” he returned. “Who knows where you’ll wish to settle? Shipping a household to Italy can cost a fortune.”

“Which you claim to have,” she pointed out.

More than he’d ever dreamed, if Samantha managed her Season as planned. But he was no longer so willing to lay that fortune at Claire’s feet. “My cousin inherited a great deal of the legacy,” he said. “I can’t in good conscience make promises against it without her approval.”

She gazed at him in obvious wonder. “An Everard taking orders from a slip of a girl. That must have cost you a great deal to admit.”

“Not as much as once.” He pushed the tea away. “If it’s a new house you fancy, I’ll agree to setting you up somewhere in England, Claire. No more. And your reputation will take a beating if our agreement ever becomes public knowledge.”

“Then we will keep it private,” she said. “I’m a longtime friend of the family, who is delighted to sponsor the new Lady Everard. That is all anyone need know.”