When Harry Met Molly

Chapter 10

When Athena entered the closet, a sensual smile on her lips, Molly stood mute. Her heart beat so hard when the men chose their first straws, she was afraid she might die. Except for enjoying Harry’s kisses in the carriage and the few moments they’d shared as he taught her to walk the way a proper mistress should, she was having a horrible time at the house party.

How would she make it through a whole week of being a false mistress?

Harry smiled. He had drawn the shortest straw! The Romeo. Molly was tempted to be upset with him, but why? There were other ladies’ men in the world—why should she be aggravated with him? He wasn’t pretending to be decent, after all. At least he was honest about his lack of scruples.

Lord Maxwell raised a brow. “See that she’s entertained.”

Harry didn’t look at Molly even once. He merely opened the door to the closet and disappeared inside with Athena for three agonizing minutes.

No one else seemed to find those three minutes excruciating besides Molly. Indeed, there was more laughter and drinking and silly, flirtatious antics than ever, almost as if the knowledge that the two people in the closet were kissing was a potent energizer of the crowd, an aphrodisiac of sorts.

Finally, the two came out, to much hooting and laughter. Athena looked much satisfied, and her lips were redder than ever. Harry looked exactly the same, which for Molly proved all the rumors that he was a jaded bachelor.

“You don’t kiss and tell, do you?” Lord Maxwell asked Harry.

“Never,” Harry said, playing the gallant. He leaned over Athena’s hand and pressed it to his lips.

The good-natured bantering continued through Hildur’s turn. Lord Maxwell drew the short straw for her. Everyone laughed when Hildur came out and said, “Do not throw him to the sharks.”

Bunny was next. Captain Arrow was her partner. When she came out, she looked as beautiful as ever, but she said nothing. She simply smiled prettily. Sir Richard gave Captain Arrow the cold shoulder and pulled Bunny to him with a proprietary air.

Which left but Sir Richard and Viscount Lumley to draw straws. Molly and Joan still had to take their turns.

“Into the closet, Delilah,” said Harry.

No one moved.

Harry nudged Molly in the back.

Oh, yes! She was Delilah!

She entered the closet, which to her dismay she found completely empty. She was hoping to hide behind a pelisse or a man’s overcoat.

Dear God, don’t let Sir Richard be the one, she prayed.

Harry shut the door in her face, but before he did, she gave him a mute look of appeal. He, in turn, signaled to her with his gaze that she must endure.

Now she was alone. In the dark. Her knees began to tremble. She heard the wild laughter outside the closet, and then the “Oho!” which meant that some man had drawn a straw for her.

A moment later, the door opened and shut quickly. All she could see was the outline of a man’s head. She couldn’t tell if it was Viscount Lumley or the despicable Sir Richard.

She gulped, put her hands out in the dark, palms up, instinctively wanting to protect herself, especially if it were Sir Richard.

But her hands pressed against a very trim waist. It was Viscount Lumley. Thank God! Although she did not want to kiss him. At all.

“Wait!” she whispered.

“Why?” He grabbed her hands and squeezed them in a friendly way.

“I—I—” Her mind scrambled. What could she say that would make him delay the inevitable? “I wanted to ask after…your mother first.”

“My mother?” he whispered, sounding flabbergasted.

“Yes, how is she?” Molly hoped his mother was still alive. No man could turn down answering a question about his own mother’s health!

“Actually, she’s quite well, thank you. Except for her gout. She and Father both get that on occasion.”

“Really?”

“Yes, they do. It’s a shame what old people go through, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.”

Their hands were still clasped.

“Do you have any brothers and sisters?” she asked him.

He had five, he said, and at her insistence, he told her the names and ages of each one, and whether or not they were married.

“Lovely,” she replied.

There was another pause.

“Are you ready?” he asked at the same time that she said, “Do you like a good cherry tart?”

“Hmmm, I suppose I do,” he said slowly. “Although I think I prefer apple. Why?”

She squeezed his hands back. “If Cook will let me in the kitchen, I’ll make you one.”

“I’ll look forward to that,” he said, utterly polite.

There was another pause. She felt sweat trickle down her back. The closet was quite stuffy. “It’s rather hot in here,” she said.

“Indeed,” he answered.

“They’re awfully loud out there, aren’t they?” A rhetorical question, really, but perhaps he would respond.

“They are,” he said.

And then someone opened the door. Their three minutes were up. Viscount Lumley dropped Molly’s hands, and they walked single file out of the closet, he first.

“Well?” asked Sir Richard.

The nosy-body.

Molly’s chest tightened. She didn’t like that Sir Richard seemed particularly interested in her, although perhaps she was imagining that.

“We talked,” Lumley said in a disbelieving voice.

“You talked?” Joan asked Molly.

Molly smiled. “Yes. He has a wonderful family.” She turned to the viscount. “Thank you, Viscount Lumley, for the scintillating conversation.”

There was a chorus of boos.

Viscount Lumley looked only a bit dejected.

Molly whispered in his ear, “Remember, the tart.”

“Oh, yes!” he said, and grinned.

Harry looked at Molly with a bemused expression.

And then it was Joan and Sir Richard’s turn. Of course, Molly doubted Joan would ever be afraid of anyone, but couldn’t she sense the malevolence rolling off Sir Richard in waves? No one else seemed to, either, except Harry, who spoke to him as little as possible.

Their kissing episode went off without a hitch, and it was thankfully time for supper. Molly knew she must make a good impression in the dining room if she were to win any votes for the day’s best mistress.

But she didn’t know how.

The other women were sparkling, almost giddy—except for Joan, who maintained her intense, subtle allure—and Molly could hardly put two words together. Neither could Hildur, of course, but she said many incongruous things that made people laugh, like, “Aye, aye, Captain,” to the footman who served her. She also oozed exotic, sensual charm with that jesting pout of hers.

Supper was plentiful and delicious, but by its end, Molly was weary from watching the others enjoy themselves. Her brain hurt from all the thinking she’d done, as she tried to figure out ways to enter the conversation and sound witty and charming all at the same time.

“Pass the salt, please,” she said at one tiny lull. Everyone turned to look at her, which she supposed was good. She stared back, searched for something else to say, and finally came out with, “I read a very good book the other day.”

It had actually been quite dull. Her father didn’t approve of her reading novels, so she’d read a tome on Egyptian embalming methods. Which she knew backward and forward, thanks to her father and Cedric, so it was nothing new.

“What was the title?” Harry asked politely.

She couldn’t very well tell them. “I forget,” she said. “But—”

She took a moment to think of a proper way to describe the way the Egyptians pulled people’s brains out of their noses.

But it was too late. Hildur made a funny remark, and the conversation turned to other directions. Molly was never able to interject again.

Finally, after another hour of sheer torture for her, Harry rose from the table. “It’s time for the men to adjourn to the library,” he said, standing tall and straight.

All the men had been drinking profusely, as well as the women, except for Molly. But no man appeared to be showing any ill effects, except for Sir Richard, who had the effrontery to belch at the table and then immediately demand a kiss from Bunny.

Molly sensed every woman at that table shuddering beneath their festive exteriors!

“Each day we’ll cast a vote for the one lady who stands out above the rest,” Harry said. “We’ll sign our voucher to ensure that we can’t choose our own companion, of course.”

“What if there’s a tie?” Joan asked.

“Prinny’s advisors have ruled that we shan’t name a daily winner,” Harry explained. “We’ll leave the votes to accrue in a jar until the end of the week. The daily vote counts three points. You’ll also be able to win points for the occasional game you shall compete in during the week, as well as at the finale. When all the points are totaled, we shall have our winner. If there is a tie at the conclusion, we’ll cast another vote until someone wins the Most Delectable Companion title. Fair enough?”

Everyone nodded, although Molly felt that somehow things were still not very fair. She wasn’t sure how, though.

“Right, then,” said Harry. “Men, follow me for our first vote.”

All the men stood.

“When will you come back to us?” Athena asked in a dramatic stage voice, her arm raised and extended toward Lord Maxwell. She looked and sounded exactly like Rapunzel in her castle, crying out to be saved.

Molly couldn’t help but draw her eyebrows together. Athena’s remark probably clinched the actress the day’s votes, save Lord Maxwell’s, of course. He wasn’t allowed to vote for his own mistress.

“We’ll return when our business is done,” he reminded Athena.

“Very well.” Athena sighed prettily, a small curve of a smile on her parted lips.

Molly almost choked with disgust at Athena’s biddableness!

But then she remembered Lord Maxwell might vote for her. So she smiled at him in what she hoped was a winning fashion. She wasn’t sure if she had remnants of the turtle soup in her teeth, so her smile was rather weak.

Lord Maxwell gazed at her with an expression bordering on aloof.

Then Joan, her eyes half lidded again, said, “I believe I’ve dropped my fan.” Slowly, she stood up and bent down to the Aubusson rug. She patted it as if she were searching for her fan, a move which exposed her perfect cleavage to all the men.

“Why, here it is!” said the amiable Viscount Lumley, pointing to a fan lying on the table.

“Indeed!” said Joan. “I’d forgotten, Viscount.” She gave him a slow, sizzling smile.

Molly almost huffed. Joan hadn’t even attempted to be a good liar! She’d known her fan was there all along! Molly was sure everyone else knew it, too, but no one appeared annoyed.

In the next instant Hildur unraveled her braids, shook out her hair until it swirled in tousled glory around her face, and said, “Hildur is a mermaid. Choose Hildur.”

Whereupon all the men laughed uproariously, save Maxwell, who merely lifted his mouth upward in a show of appreciation.

Molly was shocked at the other women’s brazen attempts to sway the men’s votes. But then again, she supposed mistresses were supposed to be brazen.

So far, she was a terrible mistress.

She looked at Bunny to see what she would do to win the men’s votes.

“I’m a country girl,” Bunny said in that light, frothy voice of hers. “Give me a field of flowers or a stack of hay to frolic in, and I’m happy.”

Then she tucked a tiny flower from a vase on the table deep into her bodice.

The small act of putting the flower between Bunny’s ample breasts was so sensual the men were speechless. Which meant that Bunny had won the day. Molly was sure by the evil way Athena looked at her. But now everyone was looking at Molly.

“She has nothing to say,” said Joan. “She is more like a governess than a mistress. Ask Lumley.”

Everyone laughed but Molly and Harry. He gave her a look as if to urge her to say something clever.

Molly felt her face heat up, but try as she might, nothing would come out of her mouth.

“After we vote, I shall take this so-called governess upstairs,” said Harry in a suggestive manner. “We’ll see if she has anything to teach me.”

What a vulgar thing to say!

But then Molly remembered. Lewd remarks would be flying this week. She was dying to tell everyone the truth, that Harry was lying through his teeth, that she would never be caught in a compromising position with him, even if he did happen to be, in her completely unbiased opinion, the most kissable man in the room.

But she couldn’t do that, of course. Lumley and Arrow hooted their approval of Harry’s salacious remark and, along with Sir Richard and Maxwell, followed him out of the dining room to vote for their favorite mistress of the evening.

The other women stopped laughing and sat quietly, small smiles of amusement still lingering on their faces. None of them seemed too worried about the night’s voting.

Except for Molly. Her face beneath its layer of powder and rouge felt hard as stone, and just as unmoving. She knew no one would vote for her.