Season for Temptation

Chapter 2. In Which the Viscount’s Life Is Threatened, but Not Seriously

“Don’t eat the fish, James,” Julia told him in a low, urgent voice across the table as soon as they were seated at dinner.

Warily, he eyed the lemon-garnished trout arranged on a platter near his elbow. He wasn’t fond of the headleft-on style of cooking a fish, but apart from that, they looked perfectly innocent.

“Er,” was all he could manage before Lady Oliver shushed her daughter.

“Good heavens, Julia.” The baroness laughed. “Lord Matheson will think we are trying to poison him.” A cheerful woman with Julia’s light hair and eyes, Lady Oliver had welcomed her guest with immediate warmth — and, it seemed, no murderous intentions.

“He shouldn’t think that,” Julia replied, “since if the fish were poisoned, and I wanted him to be poisoned, I would hardly have told him not to eat them. I would have told him to eat them. No, James, no one wants to poison you.”

He blinked, unraveling this string of arguments. “I must say, I’m relieved to hear it.”

“Well, we’ve only just met you,” Julia answered. “Give us time; maybe we’ll change our minds.”

Louisa coughed. “Perhaps the viscount would prefer not to have his life threatened during his first family dinner with us.”

“Why wait?” Julia asked breezily. “Good heavens, someone is always threatening someone else around here. It’s all in good fun, though. It means you’re part of the family now.”

She turned that bright smile on him again, and James’s insides clutched. Somewhere right between his heart and his groin — and truth be told, he wasn’t sure which was more affected.

He would never have expected a family dinner with his fiancée to include forbidden foods and veiled death threats.

He was finding he liked the unexpected.

“Now, now,” Lord Oliver broke in mildly. “It’s hardly polite to tell our guest that we’ve denied him certain dishes, is it? My lord, that’s an awfully fine trout there. I think you’ll enjoy it very much, if you care to partake of it. I caught it myself in a lake not far from here.”

James glanced around for guidance. Both Louisa and Julia shook their heads at him, Julia mouthing “no” as broadly as she could.

Mystified, James nevertheless took the unmistakable hint. “I thank you for the offer, but the rest of the course you’ve offered me looks so delicious that I believe I’ve already served myself more than enough.”

Lord Oliver accepted this, and turned his attention to his wife. While James couldn’t exactly follow the thread of their conversation, he very much feared it had to do with which type of excrement made the best fertilizer.

The baron shared Louisa’s dark coloring, and he would have been a tall, gentlemanly-looking man had not his careless dress and distracted manner given him a shambling air. James could tell that his prospective father-in-law was as little aware of fashion as he was of subjects that ought to be avoided during dinner.

“Psst.” Julia drew his attention away from his thoughts while her parents were still distracted by their talk of unpalatable organic matter. “The fish.”

“Yes?” Puzzled, James began to hand her the platter, but she shook her head frantically.

“Don’t eat it,” Julia whispered loudly. “Papa never has the fish eviscerated. He thinks it gives it extra flavor to cook it with the guts in.”

James shuddered at his near-encounter with a fish liver, and Julia gasped. “Oh, goodness, I shouldn’t have said the word ‘guts’ in front of you.”

Louisa’s mouth lifted in amusement. “Now you’ve gone and said it twice. Whatever will his lordship think of us?”

“It’s all right,” James reassured his fiancée. “It’s hardly the worst thing she’s said to me today.”

Just as he had hoped, Julia’s mouth dropped open, and he could see her taking a huge breath for what was no doubt going to be a very impressive retort.

But just then Lord Oliver’s voice rose to rejoin their conversation. “My lord, did we tell you about the new calf yet?”

“Please, do call me James,” the viscount replied. “No, I have not yet had the honor of hearing about your latest born livestock. My felicitations to you.”

“It’s really most interesting,” Lord Oliver continued enthusiastically. “You see, we didn’t have one of our own bulls cover the dairy cow. Instead, I was seeking to breed a—”

“Papa,” Louisa broke in, glancing at James in worry. “I am not sure the viscount wants to hear about such a subject at this moment.”

“Oh.” Lord Oliver looked amazed. “Was I being indelicate? My lord — that is, James — have you never helped to deliver any of your own livestock?”

“Er. .” James replied again. That was becoming a distressingly common reply in this house. He had to do better.

He cleared his throat and tried again. “No, Lord Oliver; no, I haven’t had that experience, being only recently possessed of my title and a long-ignored country estate.”

He did not add that his inexperience was a fault he hoped to remedy in time, since that would be the opposite of the truth. He believed he would rather wear a silk dress and attend a ton function in the guise of his elder sister Gloria than watch a calf being born.

He met eyes with Louisa, who gazed at him apologetically. He smiled back at her, delicious mischief filling him. Never in his life had he attended a dinner where the conversation had turned to any of the topics discussed at the Stonemeadows Hall table. It certainly took some getting used to, but he was adjusting quickly.

His smile grew as he considered his mother’s reaction, were she to hear a conversation turn to excrement or fish guts. It would be amazing. Would the oh-socorrect viscountess have the vapors, or would she throw a tantrum? He wasn’t sure, but either way, he’d love to see it.

“So,” said Lord Oliver, serving himself with gusto from the much-maligned dish of trout, “tell us about how you and James met, Louisa. Of course I was happy to agree to the match, but your letters didn’t include much information.”

Louisa looked down at her plate. “There’s not much to tell, Papa,” she said tonelessly. “We met at a ball near the end of the season. He courted me afterward, under Aunt Estella’s chaperonage. You know how these things are.”

Was that how it had gone? James could hardly recall now, it had happened so fast. When his sister’s marriage had dissolved in scandal, his mother had summoned him to London in no uncertain terms to find a suitable wife, set up his own household, and help restore the family name. And there was no denying the dowager viscountess when she sent one of her summons. The woman could be positively frightening, even if she was his mother.

He’d chosen his future bride quickly, but he had chosen well. Logically. Appropriately. He knew that, as certainly as he knew that Louisa wanted to change the subject.

She’d been willing to make her choice hastily as well. He wondered why.

Julia was having difficulty following the dinner conversation. Which was unusual, since lively chatter was as much her meat and drink as the courses laid upon the table.

But tonight, she didn’t want to listen to Louisa and James tell their story of love. She’d rather push her food around on her plate, unseeing. Or maybe throw it. At least a pea or two.

Something wasn’t quite right about the conversation, though. She could sense that much, even through whatever it was that was making her feel so odd. She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing her sister’s downturned face. Was Louisa blushing? She was.

As Louisa spoke, a knot in Julia’s chest distracted her from her sister’s words. She turned away from the table and tried, discreetly, to press it away with the flat of her hand. Where had that come from? She must be choking on her food without realizing it.

It didn’t feel like choking, though. More like. . smothering.

She took a deep breath to ease the tightness, and it went away. Until she looked up again, and saw James fixing his eyes on Louisa, and Louisa looking back at James at last, a whole host of unspoken words passing between them. And then the knot came back again.

Oh, dear.

She must be uncomfortable seeing them look at each other. Surely that was it. It seemed wrong to trespass on an engaged couple’s conversation.

And yet, she didn’t want to leave. No power on earth could have pulled her from that table, and those green eyes that she had lit — yes, she herself — with such warmth and humor earlier in the afternoon.

Those eyes were cooler now, shuttered, though his voice was perfectly polite and gentlemanly.

“Louisa was quite alone in the library,” James explained, as Lord and Lady Oliver chuckled. “In my ignorance of Alleyneham House, I blundered in there thinking it was the card room.

“I collected that she wasn’t interested in company, or in dancing, since she was in seclusion during the grandest ball of the season. There was also the fact that she gave me a piece of her mind as soon as I stepped into the room.”

This, at last, drew Julia’s attention. Such rudeness was unlike Louisa. But then again, her sister had been a remarkably poor correspondent during her stay in London, and none of them had known much about James until his formal letter arrived requesting Louisa’s hand from Lord Oliver. Perhaps James had acted like a boor? No, that was impossible. Louisa would never have agreed to marry such a man.

“Louisa, what on earth did you say to him?” she blurted.

It made sense to ask, she justified to herself. She always loved a story that included a good emotional outburst. Purely for intellectual reasons, of course. She simply wanted to build her vocabulary. It had nothing to do with her sister’s relationship with James.

Louisa turned even redder, and James laughed, a pleasant low ripple that Julia felt through to her very core.

“She said — and I do believe I remember every word exactly, because I was so surprised—‘If you are inebriated, please go out to the balcony for some fresh air. Do not be ill around me, or around all these gorgeous books that no one ever reads.’”

“In my defense, you were hardly the first person to enter the library that night,” Louisa explained. “But you were by far the most sober.”

“I was completely sober,” James insisted. “I just didn’t know the house very well.”

“Louisa can always find the library in a house,” Julia broke in. “It’s like an extra sense she has.”

As several pairs of eyes turned to her in surprise at this interjection, self-consciousness heated Julia’s face, and she knew her own cheeks must be as pink as Louisa’s.

Drat. She hadn’t meant to draw everyone’s attention to herself.

Just perhaps one particular person’s.

Since everyone was already staring at her, she tried to fix the situation. She’d never yet found a conversation that couldn’t be diverted if you threw enough words into its flow. Since her sister still looked embarrassed, she began with compliments.

“Louisa’s read more than anyone I can think of, and she’s the smartest person I know. I know for a fact she’s read every book in the library here. Even the dull old books of sermons our grandfather collected.”

Perhaps this wasn’t quite the right thing to say, since it might make James think Louisa prosy. Or worse yet, it might offend him if he happened to be the sort of person who liked reading books of sermons.

Somehow, though, Julia didn’t think James made a habit of reading sermons. That twinkle she kept seeing in his eye was a bit too roguish and shrewd. In fact, it was so knowing that Julia wondered if he suspected she’d been trying to steer the conversation away from his proposal.

Louisa cast her eyes down again, but a smile lit her face at last. Louisa did like to have people appreciate her breadth of knowledge, especially since many of their Kentish neighbors regarded such a love of books in a female as eccentricity. And perhaps, too, she was relieved to have the topic shifted from her courtship, since the hot color of her cheeks at last began to fade.

Julia was so pleased at her success that the knot in her chest hardly came back at all when James replied.

“I can well believe what you say about her keen mind. She has always impressed me with her intelligence, and I was intrigued by her boldness, too.”

“Boldness?” Lady Oliver looked surprised. “Louisa?”

James nodded. “It was certainly the first time I’d been put in my place like that by a young lady, especially since I inherited my title. I don’t mean to sing my own praises by any means; it is just that matchmaking mamas and determined daughters are usually very effusive.”

“Anyway, that’s that,” Louisa said, still looking down at her plate. “It all happened very quickly, and as you gave your permission to the engagement, Papa, here we are.”

She must have been more agitated than her smooth speech indicated, because she took a serving of the undesirable trout and raised a forkful to her lips. It was only once she placed the bite in her mouth that she realized what she’d done.

Julia watched, fascinated, as her sister’s expression changed from distant to horrified. In Louisa’s place, she would simply have spat the bite into her napkin, but Louisa had always had better manners. She reached for her wineglass, only to find it almost empty.

“Take mine,” Julia whispered.

And with Louisa’s look of gratitude as she swallowed away the terrible taste, Julia felt the knot in her chest dissolve completely.