Page 47 of Heiress Gone Wild

Irene gave a cough. “Clara, this is Miss Marjorie McGann. Marjorie, my sister, Lady Galbraith.”

“Miss McGann.” The woman’s features relaxed into friendlier lines as she crossed the entrance hall. By the time she reached Marjorie, she was smiling, but she did not even glance at Jonathan. “Irene telephoned me at the newspaper office earlier and told me you were coming with our brother after all. Welcome to England.”

“Thank you, Lady Galbraith.”

“Clara, please,” she said and gestured to the man who had come in with her. “This is my husband, Rex.”

“Miss McGann.” Lord Galbraith bowed to her, then he looked at Jonathan and held out his hand, hinting that he at least was of the same mind as the duchess about Jonathan’s return. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you,” Jonathan replied as the two men shook hands.

There was another silence, shorter this time, then the duchess spoke again. “I was just about to have Boothby send tea up to the library,” she said with a nod to the butler, who at once glided away in obedience to this command. “It’s a bit late, but one can always do with a cup of tea.”

Her voice was smooth and cheerful, as if nothing at all was amiss, as if the tension brought with Clara’s arrival wasn’t as thick as an English pea soup fog. “Miss McGann is going up to change, but Jonathan...” She paused, and this time, her gaze paused meaningfully on her brother. “Jonathan is joining me.”

“How lovely,” the viscountess said, her bright voice somehow managing to imply that it might not be lovely at all. The English, Marjorie appreciated, thinking of Lady Stansbury and her circle, had an astonishing talent for civil insincerity.

“No tea for me,” Lord Galbraith said. “I’m going up to change. It’s almost six o’clock. And,” he added, giving Jonathan a wink over his wife’s head, “after Clara has finished shredding her poor brother into spills for being away so long, I suspect I’ll be needed to offer him something stronger than tea.”

“I’ve no intention of shr... shredding Jonathan into spills,” Lady Galbraith protested, her voice faltering on the admission. “Even though he deserves it.”

“It’s good to see you, Clara,” Jonathan said gently, but he didn’t move closer. Instead, he waited.

“Is it?” Her round face twisted, her coolness seemed to shatter into pieces, and she gave a sob. “Oh, Jonathan!”

He closed the distance in an instant, and Marjorie gave a sigh of relief as the viscountess’s straw hat and hat pin fell to the floor and she wrapped her arms around her brother’s neck with another sob.

Marjorie watched them a moment longer, then she turned tactfully away and followed the housekeeper up the stairs.

The drawing room of Torquil House, with draperies of ivory and pale green and glittering crystal chandeliers, was every bit as grand as the entrance hall. But at the far end of the room, a pair of immense double doors had been flung back to reveal a much cozier room, with murky green walls, overstuffed bookshelves, and chintz-covered sofas. Electric lamps had been lit, and a fire burned in the grate, warding off the evening chill in the spring air.

Irene seated herself on one of the two sofas facing each other in the center of the room, Clara sat beside her, and Jonathan sank down opposite them.

“Now, Jonathan, you must tell us everything,” Irene said, wasting no time on preliminaries. “Your letter last month said Miss McGann was a schoolgirl.”

“That’s what I’d been led to expect myself. I didn’t learn otherwise until I met her.”

“You couldn’t have written again and clarified that she was a grown woman?”

“I did. In my telegram.”

“Which was hardly edifying.” Irene pulled a slip of paper out of the pocket of her tea gown and read, “‘Miss McGann older than thought. Will need maid and room prepared for her. Explain all soon. Arriving about teatime. Jonathan.’”

Shoving the telegram back in her pocket, she looked at him again. “You might have warned us what to expect in greater detail than that.”

“I would have done,” he replied wryly, “if I’d had the opportunity.”

He launched into explanations, but he’d barely conveyed Marjorie’s unexpected arrival aboard ship before he was interrupted by a round of merry laughter from the two women opposite.

He watched them, not nearly as amused as they seemed to be. “I fail to see what you two are laughing about,” he said, trying to assume an air of dignity.

“Serves you right,” Irene said, still laughing. “After you just left her there.”

“Well, I didn’t know what else to do with her,” he mumbled, shifting in his seat, reminded that nothing could make a man feel more of a fool than his sisters enjoying a joke at his expense. “It didn’t seem right to—”

“Bully for Marjorie,” Clara interrupted him. “Forcing you to live up to your responsibilities for a change.”

“That’s not fair,” he countered, but as he watched her chin go up, he was reminded that he didn’t have a leg to stand on there, not with Clara, and he sighed, his defenses collapsing.

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