When Harry Met Molly

drawing room playing whist. “It sounds like a romantic place.”

She hoped she gave them a somewhat misty smile. Then she dropped a card on the table. Truth was, she was bored with the game. She’d rather be playing charades with the others, but she must act as if she enjoyed whist if she were to prevent the whole expedition to the lake.

She’d go on her own to find blackberries for the tart. She most certainly didn’t want to go with all these people and wind up naked in the water with them. She’d had enough of being naked when she’d run around the house on her own, thank you very much.

The most dramatic person in the room was Athena. So Molly would begin with her.

“Lord Maxwell,” Molly said, “what was the name of the character Athena played last at Drury Lane? I’m sorry it’s slipped my memory, but surely you were present at every show.”

Lord Maxwell’s eyes hinted at mild annoyance. “I’m in the midst of analyzing probability here,” he said, looking at his cards and the cards on the table, and thus avoiding the question.

Athena’s cheeks grew rosy as she stared at her own cards, and her lovely winged brows narrowed over her nose.

Molly blithely smiled at Viscount Lumley.

“‘Twas one of the hags, wasn’t it?” Lumley said to Athena. “In Macbeth.”

Athena grimaced. “I should have been Lady Macbeth. It was a tremendous oversight.”

“Oh, no,” said Lumley. “You made a most excellent hag.”

Molly bit her lip to keep from grinning. Lumley, bless his kind heart, wasn’t particularly adept at flattery.

“An astute observer would recall that Athena was the only witch the costumers couldn’t make appear ugly,” Maxwell said coolly. “And they didn’t give her the part of Lady Macbeth because the scoundrel of a director was bedding the actress who got the part.”

Athena gave him a glowing smile.

Oh, bother.

Molly must try again. She leaned toward Athena and put on her best “knowing mistress” look, but since she didn’t know what a “knowing mistress” actually looked like, she merely raised her eyebrows. “He brought you your favorite flowers, didn’t he?”

“I sent roses,” Lord Maxwell said. “Every night.”

Lumley grunted in approval.

“But they aren’t my favorite flower, Nicholas,” Athena said, looking down her nose as if she were Cleopatra on a barge on the Nile. “I prefer orchids.” She paused, blinked several times. “If you knew me better, you’d know that.”

“I know you better than you know yourself,” said Maxwell rather dangerously.

Athena sniffed.

Lumley dropped a card, and Maxwell scooped it up.

“Well, you didn’t bring me flowers in person,” Athena protested.

Maxwell held his cards close to his chest. “Certainly I did.” His eyes glinted with irritation. “On the one occasion I was there.”

“Yes, the one occasion.” Athena pursed her lips. “Otherwise, you sent them by courier. A toadlike man, too, with breath that smelled like onions.”

“London bores me,” Maxwell said coolly. “You already know that.”

Athena gave a short nod. But her eyes began to fill with tears.

Oh, my, thought Molly. Her plan was working splendidly. She might go to hell for it, but she’d go to hell for swimming naked, too, so what was the difference?

“I wish you had been there on closing night,” Athena whispered to Maxwell, her voice rising. “Or my birthday!”

Lumley almost gagged on his brandy.

“I should think the expensive baubles I provide you make up for my absence,” Maxwell replied, unruffled, “which is made easier, no doubt, by the presence of your many adoring fans, who rightly call you the best actress on the London stage.” He finished his own drink off with a flourish and dropped a card on the table. “Your turn, Lumley.”

Molly sensed by the look Athena threw her that the actress was confused. Should she be angered or complimented by Lord Maxwell’s remarks?

Molly decided to purse her mouth and slit her eyes to help Athena decide.

Athena huffed, then said shrilly, “What day is my birthday, Nicholas?”

Lord Maxwell sat like a stone, his eyes, half lidded, trained on his cards. Lumley grabbed at his cravat, watching the scene with what appeared to be horrified fascination.

“I believe you’ve won this trick.” Maxwell finally looked over at Athena, his expression inscrutable.

“I most certainly did,” Athena said, her chest heaving with emotion.

Molly stood up. “I—I’m feeling a trifle hot. Will you excuse me?”

Lumley and Maxwell stood to see her off.

Molly walked off, but not before she heard Athena say to Lord Maxwell, “I’m going to my room. Alone. And when I win Most Delectable Companion, if you expect me to be satisfied with a wretched tiara of paste”—the damning phrase hung in the air—“then you are a fool!”

Molly stopped breathing. She couldn’t believe it! Athena had brought up the tiara! Next thing she knew, Hildur was practically breathing fire at Captain Arrow, complaining about the tiara. And Lumley was ashen and cowed by a similar tirade from Joan, which she hissed in his ear for all the company to hear.

If Molly weren’t careful, she’d have a mistress mutiny on her hands!

She stood in the midst of the mayhem and said, “Would someone please tell me more about the trail leading over the hill to the lake? Is it a long walk?”

“I’m not going to the lake,” Joan said, and flounced from the room.

“Count me out, then,” said Lumley, with a lift of his glass, which he then drained.

“No lake.” Hildur stared daggers at Captain Arrow and then followed Joan.

“I don’t believe Athena will be enthused about going to the lake, either,” said Lord Maxwell, looking up at the ceiling, presumably toward Athena’s bedchamber.

“And I shan’t enjoy going to the lake unless all the women go,” Sir Richard said in that oily voice of his. Bunny sat next to him, quiet as a mouse.

Molly could tell Sir Richard was imagining all the women naked and frolicking together in the water.

The libertine.

But she must forget about Sir Richard and focus on saving what little virtue she had left.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “No lake at all?”

The men all shook their heads.

“That’s a shame.” Molly smiled. “But would anyone care for another brandy?”

Every man nodded.

Done, she thought. She could go later for the blackberries. Alone.

“Pour one for me, too,” she heard from the door. “A large one.”

She looked over. There was Harry, looking splendidly handsome, very angry, and only mildly thirsty.

“Hello, Harry,” she said, as pleasantly as she could.

“So, you’ve gotten the other mistresses riled up about that tiara, I see,” he murmured for her ears only.

She shrugged. “Not really. It’s just that a hundred pounds would be a better prize.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Perhaps you could talk to the other Impossible Bachelors about it.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Of course not,” she lied.

He eyed her. “I’ll look into it. Meanwhile, it’s a shame no one else wants to go to the lake. That means you and I shall have to collect those blackberries on our own. After I have a drink or two, of course.”

And then he smiled at her.