Page 50 of Heiress Gone Wild

“She’ll be ready to begin making her own decisions about what she wishes to do, and you will see that whatever arrangements she desires are made. If she feels comfortable remaining with us while you go to Africa, then so be it, and off you go. If not, you will remain here until she is comfortable with us and with her new life. Either way, if doing the season and making a debut are what she wants, I will be happy to launch her, and I expect you to be here for her entire debut season. Are we agreed?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. “Good,” she said and held out his cup and saucer. “Tea?”

“No, thank you,” he muttered, knowing he was as trapped as a fly in treacle. “After wrangling with the two of you, I’m now very much in need of that drink Galbraith offered me.”

“My husband,” Clara said with obvious glee, “is such a perceptive man.”

Chapter 13

After wolfing down the sandwiches Irene had sent up, Marjorie felt much better. Her hunger sated, she bathed in a luxurious, surprisingly modern bathroom, and then, with Eileen’s assistance, she changed into an evening dress.

Fearing the baroness’s smashing black gown would not be appropriate, Marjorie was forced to make do with her only other evening dress, a dull garment of mauve velvet purchased when she was sixteen for the occasions when Mr. Jessop and his wife had brought her to Manhattan for the theater or an opera. It had a modest neckline and enormous leg o’mutton sleeves, and though hopelessly out of fashion, it would have to do. And since Lady Stansbury’s maid had replaced all the ecru trimmings on the dress with black ones, she didn’t see how anyone could fault her for choosing it.

She was proven wrong there, however, the moment she met Lady David.

The introduction had scarcely been performed before the duke’s sister-in-law, an elegant woman in fashionable green silk, was looking at her askance, delicate auburn brows lifted.

“I see you’ve chosen to go into half-mourning, Miss McGann,” she said, and though her comment seemed innocuous enough, something in the tone of her voice caused Marjorie to stiffen. “Rather a daring choice, so soon.”

She thinks this is daring? If she only knew. Marjorie wondered what Lady David’s reaction would have been had she come down wearing the baroness’s black gown. “Is it daring?” she asked, looking down, then back up, feigning surprise at the question.

“Not at all,” Irene said, coming to her defense. “If I understand the situation, Marjorie, you hardly knew your father?”

“I hadn’t seen him since I was seven.”

“There you are, then. Ah, here’s our husbands at last, Carlotta,” she exclaimed, looking past Lady David to a pair of men in white tie approaching their corner of the drawing room. “You two are usually the first ones down. We were beginning to wonder if you were ever coming. Do let me introduce you.”

Lady David was obliged to postpone the topic of Marjorie’s dress as the duke and his brother stepped forward. “Henry, David,” Irene continued, “this is Jonathan’s ward, Miss Marjorie McGann. Marjorie, my husband, Henry, the Duke of Torquil.”

Irene paused as the duke, a tall man with black hair and piercing gray eyes, bowed to Marjorie, then she gestured to a smaller man with lighter hair and the same gray eyes. “And this is the duke’s brother, Lord David.”

She presented her brother to them, and after the men had shaken hands, the duke offered sherry to the ladies. The offer was accepted, and as Torquil moved to the liquor cabinet, Lord David and Jonathan followed to assist him, leaving Lady David to return to the topic of clothes.

“It’s a personal decision, I suppose, how long to wear full mourning,” she said, earning a forbearing little sigh from the duchess. “But is it wise to flout convention and forgo it altogether?”

“In Marjorie’s case,” Irene said with decision, “full mourning ought to be optional. If she wishes to adhere strictly to custom and wear solid black for the full year—”

She broke off, biting back a smile as Marjorie gave her a frantic, pleading look. “As her chaperone,” she resumed, “I think it would be perfectly all right for her to go straight into half-mourning. What do you think, Clara?” she asked as her sister joined them.

“Oh, I agree,” she said, much to Marjorie’s relief. “And come August, when we go to the country, she could abandon mourning completely, in my opinion.”

“You might have work convincing your brother about that,” Marjorie said dryly. “He expected me to hide in seclusion for a year, wearing black crape and lashings of jet.”

“What?” Irene laughed, glancing at her brother. “Oh, Jonathan, you didn’t? For a father she didn’t even know?”

Subjected to his sisters’ teasing censure, he displayed all the embarrassment typical of men caught in such situations. “What do I know about these things?” he muttered, taking the pair of filled glasses the duke handed him and bringing them to the ladies. “Irene, if you wish to shorten Marjorie’s mourning period, it’s up to you,” he said as he handed Marjorie and the duchess their glasses, “but for my part, I deemed it better to err on the side of caution.”

“Caution?” Clara repeated, laughing as he turned away. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Oh, but ladies, he’s been even worse than you imagine,” Marjorie assured, happy to join in the teasing and wreak some vengeance upon Jonathan for her week of needlework. “During our voyage, he put me in the care of Lady Stansbury.”

Everyone groaned at the mention of that name, everyone but Jonathan.

“I stand by that decision as well,” he said firmly as he returned again with sherry for Clara and Lady David. “Better to have Countess Stansbury chaperoning Marjorie than that Vasiliev woman.”

“Baroness Vasiliev?” echoed Irene in lively surprise. “Was she on board?”

Jonathan made a sound of derision. “Baroness, my eye.”

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