“Aye,” Payton answered calmly.
With a well-placed heel to Grif’s instep, Mared wrenched free and stumbled toward Payton to stand directly before him, arms akimbo, her green eyes flashing angrily. “Who do ye think ye are, a bloody feudal king? Ye’ll no’ make claim to me, ye scoundrel! Do ye think I am property to be bartered like an old hairy coo—”
Liam grabbed her, clamped his hand over her mouth, and smiled sheepishly at Payton. “She’s a wee bit of a temper. Are ye certain…”
“Aye,” Payton said, enjoying the look of horror in her eyes. “Quite certain.”
“But… but there’s a rather wretched curse—” Grif tried.
“Ye’ll no’ frighten me off with yer bloody curses,” he said resolutely. “If ye want the money, gentlemen, ye have me terms. I’ll give ye the evening to think on it.”
And with that, he turned and walked to the door and opened it, continued on down the corridor, smiling broadly at the sound of Mared’s shouting against Liam’s hand.
As luck would have it, Sarah had wandered into the corridor just as the three Lockharts came storming out of the salon behind him. Payton chuckled at the look of alarm in Liam and Grif’s eyes as they noticed his genteel guest, and almost laughed aloud at the haste with which they tried to retreat.
But Mared looked at them all with disdain as she went striding out the front entry, muttering furiously under her breath with each step.
Aye, she had the grit of the gods, that one.
Three
MAYFAIR, LONDON SEVERAL WEEKS LATER
C aught in a snare of carriages, wagons, beasts, and people at Piccadilly Circus, Viscount Whittington’s brougham came to a complete halt, which gave his youngest daughter, Miss Lucy Addison, yet another reason to complain.
Seated on the bench next to her mother, and directly across from her older sister Anna and their father, Lucy sighed very loudly, squeezed her eyes shut as if she were suffering from some spectacular pain, and rested her chestnut-colored head against the plush velvet squabs.
“There now, Lucy, you’ll not make it any more tolerable with your impatience,” Mother softly chided her.
“Oh, what’s the use of attending at all?” Lucy huffed, opening her eyes and leveling an icy, amber-eyed glare at Anna. “It scarcely matters if we are late or not, for regardless of which gentleman may catch my eye, I will not be allowed to entertain any offers!”
Anna rolled her eyes at Lucy’s attack of vapors— which were becoming entirely too commonplace, really.
“Lucy, darling, that is not very kind,” Father said. “Anna is not purposefully trying to cause you grief.”
“I don’t know how you can be so certain, Father,” Lucy sniffed. “She makes no effort at all to gain an offer. I think she rather enjoys hurting me.”
“How very silly of you, Lucy!” Mother said sharply. “It is not our Anna’s fault that she hasn’t entertained any offers recently,” she added, looking hopefully at Anna. “She’ll find her way soon enough, and you’ll still be young and beautiful and marriageable.”
“No I won’t!” Lucy cried with all the charm of a petulant five-year-old. “I’ll be old and sitting on the shelf next to Anna!”
“I beg your pardon, but have any of you noticed that I am actually in the carriage with you, and therefore can hear what you say?” Anna asked them all.
She received a fatherly pat on her knee in response. “Don’t be cross, dear,” Father said soothingly. “Lucy is quite understandably concerned—after all, she had such a smashing debut last Season that she should expect to make a good match, and would, I daresay, perhaps in as much as an instant, were it not for… well, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Anna said impatiently. “My sister reminds me at least daily that no gentleman of any import has offered for me in the three long years since my debut.”
Honestly, her family’s growing fear that dear little Lucy was missing hundreds of viable offers was beginning to wear very thin. Lucy might be the prettiest of the three Addison sisters, but did that make her the most important of them? And really, Anna could scarcely care less if they married Lucy off before her— she gave that ridiculous custom no thought and had said so, many times. Unfortunately, the rest of her family did.
“Dear Anna, won’t you at least try this evening?” Lucy asked sweetly, looking, all of a sudden, all innocent and damnably pretty. “The Darlington ball is one of the most important events of the Season. …If you’d just try a bit, you might attract at least one gentleman.”
There were times, such as this, when Anna wished they were still children and she could tie Lucy up and leave her in the wardrobe when she was such a horrid little bother. “And what would you have me do, darling Lucy?” Anna asked just as sweetly. “Smile and bat my lashes like you?”