The Pride of Lions Read online

  “Lieutenant Hamilton Garner should be honored I am even considering his proposal,” she murmured, giving her ostrich-feather fan one last flick to gauge the effect. Satisfied, she tucked her hand through Harriet’s arm and walked out of the bedchamber and along the corridor.

  “Considering?” Harriet frowned as she glanced over. “Whatever do you mean, considering? I thought you had already accepted.”

  “A girl can have second thoughts. Or thirds. Or fourths.”

  Harriet’s soft brown eyes grew rounder. She did not possess Catherine’s classic beauty. Her eyes were overly large in a rather plump face; her mouth was a shade too generous and there was a persistent spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose despite the mercury wash she used day and night to bleach them away. All of her features combined to produce a cherubic countenance, one that contrasted dramatically with the luscious hour-glass shape of her body. Men stared with the aplomb of guttersnipes, and it was just as well she had been enamored of Damien Ashbrooke from the tender age of three. She and Catherine could never have been friends otherwise; she would have been too much of a rival.

  “On the other hand,” Catherine said, pausing at the top of the staircase and tipping her head as if to appreciate the strains of music drifting out of the ballroom, “he hasn’t exactly put his proposal into so many words.”

  Harriet, in the middle of descending a step, reached out and clutched at the balustrade in an effort to maintain her balance. “What? What did you just say?”

  “You heard me.” Catherine glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone had noted the startled outburst. “And for heaven’s sake, keep your voice down. Of course he has asked me. I mean, he has hinted broadly enough, it’s just that—”

  “He hasn’t … actually … proposed?”

  “I’m sure he is only waiting for the perfect moment. Tonight, for instance. What better way to wish me happy birthday than to offer me a pledge of undying devotion?”

  “But you told Damien—”

  “Hush!” Catherine pinched her arm as a couple strolled past. Harriet smiled and nodded, and waited until they were well out of earshot before nearly exploding with impatience.

  “You told Damien that Hamilton was going to ask your father’s permission tonight. You told him you were going to announce your engagement!”

  “Well … he was baiting me. He was being a brute and teasing me and … and I simply said the first thing that came to mind. I wasn’t lying. Not completely. Hamilton does want to marry me; everyone in Derby knows that. And he would be a proper fool indeed if he let someone else steal away my affections, now, wouldn’t he?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Nor could he make a better marriage for himself if he courted one of King George’s fat old daughters.”

  “Catherine!”

  “Well, it’s true. I have the dowry my grandmother Augustine left me. I have some social graces, and now that Father has been elected to Parliament there’s no telling what influential friends he might acquire. A young, healthy, handsome lieutenant in the King’s army could do a good deal worse than marrying me, and if he does not act soon, I may just leave him to it and accept Pelham-Whyatt.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Harriet gasped.

  “I certainly do. Tell me I could not walk into the great hall this very instant and receive a dozen proposals within an equal number of minutes if it became known that Hamilton Garner was out of favor.”

  “I am not saying you couldn’t. I’m just saying … well, perhaps Hamilton would resent being the subject of such a wager as you and Damien made this afternoon. He is rather … strong-minded.”

  “Content in his bachelorhood, you mean? Well, it’s time he opened his eyes. This is 1745, and there are simply not enough bachelors left in England to go around. Nor will there be in the near future with everyone breeding daughters like rabbits.”

  “Catherine!” Harriet gasped again and blanched beneath the mercury wash. “Where do you hear such things?”

  “In the finest London drawing rooms, of course.” Catherine’s violet eyes searched the foyer below, and Harriet had to lay a gloved hand on her arm to draw her attention back to the present crisis.

  “What if Hamilton hears about the wager? I mean, what if Damien offers a toast or tries to congratulate him on the upcoming nuptials?”

  “He won’t,” Catherine insisted. “Not until midnight anyway. When he plays, he plays fair.”

  “This isn’t a game,” the voice of doom persisted. “What if Hamilton simply smiles and says happy birthday to you at midnight with a bouquet of periwinkles?”

  “Then he shall wear them emblazoned on his forehead the rest of his sorry life. But he wouldn’t dare. And he wouldn’t have continued courting me after the duel with Charles Waid if he had no intention of doing the honorable thing. Why else does one gentleman fight another if not to claim the lady’s hand himself?”

  “If that were true he should have a score of wives by now,” Harriet murmured, instantly regretting the words when she saw her friend’s mouth compress into a thin white line. “Well, you cannot deny he has earned himself quite the reputation as a lady’s champion. They even say—”

  “I don’t want to hear what they say,” Catherine interrupted coldly. “They are most likely jealous old cows who have nothing better to do than wag their tongues and spread malicious bile. All I want to know is … are you with me in this or not?”

  “Of course I am with you, but what can I do?”

  “You can keep Damien occupied elsewhere until I give you some sort of a signal.”

  “A signal?”

  “Just before midnight I shall invite Hamilton out onto the terrace for a breath of fresh air. If all goes well, when I return I shall be carrying … a rose.” She paused and smiled conspiratorially. “I wagered five sovereigns with Damien this morning. I am prepared to give you half as much again if Hamilton does not pluck the rose himself and hand it to me.”

  Marveling at Catherine’s confidence and determination, Harriet could not help but return the smile. “By midnight?”

  “Midnight,” Catherine agreed.

  “You are not giving yourself much time.”

  “I don’t need much time. After all, he is only a man.”

  Only a man. Harriet mouthed the words silently, then had to lift her butter-yellow skirts and run to catch up as they approached the opened doors to the ballroom.

  Catherine’s violet eyes sparkled with the brilliance of a dozen fountainous chandeliers as she stood under the arched doorway. She had no doubts whatsoever that she would have a rose in her hand by midnight. Hamilton might well be fiercely protective of his bachelorhood, but the time was ripe for him to mend his ways. It was a perfect match for both of them. Just the thought of the commotion it would cause when their engagement was announced sent a delicious thrill down her spine, for her peers would be seething with envy. Each and every one of them had watched and waited, hoping she would fail as they so miserably had. Jealous, the lot of them. Jealous because they could not hold his interest. Jealous because they knew there wasn’t a man alive who could escape a net as fine as the one she had cast for Lieutenant Garner.

  She spied him instantly, even though the room was awash in crimson tunics, bewigged heads, and gowns in every shade of every color known to man. He was standing with her father, smiling at something that had caused Sir Alfred’s many chins to quiver with laughter.

  “Good,” she mused. “He is already ingratiating himself with his future father-in-law. Sweet merciful heavens, but doesn’t he look magnificent?”

  If ever there was a man suited to wear a uniform, Catherine decided, it was Hamilton Garner. His shoulders filled the scarlet tunic with a power and grace that rippled clearly from every taut inch of muscle; his legs, long and lean, stretched the snow-white nankeen of his breeches in such a way as to turn a lady’s heart faint. It could only be a bonus that he was exceedingly handsome—indecently handsome, with a
squared, angular jaw and large, seductive eyes the color of warm jade. He had seen service with King George’s brother, the Duke of Cumberland, and had returned from Fontenoy a hero. He had recently been given his own company of dragoons and was expecting a full captaincy any day now.

  Standing with Hamilton and her father were several other wigged and powdered gentlemen, among them her uncle, Colonel Lawrence Halfyard, a short-tempered, gruff man who spoke in staccato sentences that sounded like gunfire. He was Hamilton’s commanding officer, and as such was sure to be encouraging his protégé into a union with his niece.

  “It could not be more perfect,” Catherine murmured. “Now remember—you must keep Damien away from Hamilton until I give you the signal.”

  Harriet offered up a small groan. “That might be rather difficult. He is talking to Hamilton now.”

  “What? Where?” It was proof of her single-mindedness: she had not even noticed her brother standing slightly to Hamilton’s left.

  “You don’t suppose—”

  “No. I don’t,” Catherine said flatly. “Not with Uncle Lawrence and William Merriweather standing in their tawdry little group. If they aren’t discussing Charles Edward Stuart again, I will eat every feather in my fan!”

  Harriet groaned again, this time with genuine dismay. “Politics, again? I swear if I have to listen to one more argument about Stuarts and Hanovers and who rightfully belongs on what throne—” She looked down at her own fan, which was made of painted lace and seed pearls, and grimaced. “I may seek out Pelham-Whyatt myself.”

  “The Stuart line is finished,” Sir Alfred said loudly, trumpeting his nose into a linen handkerchief. “Why the deuce these papists cannot seem to grasp the idea, I do not know. Y’d think they would be tired of fighting a losing battle, tired of defending a cause that has nowhere to go but the bottom of the sea. England is not going to stand for another Catholic king on the throne, and certainly not one who speaks with a Highland brogue.”

  “Ek-tually …” William Merriweather was a neighbor and friend of the family, as short as Sir Alfred and equally stout, making the pair of them resemble two round balls of dough when they stood together. He liked to play devil’s advocate and to argue just for the sake of arguing, regardless of the topic. “James Francis Stuart speaks as clearly as you or I. If anything, he leans more toward an Italian influence, having spent nearly forty years in exile there.”

  “Papists,” Colonel Halfyard snorted. “The Old Pretender is an old fool. Maintains a royal court in Rome! Who does he think he is?”

  “The rightful heir and King of England, Scotland, and Ireland,” Merriweather drawled. “Ousted from his throne by a German usurper.”

  “King George is a direct descendant of James the First.”

  “Through the daughter’s succession, not the son’s.”

  “James Stuart is a fool, like his father before him,” Sir Alfred insisted. “He should be thankful he was only exiled and not beheaded for his papist spoutings. Smartest thing Cromwell ever did, you ask me, lopping off any fool notion Charles might have had to try to reclaim his crown. A pity we don’t have generals like him today … er, present company excepted, naturally. At any rate, why these Jacobites persist in making threats and screaming treasonous accusations is beyond me. Only last month they arrested one of them right in the Commons!”

  “Cheek of them,” the colonel agreed. “Cropping up everywhere. Can’t be trusted. Don’t know who your friends are anymore.”

  “One thing we do know is that Louis of France will never mount another invasion fleet to support the Stuart claim. Not after that sorry fiasco last year.”

  “Lunacy.” Halfyard nodded. “Launching a fleet in February. Crossing the Channel in the dead of winter. Eleven good ships lost. Hundreds … thousands of stout lives lost for no good reason.”

  “A pity Charles Edward Stuart did not go down with the rest of the fleet.”

  “Yaas.” Merriweather pursed his lips. “The insolent pup. Imagine him declaring to all and sundry that he will not rest until he has returned victorious to England and won the throne back in his father’s name. Such impudence deserves a watery grave, what?”

  Sir Alfred harrumphed emphatically to show accord. His complexion was ruddier than normal, an indication that he had been enjoying a liberal quantity of Spanish Madeira wine. The lace that was bunched around his throat and cuffs was sprinkled generously with the crumbs he had taken away from the dinner table, some of which parted company with the cloth as he gestured angrily with one hand.

  “I say we should hang all the blasted Jacobites we can lay a hand to. The higher the better.”

  “That would likely involve laying waste to a vast portion of Scotland,” Hamilton suggested blithely, “since most of the Pretender’s support comes from that quarter.”

  “Nothing but savages,” Sir Alfred sputtered. “We should have driven them all into the sea when we thrashed them raw back in ’15. But what did we do? We gave ’em amnesty, that’s what we did. We gave ’em back their land and built them military roads better than our own. All of Scotland was to be disarmed and subdued thirty years ago, but tell me, can you walk anywhere in that godforsaken land and not find one of their skirted warlords brandishing a bloody great broadsword across your face? Especially now that they’ve found themselves an idiot who actually believes he can rouse them into conquering the world.”

  “Not all of Scotland is eager to fight for a Stuart king,” Damien pointed out cautiously. “Most of the population is as wary of stirring up old feelings as we are. As for their being savages, I daresay there were as many Scots at Cambridge and Oxford as there were Englishmen.”

  “Bah! Is that why I sent you to law school, boy? So you could sound like a lawyer? Where is your anger? You lost a grandfather and an uncle in the last Jacobite uprising, and I’m not ashamed to admit you damned near lost your father from sheer terror. Not savages, eh? They live in mountain caves and dress like wild men. They walk about in woolen petticoats, which they are not in the least modest about casting aside when they need their sword arms free. Dash me, can you even begin to imagine the sight of a horde of naked, hairy-legged creatures charging at you across a battlefield like bloody fiends out of hell—screaming and flailing those great bloody swords and axes of theirs like scythes? Not savages? They hardly know an intelligible word of the King’s English, for pity’s sake, and spend all their waking moments plotting thievery and murder on their neighbors.”

  “We should recall the army from Austria, I say,” a gentleman strolling past the group interjected. “If law and loyalty cannot be brought to them by persuasion and logic, then by God we should carry it there by musket, bayonet, and gibbet.”

  “Hear, hear,” came the general consensus.

  “In truth”—a thin, nervous-looking guest adjusted his pince-nez and thrust a finger forward to insert a comment—“the clans are quite ferocious in their loyalty and strictly law-abiding within their own sects. They regard their chief as father, magistrate, juror, even somewhat of a king with inherited rights and powers that the lowest of the tacksmen would not dream of disobeying.”

  “What the devil are you on about, Faversham? You consider yourself an authority because you have spent some months up there plotting maps?”

  “Good gracious, no, not an authority. It would require a born-and-bred Scotsman to fully understand the way a fellow Scotsman thinks. But I must confess my opinions of them in general were forced to change somewhat after having traveled the length and breadth of the country.”

  “And now you mean to convince us they are amiable, honorable hosts?”

  The sarcasm caused the little man to adjust his spectacles again. “Actually, they were most hospitable, indeed, once they determined I was there for peaceful, scientific reasons only. As to their honor, I made the unknowing error of intimating to one particular chief that some of his people had not behaved toward me with the civility I had come to expect. Damn if he didn’t clap a hand to
his sword and say that, if I required it, he would send me two or three of their heads for the insult. I laughed, thinking it a jest, but the chief insisted he was a man of his word, and … faith … I believe he would have done it.”

  “You use this as an example to demonstrate their degree of civility?” Lieutenant Garner’s mouth curved sardonically. “I should think it better illustrates their baser instincts to be so ready to sever a man’s head from his shoulders.”

  “Perhaps I have explained it poorly, then,” Faversham said in defense. “I meant only to show that to a Scotsman—and to a Highlander in particular—honor is everything.”

  “Show me a Highlander,” Lieutenant Garner countered dryly, “and I’ll show you a thief.”

  “I do not recall that I ever lost anything among them but a pair of gloves—and that I owed to my own carelessness.”

  “You sound as if you harbor some respect for them, sir.”

  “Respect, Lieutenant? If anything, I find it prudent to respect that which is so simple and basic it cannot be ignored. Or destroyed.”

  “Hah!” Colonel Halfyard slapped Faversham so soundly on the shoulder, his pince-nez jumped off his nose. “There you have it. By our own admission—simpletons!”

  While the others laughed and applauded the colonel’s wit, the cartographer fumbled to reseat his pince-nez. “No, no. I meant simple in its purest and strictest sense. Honor, to a Highlander, is honor. There are no wherewithals, no provisions for exception. They swear their oaths before God and man, sealing them with their lips placed upon a dirk. Should they ever break that oath, they accept the fact that they forfeit their lives to the steel of that same knife. How can one not respect such stalwart faith?”

  “Are you now saying, sir, that because they kiss knives and show a willingness to have their hearts impaled for telling little white lies”—Garner’s voice dripped with sarcasm—“that we should tremble in fear and do nothing if they decide to swarm across our borders and dethrone our King?”