She couldn’t stop staring at him. She told herself it was only natural given the fact that he was the youngest man she had ever been around. And the handsomest. His eyes were brown, she realized. The color of chocolate. Warm, delicious melted chocolate.
Reverend Mother was fond of saying that eyes were the mirror to the soul. In Mariah’s experience, eyes like his were reserved for the paintings of saints and for the faces of innocent children. She smiled at the thought. She knew almost nothing about men, but she knew enough to realize that there was nothing saintly or innocent about Lord Kilgannon.
“Miss Shaughnessy?” He snapped his fingers in front of her face.
Mariah blinked twice before responding. “What?”
He reached over and rubbed the pad of his thumb across her forehead and then again, across her cheek. “You were explaining why you are baking tarts in the Telamor kitchens instead of the cook.”
Mariah inhaled the scent of him—limes and a musky exotic fragrance she couldn’t name. The scent was as mesmerizing as the soft swipe of his thumb across her face and the warm look in his chocolate-colored eyes. “Because I’m better at it.”
Kit lifted his eyebrow in query. “Is that so?”
She nodded. “Ask anyone in Inismorn. They’ll tell you that St. Agnes’s Sacred Heart Convent’s goods are the best in the parish, and I’m the baker at St. Agnes’s.” She paused. No good ever came of boasting. After confession, Father Francis would scold her and tell her to pray three rosaries. But it was worth it. “Father Francis always asks me to bake strawberry tarts when he comes to supper at St. Agnes’s and when the bishop comes from Dublin to visit and on special occasions. Father Francis says that I’m an artist—a pastry chef extraordinaire. But there’s nothing extraordinary about what I do.”
“I disagree,” Kit said. “I rarely indulge in cakes or pastries, but I tasted one of your tarts and found it to be quite extraordinary. Almost as extraordinary as the fact that you baked it.”
“I’m a baker.”
“You’re the legal ward of the earl of Kilgannon and a lady.”
Mariah frowned. “What has that to do with anything?”
“Ladies rarely consort with those in trade, and they certainly do not take it upon themselves to enter one.”
“English ladies,” she sniffed.
“Or Irish ones,” he added.
“They would if they grew up in a Dominican order.”
He lifted his brow once again. “Why is that?”
“Because, in a convent everyone from the Mother Superior to the youngest student works. No task is beneath them, and every effort is made to utilize individual talents. I bake because that’s what I do best. Sister Mary Beatrix supervises the cleaning and dusting and makes the candles because that’s what she does best. Sister Mary Zechariah organizes the washing and ironing, and Sister Mary Simon tends the garden because that is where her talent lies. We do what needs to be done because there is no one else to do it. You may consider baking a trade. I consider it a necessity.”
“Pastries?” Kit inquired, blandly casting himself in the role of devil’s advocate, not because he disagreed with her, but because he found the lively discussion refreshing.
“Bread.” Mariah caught herself before she stamped her foot in disgust. “I’m sure you’ve heard of it.” She hadn’t known she was capable of sarcasm until a few moments ago. “The staff of life? The food that prevents most of us from starving?”
“My mistake,” he replied. “I thought that in Ireland, the staff of life was the potato.”
“Starvation is nothing to sneer at.”
“Indeed it is not,” Kit agreed. He eyed her figure. She was slender, but not dangerously so. Her figure rounded in all the right places. Kit inhaled. She was correct. Starvation wasn’t anything to sneer about. Fortunately, no one he had seen so far appeared to be starving.
Father Francis had assured him that although the potato blight had been discovered in the parish, Telamor’s tenants and the residents of Inismorn and the convent had not suffered famine or hunger. “Nor are you in danger of starving.”
“Not me!” Mariah gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. The earl of Kilgannon might be frustratingly dense, but he was also her guardian, and she owed him a measure of consideration for that if for no other reason.
“The poor in the parish. I bake bread for the convent’s use and to sell to the households that don’t want to bake their own. The money we earn and the leftover bread is distributed to the needy families in the parish. It’s one of the ways St. Agnes’s contributes. I only bake pastries and cakes on special occasions.”
“Such as the first meeting of a guardian and his ward.”
“Yes,” she said. “I thought the occasion merited strawberry pastries, but perhaps I was mistaken.”
Kit pretended disbelief. “You, mistaken?”
“Well, I was expecting a different sort of guardian.”
He was intrigued in spite of himself. “What sort of guardian?”
Mariah pursed her lips in thought. “Oh, the Father Francis sort. Older, wiser, plainer, plumper. Politer.”
“So you spent the morning baking tarts to tempt your guardian—an old man with a sweet tooth.”
“It was the least I could do.” She gave him her most charming smile. “After all my guardian had done for me.”
“Touché,” Kit answered, leaning closer. “The truth, Miss Shaughnessy, is that until I met with Father Francis earlier this morning, I didn’t know I was a guardian. And when I learned that I was your guardian, I expected something—someone very different as well.”
“Someone younger?” Mariah suggested. “Someone with strawberry jam smeared on her face? Someone who might sit upon your knee, lean her head against your chest,and fall asleep listening to the sound of your voice relating favorite fairy stories?”
The appeal of the picture Mariah Shaughnessy painted in his mind was instant and visceral. Kit stared at her, then through her, into the future, where a little girl with dark blue eyes and long, black ringlets—her mother in miniature—sat upon his lap. Her plump little hands and pouty red lips smearing the remnants of a bedtime snack of toast and strawberry jam on his shirt. He could almost feel her warm little body cuddling against him and hear her breathe the word papa as she drifted off to sleep. The vision was real enough to fill him with a sense of longing. And the idea that it could was enough to scare Kit to death.
He was only two and twenty years old. He wasn’t ready to be anyone’s papa. “Someone young enough to have a governess,” he told her. “Not someone old enough to come equipped with a chaperone and a fiancé.”
Mariah’s eyes widened in surprise. “Father Francis told you I was betrothed?”
Kit nodded. “He also told me that you would prefer a season in London rather than marry the gentleman the Mother Superior chose for you.”
“That’s true.” She studied the tips of her boots peeking out from beneath her skirts.
“Do you have a particular reason for not wanting to marry him or are you against marriage in general?”
She looked up then, right into his chocolate-colored eyes. “I have nothing against marriage,” she breathed the word in a reverent tone. “I want very much to be married—one day. But I would like the opportunity to choose my own husband and not have the choice made for me.”
“Choosing a spouse for oneself is generally a privilege reserved for the lower classes,” Kit replied. “Our positions almost always prevent us from having that luxury.”
“Has your position prevented you from making your own choice?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “As heir to the title, I will be required to marry and produce another heir, of course, but my mother and father would prefer that I marry someone of my own choosing. They’ve no wish to interfere.” He met Mariah’s gaze. “However, my family is the exception, rather than the rule.”
“I don’t want to marry a man I’ve never met,” Mariah
said.
“Who does?” Kit asked the rhetorical question. “Everyone would like to marry someone they know and trust, but that isn’t always possible. Sometimes you have to marry for the good of the family or the title or the estate. The reason most young women don’t get to choose their husbands is because it is too easy to mistake seduction for romance. And marriage and the propagation of the family name are too important to be based on unreliable judgment.”
“That may be true,” Mariah conceded. “But if I’m not allowed to choose for myself, I prefer that my guardian have a variety from which to choose. Besides,” she added, “my mother wanted me to have a London season.”
“What about you?” he asked. “What do you want?”
“I grew up in a convent,” she said. “I’ve never known anything but convent life. Is it too much to ask to want to experience something of the world before I’m forced to retire from it once again in order to fulfill my wifely duty and raise children and cook and clean and sew?”
Kit frowned at her. “Is that what you expect from marriage? A life of drudgery?”
Mariah shrugged. “The only marriages I’ve seen are the ones in Inismorn, and I’ve only seen those from a distance. But from what I’ve seen, the husbands have much better lives than their wives. Husbands frequent pubs and associate with friends. Wives never do.”
“Marriage to a gentlemen would offer a woman many more opportunities.”
“Would marriage to a country squire offer me many more opportunities?” Mariah asked.
“It should,” Kit hedged.
“Can you promise that it will?”
“Of course not,” he said. “I’ve never met the squire. I don’t know what he expects of his wife.”
“That makes two of us.” Mariah stared at her guardian, silently willing him to understand. “And I really don’t care to learn firsthand.”
Kit sighed. “Despite what you may have heard, London seasons aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. They can jolly well be a nuisance and more expensive than a stable of racing thoroughbreds. There are endless rounds of morning calls, musicales where you’ll be expected to participate, and balls.” He frowned. “Do you dance?”
She shook her head.
“Play the pianoforte? The flute? The harp? Any musical instrument?”
She shook her head.
“Can you sing?”
“I don’t know. We don’t sing in the convent. It isn’t allowed.”
“What do you do?”
“I bake.”
He gazed up at the frescoed ceiling and prayed for patience. “Besides bake?”
“I pull weeds in the garden and scrub floors and …” Her face brightened as she thought of something else.
“And …” he prompted.
“I read. And in my spare time I practice my calligraphy by copying Biblical text. My penmanship is excellent.” Mariah winced at that last boast. Father Francis would be adding another three rosaries to her penance for that.
“The penmanship will come in quite handy when you’re writing thank-yous,” Kit agreed. “But reading and penmanship aren’t exactly what I had in mind.” He paused for a moment, then thought of something else. It was a long shot to be sure, but it was worth a try … “What about riding? Can you sit a horse?”
Mariah bit her bottom lip. “I’ve never tried, but I’m sure I’ll be quite good at it. I love horses.”
Kit groaned. “In addition to dancing and music and riding lessons, you’ll have to memorize the peerage and etiquette. Our meals generally consist of six to ten courses. Do you have any idea how many knives and forks and spoons and glasses you will have to learn to juggle? And then, there are the clothes. You’ll be required to change clothes dozens of times a day—” He broke off abruptly as Mariah’s face lit up at the prospect. “That means standing for hours while a group of seamstresses and their assistants fit and measure and poke pins in you, not to mention the hours spent poring over fabric swatches and pattern books. I left London, in part, to get away from all that madness, so if I hear one word of complaint from you while we’re preparing you for any of this, I swear I’ll discharge my duty as your guardian and marry you off to the squire without a backward glance.”
Chapter Nine
If you must play, decide on three things at the start:
the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.
—CHINESE PROVERB
“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” With those words, Mariah flung herself into Kit’s arms.
“Until I have an opportunity to speak with the squire, you must consider yourself betrothed to him.” He caught her in self-defense and held her close as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “But I won’t force you to marry him.”
“Thank you, Lord Kilgannon! I promise you won’t regret it.”
He nearly spoke the truth and repeated his earlier pronouncement to Father Francis: “I already regret it. Because if there is anything I hate, it’s the fuss and bother that goes with a London season.” But Kit couldn’t bring himself to disappoint her. When it came down to it, Mariah Shaughnessy wanted the same thing he wanted—the opportunity to make her own decisions and to chart her own course. And when it came down to it, Kit found it impossible to regret agreeing to anything that made her happy enough to fling herself in his arms.
He breathed in the scent of her, an enticing mix of strawberries, cinnamon, and woman, and was within a hair’s breadth of kissing her when Mariah shifted in his arms.
Kit released her immediately, but not before he saw the awakening of an answering desire in her eyes.
Mariah backed away from him, putting space between them. “Forgive me, Lord Kilgannon,” she murmured self-consciously. “I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never been alone with a man—other than Father Francis, of course, and then only during confession and I’ve certainly never … Oh—” She broke off, horribly embarrassed by her loss of control and by the fact that she had wrinkled the front of his coat and knocked his cravat askew. “I’ve crushed your neck cloth.” She abruptly reached out to straighten his silk cravat.
Her fingers brushed the underside of his jaw, and Kit reached up and caught her hands, imprisoning them between his own. “No matter,” he said. “I’ll be exchanging it for a fresh one in time for tea.” He could still feel the press of her breasts against his chest and the brush of her fingers against the sensitive line of his jaw and his neck as she attempted to adjust his clothing became torture.
“I could iron it for you,” Mariah offered.
“Absolutely not!” Kit answered.
The expression on his ward’s face changed from hopeful to horrified in seconds, and Kit hurriedly softened his tone of voice and offered an explanation. “Unmarried ladies do not iron a gentleman’s articles of clothing. That’s a valet’s job, and Ford will see to the chore until I can secure the services of a gentleman’s gentleman. Besides …” He let go of one of Mariah’s hands, then impulsively brought the other work-roughened and callused hand to his lips and pressed a kiss on her knuckles. “I thought ironing was Sister Mary Zechariah’s responsibility.”
Mariah’s heart began a rapid tattoo at the touch of his lips on her hand. She felt the color rush to her face and a spark of awareness rush through her body. An unknown emotion flickered in his eyes, and Mariah was inordinately pleased by it. She held his gaze for what seemed like an eternity, reluctant to let it go. “I-it is.”
Kit released her hand. “Then we’ll hear no more about ironing my neck cloths or anything else. Your duty, from now on, is to prepare yourself for your coming out. Forget about the hardships of life at St. Agnes’s and concentrate on becoming a lady.” His voice was husky and soft when he spoke to her and his eyes sparkled.
“What about my baking?” she asked.
“Someone else will have to take over.”
Mariah winced. “The villagers of Inismorn aren’t going to like losing the best baker they’ve had in years,” she predic
ted.
“They’ll get used to it,” Kit said. He looked at her. “You can be a lady and make your London debut, or you can be a baker in Inismorn in Ireland.”
“Why can’t I be both?”
Kit thought of his mother’s unconventional role as a working botanical and zoological illustrator of note and as the mother of three and wife of the marquess of Templeston and felt a pang of guilt. His mother was an artist married to one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in England, and whether Mariah Shaughnessy knew it or not, whether she liked it or not, there was a world of difference in being a married lady artist and being an unmarried lady baker. “Because that’s not the way things are done. You must choose.”
Mariah exhaled a deep breath. “My mother was a great lady,” she said softly. “And I want to be just like her.”
“All right, then,” Kit said with a nod. “We’ll begin tomorrow morning. Your last official act as the baker of Inismorn is to salvage your batch of strawberry tarts. Father Francis invited himself to supper tonight, and I believe he’s expecting them for dessert.” He looked at her plain black dress and white apron. “I don’t suppose you have anything else to wear?”
“I have two other dresses.”
“Like that one?”
“I have a nicer one and one that is less so.”
“Then we’ll forego dressing for dinner until you have a suitable wardrobe, and we’ll see to hiring a seamstress tomorrow to create your wardrobe and a lady’s maid to see that you’re properly outfitted in it.”
Mariah turned to leave.
“Miss Shaughnessy?”
“Yes?”
“When you’re in the company of people with a rank greater than your own, it’s customary to wait until you’re dismissed before you turn your back on them. And you never turn your back on the sovereign or a member of the royal family.”
“I thought my lessons were to begin tomorrow morning.”
Kit lifted an eyebrow. “Can it be that I hear a complaint already?” He knew it was wrong, but he enjoyed pushing her, testing the limits of her patience.