With Love (Blackwood & Friends #1)

Chapter 16: The Wrath of Lady Blackwood

Chapter 16: The Wrath of Lady Blackwood

"What in the sweet hell were you all thinking?" Kathleen fumed, pacing up and down the parlour room she had corralled the lot of them inside and slammed the door shut. Hearing her use a very unladylike word made both Blanche and Nicola flinch from where they sat at adjacent corners of the room, dripping onto the rug beneath their feet. Lady Blackwood was the epitome of propriety and if she had resorted to cussing... then they were in for a lengthy diatribe, at least. Kathleen had yanked each one of them into a chair as far away from each other as possible, as if keeping a distance between them would ensure less of a chance for mischief. She was, Nicola realised, treating them as naughty children and she supposed they had behaved as such, but still.

"Can you imagine if you anyone saw you?" Kathleen continued to hiss, specifically at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. "The scandal the family would have then... and just how would the lord of the manor handle that situation I would love to know!"

"You are being dramatic, mother," Jason drawled from where he slouched against a settee, arms folded against his bare chest and his trousers dark and clinging to the contours of his legs most deliciously.

His mother threw a crocheted blanket at him, the gesture spoke volumes about what she thought of his state of undress. Jason merely eyed the dainty pink cloth as if it were burning him where it lay across his expansive chest.

"My boy, dramatic is not the half of it," she scoffed, wagging a finger at him. "I have half a mind to lock the lot of you up in this house and never allow you to set foot outside again!"

"Sounds hyperbolic," her son intoned, shrugging the blanket off him. "Keeping us all prisoners under one roof would surely entice more scandal than were we to, say, continue with our day-to-day business."

Her look told him just how unwelcome his speculation was, but then she turned her eyes to Blanche, who was shivering and wriggling under the shawl as if something were plaguing her. "And you, Blanche," she seethed, "I knew you could be belligerent, but this. I have half a mind to demand one of these buffoons marries you!"

"Mama!" Blanche stopped fidgeting and stared at her mother with horror. "You wouldn't!"

"I would!" But Kathleen glanced doubtfully at the big hulking bear positively pooling water around her exquisite chaise longue, and then at the other impossibly roguish auburn-haired gentleman who was trying desperately not to laugh, the devil incarnate.

Lady Blackwood stopped pacing and crossed her arms furiously, her expression clearly speaking her utter horror at the plausibility of having one of these vagrants ruining her furniture as her son-in-law and Nicola found it all so absurdly funny a snort of laughter escaped her.

She slapped the shawl and hand to her mouth to stop more of the vastly inappropriate noise escaping. Too late, she realised, as the attention of the room swivelled to her, including Kathleen's steely gaze. "And you, Miss Eversley," she began with quiet disappointment and Nicola couldn't recall the last time she had ever used her formal name. "I would expect this atrocity from my own wayward children, but I was so sure of your propriety, you can understand how utterly disappointed I am in you, my dear."

Oh, God, she was going to laugh again, right in this lovely woman's face who had taken her in and welcomed her as a constant guest of the family. But, truly, Jason should not be nodding sagely in a such a facetious show of agreement behind his mother's back, his eyes devilishly mischievous as they studied her.

Kathleen threw a hand at her wretched son. "Should someone other than myself have found you, God forbid, you would have been forced to marry my scoundrel son." If this revelation bothered the marquess in question, he clearly didn't give a rat's ass considering the unrepentant wink he gave her at the culmination of his mother's words. "Or, and I honestly do not know which would be a worse fate for you, you could take your pick of the three of them!"