“Don’t be silly, my love!” Harold said. “Damien was bored anyway, weren’t you, Damien? And he just told me that he wanted to go for a ride. Perhaps he could show you the estate as well. He knows these woods better than anyone, don’t you, Damien? Always poking about outdoors.”
Adele marveled at her fiancé’s absolute trust in his cousin. Was Harold not aware of Damien’s reputation with women? Or did he think Adele was incapable of swooning over a man’s good looks? Obviously, the concept of passionate swooning had never occurred to him.
“Really,” she said, backing away, “I don’t mind waiting.”
“No, no, don’t leave!” Harold said with a rather desperate smile, taking a step forward to detain her. “In fact, I’ve been dreading taking you to the stables. I’m actually afraid of horses. I was kicked by one when I was twelve. Remember that, Damien? Nasty beasts, I daresay.”
Harold was afraid of horses? He didn’t like to ride? Adele had not known that. What else did she not know?
“Please, let Damien take you,” Harold implored, “and I can show you the inside of the house later today.”
Both Damien and Adele looked at each other. What could they say? To outwardly refuse to be together would suggest something untoward between them, and Adele certainly didn’t want to admit to being uneasy around her fiancé’s cousin. She should feel nothing but brotherly affection toward him.
Damien took a step forward.
“There now,” Harold said cheerfully. “This will give me time to finish my experiment, and I will be very content knowing that you are in good hands, my dear.”
Adele smiled nervously as Damien approached. Good hands, indeed.
It was as if they had never met before yesterday.
Damien escorted Adele to the stables and gave her a polite tour, describing where each horse had come from and when it had been purchased or, if not purchased, bred there on the estate.
She nodded, vastly pleased to be discussing horses, which was a subject near and dear to her heart. It made it easy to avoid discussing anything personal.
She recalled her sister Sophia’s letters describing how the English could behave in such superficial ways—all in the name of propriety. Sophia had wrestled with the frustration of it all, never knowing what any of them were truly thinking. Adele suddenly understood what her sister had endured. Adele was now acting as if there were nothing between herself and Damien except the common link of Harold.
“Would you like to take a ride?” Damien asked, without making direct eye contact with her. A groom stood nearby, waiting for an official request.
“I believe I would,” Adele replied, knowing that she should have said no, but she was desperate to escape this manicured palace and all the watching eyes.
The groom immediately set to work, saddling two horses. A short time later, she and Damien were riding side by side down the hill, trotting across the wide green lawns. They rode in silence for some time, and Adele smothered any urge to talk and bring up anything to do with the time they’d spent alone together.
Damien was certainly obliging the pretense that they had never met before yesterday. Perhaps it was best. Perhaps this was how it would be from now on. Out of respect for Harold, Damien would not be open in her presence. Yes, it was best.
They soon approached a lake and stopped to let the horses graze.
“Is that a teahouse on the island?” Adele asked, noticing a small, round building, painted white and surrounded by leafy oaks.
“Yes, but it’s not an island, it’s a peninsula,” Damien replied. “We can get to it by riding to the other side of the lake.”
“Can we?”
Too late, Adele realized she should have been blasé about the teahouse and everything else, but she could only keep up this pretense for so long before she was bound to slip.
“Or maybe I should wait for Harold,” she quickly added.
Damien leaned forward and stroked his horse’s neck, saying nothing for a few seconds while he gazed at her suggestively from under dark, long lashes.
“I doubt you’ll get Harold down here any time soon,” he finally said.
Adele gave him a sidelong glance.
He turned his eyes toward the calm lake and surveyed the landscape. What was he considering? Was he checking to make sure there was no one else about?
He glanced back at her, his dark eyes assessing.
There was something between them, she knew, even though they did not speak of it or, heaven forbid, touch each other. It was understood that it would remain unspoken. As long as they never openly acknowledged it, or acted upon it, they would be doing nothing wrong. They both knew where the line was drawn. The challenge, however, was in not crossing that line.
“You want to explore it now, don’t you?” he asked, sensitive to her desires. His voice touched her like a feather and sent warmth through all her limbs.
When she didn’t respond, he trotted off ahead. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell.”
I won’t tell. There were already far too many secrets where he was concerned. Along with far too many hidden, buried emotions.
Yet, against her better judgment, and for reasons Adele couldn’t begin to understand, she could do nothing but follow Lord Alcester into the cool, shady forest.
Chapter 14
This is a mistake, Damien thought, as he led the way through the trees and around the lake. He should not have suggested they ride on. He should have started back toward the house. But he’d taken one look at Adele on her horse in the natural splendor of her feminine beauty, with her top hat perched at an enticing angle on her head, and he’d slid down the slippery slope of his less gentlemanly inclinations.
It was at that moment an instinct deeper than logic prevailed. It was the instinct responsible for his reputation for being able to successfully seduce any woman of his choosing.
He did not, however, choose just any woman. He had very particular tastes, and he always chose his lovers with careful, sound logic. Except for today, he thought irritably, when the opportunity to follow his more primitive desires had caused his body to respond promptly on cue with a most untimely arousal.
“I haven’t thanked you for arranging for the doctor,” Adele said, trotting up beside him. “I wasn’t sure how to handle that. I’m glad you thought of it.”
He had thought of a great many things over the past few days.
“Did you tell Harold you were going to take care of it?” she asked.
Damien steered his mount around a fallen branch. “No.”
She considered his direct, flat response. “Why not?”
“The subject didn’t come up.”
The sound of their horses’ hooves tapping over the soft earth filled the silence. “I did talk to him about it myself,” she said, “after I had the doctor explain the situation to him. I wanted Harold to know that I had not been harmed.”
“And what did Harold say?”
“He was relieved, of course, but I think he was a little uncomfortable talking about it.”
Damien shifted in the saddle. He knew his cousin well, and he knew that Harold wasn’t entirely comfortable around women, especially when it came to more intimate matters.
The truth was, Harold lacked experience, and Damien suspected he would be ill at ease on his wedding night. Painfully so. But it would be disloyal for Damien to express such an opinion to the woman Harold was going to marry. Instead, he would talk to Harold about it. He would prepare him for his wedding night and tell him what to do.
The thought of that caused a sudden tightness in Damien’s gut. Could he do that? Tell Harold how to make love to Adele?
“I was surprised,” she said, pulling him from his thoughts, “when Harold suggested you show me the stables, given that we just spent so much time together.”
“Harold trusts me.
”
“But how can he trust me?” she asked. “He doesn’t know me as well as he knows you. It didn’t even occur to him that I might be tempted by your reputed allure when it comes to women. Am I that predictable? Do I really come across as that pure?”
He glanced at her briefly, choosing not to answer.
“It’s strange,” she continued, “that even though we’re engaged to be married, sometimes I’m not sure how Harold really feels about me. Do you think he would be jealous if he saw us now, riding alone to the teahouse?”
Recognizing Adele’s need for reassurance where her fiancé was concerned, Damien found himself wishing for the first time that his cousin had more finesse. Adele deserved to be adored. If she felt adored by Harold, she would not need to ask Damien these questions.
At the same time, he disliked the idea of her being adored by Harold. Though he loved Harold.
“I’m sure he would be,” Damien replied.
But in all honesty, Damien was not sure. Harold probably wasn’t even giving it a second thought. He was more likely leaning over a beaker right now, concerned only with what was going on inside it, which frustrated Damien greatly.
He told himself it didn’t mean Harold had no feelings for Adele. Harold was just being Harold.
“He’ll eventually become more at ease around you,” Damien said. “I know the man he is beneath the surface and believe me when I say that he is a good man, the most honorable man I know. Give him time. You’ll have your whole life to get to know him as well as I do.”
She adjusted the reins in her gloved hands. “I have no doubt that he is a good man. You’re right. I shouldn’t try to rush things. I shouldn’t expect to be intimate with someone I’ve only just met.”
Yet she and Damien had only just met, and there was an astonishing level of intimacy between them. Though at the moment, they were both working hard to keep it at bay.
They rode around the lake and arrived at the path that led to the teahouse. “Will it be locked?” Adele asked.
“Yes, but I know where the key is. Harold and I used to come here when we were younger, before he discovered chemistry. We spent many hours fishing right over there.” He pointed to the log they once sat on. “Harold’s father used to enjoy the outdoors. He was always hosting shooting parties.”
“What about your father and mother? Do you remember much about them?”
Damien drew his horse to a halt at the teahouse and swung down from the saddle, then went to help Adele. “My father was very much like Harold. Red hair and all. Eustacia was my father’s sister.”
“And your mother?”
“My mother...well, she had interests that didn’t include me. I had no love for her, and to be honest, I don’t remember that much about her. I never try to, because when I do, all I feel is resentment.”
“You have no pleasant or happy memories of her at all?”
Adele’s gloved hands came to rest on Damien’s shoulders, and he took hold of her tiny waist. She leaped down, landing with a thud before him, her skirts billowing upon the air.
They stood motionless, staring at each other for a few seconds while he thought about Adele’s question.
“I suppose I do. I remember her holding me and singing to me when I was very small.”
But he didn’t like to think about that. It hurt to remember his mother’s tenderness. It gave him a knot in his stomach.
“Were you close to your father?” Adele asked. “You see, I come from a close family and it’s difficult to imagine being a child and not feeling close to at least someone.”
He finally turned away from her and tethered the horses to a tree. “I suppose I was. We were very different, but we seemed to connect somehow. I suppose I knew he would do anything for me. I was loyal to him in return.”
“Like you’re loyal to Harold?”
The question made him uncomfortable. “Yes.”
“When did you and Harold become so close?”
A memory flashed in his mind—an image of a day not long after his parents died, a month, perhaps. He had stumbled across some boys fighting at school, but it turned out to be boys beating on Harold. Damien had fought them off. He had felt useful that day, after weeks of shame and regret, blaming himself for his parents’ deaths.
With nose bleeding and eyes tearing, Harold had looked up at Damien from where he’d sat on the ground, huddled against a brick wall, and said, “You’re my best friend, Damien. You’ll always be my best friend.”
Damien stood outside the teahouse with Adele and told her all about that day, and he saw in her eyes that she understood. He told her other things about their childhood as well. He explained how Harold had always been able to see when Damien was missing his parents and had cheered him up with jokes or games. Damien gazed down at the ground, remembering so many little things....
The horses nickered, and both Damien and Adele went to pat them while they spoke more about the past. Then Damien retrieved the key to the teahouse from a jar nestled in a tree stump nearby and returned to unlock the door. He pushed it open and gestured with a hand for Adele to enter first.
She walked into the large, round room bathed in sunlight, her black boots tapping over the wide planks on the floor. She wandered leisurely around the perimeter, looking out the windows at the lake, then she moved to the center where a large table stood—also round—with twelve Chippendale chairs.
Damien removed his hat and closed the door behind him. “This was built in 1799, because of something Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, said when he was a young man—that in a round building, the devil could never corner you.”
“And do you believe that?” She turned her back on him and strolled around, looking carefully at the small paintings of landscapes on the walls.
He let his gaze sweep appreciatively down the length of her curvaceous figure. “No. I believe he can corner you anywhere.”
She nodded in agreement, looked around a bit more, then smiled at him.
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “I will come here often, I am sure of it, just to escape the....” She stopped whatever she was going to say and glanced up very briefly at Damien before turning toward the windows again.
He took a slow step forward. “Escape what, Adele?”
She faced him again and smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I don’t know. The pristine perfection of it all. Everything is so clipped and manicured here, and I don’t just mean the gardens, if you understand my meaning.”
“I do.”
“Personally, I prefer a setting more like this. Something small and cozy and surrounded by overgrown grasses. I love how the willow branches dip down into the water just over there, and how the leaves over here”—she pointed at the window—“block the view slightly. It’s natural and unpredictable.”
She met his gaze and smiled warmly, and he felt a stirring deep inside himself. She was beautiful, there was no question about that, and he was attracted to her in a physical way, which was not unusual. That could be dealt with. But there was so much more....
Feeling on edge, Damien dropped his gaze to his boots. He had prayed these feelings would disappear after he delivered Adele safely to Harold. He had prayed that he and Adele would both forget what had happened between them, but Damien could not. It was impossible. All he wanted to do now was pull her into his arms and do nothing but hold her. He wanted to take her to Essence House and show her the unkempt gardens and the cozy rooms that were full of mismatched pillows, and the stacks of books piled high on the floors because there was no room left in the bookcases, and no one had ever wanted to part with the books.
Damien knew Adele would love Essence House because she loved what was natural and unpretentious.
He feared suddenly that what he felt for Adele was more than just a fleeting lust for an attractive woman, and more than a simple desire for the forbi
dden. Now that they were back in the real world, it seemed to be much, much more.
Damien squeezed his hat in his hands and felt a dark shadow, like a storm cloud, settle over him and inside him. It was a shadow of impending doom, of shame and regret on the horizon. He couldn’t move.
“What is your house like, Damien?” she asked, her expression bright with interest.
Not only could he not move, he couldn’t speak, either. All he could do was stare blankly at her.
“Damien?” She sauntered closer. “Your house? It’s called Essence House. Didn’t you tell me that once? I looked the word ‘essence’ up in the dictionary this morning because I was thinking about it, and it means ‘the real or ultimate nature of a thing, as opposed to its existence.’ It means ‘heart, soul, core, or root.’”
She continued to move closer in that carefree way, and he wished she would stop. “In my imagination, your house is very different from Osulton Manor,” she said. “The way I picture it, things aren’t clipped. They are like this, aren’t they?” She gestured toward the vista outside the windows. “Natural and overgrown and somewhat...messy?”
She laughed.
He didn’t. He couldn’t. “Yes, that’s exactly what it looks like,” he said flatly. “The truth is, I can’t afford a gardener, and even if I could, I’d tell him not to touch a thing, because I love it exactly the way it is.”
She stopped her carefree sauntering directly in front of him, only a foot away, close enough that he could see the flecks of gold in her eyes and the individual hairs in her delicate brows. He could smell the clean scent of her skin. Though it wasn’t perfume he smelled. It was just her.
Her hands were clasped behind her back. She was swinging back and forth like a mischievous child, gazing up at him with impish eyes. She’d never looked at him like that before—so playfully and flirtatiously. It was the Adele he’d always known existed deeper down. The Adele she had never let loose. This Adele—the sensual one—awakened his sharply honed instincts and impulses.
In Love with the Viscount (American Heiress Trilogy Book 3) Page 12
