That had sounded very virtuous. He smiled, pleased with himself.
Tilting her head, she said dryly, “How sweet. But do you truly think love so easily recognized as that? Why, a rogue may speak of love as easily as the morning editorials—more easily, in fact, for I find most rogues have a great distaste for reading.”
His enthusiasm lessened abruptly. She was not a moralist, he hoped. “I take it your husband disappointed you, madam.”
Ah, that was too blunt. The look she gave him changed as their eyes met; he felt as though he saw her decision to retreat from him in the way her smile firmed, like a wall hardening.
“But what a bore I am,” she said. “I promised to show you a lovely spot, and instead I babble at you.”
The strength of his disappointment amazed him. On its heels came wry resignation. She was not looking for a confidant, after all, but a silent ear, an audience that did not talk back. Ladies of her rank did not befriend their doctors.
“I imagine you very rarely bore anyone,” he said. Gallantries were what she expected, and this one was easy to offer.
Her smile slipped a little. Ah, but wistfulness did lovely things to her face. Though she would not admire them in the mirror, the faint lines that fanned from the corners of her eyes lent her beauty a human quality that roused in him the most peculiar and unexpected feeling.
If not her husband, then who had disappointed her? Such clumsiness was unforgivable; he would bloody the man’s face. No, he would do more than that: he would cup her face and smooth his thumb along her lip and whisper, He was not worthy of you. Then he would show her what she deserved: steadfast attention, a man who understood how a woman’s body worked, who could name each of its parts and manipulate them to her pleasure . . .
Christ, man. Take hold of yourself. He had long ago accepted that his character placed him among the more rash and impetuous men on the planet, but these fancies were a very quick development, even by his own natural tempo.
As though she divined his thoughts, she said, “We’re nearly strangers, Mr. Grey. I wonder why it is that I feel so comfortable with you? It seems to me that silences are particularly hard to share, don’t you think? But not with you.”
She liked flirting. That much was clear. Provoke and retreat; provoke and retreat. It was the natural tempo of the coquette. “That’s a compliment, I believe.”
“Yes, it is. Let us be silent for a few minutes, then.”
And so in silence they walked onward, beneath a sky that deepened from a pale blue into a vivid cerulean as the sun slid a little lower. He felt the most absurd impulse to take her hand—his fingertips twitched with the anticipation of what her fingers would feel like, clasped in his—the warmth of her skin, the softness of her knuckles—and he made his hand into a fist, and then put it into his coat pocket, lest it slip the rein and seize hers without permission.
A smile came and went on her lips. She ducked her head to hide it from him, which made him all the more curious to know what had inspired it. Infatuation, of course, could spring up at any time: he had fallen in love with women he’d glimpsed out the windows of trains, or across ballrooms, or on the quay as his ship docked. And he’d fallen out of love just as quickly, as these women had walked onward—or, worse yet, as he grew to know them. Beauty was a toxin to the wits, infatuation its ally—but by God, the drug was heady when it hit. It blurred other eyes, other smiles, other faces, until only hers, in this moment, seemed distinct to him.
Ah, but his brain was not rotted. Surely it was statistically improbable that anywhere on this earth another woman existed whose smile curved with such breathtaking gentleness. He would gladly accept the inevitable disappointment for a chance to feel that mouth on his own.
He took a breath full of sun-warmed earth and fragrant hay and honeysuckle and exhaled on a disbelieving laugh. No women until Alastair wed again? He was doomed.
She glanced over but did not ask the cause of his humor. “Here,” she said, and turned through an opening in the hedges onto an unpaved path. The trail led catercorner across the field into a wood where sunlight filtered through the branches and cast dappled spangles over a carpet of moss and fragrant, fallen leaves. Down a gentle slope they wended, to what turned out to be the bank of a well-hidden lake.
Lifting aside the fronds of a willow, Mrs. Chudderley beckoned him to follow her to the very edge of the water. From this vantage, the entire wood-shrouded lake revealed itself, glassy beneath the cloudless sky.
“May Lake,” she said. “So called because it is never more beautiful than in May, when the trees are blossoming. But even in June, it suffices.”
A breeze struck up, riffling the stands of willow, moving their fronds like fingers through the water. “Ah,” he said softly. Yes, he understood why she thought this place special.
“Ah,” Mrs. Chudderley echoed just as softly, and her glance toward him was radiant with understanding . . . and something more. He had studied women too long to misread that look.
He could not resist it. Why should he? A brief moment of indulgence . . . for both their sakes.
He reached out to cup her elbow. Best to move slowly, to communicate that she could refuse him. The choice was hers.
Her luminous eyes remained fixed on his. Her lips parted as he trailed his hand from the point of her elbow to her wrist. God. Her bare skin, that small, vulnerable patch exposed between cuff and glove, was indescribably soft. His thumb rubbed her pulse once, twice. A small noise came from her, the loosening of her breath, a sound as meaningful as the shushing of silk as a dress fell to the floor. This was how it began: how a woman came undone.
He drew her against him. The willow fronds whispered and snapped over the water. A little flirtation, that was all. Two fellow cynics, taking their summer amusement where they found it.
He lowered his mouth to hers, breathed against her lips. No hurry. They stood together, mouth against mouth, as his hand trailed up her arm, slipped around her small, fine-boned shoulder to palm her back. Inch by inch, his fingertips discovered the delicate ridge of her spine. The rhythm of her breath against his mouth grew more distinct. Her body was awakening to his, and the message made his own body tighten. He traced her spine downward, then upward again, reaching the warmth of her bare nape, the heavy weight of her chignon, the cool softness of her hair against his knuckles.
Her eyes were like light through the shallow waters of a lagoon. Green as the home of mermaids, wide, fastened to his.
He cupped her face, his thumb stroking her satin-smooth cheek. The space between their bodies—a finger’s width, no more—told him how they would fit together. Perfectly.
Closing his eyes, he molded his lips to hers. A single lick along the seam of her lips won his entry. Her mouth parted. She tasted cool and clean, like water from a fresh alpine brook.
His hand found the small of her back again, that graceful curve above her arse. A small stretch of perfection, worthy of worship in any language. He tasted her more deeply, his tongue meeting hers, and she swayed into him and began to kiss him back. Oh, she was hot and clever with her mouth. No moralist would kiss like this. His hand tightened; he felt the rigid boning of her corset, and beneath it, a dizzying softness. If she wore any petticoats, they were thinner than a breath of air.
More than a brief kiss, then. More voluptuous. More open-mouthed. Everything about her was edible. He wanted to taste her sweat. Life, right here. Life was short. Its sweetness, he would not deny. Was this not a legitimate philosophy? Seize pleasure where he found it. Leave the more complex considerations to others.
He caught her lower lip in his teeth and suckled it, hungry for the salt of her skin. Some low noise she made inspired him to chart the line of her jaw. Then the slope of her throat. God, she was perfect.
The thought broke his restraint. The kiss grew savage; her hands closed on his waist and tightened, her fingertips digging, and he answered the silent demand, ravishing her lips, her mouth, tasting her cheeks. His skin
against hers would cure this hunger. He stepped into her, and she stepped into him; too much clothing, God, the way she smelled, he would eat her in bites, he would start here at her throat—
“Oh!” She set her forehead to his, dislodging his mouth. He froze, waiting, every sense focused, his breathing ragged, waiting to see if she had changed her mind.
She did not withdraw. But she did not lift her mouth to his, either. He took a long breath through his nose, schooling himself. Calm. Calm. His hands fell away from her, flexing on empty air.
The ragged puff of her breath against his cheek was a compliment. It made him feel savage with ambition. Given a chance, he would make her breathe harder yet. He would make her gasp.
“Good . . . ness,” she said, the word broken into syllables by the small hitch of her breath. “Your talents extend beyond the medical.”
His laughter felt slow and drunken. “I would be glad to demonstrate them at further length.”
Her sigh tasted like cinnamon. “Oh, would you?”
Would he? With the sun gentle on his skin and the warmth of her body pressed tantalizingly to his, everything seemed very clear to him. He was no saint. Had never hewed to virtue or churchly regimens. Women liked him; he liked them. This woman, more beautiful than Venus, wanted him. Why deny her?
Widows were free to dally where they might. Dalliance held no threat of matrimony. An affair would harm nobody, and leave his vow and intentions intact.
Alastair would never know.
“Only repeat your invitation to dinner,” he said.
She pulled away to look into his eyes. Her smile looked shyly pleased, perfectly designed to make a man bolder. “Tomorrow, after the bazaar, you must come to dine with me.”
He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “Madam, I gladly accept.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The bazaar was always Liza’s favorite occasion of the year—historically, the event at which she needn’t worry if her dress ripped or some hussy was flirting with Nello, largely because Nello had never bothered to come. But now, as she stood at the back of the hall, she was conscious of a sharpening dissatisfaction that made her skin itch.
Frowning, she looked once again over the room, past the wilting chiffon swags of pink and yellow. The annual event, which raised funds for parish relief, had drawn visitors from as far away as Matlock, nearly a half day’s drive to the north. They had eaten all the pies, bought up all the bric-a-brac—sunflower pincushions and cambric handkerchiefs, knitted socks and hand-painted cigar cases, embroidered chair backs and watercolor scenes. Little Dolly Broward had pocketed and been forced to return four doilies, much to her mother’s mortification. The raffle was drawing a good crowd to the front of the room.
The bazaar was a success. But he was nowhere to be found.
Were she not so vexed by his absence, she would have laughed at herself. To think that the kiss of a country doctor had kept her up half the night! But she rather liked the notion of a man who recognized his good fortune in winning her attentions. His admiration was precisely what her sore vanity required. And did she not deserve a small romance, a brief bit of harmless fun, before she committed herself to the tiresome husband hunt?
For she had no choice in that. She had received another letter from her solicitors, this time written by joint effort with her accountants at Ogilvie and Harcourt. She’d enlisted her steward and secretary to help her decipher it, but the mystery of her bad luck was not so fuzzy, after all: her late husband’s unwise investments, paired with a depressed agricultural market and, oh, a touch of indiscipline in her own spending habits, had put her close to the brink.
She would not starve. She would not even be forced to sell off property—yet. But should some misfortune befall her, or her friends, or any of the people of Bosbrea who depended on her—and should that misfortune happen to require a large amount of cash . . .
Well, she would be sunk.
Curious, how words on a page could make one feel as though the ground beneath one’s feet no longer held steady. For a very brief time, she’d imagined herself in love with her late husband. Then she had learned to content herself with the luxuries he’d provided. But now, all those years with Alan Chudderley seemed doubly wasted. And as for her time with Nello, which had yielded nothing but heartbreak and notoriety . . .
Next to that instance of bad judgment, her attraction to the doctor felt nearly virtuous. At the least, the novelty of an honest, upstanding man’s interest should be educational for her. Medicinal, really. An inoculation before she once again waded into the muck.
“I bear gifts!” Jane swept up, two glasses in hand. “Look what I found!”
Liza laughed as she took a flute. “Champagne? But from where?”
“I instructed one of your footmen to pack it—so we might celebrate the saving of the parish.” A wicked smile tipped Jane’s mouth as she touched her glass to Liza’s. “Or to scandalize the parish, if you prefer. That lemonade was very weak.”
With the first sip, Liza’s nerves began to settle. It would be all right. There was no immediate hurry, her solicitors had assured her. She had a little time.
At the next moment, happiness washed over her: she spied Mr. Grey entering through the side door.
He looked a bit harried, his glossy hair ruffled, and he was tugging at his gloves as though he’d only just donned them. But he was here! He had come. His suit tonight fit him splendidly, molding quite closely to his broad shoulders and lean waist, and the white tie at his throat contrasted splendidly with his tanned skin. He had the bone structure of a Viking, she decided—cheekbones like the prows of a ship, and lips so precisely defined that a woman would be able to trace their edges in the dark. Not a pretty face, but a brutally attractive one.
She finished off the glass, her heartbeat racing. “Where is the bottle?” she asked. She felt reckless with anticipation. “Mr. Grey can join us in a toast.”
Jane had followed her eye. “Ah! Is that the doctor who’s to come to supper? Goodness—I recognize him!”
“Really?” The idea made Liza feel unaccountably cross. “From where?”
Jane’s brow knit. “I can’t quite recall. He looks terribly familiar, but . . .”
Ah, well. Jane did so wish to know everything. Liza handed off her glass to the girl and started across the room.
Mr. Grey saw her coming. Those long, talented lips shifted into a smile. She would miss, when she was older, the way her approach could make a man’s shoulders square, his chin lift, as though he strove to present his tallest and best self to her. Such a delicious sense of power it gave her!
But she did not wish to exercise her power over him too forcefully. It would not be fair, for he was only a doctor. And she rather liked his temerity; she could not separate it from the air of self-possession that drew her so strongly.
“Good evening, Mr. Grey!” She drew up before him, restraining the urge to smooth down her hair. Larcenous little Dolly was very fond of dancing, and their romp around the room earlier had no doubt left her looking a fright. “We feared you might not attend. How good it is to see you!”
“Mrs. Chudderley.” He sketched a bow, his light eyes never leaving her. At last, she identified the main reason for their beauty: his lashes were so dark that he almost looked to be wearing kohl. “Forgive my late arrival,” he said, but his eyes spoke a hotter message. “I set out at the normal hour, but I came upon an accident in the road, and stopped to give assistance.”
“Goodness.” A man who could be of assistance. A man of use! “I hope everyone was all right?” Her voice sounded breathless as a giddy girl’s.
“Yes, indeed—a twisted ankle, a few scratches; nothing more serious than that.” He glanced beyond her, and bowed again.
Jane had come up, one of the footmen in tow. Liza made the introductions, then watched as Jane snapped for more champagne to be poured.
“A very high-toned bazaar,” Mr. Grey said neutrally. He shook his head at the gl
ass Jane offered. “No, thank you, I will refrain.”
That dimmed Liza’s spirits slightly. This was a celebration, was it not? And it would continue at the house afterward. “Mrs. Hull, may I introduce you to Mr. Michael Grey? Lately of the north,” she added with a game smile.
Mr. Grey caught that smile and returned it, knowingly, before glancing onward to Jane. “How do you do,” he said, but Liza barely caught Jane’s reply.
Her parents had excelled at these unspoken intimacies, these silently shared jokes. An odd pang ran through her, loneliness mixed with longing. She tried to hold on to her smile.
You do not love him, her mother’s voice said. Without love, it will be empty.
“Mr. Grey, I feel sure we know each other,” Jane was saying. “Your face is shockingly familiar. Yet I can think of no Greys who come to mind. Whence in the north do you hail?”
“Near the Scottish border,” he said.
“Why, and I hail from York! So we must have acquaintances in common. Pray tell, where is your family settled?”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Hull, but I don’t think our circles cross.” He cut Liza a brief, unreadable look. “Surely I would not manage to forget so lovely an acquaintance.”
Jane preened, gratified by this compliment. “Well, I feel certain there is some connection. We may riddle it over dinner. I hear you’re to join us?”
For an odd moment the conversation came to a halt. And then Mr. Grey said to Liza, “May I have a private word with you?”
Puzzled, Liza let him lead her off to a corner. Behind them rose ringing cheers as the raffle winners were announced. Mr. Grey’s hand on her elbow, at first oddly formal, grew gentler; her breath caught as she felt the surreptitious stroke of his fingers before he pulled away. “I must once again beg an apology of you,” he said softly. “I cannot come to dinner this evening.”
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