A Stroke of Malice (Lady Darby Mystery #8) - Anna Lee Huber Page 0,7
but he waited to pull me near until my maid had departed.
“So you’re trusting me to remove these chaste garments from your unsullied form?”
“Not so chaste,” I scoffed, glancing down at my hem before allowing myself to be distracted by the muscular calves revealed by Gage’s royal blue and black kilt. A Rutherford tartan. “But where did you get this? Did my brother pack more than one kilt?” Though why he would’ve packed even one, I couldn’t fathom.
“No. I brought it myself.”
“You did?”
He lifted his head proudly. “I anticipated there would be some sort of edict like this. We are in Scotland after all. And I decided it wouldn’t do to wear any colors other than those of your mother’s family.”
His words made my chest tighten, and the backs of my eyes unexpectedly began to burn. Whether he understood how much it meant to a Scot, even a half-blooded one, for their loved one to adopt their colors, I didn’t know, but I knew he would never have made such a decision without some forethought.
I was suddenly close to tears and I knew I could blame the child inside me for that. My emotions swung in greater arcs these days than I was accustomed to, and there was nothing for it but to ride them out.
That, or head them off.
Before the tears could fall, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pressed my lips to his.
His mouth smiled against mine. “I knew you liked me in a kilt, but not this much. Perhaps I should start wearing them more often.”
“Sebastian,” I chided.
The look in my eyes or the breathless tone of my voice must have communicated something of my desire, for he pulled me close and proceeded to kiss me senseless.
That is, until I lifted my hand to bury it in his golden curls and encountered his wig instead. My hand came away covered in powder.
“Gage, how much powder is on this thing?” I asked, pulling back from him with a cough as the cloying scent assailed my nose.
He blinked through the cloud of fine particles. “Whatever was left of it in its box. I certainly wasn’t going to allow Anderley to dust me with more of it, be damned if it was coated unevenly.”
I stared down in horror at the black silk and wool of my costume. At least, what I could see of it beyond the draping of my wimple. It was speckled with white powder.
Neither Gage nor I said anything for a moment, and then I began to brush at the offending residue, which stubbornly refused to be dislodged. “Everyone will know what we’ve been doing.”
I glanced up to find his eyes twinkling with repressed humor. “Well, it is a Twelfth Night Party.”
I opened my mouth to demand to know how he could find any of this funny, and then halted, suddenly struck by the absurdity of the entire situation. A giggle escaped from my lips and then a chuckle, and then I dissolved into outright guffawing. Gage joined in.
It was some time before I had myself in hand, and by then, my stomach hurt from laughing so hard. The baby had also begun to protest this rough treatment, and I perched on the edge of the bed to catch my breath, laying my hand over the spot where he or she kicked. Gage joined me, wrapping one arm around my lower back and resting the other next to mine on my belly. We sat that way companionably for a minute, while my black veil collected more powder from his wig, before Gage glanced at the clock on the mantel.
“We’d best hurry before the buglers begin,” he jested.
I smiled. “Lead the way.”
* * *
* * *
The duchess was the first person to see me as we entered the grand foyer to the ballroom through the picture gallery. If her reaction was any indication of how the evening would progress, I was about to bring a lot of people a great deal of glee, and suffer no small amount of good-natured teasing in return.
She gasped in delight, clapping her hands together before she dissolved into giggles. “Oh, this is why we don’t assign roles in our mock court in advance, as has become the trend. For who could have ever come up with such a fiendishly humorous casting?”
I decided not to share my continued suspicions that her third son had somehow managed to contrive the matter, for I had no hope of proving he’d done so.