by Mary Balogh
Diana was surprised to find that he had a pleasant tenor voice and a sound knowledge of music. Although he claimed never to have heard the melody before, he was able to sing it through quite unerringly.
"Amazing," he said when they were finished. "We ended almost together, Diana. You were surely no more than one measure behind me. It's a pity the pianoforte accompaniment lagged two or three measures behind you. But no matter. We have two days in which to perfect the piece. Shall we decide definitely on this one?"
"We will probably not find a better," she said ungraciously.' She did not know at what moment during their singing he had seated himself so dose beside her on the bench. But she did not like him there. Her bare arm came into quite firm contact with his sleeve whenever she had to reach to higher notes.
"I think perhaps you were distracted by the change to two-four timing in the middle of the music,'' he said, ''and then back again immediately after. Your voice coped quite well. Your hands did not. Let me show you where you went wrong."
She leaned back in some alarm as his arm came in front of her to play the part of the music where she had lost time. Good heavens. Oh, gracious heaven.
"Hm," he said, stopping playing and looking over his arm at her, "you will topple right back off the stool in another moment, Diana. I'm sorry, my enthusiasm for the music quite distracted me. Come, let me show you again, but with a greater regard for your safety this time."
With a greater regard for her safety? Diana felt a moment later as if her heart must have hopped up into her throat and was beating out a tattoo against the inside of her ears and the top of her head. He put his left arm right around her and proceeded to play the accompaniment to the song with both hands. Diana was cradled against his arm and chest, her head resting against one very broad shoulder and a very firm jawline.
Gracious heaven! She would have fought her way up for air if she had not felt that she would thereby lose a great deal of dignity.
''I think that was more accurate, was it not?" he said when he had finished. Had he even started? Had he been playing the pianoforte for the past minute or more?
"Yes," she said, dismayed to hear that she sounded as if she had just run a mile.
"Let's try singing it again," he said. "I'll play this time, if you wish. Then you can criticize me if I fail to keep time.''
"Not like this," she said. "I cannot sing like this. I need more room."
"Do you?" he said, taking his left hand from the keyboard and resting it lightly on her arm. "Do you know, Diana, I am inclined to feel the same way. I think perhaps for future practices we should stand at opposite corners of the room, don't you? I find myself decidedly breathless when I am so close to you."
Since it was perfectly obvious both that she was breathless and that he was not, Diana chose to be insulted.
"You make mock of everyone, do you not?" she said crossly. "I am not accustomed to loose living, and therefore make no apology for being uncomfortable in these present circumstances. I do not mean even to pretend to be a blasé woman of the world."
All might have been well if she had not chosen—oh, utter foolishness—to turn toward him in her anger. Her breasts took the place of her back against his chest, and her movement transferred his left arm and hand to her waist. His face, with those intensely blue eyes and those sensual, mocking lips, was perhaps even closer than it had been at the castle a few evenings before.
He kissed her. Of course. What else could she have expected? She had presented him with a very open invitation, and being the gentleman that he was, he had accepted. It would have been very surprising if he had not. Any man would have done as much. Certainly a notorious rake could not be expected to exercise any restraint.
He kissed her.
And she kissed him. It was the embarrassment of the moment that caused it, the discomfort, the dreadful physical awareness, and the very unwelcome memories of that splendid body with far fewer coverings. It was the heat she had been feeling, and the anger. And that throbbing of all her pulses that had locked her into an irrational inner world. It was not her. It was not her normal sensible self.
She kissed him, her arms reaching for his shoulders, her mouth opening beneath his.
And she discovered all over again the sizzling, aching sensations his tongue could create with its slow, almost lazy, exploration of her lips and the flesh behind. And his breath warm on her cheek. And his light fingertips on her neck and shoulder.
Fingertips whose magic had roamed her whole body. A mouth that had caressed her in other, more intimate places. A strong muscled body that had pressed her own into the mattress of an inn bed.
She drew back her head and looked warily into his eyes.
Blue eyes that looked dreamily and deeply bade into her own. Eyes that gradually took on focus and some of the amusement she had expected to see there from the first.
She swallowed.
"You have forgotten something," he said in that low bedroom voice, his eyes on her lips. "Ten whole seconds have passed, and I must conclude that you have forgotten.''
"Forgotten?"
"That you were going to smack my face if ever I tried to kiss you again,'' he said. ''No.'' He circled both her wrists with a thumb and middle finger. "I'm afraid it would no longer count. It would merely cause me unnecessary pain. It had to be within ten seconds. That was one of the unwritten rules."
"Let me go," she said lamely.
"And I think my point has been made too," he said. "Kissing and ravishment are not synonymous, alas. That was a quite satisfactory kiss—for both of us, was it not?—but we are bom still sitting on this bench fully clothed and bom in possession of our virtue. Regrettably so, Diana Ingram." He brushed her nose with his briefly. "I rather hoped that you might prove me wrong on that one."
"Let me go."
"I am not detaining you," he said, his eyes twinkling quite alarmingly into hers. "I cannot in all fairness be blamed for not shoving you away, Diana, since you feel so very delightful just where you are. But I am not detaining you."
She took her hands from his loose grasp and pushed herself away from him and to her feet. She did not remove her eyes from his.
"You are despicable," she said. "You manipulate people. You manipulate women. You are a rake and a libertine. Women's feelings mean nothing to you provided that you have your pleasure. You know that I want none of you. And yet you persist in maneuvering me into situations like this."
"The situations would be meaningless if you wanted none of me, Diana," he said. "You are not being truthful with yourself. We could have a great deal of pleasure together, my dear, if you would let go of your very puritanical notion that sexual pleasure is wrong."
"It is wrong when divorced from love and commitment," she said. "And you and I do not even pretend to any love for each other. You offer emptiness and heartache and an endless search for pleasure with which to fill the emptiness. I am tempted, my lord—oh yes, I would not be flesh and blood if I were not. But I will fight the temptation. I will not knowingly empty my life of all meaning. Not just for pleasure. And not for you. It would be a poor exchange indeed."
One side of his mouth lifted in a mocking smile, but he said nothing.
"If you will excuse me," she said. "We will practice at another time."
He spoke only when she was out of the room and about to close the doors behind her.
"There have not been many women who have rendered me speechless, Diana," he said.
"Congratulations."
9
Lord Crensford was sitting on the lower lawn being quite effectively strangled from behind by a shrieking and giggling nephew.
"Little scamp!" he said when he had finally cleared his windpipe for air. "What pleasure do you derive from launching yourself at Uncle Ernie's back fifty times in a row? We carried the ball all this way. Shall I throw it to you?"
The child's reply was to retreat a few yards and launch another attack on his uncle's back.
Lord Crens
ford glanced at his other two companions. Miss Wickenham was seated quietly on the grass, absorbed in the task of making a daisy chain. Their niece was crawling about on the grass plucking daisies by the heads and offering them to her aunt with a wide smile.
It was a ridiculously domesticated scene. And he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that his mother had thought of that too. She had just about fallen all over her necklaces and rings to suggest that he accompany Miss Wickenham when she had suggested taking the children off Claudia's hands for an hour.
At least that young lady was not getting into any trouble this afternoon. That was a miracle in itself.
''Hey, scamp!'' Lord Crensford yelled after a particularly vicious attack on his neck. He reached back to grab the child, swing him around to the front, and deposit him on the grass, where he lay shrieking, arms and legs flailing, being quite effectively tickled.
Angela Wickenham looked across at them and smiled, her nose wrinkling in such a way as to draw his eyes to the freckles there. Lord Crensford found his eyes straying up to her auburn ringlets—she wore no bonnet—and down to the slim bare arms below the puffed sleeves of her dress, the shapely breasts, the slim legs outlined against the flimsy muslin.
He felt himself flush, though she had looked away already.
"What are you going to do for the concert, my lord?" she asked, her head bent to the task of making the daisy chain.
"Oh, Lord," he said. "Play the violin, I suppose. Mama might as well turn the cats loose for ten minutes and save me the embarrassment."
She looked up at him and laughed merrily. "Surely you are not that bad," she said. "Shall I dance to your music?"
Lord Crensford gaped. "Dance?" he said. "To my music? Without a partner?"
"Yes," she said. "I love to dance, to just feel the music in my body and move to it. There is nothing in this world more exhilarating. If I had not been born a lady, I would have danced on the stage for a living. At the opera I would have had all the gentlemen vying for my favors." Her eyes were dreamily looking into a world that could not be.
"Oh, I say." Ernest gulped. She was not even blushing. Did she have no idea what particular favors from dancers gentlemen vied for? Clearly not. She was a child. A dangerous child. It was to be hoped that if Wickenham ever took her to London, he would keep her on a tight rein. There was no telling what scrapes she might get into.
"Is it settled, then?" she asked. "I will dance and you will play?"
"We will have to try it first," he said guardedly, frowning into her eager little face. But his attention was suddenly diverted to his nephew. "If you are going to throw the ball to me, scamp, could you aim for the chest, do you think, instead of the nose? My nose is big enough without being pounded by a ball."
His nephew giggled and threw the ball at his nose again.
"I wonder how well Mrs. Ingrain and Lord Kenwood will do with their duet," Angela said.
"Diana?" Lord Crensford said, the ball falling still in his hands. "And Jack? Duet?"
"Your mama arranged it all," she said. "They are practicing now. I cannot imagine the marquess singing, can you?"
"Now?" Lord Crensford allowed his nephew to prise the ball from his fingers and got precipitately to
his feet. "Where?"
"In the music room, I suppose," she said.
"I'll call him out." He clenched his fists at his sides. "The cunning scoundrel. He was going to read a book. I thought Diana was going to rest in her room for an hour, like the other ladies. I'll put a bullet between his eyes for this."
Angela was on her feet too, brushing at the daisy heads that had been strewn over her lap. "Is something wrong?" she asked. "Are you jealous, my lord? Is that it? Do you admire Mrs. Ingram?"
"He can choose his weapons," Lord Crensford was muttering, gathering his protesting nephew into one arm and the ball in the other, "and name his seconds. I have had enough of this."
"Wait for us," Angela called, scooping up her niece and throwing the daisy chain over the baby's head.
"Oh, dear, I had no idea you would be so angry when I mentioned the duet. I thought you must have known. Did you want to sing with Mrs. Ingram yourself?"
''I'll run him through with a sword if he chooses that for weapon," Lord Crensford muttered. "Or I'll pound him to a pulp with my fists."
"Oh, please don't do anything rash," Angela pleaded, trotting along to keep up with his angry strides. "I am sure the Marquess of Kenwood is a perfect gentleman."
He threw her a scornful glance. "Whoever decided that you were ready to leave the schoolroom?" he said.
Angela looked down at her niece and laid a cheek against the soft down on the baby's head.
Lord Crensford halted abruptly when they were inside the house. He set his nephew's feet on the tiled floor of the great hall and put the ball in his arms.
"Upstairs you go with your aunt, scamp," he said.
"Are you going to kill him?" Angela asked, gazing up at him in some dismay.
"Probably not," he admitted, striding away from her toward the closed doors of the music room. "But I might have a good go at it."
* * *
When the doors crashed open behind him, the Marquess of Kenwood had an elbow on the top of the pianoforte and was picking out a slow tune on the keyboard with one finger of the other hand. He did not look up from his absorbing task as the doors rather anticlimactically closed quietly.
"Where is she?" Lord Crensford demanded. "What have you done with her?"
"She is somewhere about the house or gardens, I imagine," the marquess said. "Before she left here I laid her back across the top of the pianoforte and had my wicked way with her." He depressed one of the keys with the nail of his forefinger and drew it up the length of the keyboard.
"If you did," Lord Crensford said, his voice shaking almost out of control, "I'll kill you. I'll kill you right here with my bare hands."
Lord Kenwood got to his feet and crossed the room to examine a Constable that was hanging on the wall there. He still had not looked around. "You're making an ass of yourself, Ernie," he said.
"Yes." Lord Crensford had mastered the trembling of his voice. "To you it would be asinine to protect a lady's honor. To you, females are only to be used. But Diana is my sister-in-law, Jack, and I care for her. And I owe her protection. She doesn't have Teddy anymore, and I am Teddy's elder brother. I'm her brother." He strode a few steps into the room. "Did you touch her?"
"Devil take it, Ernie." The marquess turned, and his relative was surprised to see his face serious and tight-lipped. The customary mocking humor had deserted it for the moment. "Are you asking me if I touched her with the tip of one finger? If I kissed her? If I mounted her? I'll give you an answer." He strode toward the other and stopped only when he was a few paces away. "It is none of your business what Diana Ingram and I do—or do not do—when we are alone together. We are both adult. If you are so fond of her, do you not trust her to behave in a manner consistent with her character? If you pretend to any knowledge of me at all, do you not trust me to take nothing by force that is not freely offered? Take yourself off, Ernie, before I plant my fist between your eyes and have to live with that act of aggression on my conscience."
"She is an innocent," Lord Crensford said. "She married Teddy when she was eighteen, and she certainly would not have learned the ways of the world from him. She has been with her mother and father for the year since he died. It's no fair contest, Jack. She'll give, you'll take, she'll be left with a broken heart, and you'll move on to your next victim.'' He noticed the whiteness around the marquess's mouth and nostrils, but he was too indignant to feel alarm.
"Get out of my sight, Ernie." Lord Kenwood was speaking very quietly through his teeth. "Now."
"I'm going," Lord Crensford said. "But you have to give over this wager, Jack. I feel sick with guilt over the whole thing. It's all my fault. I was damnably drunk—I had been thinking all night that it should have been me that died, not Teddy. So Diana was on my mind
, I suppose. I deserve to be shot."
"I am not in any mood to hear anyone's sniveling confession," the marquess said grimly.
''Dammit, Jack!'' Lord Crensford slammed his open hand down on top of the pianoforte. "Diana's name must not be dragged through the mud. If you had any decency at all, you would go back to White's and tell Rittsman and anyone else who was there that the wager must be struck from the books. Pay him his damned five hundred guineas. Double it. If you win, I'll have it on my conscience for the rest of my life."
"Get out of here!" Lord Kenwood spoke with ominous quiet.
"If you were pursuing her out of love it would be bad enough, given your reputation," Lord Crensford continued, undeterred. "But you don't know the meaning of the word love, Jack. It's what comes of not having a heart either, I suppose. I think I am going to tell Diana about the whole thing."
