Once Upon a Tower

Within a moment, Mary had stripped Edie to her chemise.

“It’s designed for a chemise, but no corset,” Layla noted, wandering over.

Mary dropped a waterfall of claret-colored silk over Edie’s head. It felt marvelous against her skin.

Layla adjusted the bodice herself. “You look beautiful. Ravishing. Do you see all the ruching here, just under the bodice?”

Edie turned to look in the glass. The silk fell in just the right folds to reveal most of her cleavage. A narrow set of pleats came across each shoulder, gesturing toward a sleeve without bothering to form one.

She looked lusciously uncovered on top, and then the silk fell in pleats and ruching from the waist, and was tied with a bow in the back.

Mary knelt and guided Edie’s feet into Layla’s matching high-heeled slippers.

“It doesn’t seem fair that our feet are the same and our hips so different,” Layla remarked.

Edie turned to look at herself in side view. This gown had sent her entirely in another direction, from Classic Virgin to Classic Layla. It made her breasts large and her legs long. It wasn’t a bad combination. “Do you think he’ll like this?”

“Any man would like that,” Layla said, her tone brooking no argument. “You are ravishing. Now, lip color to match. Come back over here to your dressing table.”

The unaccustomed heels on Layla’s slippers did something to Edie’s balance. When she’d been ill, she had drifted across the floor. Tonight she wouldn’t drift; she would wiggle. She looked as if she were swaying from side to side, like a moored boat in a gale.

The effect was quite feminine, not an attribute that Edie often achieved. It certainly wasn’t feminine to cradle a big stringed instrument between one’s legs and coax music out of it. If a true lady insisted on doing something as outré as to play the cello, she turned her legs to the side, balanced on one hip, and played sidesaddle.

Edie could do that, but she never saw the point. She wasn’t stupid enough to think that she could have a career. As the daughter of an earl, Edie played solely for her own pleasure, which meant she might as well sit in the most natural position.

The fact that her father loved the cello, and that she had inherited his child-sized instrument, and then that he had bought her a Ruggieri for her sixteenth birthday . . . none of that overcame the fact that she was a lady.

There was something of an unspoken bargain between herself and her father. Edie had delayed her debut as long as possible, but they both knew that she would marry whomever he selected. It was a promise, and Edie always kept her promises, spoken or unspoken.

Now she wiggle-waggled her way back over to her dressing table and sat down. Earlier that afternoon Mary had curled her hair into the proper kind of ringlets, the ladylike kind that weren’t as untidy as hers naturally were.

Layla darted forward and began playing with her curls, tousling them into a studied disarrangement.

“You’re ruining all of Mary’s hard work,” Edie protested, as Layla adjusted another ringlet.

“No, I’m making you look a little less perfect. Men are terrified by perfection. Now a touch of lip pomade.”

Painted red, Edie’s mouth looked twice as large, especially her bottom lip. “Doesn’t this look a trifle vulgar? I’m fairly certain that Father won’t approve.” She looked disturbingly unlike herself. In fact, she felt as if she’d veered from feverish saint to feverish courtesan.

“That’s exactly right. Your father has never understood that a little vulgarity is a good thing.”

“Why is it?”

“It wouldn’t be if you were still looking for a husband,” Layla explained. “But now you need to impress upon Kinross the fact that while he may have married you—or rather, he will marry you—he will never own you.”

Edie turned, caught Mary’s eye, and nodded toward the door. As the door closed behind her, Edie said, “Layla, darling, isn’t that technique you just recommended rather a failure when it comes to you and Father?”

“What technique?” Layla had her hair up in an artful nest of curls threaded with emeralds. She stood before the glass, coaxing a lock to fall with disheveled grace over one shoulder.

“Making certain that a man feels he will never own you, or at least own your loyalty. I think it may have led to some of your marital difficulties.”

Layla frowned. “I would never be unfaithful to your father. He should know that because he knows me.”

“But if you are constantly telling him, albeit silently, that you will never belong to him . . . It just strikes me from watching the two of you that men are rather primitive, at least Father is. He looks at you with pain and possessiveness, all mixed up together.”

“But I’ve assured him that I didn’t sleep with Gryphus. He should believe me unconditionally. I am his wife.”

“Perhaps he needs you to assure him that you have no interest in sleeping with any other man.”

“That would be to give him too much power,” Layla said instantly. “He already thinks he owns me. Last night he demanded that I give up smoking cheroots!”

That didn’t surprise Edie. “What did you say?”

“I refused, of course. Although I haven’t smoked any today.” Layla’s mouth drooped. “Marriage is more difficult than you think, Edie. If you do nothing but try to keep your husband happy, you’ll drive yourself mad.”

Edie gave her a kiss. “Forgive me if I say that I’ll be in good company? You are far too kind to my grumpy parent.” She picked up her gloves and a wrap of gossamer taffeta. “Let’s go down to dinner. I’m quite curious to know what my fiancé looks like.”

Nine

Gowan entered the drawing room early and stood about talking to a crowd of Smythe-Smith relations, trying to appear as if he wasn’t bored to tears.

When he’d attended the Gilchrist ball, and indeed most of the time, he’d worn English attire: an embroidered coat, a starched neck cloth, silk pantaloons. But after that sparring exchange with Edie, he wanted to reveal himself to her as himself, not as a pretend Englishman.

He wore the Kinross kilt, in the tartan of the Chief of Clan MacAulay. It felt right. Surrounded by these sleek and silly Englishmen with covered knees, his bare legs felt twice as strong for being free of the hindrance of breeches.

Marcus Holroyd, the Earl of Chatteris, paused at his side. “Kinross, it’s a pleasure to see you here. My fiancée has just informed me that you are newly betrothed.”

Gowan inclined his head. “Yes, to Lady Edith Gilchrist.”

“My very best wishes. I understand that she is a gifted musician. Do you play as well?”

Gowan felt not a little embarrassment that he had no idea of Lady Edith’s interests, let alone her gifts. “A musician along the lines of your inestimable fiancée?” Gowan had sat through a Smythe-Smith recital once, and he hoped never to be in the presence of such dissonant cacophony again. If his wife was a musician of that caliber, he would implore her not to play.

“I have not had the pleasure of hearing Lady Edith play,” Chatteris replied, not revealing by so much as the twitch of eyebrow less than complete support for his fiancée’s musical talents.