Chapter 7

 

In front of the mirror upstairs, Elspeth had been delighted with the transformation Marina and Sandra had worked on her. She’d stared at the pretty girl reflected back and decided there would be no more slinking around in the shadows for her.

But as dinner approached, her courage ebbed, and she’d needed to summon every last scrap of willpower to force herself to go downstairs. What if everyone hated the changes in her appearance?

What if everyone liked them?

Somehow that seemed worse, an indictment of the person she’d been all her life.

She made it downstairs at the last minute and steeled herself to enter the drawing room, only to discover nobody paid her any attention at all. Marina’s father, a man she’d met once before, had arrived with a lady she didn’t know, and the air was alive with celebration.

“Elspeth, you missed the news,” Prudence said, coming up and passing her a glass of champagne. “Ugolino has brought his new wife to us for Christmas, without giving anyone the least warning.”

The Italian lady across the room was small and round, and dressed in expensive, stylish clothes. At her side, Ugolino was unmistakably enamored.

“How nice for him,” she said, both relieved and disappointed that she’d managed to sneak into the room unnoticed. “How did Marina take the news?”

“She was surprised, like all of us. But now she and Giulia seem to be getting on famously.” Prudence lowered her voice. “I did worry that Fergus might knock Ugolino down, when he wandered in as cool as a cucumber and announced the marriage. It was pretty clear that Marina was trying to hide her shock at having a new stepmother.”

Near the windows, Marina stood with her husband, her father, and her father’s bride. If she was still upset, she did a good job of hiding it.

Prudence cast Elspeth a quick glance, then another more comprehensive one. “You look nice. Have you changed your hair?”

Elspeth choked back a disbelieving laugh. A whole day of primping and preening, and that was the best Prudence could do? “I wanted to try something a little different.”

“It suits you. You should wear it like that all the time.”

Prudence drifted off to find Charles. The crowd shifted. Elspeth found herself looking straight at Brody Girvan, who regarded her with an unreadable expression on his hawkish face. She raised an unsteady hand to the tumble of loose curls Sandra had spent an hour arranging. Upstairs she’d loved the effect, thinking it made her look poised and sophisticated. Perhaps she was wrong about that. Perhaps she just looked absurd.

Brody strode across the room to her. “You look splendid, Elspeth,” he said, raising his glass in her direction.

She frowned. His tone contained an edge that she didn’t quite understand. “Marina has been giving me some advice.”

“God bless Marina,” he said and emptied his glass.

“Don’t…don’t you like it?” Then cursed herself for sounding so lily-livered. What did it matter if Brody approved or not? She hadn’t gone to this trouble for his sake, but for her own.

“Devil take me, of course I damn well do.” The detailed survey he made of her burned, and she hid a shiver of feminine awareness. Those assessing eyes didn’t miss a single inch of the newly transformed Elspeth Douglas. “But you can’t blame a man for regretting that you’re no longer his secret treasure.”

Her eyes rounded, as she struggled to make sense of that astonishing remark. Brody developed a habit of leaving her speechless. Marina had said she looked pretty, and something in Brody’s unwavering attention told her he agreed. The confidence that had faltered as she faced an audience began to revive.

“What do you—”

The rest of the question was lost as Ugolino clapped his hands to gain the crowd’s attention. “Grazie tante. Grazie a tutti. Troppo gentile. Grazie mille. Thank you for the warm welcome you have given to my beautiful bride Giulia and to me on this cold Scottish night.”

Elspeth hid a smile. Given what Prudence had said, Ugolino was putting a gloss on his reception when he arrived. Fergus must have been livid at the tactless way his father-in-law introduced the newest member of the family.

Ugolino continued. “Many years ago, Marina’s mamma introduced me to a charming English Christmas custom that I’d like to bring north of the border.” He nodded at the liveried Italian footmen—presumably the contessa’s servants—standing beside a large crate in the corner. Elspeth hadn’t noticed it before. “With much difficulty and copious correspondence, I arranged for this to be waiting in Glasgow when we arrived.”

She craned her head to see as the servants opened the crate to reveal white sheeting. When Ugolino stepped forward and flung aside the material, he uncovered nests of green leaves and white berries.

“Mistletoe…” Elspeth said at the same time as Marina spoke.

“Papa, what a wonderful gift.” Marina turned to Fergus. “It was a seasonal tradition in Mamma’s family home in England when she grew up. You hang it about the house, and if anyone is standing under it, they get a kiss. It makes for a lot of fun and silliness over Christmas.”

Fergus looked puzzled and not unduly impressed. “It sounds like a mad Sassenach notion to me.”

She darted forward to pluck a sprig and hold it above her head. She fluttered her eyelashes in an exaggerated fashion. “Pray, won’t you kiss me, kind sir?”

Fergus laughed and grabbed her by the waist. “Aye, I’ll kiss ye, lassie, but I dinnae need permission first from someone waving an English weed in the air.”

He pressed his lips to hers, then smiled at his father-in-law with no trace of any earlier hostility. “My wife is in favor of your offering.”

Ugolino smiled back and snatched up a sprig of his own. “Tomorrow we’ll hang the mistletoe around the house, and the kissing can begin. But first, let me kiss my bride.”

Giulia looked charmingly ruffled when he released her, and Elspeth was surprised to catch an approving smile on Brody’s face. She would have thought all this nonsense was too rustic and unsophisticated to divert a rake of his reputation. “Did you already know about this tradition?”

He shook his dark head. “No. It’s no’ a plant that grows hereabouts. If it gives me an excuse to kiss ye, I’m all in favor.”

“I’d better be careful where I stand, then,” she retorted, struggling with further amazement at the idea that he wanted to kiss her, mistletoe or not.

“Aye, make sure it’s right under the mistletoe.”

She ignored that, although the prospect of Brody’s kisses made her breathless with excitement. Of course they did. She’d never been kissed, and after his adventures with all those loose women, he should be good at it. Her kissing career would start with a master of the art. When she fell in love for real, she’d have grounds for comparison. “We always hang it in our London house if we’re down there for Christmas.”

He arched a sleek eyebrow at her, and the glint of mischief in his eyes made her heart stutter. “Are ye saying you’re an old hand at this kissing game?”

Once, yesterday even, she might have found herself blushing and stammering, but the admiration in his eyes gave her the nerve to tease him back. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

“You’ve kissed hundreds of men, I’m sure.”

“Perhaps not hundreds.” She’d been a little girl when the family hosted Christmas parties in London. Her father had still been alive, and any kissing had been a childish game, like bobbing for apples or snapdragon.

“I look forward to seeing what ye can teach me.”

“Not much, I’m sure.” She narrowed her eyes on him. “I’ve heard the gossip.”

To her surprise, he didn’t laugh. “A man can turn over a new leaf.” He paused. “With the right incentive.”

“What are you saying?” she said, her fingers tightening on her champagne glass and her heart rising to stick in her throat like a lump of soggy tapioca.

He glanced around, then lowered his voice, although from what she could see, nobody paid them a scrap of attention. “I’ll tell ye once I get you alone under the mistletoe. At last something useful comes out of England.”

“Brody…” she said, not sure whether she meant to protest or encourage him. For a girl who had foresworn all interest in him, this was a dangerous game to play.

She stared up into green eyes that seemed to send her a private message. It took her a few moments to realize that her mother had come up to join them. “Elspeth, you look lovely tonight.”

The intensity drained from Brody’s expression, and he was once again the urbane gentleman who charmed all the ladies, with no thoughts of settling for one in particular. “Lady Glen Lyon, Elspeth always looks lovely.”

Her mother smiled at him. “You’re such a charming fellow, Brody.” She checked back on her daughter. “You’ve changed your hair.”

“Marina lent me her maid for the evening.”

Her mother patted her own elegant blond knot. “Perhaps she’ll give me some pointers. She’s made quite the difference to you, my dear.” She frowned. “And is that a new dress? I don’t recall seeing it before.”

Elspeth glanced down at the dark blue silk she’d worn a hundred times and hid a smile. Marina and Sandra had done her proud. Instead of a plain gown that buttoned like a noose against her throat, Sandra’s magic scissors had created a flattering square décolletage that revealed more flesh than she was used to showing.

Despite Elspeth’s protests at the extravagant gift, Marina had produced some exquisite Brussels lace to soften the dress’s stark lines. The soft, buttery color lent a creamy tinge to her skin. She’d already noticed how Brody’s eyes dwelled on her exposed bosom, but was cynical enough to know that libertines were in the habit of inspecting a lady’s breasts. He wouldn’t think her bosom anything special.

“It’s something old I had altered,” she said, touching the gold locket that dangled at her throat. It had been her grandmother’s, and she didn’t wear it often. Her previous style of gown didn’t call for much jewelry.

“I should lend you my sapphires. They’d look perfect with that color. I’m pleased to see you paying more attention to your appearance. You’ve never been interested before.”

“Doesn’t Elspeth look lovely tonight?” Marina came up and smiled at her protegée with open approval.

“Breathtaking,” Brody said with what seemed like genuine fervor, and Elspeth had to remind herself that compliments were part of a rake’s arsenal. He didn’t mean anything beyond politeness, even if it sounded like he did.

“She does.” To Elspeth’s astonishment, her mother leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I have to congratulate you, Marina. However I tried, I never managed to prize my daughter away from those dreadful dowdy frocks. She’s always been my cuckoo in the nest. In Town, I could never keep Grace, Prudence and Charity out of the shops, and I could barely get Elspeth into one.”

“We can go shopping next time we’re in Edinburgh,” Elspeth said in a tentative tone and was surprised at her mother’s immediate enthusiasm. Perhaps she’d become a little too comfortable with her place as the family afterthought, and perhaps her mother’s benign neglect wasn’t altogether the result of selfishness.

“I’d like that very much.”

Elspeth listened with half an ear as Mamma and Marina discussed Italian fashions, while she wondered if this new look might improve her relations with her mother. It wasn’t what she’d expected, but it was a change she’d welcome.