The others, too, took pleasure in the mummery and high spirits of the afternoon. Mrs. Foster experienced rare moments of joy after having felt only unremitting sadness since the death of her daughter. Eddie understood that the marquis’s, and consequently his life had taken a solid turn for the better. For her part, Molly relished watching the subtle interaction between her employer and the marquis. It appeared that the nobleman, who preferred being called Duff, was in full courting mode, while Miss Foster had smiled more this afternoon than she had the entire time Molly had been with her.
“If you’re going for a ride, you’d best be off before the sun cools,” Annabelle’s mother suddenly asserted. Silencing her daughter’s impending protest with an upraised hand, Mrs. Foster added, “Don’t worry about Molly and me. We’re just fine. You know how you’ve always loved horses, darling.” She turned to Duff. “Before my dear husband died, we kept a small stable ourselves. Belle was the best rider in the family.”
“Are you sure, Mother?” Annabelle’s inquiry was replete with caution.
It was obvious who wasn’t sure, Annabelle’s posture ramrod-stiff. But taking advantage of the opportunity given him, Duff immediately came to his feet. “We won’t be gone long, Mrs. Foster. I’ll have your daughter back before dark.”
Belle shot him a heated glance, not sure she cared to be given this Hobson’s choice. Even less sure she should go.
Ignoring her fretful gaze, Darley offered her his hand. “My new mare is a darling. Eddie tells me she’s faster than blazes.” He grinned. “I don’t suppose you’d care to race?”
Her expression implied not. Under her mother’s smiling gaze, however, Belle’s voice was silken. “Perhaps some other time, Darley. I don’t have my riding boots with me.” She lifted her hem to display blue leather half-boots that matched her simple gown.
“Those will do perfectly well. We’ll ride at a sedate pace.” He took her hand, pulled her to her feet, and holding Annabelle’s hand firmly, Duff bowed to her mother. “Thank you for the tea and cake, Mrs. Foster. I can’t remember when I’ve had a more enjoyable afternoon.”
“You’re welcome anytime, young man. Laughter is good for the soul, is it not?” Annabelle’s mother smiled. “Now be off, you two,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Have a most pleasant ride.”
Chapter 6
“For your information, Darley,” Annabelle muttered as they moved away from the tea table, “I abhor authoritarian men.”
“Once we’re out of sight of your mama, I shall beg your forgiveness in every imaginable fashion,” he murmured, holding her hand tightly as she tried to wrestle her fingers free.
“You took advantage!” she charged, mutinously.
“I freely admit it, but if you knew how long its been since I’ve been in the company of a lovely woman, you’d overlook my incivility. Tell her, Eddie,” Darley said, glancing back at his batman. “Tell her how long we’ve been hermits.”
“It’s been a right long time, Miss Foster.” Eddie caught up to them and met Annabelle’s gaze. “It were a blessing we saw you at the horse fair yesterday, miss. It were like the sky lifted, if’n you ken. The marquis ain’t been hisself of late, you see.”
Annabelle glanced from man to man as though trying to gauge the honesty of Eddie’s assertions.
“It’s God’s own truth,” Duff said, making a wry face. “You became a talisman of sorts yesterday. I have no idea why, but there it is.” He smiled. “Perhaps you could consider me your charity case today. Not that you’re not already involved in charitable obligations to your family. But I would be pleased if you could keep me company for a short time. I just want to go for a ride—that’s all.”
“A ride and nothing more?”
“Yes.”
His reply was so entirely without subterfuge, so bluntly curtailed, she understood that behind the easy smile was something other than ease.
Suffering of a sort.
One didn’t have to be a savant to recognize it. Or maybe she knew too much of suffering herself. Stop! she silently ordered herself, refusing to acknowledge any affinity with a man like Duff. It would be a ludicrous assumption when they came from such opposite worlds. Worse, it might imply she was succumbing to his charm. And that she would not do. She was in Shoreham to care for her family. There was no time for other things, even if she were naive enough to accept his offered friendship at face value.
Not likely that.
Since her contentious break from Walingame, she’d vowed never again to be naive about the motives of noblemen.
“I shall hold you to your word,” she said pointedly, pulling her hand free.
Or perhaps he released it. “You have my word.”
That blunt simplicity again. She wasn’t here to analyze, however. Nor would she attempt such an endeavor with a man like Darley, who, rumor had it, barely spoke to any of his old acquaintances, or sometimes at all, since his return home. “Thank you.”
His smile was boyish. “No need to thank me when you’ve brought me good fortune. Do you have a preference where we ride?”
She was about to say she didn’t, or perhaps inquire what he meant by “good fortune.” But she did neither, careful not to stray outside the perimeters of the agreed-upon amicable ride. Instead, she said, “If we cross Dunlow Chase we’ll come on the monastery ruins at Bedloe. It’s a site of great beauty.”
“Excellent choice. I used to go there as a boy.”
“As did I as a child.”
“And yet I never saw you.”
Her brows rose faintly. “A matter of no importance.”
He grinned. “Speak for yourself. I would have taken great pleasure in seeing you.”
She made a moue. “I would prefer you not flirt with me.”
“I shall try not to. Eddie will keep me in line. You hear, Eddie? You are to be our duenna.”
He’d played many roles of late in the marquis’s life, but duenna was not among them, Eddie thought. Nor did he feel he would be effective should Duff set his mind to seduction. But he answered dutifully. “Yes, sar. You be in me sights, sar.”
Duff grinned at Annabelle. “Consider yourself doubly safe from my advances.”
Annabelle found herself thinking with utter absurdity what might have happened if she’d taken Darley up on his offer of carte blanche all those years ago. Other than his stark slenderness, he’d changed little. How many years had it been? How old was he now? “How old are you?” she asked, as though her thoughts proceeded uncensored to her tongue.
He met her gaze, a sudden look of surprise in his eyes. But when he spoke, his voice was without inflection. “Twenty-seven. I shan’t ask you how old you are,” he said with a grin. When he knew very well she was exactly five years younger; the night he’d met her in the green room was clear as though it were yesterday, now that she’d recalled it to his memory. She’d just recently turned eighteen, she’d told him that night. He was twenty-three and admittedly very drunk, but he remembered her dazzling beauty. And the crowd of men demanding her attention. Suddenly bending low, he put his mouth near her ear and asked a pertinent question himself. “Tell me. Is Cricket yours?”
“No.” She had no idea why she’d answered honestly. She knew less why she didn’t want him to think Chloe’s child was hers. After all these years in the demimonde, surely it couldn’t matter what people thought.
“I didn’t think she was.”
“And yet you asked.” She spoke quietly like he, their voices low so Eddie wouldn’t hear.
He shrugged. “I don’t know why I did—actually… I do. I didn’t want you to have Walingame’s child. And I have no idea why it would matter.”
“Things like that matter to men,” she replied bluntly.
He shook his head. “Not to me. I’ve been living in a black hole these many long months since Waterloo.” He smiled tightly. “Very little matters to me anymore, my sweet.”
“I’m not your sweet, Lord Darley,” she replied crisply. �
�Although I’m truly sorry for your distress,” she added in a different tone of voice. She understood misery. Her entire family had been sunk into despair since Chloe’s death.
“Allow me to apologize again—for addressing you so informally. And truth be told, I’m actually exhilarated today—thanks to you. No, don’t protest… you are under no obligation for my moods or anything else concerning my life. I do promise to refrain from taking any further liberties in address, though. No improper phrases shall pass my lips.” He grinned and pantomimed a locking motion across his lips.
She laughed. She hadn’t intended to. She really wished she hadn’t when she was trying very hard to maintain her distance.
His grin widened. “There—you see? It’s not so difficult to laugh. And consider, your mama likes me. That should make me at least marginally acceptable.”
“As if anyone wouldn’t like you when you focus your charm on them.”
“Perhaps you as well?”
She laughed and punched him lightly on the arm. “Enough. Today, we’re going on a ride. And that’s all we’re doing.”
Chapter 7
Darley swung Annabelle up into the lady’s sidesaddle, adjusted her stirrups, handed her the mare’s reins, and stepped back to admire her seat. “Your mama was right. You’re a natural in the saddle. Consider keeping the mare. She fits you perfectly.”
“She’s too expensive, as you well know, but thank you. Perhaps at another time I might have taken you up on your offer. But not at this juncture in my life.”
“That sounds like a declaration of great portent.”
She flashed him an easy smile. “Not in the least, my lord. I only meant my life is very busy at the moment.”
“Duff, please.”
“As you wish.”
“Don’t say you’re becoming docile of a sudden,” he said with a smile, swinging up onto Romulus’s back.
“I am never docile, Duff.”
She uttered his name in a sultry contralto that registered in a portion of his anatomy that had been long dormant. Shifting in his saddle, he suppressed the spiking jolt of pleasure, conscious of both his promise to her and himself. This afternoon visit wasn’t about seduction. He wasn’t so dissolute. Nor had he ever been, even in his more prodigal youth. Sex wasn’t about records or numbers. It was about mutual pleasure. At the moment he was content to feel the warmth of the sun on his back, the supple power of prime bloodstock beneath him, and with the lovely Miss Foster at his side, he intended to take in the full beauty of a world he’d been absent from too long.
Annabelle, too, had been away from the world, although for different reasons. But about to see one of her favorite childhood places, she was feeling a modicum of exhilaration herself. Perhaps after weeks of taking care of her mother and Celia, the opportunity to ride to Bedloe was reason enough for her high spirits. That she was in the company of the handsomest man in England—as defined by the Ton, not necessarily herself, she carefully noted—couldn’t be discounted, either. She cast a surreptitious glance his way as though to confirm that assessment.
Duff smiled. “Ready?”
Maybe she had been away from the world too long. Discomposed by his direct gaze and the fact that she’d been caught out looking at him, she stammered, “Yes, yes… certainly— anytime.” Chagrined that her faltering reply made her sound like a wet-behind-the-ears schoolgirl, resolved that Darley’s good looks were not going to turn her head, she abruptly said, “Ten quid says I can beat you to Dunlow Chase.”
Her mare leaped forward at the flick of her whip.
Duff grinned and gave Romulus his head.
Eddie knew better than to give chase. Kicking his mount into a sedate trot, he followed at an easy pace. With the marquis having so recently emerged from his morbid despondency, he wasn’t about to superintend what could turn out to be a pleasant afternoon ride. The resplendent Miss Foster seemingly held the key to the marquis’s renewed good spirits. What better way to restore his master’s well-being than to allow him privacy with the lady?
Eddie had been with Darley from his youth, the men having grown up together. His father had served the former marquis as valet, his father’s father having filled the same role for the old Duke of Westerlands until his death. A Harley knew how to melt into the background at the appropriate time or he wasn’t worthy of the name.
And now was the appropriate time.
———
Annabelle’s mare reached the Chase first with a two-length lead. Reining in her mount, she smiled at Duff as he pulled up beside her. “You owe me ten quid,” she noted cheerfully.
“Didn’t I tell you the mare was fast?” Not as fast as Romulus, but he was always a gentleman.
“She’s an absolute darling.”
“She’s yours if you wish, you know.”
“I don’t wish.”
He smiled faintly. “I seem to be overly optimistic about my powers of persuasion.”
She gave him a narrowed glance, although a twinkle gleamed behind the fringe of her lashes. “You have your way too much, I suspect.”
He shrugged, not about to say if he had had his way these many months past, he would have erased the grim memories that haunted him and kept him awake at night. “Perhaps I do,” he said, and quickly changing the subject before being caught up in the grip of those memories, added, “We should have brought a picnic. I’m hungry already.”
Curiously, Annabelle also was—although she’d eaten a considerable amount at tea. “The inn at Bedloe serves excellent fare,” she offered.
“Perfect. Food first or the views at Bedloe first?”
“It’s up to you.” It was politesse only, for she was actually feeling peckish. Molly would be pleased, she thought, Cricket’s wet nurse continually chastising her for her lack of appetite.
“In that case, food.” Those close to Duff since his return home would have been as surprised as Molly.
“Will your batman know where to find you?”
If Eddie could find him lying on a battlefield in the dark and fog, Darley thought, he could find him in broad daylight on a country road. “I don’t expect a problem.”
She grinned. “Are you up to losing another five quid, then?”
He winked. “Maybe you’ll lose.”
“We’ll soon find out,” she replied gaily, feeling so light-hearted she might have considered some sorcery was at play if she wasn’t focused instead on beating Darley. “First one to the inn wins!”
He was thinking he was a winner already. “Done.”
She rode like she’d been born to the saddle, and he pressed her this time to see what the mare could do. Gimcrack’s bloodlines proved credible indeed; Romulus was running hard at the end.
As Annabelle’s mount careened into the inn yard, she reined the mare to a stop with finesse, and tossing a glance over her shoulder as Darley brought Romulus to a halt behind her, playfully said, “In consideration of your losses, perhaps I should buy you lunch.”
Duff could have bought the inn or the entire county if he wished. “I would be delighted,” he replied, bowing slightly from the saddle. “Seeing as you’re a woman of means.” Dismounting, he handed his reins to a stable boy.
“I am indeed.” She might not be able to buy the county, but the inn wouldn’t be beyond her means. Her fame and notoriety had had its compensations. Handing her reins to another young lad who had come up, she slipped her feet from the stirrups and smiled at Duff, who was reaching up to lift her down.
They stood close for a moment as he set her on her feet, his hands still on her waist. He took a small breath as his senses quickened.
She felt a sudden nervousness, as though she’d not stood this close to a man before.
Then his hands slipped away and he stepped back.
“You don’t wear riding gloves.” Like some missish young maid, she uttered the first thing that came to mind.
“I never have, although,” he added, turning his hands palm up, “I probab
ly should. Calluses.” He smiled easily as though he was ready to discuss whatever she wished. “They’re not acceptable in the Ton.“
“Apparently it hasn’t mattered.” The fact that Darley stood apart from the crowd had never been in question.
“I admit lily-white hands have never been high on my list of priorities.” Crooking his arm, he nodded toward the inn. “Are you as hungry as I?”
How unconstrained he was. Relaxed and relaxing in turn. “Perhaps more,” she said with a smile.
He shot her a swift look. “And yet you’re slender as a willow”—he grinned—”except for those areas where you’re not.”
“You’re overstepping the rules of the day, Duff.” But she returned his grin as she placed her hand on his arm. “Now, I’m in the mood for pudding. How about you?”
For the first time in months he was in the mood for something else entirely, but ever courteous, he said instead as they moved toward the inn, “I believe a good baron of beef is more to my liking.”
Her brows rose faintly. “How terribly male.”
He looked amused. “I confess to the-—what… infraction?” He smiled. “Shall we?” Having reached the door to the inn, he held it open for her.
The moment they entered the small parlor, conversation ceased and all eyes followed them as they moved toward the only unoccupied table in the busy tavern. The exclusively male crowd was blatantly openmouthed on seeing Annabelle, while the two barmaids’ covetous gazes were trained on Duff.
The fashionable couple’s grace and beauty aside, it wasn’t often that Bedloe Inn had customers of quality. Off the beaten path, far from even a village of any size, its primary trade was local farmers.
Pulling out a chair for Annabelle that gave her a view out the window, Darley took a seat opposite her. With her back to the room, she wouldn’t be as conscious of the gawking stares as they ate. And whether his decision was meant to assuage himself or her, he chose not to regard.
When someone loves you Page 3
