When the door opened in the morning, after a night in which he had not slept, he was sorely disappointed to see Mrs. Lovett come in with his morning tray. “Where is Phaedra—uh, Miss Gillian?”
“Busy as always, me lord. Her pa is making ready to go to Oxford tomorrow, and y’would think he was a’goin’ to see the queen, with all the preparations that must be made for an overnight trip! She be pressin’ his best shirts, and his travelin’ coat, and baking special for his lunch on the coach.”
So, the next night would be theirs. As Mrs. Lovett bustled about the room, setting it to rights, he wondered how Phaedra was anticipating it. How did a bride feel, anticipating her bridal night? And yet at the end of it they would not be wed, nor would they have more than just that one night. They would rise from the bed the next morning and he would politely and calmly take his leave of her, to return to London—or no, first he would go to Charles Fossey’s estate and claim his wager. All of his anger against the young man was gone now, dissipated in the time he had spent recovering in the Gillian household, but still, it was a score he must settle. For the first time he thought about what it meant to the young man, losing his estate.
His widowed mother thrown on the mercy of relatives.
His widowed sister, likewise farmed out as a poor relative.
And the baron’s own life irrevocably changed—
Stop! He did not force the young man into a game. He remembered very clearly the events of that evening. He had been gambling, and winning, when the young man had been introduced to him by a mutual acquaintance. This was not an unusual occurrence at one’s club. They played a few hands for money, and the young fellow proved to be more of a challenge than Hardcastle had anticipated. He was a fair card player, though he was occasionally distracted by his group of friends who gathered around him, smoking and watching the action. They were urging him on to higher and higher wagers.
He was slightly ahead in the stakes when he threw down the challenge. He would bet anything Hardcastle liked, if the earl would put his stable on the table. To Hardcastle it was a calculated challenge, and he wondered if the group of young men had come up with it before Fossey even approached. A low hum of anticipation circled the room, and more gentlemen gathered around them. Everyone there knew what Hardcastle’s stables were worth and what they meant to him. He had paused, but ultimately agreed. It sharpened his interest in the game, which had lately begun to wane. He was not, he found, an inveterate gambler, and was beginning to become bored with the usual round of betting. This was living; this was betting something that really mattered to him. He asked the young man what he could possibly have that was the equivalent of the finest stable in England, and the finest blooded horses outside of Ireland.
Fossey had drawn himself up as if mortally offended, and had said, “I am Baron Fossey. My estate is certainly worthy of this bet.”
And Hardcastle, his interest piqued, had agreed. It had been a hard-fought game but he had prevailed, just as he had with Phaedra. And all of that, with a couple of brutal bandits thrown into the mix, had brought him to this, to wagering a country damsel for her innocence, and winning it. What a story that would make upon his return to London.
A story he would never tell a soul. It was not something to be made light of.
His mind turned to the delicate duty he felt to repay the Gillians somehow for their outstanding hospitality toward him over this last week and a half. They had changed his life in some ways. He was not sure how yet, but there was change coming. The impatient, restless urge to get back to London had dissipated, and he was not quite sure what he would do once he was there. Go back to gambling and drinking? Would the delectable widow, Lady Bosanquet, still be casting out her lures to him? He rather thought he would take a break from feminine companionship for a while, after making love to Phaedra. Going directly to another woman’s bed would be like drinking from a mud puddle after quaffing from a cool, clear mountain stream. He did not yet know what it would be like, but never had he approached an assignation with this kind of pulsing expectancy.
When Mrs. Lovett left, Hardcastle eased himself out of bed, used the hot water and towels the good widow had brought up with her, and dressed in the washed and mended clothes Phaedra had provided for him. He slowly traveled down the narrow, dark stairs, taking one step at a time and feeling every jolt, and stood at the bottom, wondering which way to go. Perhaps out to the garden. In London he would still be deeply asleep at this hour—it was not past eight, and yet he knew the household would have been bustling for hours—and he had a curiosity what the early morning hours would look like in Phaedra’s pretty herb garden.
He stepped out the back door onto the flagstone terrace, after passing by the startled and motionless maid, Sally, who was in the act of scrubbing pots. It had rained much of the night and a mist lay over everything; it made the scene magical. The far hills were shrouded and sound was muffled. The cottage yard was fairly small, with a stone wall encircling it to keep marauding rabbits out of the garden, he supposed. Phaedra’s herb garden was to his left, and he could make out, among the small plants, Phaedra herself, on her knees, doing something vigorous with a plant of some sort.
“What on earth are you doing?” he asked.
Suddenly, whatever she was tugging at gave way, and she tumbled backward with a soft “Oof” of surprise. She jumped up and wiped some muck from her hands, then tossed the stubborn vegetation to one side. “I am weeding,” she said breathlessly. She rinsed her hands in a basin of water at the edge of the garden path and straightened.
Hardcastle limped toward her. The awful thought occurred to him that she was avoiding him now that the bet had been lost. After all, Mrs. Lovett had quite clearly said she was busy with preparations for her father’s journey. “Do you—do you require assistance?”
She laughed. “Are you offering your services, my lord, and do you know an herb from a weed? No, I did not think so. You would be no help.”
Hardcastle gazed down into her upturned face. The dew had settled on her crinkly coronet of golden hair, looking like a net of sparkling beads overlaying it. He reached up and touched her cheek, wiping a smudge of dirt away with his thumb. Tomorrow night, the refrain hummed through his brain. He would have her in his arms tomorrow night. She would not meet his eyes, and her cheeks had pinked. He moved away and sat down on a damp stone bench. “Do you never stop working, Phaedra? I have seldom seen you still, except when you were entertaining me. What do you do for leisure?”
“This is my leisure,” she said, indicating the garden with a sweep of her hand.
“Why are you compelled to labor with such intensity?”
“I find pleasure in most of it.”
“In the good deeds you do for the neighborhood?” He didn’t mean it, but it sounded almost like a sneer.
She cocked her head to one side. “I find pleasure in people’s company. Even Mr. Ferguson—he is a curmudgeonly sort, I must say—gives me much more than I give him. He is a wise old man, with much to say.”
Abruptly, he changed the subject. He had to ask. “Phaedra,” he asked, gazing out into the mist, and then back at her, “do you hate me for winning the bet last night?”
She gazed at him steadily and dried her hands on her apron. “How odd you are sometimes. What do you think of people, I wonder? That others are seething cauldrons of disapproval and dislike? No, I do not hate you for winning the bet. That would be foolish. I took a chance to help some friends, and it didn’t work. Chances sometimes do not, and that is why they are called chances rather than certainties.”
“I—” He frowned off at the garden wall—he was finding it hard to ask what he really meant, and that was unlike him—and then looked at her again, standing in the garden in her faded gingham dress and muddy apron, her still-dirty hands clasped in front of her. She was adorable and he wanted her, even now, even looking like some peasant garden helper. “I suppose what I’m asking is, do you resent the price you will pay for losing tha
t wager?” He had to know. Never had he asked that of someone who had lost a wager to him, but this time it was more than some guineas, or a piece of property. It was herself she was bound to give him, and he dreaded seeing her flinch at his first touch. He could not bear that.
“I don’t resent it. I made a wager and I will stand by the terms, my lord.”
He grimaced inwardly. He didn’t want her like that. And yet it was the only way he was ever going to have her, and his desire for her outweighed his doubts. She would not regret it in the end, he hoped, and perhaps she would have a pleasant memory of him to look back upon—some sweet and tender moments among the passionate as they melded together in the night—rather than as the hard-hearted scoundrel who had taken her friend’s estate away. That thought led to a vague memory of something Phaedra had said. “You said yesterday something about the loss of the estate to Fossey affecting someone of whom I know nothing. Who did you mean?”
“I’m surprised you remember that, my lord. The affected party is my friend, a young woman to whom Charles Fossey is betrothed . . . well, not exactly betrothed. There is nothing formal, as her father wished her to have two London Seasons before committing herself to Charles. Now, however, he will not be able to marry soon, or perhaps ever.” Her voice was cool, but there was trembling sadness behind it.
Like ripples in a pond, the affects of this wager were spreading out and affecting an ever-widening circle of people. Her words had not been said with rancor, and yet how could she help feeling it? Hardcastle rose, stiffly, and said, “I should go back in. I don’t think my limbs are ready yet for sitting on wet stone benches.”
• • •
The day passed swiftly, too swiftly for Phaedra’s liking. Her father was going the next day to consult with his old friend and adversary, Mr. Proctor, a don at Oxford. It was not far, and the trip could be undertaken in one day, but for his comfort he was going to stay one night with Mr. Proctor and come back the next day. And by the time he came back, his daughter would no longer be a maiden. She shivered and went back to her task, which was preparing the vegetable dish for the evening meal. Lord Hardcastle was going to be joining her father and her at the dining room table for the first time.
It was not something she looked forward to. It was getting too painful to contemplate how swiftly the next day or two would go, and the changes that would be wrought within those two days. Was this how a bride felt, reflecting on her coming nuptials? After all, the affect was going to be somewhat the same for Phaedra, except after the consummation, her “husband” would be leaving her forever.
Forever. A shock passed through Phaedra and she dropped the knife on the table and stood, shivering, staring bleakly out the window at the familiar scene of the back garden and the hills beyond. Why did it hurt so very badly to contemplate his leaving? She should be glad, for after all, he was taking away her friends’ future. She should loathe him, despise him for his inflexibility, and yet she could not. She couldn’t because—oh, Lord, because she had fallen in love with him.
• • •
Hardcastle chuckled to himself as he performed his ablutions prior to going down to join the company for dinner. How many times had he performed this ritual before dinner at a country house party? And how different this time was. In the normal course of his preparations he would bathe, after the servants fetched up hot water for his bath, and his valet would dress him. He would wear a good coat of Bath superfine, and a jeweled stickpin in his cravat. His Hessions would be shining, his nails would be trimmed and buffed, and his rings sparkling.
This time he was wearing a mended shirt and pantaloons, and homemade slippers. His rings had been stolen, and his Hessions, too. And apparently one could live without the luxury of servants to bring up one’s bathwater for one. He had sent a note to his valet in London that very morning, to retrieve and bring to him at the Gillians’ address some clothing and boots, as well as a purse full of guineas. How surprised Jean-Marc, his superior French valet, would be. Even more so when he traveled down and saw where his master had been living for the past two weeks.
A sobering thought. He had ordered Jean-Marc to come the day after the next, for then he could no longer pretend to have anything left to do in the Gillian household. And now he must go down and dine with the gentleman whose daughter he was to deflower on the morrow. In a sober frame of mind he descended the stairs carefully and entered the small, simply furnished dining room, to find the Gillians already there.
“Ah, Hardcastle, ’bout time, eh? We’ve been waiting on you. Have a seat, have a seat.”
Mr. Gillian’s warm welcome did nothing to make Hardcastle feel any better, but he took the seat indicated, across the polished oak table from Phaedra, and sat.
“And now we shall say a grace. Will you do the honor, Lord Hardcastle?” Mr. Gillian beamed at him kindly.
Feeling the utter hypocrite, Hardcastle murmured a grace barely remembered from school days, and finished with the “amen.” “Thank you for welcoming me to your table, sir,” he said as Sally came in with the first course, a clear soup. He was conscious of Phaedra’s downcast eyes. There was something different about her demeanor, and its meaning eluded him. Was she just becoming more apprehensive about the next night? Surely she must know that he would never force her into anything. It did occur to him, though, that her fine sense of honor might not let her voice doubts that would keep her from fulfilling the wager. He would have to draw her out on that, reassure her as to his intentions. If she was truly afraid or if the notion of their lovemaking was abhorrent to her, he would know. He would take no woman against her wishes, no matter about the wager. It was one point on which there could be no second opinion.
“You are welcome,” Mr. Gillian said heartily. “Our table is humble, but the fare is always superb, thanks to Phaedra’s, and of course Sally’s, skill in the kitchen.”
They ate their soup and talked for a while about his trip to Oxford on the morrow, Phaedra adding almost nothing to the conversation. Mr. Gillian expounded a little on the abstruse point of contention between him and this Mr. Proctor whom he was to visit, but Hardcastle could only apply half his concentration to it. Most of his mind was filled with thoughts of Phaedra, and questions about how she felt, what she was thinking.
The candles burned down as a raised rabbit pie replaced the fish course, and a ragout of vegetables was consumed. Sally retrieved the serving dishes and disappeared back to the kitchen.
“I have heard, my dear,” Mr. Gillian said to his daughter as the door closed behind the maid, “that while I am gone you have allowed Sally a night away, to visit her mother.”
Phaedra’s cheeks pinked, and Hardcastle caught his breath. Entirely alone. He would have her for the entire night, alone, to make love to and to hold and to sleep with. To wake with in the morning and watch her sleep, the golden sunlight sparkling in her radiant hair. His heart thudded. He had never been able to bear a woman in his bed the entire night, but he wanted her beside him in that narrow bed upstairs.
“She has been wanting to go for some time, and I thought since the work would be less, with just Lord Hardcastle and I—”
“You must see, my dear, that it will never do,” Mr. Gillian said, gentle remonstrance in his voice. “I do not doubt Lord Hardcastle’s gentlemanly restraint. However, it does not do to give the old tabby’s any more gossip material. Gossip would indeed abound if you and the earl were to spend the night in the same house with no chaperone, and without even Sally to lend you countenance! To forestall that I asked Squire Daintry if his daughter could come down to spend the night with you. She is young, yes, and perhaps in London would not do as a chaperone, but I felt she would be more to your taste as a companion than Miss Peckenham. He agreed and she will be coming tomorrow afternoon.”
Phaedra gazed in consternation at her father and then at Hardcastle. Hardcastle shrugged, and was puzzled by the curious feeling of almost-relief he felt. They would not be together as lovers, for he had pledged t
o himself not to embarrass her or expose her in any way. He had been surprised by the news that she had dismissed their maid for the night—unlike Phaedra he had forgotten about the maid sleeping overhead in the attic room—but he had been even more amazed that Mr. Gillian had had the foresight to arrange a chaperone for his daughter.
And yet, if she were his daughter, he would do the same. To his liking for the older gentleman was added more respect than he already felt. He nodded and said, “You are a wise and careful father, sir.”
Mr. Gillian smiled gently. “The Good Book says, my lord, that a virtuous woman’s price is beyond rubies.” He reached over and laid his hand over his daughter’s. “My Phaedra is a ruby beyond price. It is not that I do not trust her virtue untended, but I would have no one take her lightly, nor would I have her reputation in this village tarnished in any way.”
Was it a warning, or simply a statement? Quietly, Hardcastle said, “I agree with you, sir.”
“So that is all settled,” Mr. Gillian said, rubbing his hands together. “Is there any dessert, my dear?”
Chapter Eighteen
“I apologize for how things have turned out, my lord. I did not foresee my father’s observance nor his uncharacteristic worry about gossip. I would think he would tell the old tabbies to go to the devil—he has been known to use that phrase on occasion—but for him to concern himself with it that way . . . I don’t know what to think.”
It was the next day and they were in the garden having lunch. The sun had returned to Oxfordshire and the air had a sparkling crispness from a breeze that had swept away all traces of clouds and had dried up all of the puddles and mud. Mr. Gillian had left just an hour before, with a kiss for his daughter and a handshake for the earl, and a reminder that Deborah Daintry could be expected in the early afternoon.
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