Never Fall for your Fiancée, page 18
“What sort of books do you prefer, Miss Diana?”
“Being a terminal cynic, with a curious penchant for the macabre, I tend to favor a good gothic novel. The more horrible, the better. I recently read a very disturbing book called Frankenstein. It is about a mad doctor who makes a monster out of bits and pieces of the many bodies he has robbed from graves, then brings it to life. Have you read it?”
“I cannot say that I have.” His mother pulled a face. “And I must say, Diana, you are not really convincing me to read it either.” She shuddered. “Monsters and stolen body parts do not appeal to me.”
“Me either.” It had taken a week, but now apparently even Vee had finally found her voice. “I prefer the classics. Milton, Shakespeare, Homer, Chaucer . . . I adore The Canterbury Tales and the Iliad. I am currently reading Paradise Lost. It is fascinating to think a man from so long ago could be so insightful.”
Diana rolled her eyes at those choices. “Vee is the bluestocking of the family. She likes her literature old and crusty. The older and crustier, the better.”
Vee surprised Hugh by taking this criticism well. “Diana is simply jealous I understand the intricacies of those texts and she doesn’t. It must be galling to have a younger sibling with superior intelligence.”
“What do you like to read, Minerva?” Jeremiah was pouring glasses of sherry on the sideboard.
“Minerva loves romance.” Diana clasped her hands to her heart and fluttered her eyelashes disparagingly. “Sickly Byron poems, damsels in distress. Knights in shining armor.”
Hugh’s gaze flicked to Minerva’s just as hers flicked to his, before she turned away to sip from her sherry glass, pretending she wasn’t blushing a little. It was obvious they were both thinking the same thing. She had referred to him as her knight more than once, and the main reason she was here was because she had been a damsel in distress. “Although she is less of a hopeless romantic nowadays, ever since her despicable first love cruelly broke her heart.”
Beneath his fingers, Hugh felt the fragile stem of his port glass snap. “First love?” It was obvious from all three sisters’ faces, Diana had inadvertently let something slip she shouldn’t have.
“More sweetheart than love, truth be told. For a little while they made eyes at one another across the pews at church.” She waved it away with impressive nonchalance. “But we do like to tease her about it. As sisters do.”
His mother was having none of it. “How did the scoundrel break your heart, dear?”
“He didn’t break it.” Minerva, too, was doing a good job of brushing it away. “It was my first foray into flirting. We exchanged a few meaningful looks over the course of several months— but he left Chipping Norton before they could develop into anything more. Which is just as well.” Her gaze sought his once again, and he could tell she desperately wanted him to change the subject. “Else I never would have fallen for Hugh.”
“A knight in shining armor always trumps a few stolen glances.” His mother squeezed his fake fiancée’s hand. “Especially when you have a lifetime of stolen glances ahead of you.”
He should change the subject.
“What was his name?” Jealousy had apparently taken over his vocal cords.
“I don’t recall. . . .” Minerva was lying. “It was a long time ago. I was what? Eighteen? Nineteen? It really was nothing. In fact, I barely remember the fellow’s face.” More lies. She both recalled it and regretted the loss of it. The faceless fellow had meant something, had hurt her, and Hugh hated him regardless.
“Good grief . . .” His mother had a look of awe and wonder on her face as she pointed to him. “Look at his expression! Hugh’s jealous!”
“Merely curious, I assure you.”
“Does curiosity pinch the features quite so much, Hugh? Or make you grind your teeth and glare? I think not.” She nudged Minerva. “I’ve never seen my son jealous of anything before. It is quite the sight to behold.”
He was going to strangle his mother, just as soon as he could stop his teeth from grinding.
“It’s very romantic, isn’t it? And also very funny.” She pinned him with an innocent stare he knew from experience was merely a precursor to a good skewering. “Hugh, darling— seeing as Minerva has come to terms with your shocking reputation, you can hardly be jealous of a few stolen glances on her part. Even the most sensible ladies are not immune to having their heads turned and she is a very beautiful woman.” Something he was only too painfully aware of. “Therefore, it stands to reason many, many men would have previously tried to stand in your privileged shoes.”
What was he supposed to say to that? “Their loss is my gain.”
“Indeed it is, my darling. And that is what you should focus on. Try not to allow Minerva’s past loves to consume you. And whilst a little jealousy flatters a lady’s ego, too much is unbecoming.”
“I am not the slightest bit jealous.”
“Then relax your eyebrows, dear. A scowl like that will only bring about premature wrinkles.”
“Some sherry, Mrs. Landridge?” Jeremiah purposefully placed his body between Hugh and the vile tormentor who had given birth to him.
“No, thank you. I rarely drink anything stronger than tea.” Lucretia’s theatrical voice filled the entire room, giving Hugh an idea that just might save him from his current predicament.
“Do you play the pianoforte, Mrs. Landridge?” Please say yes. “Or any other instrument, perchance?” He’d have a couple of sturdy footmen cart the enormous harp from the music room if it came to it.
Lucretia blossomed. “My voice is my instrument!” Of course it was. “If somebody plays the pianoforte, I should be delighted to sing a little ditty for you all.”
“My mother plays. . . . In fact, she is a virtuoso on the pianoforte.” He leaned past the barricade of his stepfather to offer her a sickly grin. “I am sure she would be delighted to accompany you.”
“I should be delighted.” Thwarted from embarrassing him, her returning smile was just as sickly. “I suppose I could play a quick song. Do you have one in mind, Mrs. Landridge?”
“Do you know any Mozart?”
He wanted to hug her. Without realizing it, Lucretia had become his unwitting accomplice. He suppressed the urge to grin. “My mother adores Mozart, Mrs. Landridge.” She wasn’t the only one who could give a good skewering. “In fact, she can play most of his pieces from memory . . .” Each and every one drove her mad. Especially the operettas. Dear Mama had a deep well of loathing for Mozart’s operettas.
“I really can’t. . . . It’s been so long since I played, Hugh, I cannot remember any of them.”
“No matter, Mother dearest . . . fortunately, we still have all the sheet music.”
“I am quite sure we don’t, dear.”
“Oh yes we do, Mama! Don’t you recall I bought you the entire works several years ago?”
She had been livid. The month before she had departed for Boston, she had invited every single eligible woman from Land’s End to John o’Groats to a ten-day house party at Standish House, which she had neglected to tell him about. He arrived home expecting a quiet week to focus on estate business and instead had suffered through the most interminable ten days of his life with the most rabid, most husband-hungry young ladies he had ever had the gross misfortune to meet. They simpered, they flirted. More than a few tried to kiss him, and one tenacious debutante had brazenly arrived at his bedchamber door in her nightgown offering him a free sample of the goods. After that, he had resorted to barricading his bedchamber at night for the duration in case he found himself ruined!
Hugh, obviously, had rewarded his mother for her treachery by sending a messenger to London to purchase every piece Mozart had ever written, then producing it with a flourish one evening, declaring he adored it, so she could play it while her gaggle of prospective daughters-in-law warbled out every aria directly next to her shoulder. It had been a magnificent piece of revenge. She had retired that night with a throbbing headache, and the very next day had ordered every page be burned on a bonfire. Not being stupid, Hugh had rescued them just in case he ever needed to torture her again. Clearly that day had come.
He gestured to his hovering butler across the room.
“Payne— fetch the Mozart from my study, would you? The complete works. It’s in the bottom drawer of my desk. There’s a good chap.” He toasted his mother and the actress with his broken glass, gripping the stem with his little finger so that nobody would be able to see it was now detached. “I do love a bit of Mozart. Especially the operettas. And perhaps, if I may be so bold, Mrs. Landridge, you could honor us with more than the one song.”
“I suppose I could sing a few of the arias . . .”
“Yes, the arias! Mother’s favorites! Sing all of them! Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
“Really?” Lucretia was beside herself with joy at the chance of a solo performance in front of a reluctantly captive audience. “Well, in that case . . . perhaps I will partake of a little sherry, Mr. Peabody . . . to lubricate my voice.”
Twenty minutes later and Lucretia was murdering yet another aria, this one from The Magic Flute. Her singing brought a new meaning to the term “soprano” because she certainly hit notes Hugh had never heard in his life and had no desire to ever hear again. Some brought actual tears to the eyes, and not tears of joy at the beauty of the music. It was so bad, Diana, Vee, and Jeremiah had stopped pretending not to giggle.
Not that Lucretia noticed. She was fully immersed and had become a frustrated opera singer with every fiber and sinew of her being. It was so bad, his mother had skipped several passages in the hope it would speed the actress up and was blatantly scowling more with each spirited stanza.
It was so bad, it almost stopped Hugh obsessing about Minerva’s mystery beau who had cruelly left her brokenhearted. Not quite bad enough, though, because he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him.
For probably the twentieth time, he allowed his gaze to wander to her. For some unknown reason that spoke volumes about the strength of her character, Minerva managed to listen intently to the racket without grimacing or sniggering once. Occasionally, her concentration was so intense she seemed lost in it— unless the unexpected reminder of that faceless Romeo from her past had set her thinking about him to the exclusion of all else— including the exuberant Lucretia?
Did she miss him?
Had she loved him?
Had they been hopeful flirts, innocent sweethearts, or— and this one really stuck in his throat— lovers?
During Hugh’s singular but memorable foray into intimacy with Minerva, he had not, he realized now, thought her kisses either clumsy or untutored. Which surely they would have been if Romeo hadn’t introduced her to the sport first? Alongside the unstoppable surge of furious jealousy, this thought also beggared the question as to how Hugh had measured up. For if Minerva’s had surpassed every other kiss in his extensive experience, it now seemed tragic his might not have had a similar effect on her. Something primal, wholly male, and visceral demanded his should have eradicated all future thought of Romeo’s from her pretty head forever.
“Should we rescue your mother or make her suffer a little longer?” Jeremiah was doing another round with the sherry. “Bearing in mind we all get to suffer alongside her.”
“I’m all for her suffering all night.” And he wouldn’t feel bad about it. “She deserves nothing less.”
“Fair enough. In which case, I call dibs on you carrying Minerva’s mother up the stairs when she collapses in a heap on the floor.” He waved the almost-empty decanter in front of Hugh’s face. “That voice of hers apparently needs a lot of lubricating, and seeing as her performance is getting worse by the second, there is every chance she is now well on her way to being drunk.”
“She is?” He took a long hard look at the actress for the first time since she had taken her place at the piano. Her face was flushed. There was a manic look to her expression. She was clasping her enormous bosom with more fervor than usual and leaning on the instrument in a manner that suggested standing straight was now much too much effort. “Oh dear.” Sober, Lucretia DeVere lacked all social awareness; drunk, there was no telling what she might do. “Perhaps we should intervene?”
Chapter Seventeen
They waited till the final verse before both erupting in simultaneous applause. “Mrs. Landridge— that was splendid.” As the host and her employer, Hugh realized it was his job to extricate Lucretia from the piano. He strode across the room and grabbed her hands, practically yanking her from where she had taken root. Behind her, with impressive speed, his mother gathered up every sheet of music, her eyes shooting daggers at him as she did so, before turning to Minerva.
“Minerva— please. Indulge us in a song. I shall play anything but Mozart?”
“Oh no! Really. I cannot sing.”
“She really cannot.” Diana was quick to back her sister.
“Nonsense, my dear. Hugh raved about your voice last Christmas in Boston. He said you sang like a nightingale.”
Now Minerva was shooting him daggers, too.
“As has been proved time and time again, Olivia, your son has grossly embellished my talents. Believe me, nobody wants to hear me sing.”
“You can’t be any worse than your mother,” mumbled Jeremiah under his breath.
“I could sing another?” Lucretia yanked her arm from Hugh’s.
“No! No . . .” His mother only just remembered her manners. “You have delighted us enough, Mrs. Landridge, and I don’t want you to strain that marvelous voice of yours. Minerva will sing. I absolutely insist.”
“I always did an encore at Drury . . .” Hugh rudely interrupted before the actress dropped them all in it.
“Please, Minerva. For me?” He pleaded with his eyes as he took another firm hold on Lucretia. “Your dear mother deserves a rest after her efforts.”
“I really cannot stress enough how badly I sing . . .” Trapped, Minerva stood, as both Vee and Diana stifled unladylike snorts at the prospect and Hugh manhandled Lucretia to a chair. “We could play cards instead. What about whist?”
His mother wouldn’t be deterred. “What would you like to sing, dear?”
“I don’t really know many songs.”
“Seeing as it is almost December, what about a Christmas carol? Surely you know a Christmas carol?”
“Not many.” Minerva was walking to the pianoforte like a condemned prisoner on the way to the gallows.
“How about ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’? Everybody knows that one.” She played a few bars encouragingly. “What key?”
“Off,” said Diana, earning her a jab in the ribs from the youngest sister before they both sniggered again.
“Any,” said Minerva miserably. “It will make no difference.”
The music began again, and his fake fiancée seemed to shrink into a shadow of her former self. “Hark! The herald angels sing . . .”
She was flat. Dreadfully flat. Her normally animated and lovely voice was nasal and unpleasant.
“Glory to the newborn King . . .” The “King” was off-key. Badly off-key. “Peace on earth, and mercy mild . . .”
“I will never understand the English sense of humor.” Jeremiah sat heavily next to Hugh on the sofa. “But yours is even more warped than your mother’s— and that is saying something.” They both winced at Minerva’s failed attempt at a high note. “I assume you knew your fiancée was completely tone deaf?”
“Of course I knew!”
Good grief, it was awful. So awful it bordered on the marvelous. He felt his lips twitching.
“But purely to torment your mother, you sacrificed the woman of your dreams to complete humiliation. Her sisters are openly laughing at her.” Vee and Diana were practically hysterical. “She’s going to strangle you later.”
“No, she won’t.” He hoped. “She’s stepping into the breach to save us from Mrs. Landridge.” Who drunkenly believed she was back in a theatre in front of a paying audience. As if Minerva knew he was staring at her, her emerald gaze lifted to his. Those lovely eyes were narrowed, but her own mouth was curving into a smile. She knew she was awful, too, yet she had done it anyway to save him. Nothing seemed to daunt Minerva. He loved that about her.
“Can I pour anyone else some more sherry?” Lucretia had abandoned the safety of the sturdy wingback Hugh had put her in to top up her glass. She took a healthy swig, then tripped over her own feet. “Whoops! Silly me!” Although she managed not to spill a drop.
“She’s definitely drunk.” Jeremiah grinned at Hugh. “And she’s definitely your problem.”
“Hark! The herald angels sing . . .”
He managed to get to the actress before she tripped again, but as Hugh tried to grab the sherry out of her hand, she snatched it sideways and sloshed it all over Jeremiah, something that made Minerva stop midchorus.
“Brava, Minerva!” His mother practically slammed the lid of the piano down. “What a rare talent for music your family has.”
“Oh, thank you, my lady!” Lucretia believed the compliment was for her, basking in it as if it were the sun. “Thank you!” Her hand fluttered near her ample bosom, then to Hugh’s horror, she bowed. “Music has always been a passion of mine.” She beamed as he tried to lead her to the doorway. “My dear Lord Fareham— did I ever tell you I played the Queen of the Night on Drury Lane?”
“No . . . really?” Hugh patted her arm as he tugged her along, before turning to the rest of the room, which had gone ominously quiet. He rolled his eyes, mimicking drinking with his free hand and mouthing the words “too much sherry” slowly in case anyone missed it.
“Yes indeed . . . It was a triumph!”
It was like watching knitting unravel, and there was nothing he could do about it.
