Scandal At The Midsummer Ball. Marguerite Kaye
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Verity Fairholme. Lustrous golden locks, china-blue eyes, a swan-like neck, a retroussé nose and a rosebud mouth, she was, in her blue-and-cream gown, perfection itself. Wellington had not, for once, exaggerated in order to get his way. Fergus, ridiculously, wished he had. He ought to be relieved, and extremely grateful. He ought to remember why he had agreed to be here.
He did not need much reminding. Wellington’s summons a week ago had been an enormous relief. Finally, his days languishing behind a desk were over. ‘Egypt,’ Wellington had told him with one of his rare smiles. ‘Henry Salt is the Consul-General in Cairo. A good man, though his penchant for collecting antiquities could prove a problem. Locals don’t like it. Italians and French want to beat him to it. Tricky situation, potentially. We need a practical, trusted man on the ground, and that’s where you come in.’
Relief had given way to excitement. Until Wellington explained the price. The diplomatic posting required a suitable wife to host social events and entertain guests. Apparently his friend, the Duke of Brockmore, required a husband for his niece. An excellent piece of serendipity, Wellington called it. Unfortunately, Fergus could not have one without the other—and on this, his commander-in-chief was implacable. ‘Such prestigious postings as this come up very rarely, Colonel. You may have to wait two, three, perhaps even four or five years before another becomes available. Do you really enjoy counting muskets that much?’
The Duke of Wellington’s smile this time had been thin. The threat was barely veiled. Sixteen years, Fergus had served obediently in the army. Now he must march to a different drum, or he might never march again. It stuck in his craw to be manoeuvred in this way, but if he was to be stuck behind a desk for the rest of his service, he’d likely die of boredom. A wife, an apparently beautiful, accomplished and well-born wife, was a small price to pay for such an exciting posting. Egypt—that was the thing he had to keep in mind. Egypt and escape from drudgery. Though now he was here...
Now he was here, he’d better stop wasting his time wishing that he were not. Whatever doubts he might harbour about this arranged marriage, he had no doubts at all about Wellington’s judgement. If he said that his friend’s niece would suit Fergus ‘admirably’ then it was up to Fergus to make sure that she did, because the consequences, if he failed to make a match of it, were unthinkable.
The Duke and Duchess of Brockmore were now only a few feet away. Fergus braced himself. Looking across the room, he saw Sir Timothy Farthingale deep in conversation with a statuesque flame-haired woman of about thirty, clad in a scarlet dress which clung in all the right places to her voluptuous figure. Sir Timothy, he noticed with an inward smile, was having to work very hard to keep his eyes from that magnificent bosom. Maintaining an act was hard work, it seemed.
‘Colonel Kennedy, I presume? A pleasure to make your acquaintance at last. I have heard a great deal about you from my friend, Wellington. May I present my wife, the Duchess of Brockmore, and my niece, Lady Verity Fairholme?’
Fergus bowed first to the duke, then to the duchess, and then to the niece. Lady Verity’s hand was limp in his. While they made the usual introductory small talk her eyes glazed over and her gaze drifted to the painting behind his head. Suppressing his irritation, he nodded and smiled, responding automatically to the duchess’s remarks about the weather, the duke’s enquiries as to Wellington’s health. Lady Verity’s eyes continued to drift around the room. She fluttered her fan in the direction of the Kilmun twins. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, to no one in particular, then turned her back, making for a large footstool in the middle of the room, where she ensconced herself, and was immediately joined by the twins.
‘It may be that my niece finds the heat trying,’ the duke said stiffly, for the affront was clearly deliberate. ‘I am sure she did not intend to be rude.’
‘Indeed not,’ Fergus said tightly. ‘I am sure that if Lady Verity intended to be rude she would make a better fist of it than a mere flounce.’
‘Touché, Colonel Kennedy,’ the duchess said with a forced smile. ‘Now, who else would you like to be introduced to?’
He had already met the one person he’d come here to meet, and it had been a far from auspicious beginning. His nerves had given way to a horrible flat feeling, as if he’d been waiting all day to confront an enemy who did not show up. Not that Lady Verity was the enemy—though dammit, she had appeared more enemy than ally.
One of the many lessons Wellington had taught him was that on occasion it was prudent to beat a strategic retreat and regroup. ‘Thank you,’ Fergus replied, making his bow, ‘but I’m finding the unseasonable heat a little oppressive myself. If you will excuse me, I think I will retire outside momentarily for some fresh air.’
* * *
The sun blazed down from a cloudless, azure sky. Fergus glanced at the handy little map he’d found in his bedchamber—another example of the Duke of Brockmore’s legendary attention to detail—and reckoned he was at the top of the steps leading down to the South Lawn. Sure enough, the waters of the ornamental lake glinted in the distance. It would be much cooler there. He’d be tempted to wander down, were it not for the fact that he’d be spotted from the drawing-room windows.
He descended from the terrace to a lawn so perfect he reckoned the Duke of Brockmore’s gardeners must have trimmed it with grape scissors. Behind him, the house itself seemed to glitter in the sunshine, looking as if it was constructed from spun sugar. The beauty of the country mansion could not be denied, with its pleasing symmetry, its surprising lack of ostentation. It reminded him of an Italian palazzo he’d been billeted in once. He couldn’t remember where, but he did remember it was summer, like this, and the marble floors had been blissfully cool on his feet, which were aching and blistered from long days of marching. There had been a lake there too, where he’d swum.
And there had been a woman. Fergus smiled. There had been a good many women back in those days, and a good many wild parties too, when they were not fighting wild battles. Though he did not forget the tedium of endless drills and weeks of tense waiting, though he did not wish to relive the horrors of the aftermath of battle, he missed—oh, how he missed—the excitement, and the danger, and the thrill, the desire to make the most of every single day, knowing it might well be his last. His smile faded. Those days were most definitely long gone. He tried to conjure the elation he’d felt when he’d first heard about the Egypt posting, but that awkward moment with the woman he would have to share his future with made his doubts surface once more. He couldn’t afford to have doubts.
The formal gardens were laid out on the right-hand side of the house. There was a maze there. He’d be sure of some privacy in the maze, but his thoughts already contained enough dead ends and wrong turnings to be going on with. Instead he took the left-hand path, which his plan informed him led to the kitchen gardens.
Deciding that he could risk some concession to the heat, Fergus shrugged himself out of his dark-blue coat with some relief. Why was it that fashion went hand in hand with discomfort? He tugged longingly at his starched neckcloth, but knowing he’d only have to re-tie the blasted thing before returning to the drawing room, contented himself with rolling up his shirtsleeves.
Peering curiously into the Duchess of Brockmore’s famous Orchid House was like opening an oven. Hastily closing the door, Fergus decided against an investigation of the pinery and the huge succession house where reputedly grew the largest vine in England.
The stone archway in front of him must lead to the walled garden. Sure enough, neat vegetable plots vibrant with greenery took up most of the available space. Precisely pruned peach and apricot trees fanned against the walls, and regimented ranks of raspberry and gooseberry canes filled one sunny corner. In the centre of the garden, on the large rectangle of lawn, stood two tall poles with a thick rope strung between them. And on the rope, improbably, dressed in a tiny tunic, balanced a woman.
Fergus drew back against the archway out of the line of her sight. She was slim, slight in stature, but the flimsy fabric she wore revealed a lithe and extremely supple body, with shapely legs and slender, elegant feet clinging to the rope. Her hair was auburn. Her skin, in contrast, was creamy white. She moved expertly and fluidly along the rope, her arms spread wide, as if