Pearl noted the blush, and a mocking expression came over her face.
“Oh, ain’t you? Then why is ’e takin’ you to Amberwood? It’s grand—so grand Alec never even goes there ’imself. But I guess ’e thinks that since you’re a countess and all, only the best will do for you.”
“I—” Isabella began, and then stopped short. She suddenly discovered that she was at a loss for words to explain her new position in Alec’s life. It occurred to her that he might not like to have it widely known that he felt himself in need of tutoring. So what could she say that would appease Pearl, salvage her own self-respect, and at the same time shield Alec?
“You’re talkin’ out of turn, Pearl.” The chiding voice belonged to Paddy, who entered from the direction of the front parlor and stopped, arms folded over his chest, just behind Pearl, As Pearl threw a poisonous glare over her shoulder at him, he shifted his attention to Isabella with seeming indifference to Pearl’s ill humor. “Alec is waiting for you out front. You’d best ’urry along.”
Thankful for the interruption, Isabella murmured quick good-byes and moved toward the front door, which a chastened-looking Sharp, materializing out of seemingly nowhere, held open for her.
“My lady.” Paddy’s voice was gruff. Pausing with one foot on the threshold, Isabella looked at him questioningly. Unlike Pearl, Paddy seemed to bear her no trace of ill will. He came up behind her, moving lightly for such a huge man, his brown eyes sober as they met hers. “Whoever it is that wants Alec dead is still out there. ’Ave an eye to ’im, will you? ’E’s a bit on the reckless side where ’is own safety is concerned.” He paused, frowning. “You ’ave only to send word ’ere to the Carousel to reach me if there’s need. I’ll come at once.”
Paddy’s concern for Alec touched her. Smiling at him, Isabella nodded.
“I’ll do that,” she promised, then turned and walked out the door and down the steps to the street, where Alec waited impatiently with the tilbury.
XXXI
The distance to Horsham was not overlong, not more than a six-hour drive including time for a stop for a leisurely luncheon that the cook at the Carousel had prepared and packed in a basket for them to enjoy at their convenience. The day was warm and bright, the sky was blue, and the fields in the countryside were already starting to turn green. Small yellow crocuses butted their heads against the softened earth, here and there springing forth in solitary glory. Robins and bluebirds pecked busily on the ground between budding trees, searching for twigs and other necessities with which to build their nests. Despite the uncertainty of her position, Isabella felt strangely lighthearted. With a sidelong glance at the man beside her, comfortably silent as he handled the reins with practiced ease, she wondered suddenly if it was not he who was responsible for her unexpected happiness. If so, the implications were unsettling in the extreme. Isabella refused to be unsettled on such a beautiful day, and so she banished the thought.
As they left London farther and farther behind, the sun rose higher and brighter in the sky, and the roads roughened. Isabella’s euphoria evaporated somewhat. When after a couple of hours Alec suggested stopping at the next likely spot they passed, Isabella was all too ready to agree. The road, battered by the incessant downpours that had marked February and March, was pocked with holes and crisscrossed by ruts, making even the well-sprung tilbury lurch and pitch continuously, like a ship in a storm. That alone would not have bothered Isabella so much—she was not usually prone to carriage sickness—were it not for the unseasonable warmth of the day. It was only the second week in April, but if one judged by temperature alone, it might have been high summer.
“You’re looking a tad pale, Countess,” Alec observed as the tilbury bounced energetically around a bend. “No doubt you’ll be glad to get down for a bit and stretch your legs.”
“Yes,” Isabella agreed, trying not to sound too fervent. In truth, she was dreadfully hot and faintly nauseous, but she thought that if she could just sit for a minute under the shade of a tree on something that did not move, she would recover in no time at all.
“You’re in luck. Look there.” With the whip he pointed ahead to a grassy spot in a semicircle of trees.
“It looks wonderful.”
“Whoa, there, Blaze. Whoa, Boyd.”
Alec pulled up his horses, secured the reins, jumped down and helped Isabella to alight. She clung tightly to the hand he held up to her, knowing that her own was probably clammy.
But Alec appeared to notice nothing amiss with her. “If you should need to relieve yourself, you may go into those trees over there, but don’t wander too far. I should hate to have to rescue you from a crazed wild boar, or some such creature.”
This sally coaxed a faint smile from Isabella, but her voice was severe as she answered. “There are no boars in the vicinity, as you know very well. And a gentleman should never, ever, refer to a lady’s … er … bodily needs. Gentlemen are supposed to believe that ladies have none. Or at least they pretend to believe that.”
“Gentlemen are damned fools, then,” Alec retorted good-humoredly, retrieving a pair of oat-filled feed bags from beneath the seat. “And you may leave off your tutoring until we arrive at Amberwood. Your employment does not officially begin until then. For the nonce we are merely a man and a maid enjoying one another’s company.”
Isabella shrugged. “As you wish.”
She settled herself on a stump beneath the spreading branches of an oak tree while Alec saw to the horses. With the motion stopped, she felt a degree better, but the heat was stifling, and the fur closing around her throat was choking her. With one eye on Alec as he pulled a picnic basket from the carriage, she undid the first four hooks of the pelisse, parting the edges of the garment so that what small breeze there was might hit her sweat-dampened skin. The resulting opening bared a sliver-thin vee of flesh from her throat to the hollow between her breasts. Showing more would be indecent. But she was still sickeningly hot, trapped in close-fitting, fur-trimmed wool on a day that was, against all logical expectations, as uncomfortable as an August noon.
Alec came toward her, picnic basket in hand. He had shed his coat, and in shirt sleeves and breeches he looked both devastatingly handsome and maddeningly cool. Not a single bead of sweat dampened his brow as he set the basket at her feet.
“Would you care to join me for a light repast, Countess?” he asked with a sweeping bow and a wicked grin.
“I’m really not very hungry,” Isabella said, averting her face from the delicious aromas arising from the basket. “You go ahead.”
His eyes narrowed at her. “You look pale. Are you ill?” The joking note was gone, replaced by concern.
She smiled at him then, a little weakly but still a smile. Not many people in her life had shown much concern for her comfort or well-being, regardless of how closely connected they were to her. Coming from Alec, on whom she had no claim whatsoever aside from the odd friendship they had struck up, such attention was doubly sweet.
“I’m just a trifle queasy from the rough road. If I sit here for a minute, it will pass, I’m sure.”
Still he frowned at her. “You’re sweating. You should take off that fur thing.”
“It’s called a pelisse—and I prefer to keep it on.”
“That’s foolishness.”
“Perhaps so. Nevertheless, I prefer to wear it.”
“Well, I prefer that you don’t. ’Tis bloody hot out.”
Soft blue eyes met determined gold ones. “I shall take leave to tell you that it is not the thing for a gentleman to comment on a lady’s attire.”
He snorted. “Don’t try to fob me off with that twaddle. Why won’t you take off the fur thing? If there is a sensible reason, pray enlighten me.”
Isabella sighed. “Would you please just sit down and eat? I would remove the pelisse if I could, but I cannot.”
Fists resting on his hips, he cocked his golden head to the side and studied her as one might an odd type of bug. Even battling
incipient nausea, she could not help but be aware of how dazzlingly handsome he was. In white shirt, buff breeches and tall, well-polished boots, he looked so fit and vigorous that just looking at him tired her. He also looked very young, younger than she had supposed he could possibly be, and carefree, like a high-spirited boy.
“How old are you? You’ve never said, and I’ve never thought to ask.”
He looked surprised at the question. “Older than you, my girl, believe me, so don’t try to change the subject. Why can you not take off that thrice-damned pelisse?”
“How much older? I am three-and-twenty, you know.” She persisted with sweet indifference to both his swearing in her presence and his preoccupation with her pelisse.
His eyebrows came together. He looked her up and down, his expression weighing. She met that look with serenity—and determination.
“If I satisfy your curiosity, will you satisfy mine?”
“About what?” She was cautious.
“About why you cannot take off that pelisse.”
Isabella hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, then, I am as close to thirty as makes no difference.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you telling me that you are no more than nine-and-twenty?”
“If I am, what of it?”
A smile tugged at the corners of her lips, broadened into a grin. “Why, you are just six years older than I!”
“I am centuries older in experience, believe me.” His expression told her that her amused delight in his relative youth disgruntled him.
“You are scarcely more than a lad!”
“And you, my girl, are a wet-behind-the-ears miss in search of a good set-down.”
As she giggled at his obvious discomfiture, Alec squatted beside the picnic basket, opened the lid, and began to rifle through the contents. A cloth had been included. He spread it out, and began to lay the picnic on it. Suddenly he looked across at her. “You have not honored your part of the bargain, Countess. You seem to find my age very amusing, but I still have no idea why you are idiotic enough to wrap yourself up in fur in this infernal heat.”
A bargain was a bargain. She took a deep breath, and searched for the words to delicately describe her dilemma. “The dress I am wearing … it’s not mine, you know, and … and it’s not really the thing.”
Disgusted, he said, “Are you telling me that the dress is so unfashionable that you would wear that stifling garment over it rather than reveal it to me?”
“No, of course not! It’s not that the dress is unfashionable. Rather, it is … indecent.” Try as she would to be matter-of-fact about it, she had to look away from him as she said the last word.
His eyebrows rose, and he scanned her outfit with renewed interest. “Really? Let me see.”
“No!”
He stood up then, with the picnic half spread out at his feet. While she watched him warily, a single lithe step brought him beside her. Seated as she was, he towered above her, and she had to crane her neck back to see his face. He grinned at her, a wicked grin that caused those golden eyes to dance. Isabella observed that grin with more than a little misgiving.
“Come, Isabella, take it off. Your gown cannot be that indecent, and ’tis nothing short of folly for you to wrap yourself from chin to wrists in wool on such a day. There is no one here to be shocked, you know. As for me—why, I can promise you that I’m too hungry to notice anything save my food.”
That virtuous note made her smile, but still she shook her head at him.
“Eat, Alec, and leave me be. I am determined not to come out of this pelisse, and there’s an end to it.”
“And I am determined that you shall. You are making yourself ill, to no purpose. And you are keeping me from my meal.”
“In my role as your tutor, I take leave to tell you that such persistence as you display is annoyingly ill-bred. A gentleman, knowing his importunities to be unwelcome, would desist at once.”
“Fortunately for you, Madame Tutor, I am not a gentleman. And I refuse to let you suffer for so ridiculous a cause.”
Isabella sighed. “I’m tired of bandying words with you. I am quite comfortable, I assure you, so let us find some other topic to discuss as we eat.”
“I’m tired of bandying words about, too.”
Before she knew what he was about, he bent, scooped her off the stump, and deposited her flat on her back on the just-greening ground quicker than she could squeal his name. Even as she squeaked with surprised protest he was kneeling over her, straddling her, catching her hands in one of his and pinioning them over her head.
“What the … the blazes do you think you’re doing?” Struggling was useless, she knew, and she refused to give him the satisfaction of subduing her when no good could come of it. But her eyes bespoke her emotions as they shot blue daggers at him.
“You really are going to have to learn to swear, Countess. If you mean bloody hell, say it.”
Alec’s eyes teased her. His free hand moved to her cleavage, and with obviously experienced fingers he began to flick open the remaining hooks securing her pelisse.
XXXII
“You are a devil! Alec Tyron, you stop that this instant! Let me up!”
“Presently, love,” he said soothingly, ignoring her squirming efforts to be free as he unfastened the last of the hooks.
“No, don’t!” she cried in near despair, but it was too late. He pushed the edges of the pelisse aside, and looked down with a lurking grin at the hideously inadequate bodice of her gown. To her horror Isabella saw that the too big gown had shifted, exposing even more of her white skin than it had previously. Her breasts rose wantonly above the lower edging of braid, bared by her wriggling almost to the nipple.
“Pray don’t look.” Blushing, she lay perfectly still and turned her face away. Thus she missed his sudden frown as he saw how truly embarrassed she was.
“Isabella. Look at me.”
Gently he caught her chin in his fingers, and turned her face so that she had no choice but to look at him. In that moment her eyes were more gray than blue, cloudy with distress. The prim coil of hair at the back of her head rested against the mottled green of the ground, forcing the front part, usually demurely combed back, to fall forward, surrounding her pinkened face with a brown-gold nimbus. Though she did not know it, she looked very young, very shy and every bit as vulnerable as she felt.
“You are being absurd,” he said. “I’ve already seen considerably more of you than this—” His eyes flicked her chest, and returned again to her face as she reddened still more. “And I will not allow you to make yourself ill because of some ridiculous notion of propriety. It’s too damned hot to wear this bloody thing, modesty be damned.”
With that he let go of her hands and pulled her to her feet, stripping the pelisse from her with a single ruthless yank before she could recover herself enough to try to stop him. Isabella gasped as the pelisse was dragged down her arms and then lifted away, her hands flying instinctively to cover the exposed expanse of soft white flesh.
“Bully!” she hissed when she’d recovered sufficiently.
“If you like to think so,” he answered with a shrug, slinging the pelisse over his arm. Without another word, without even so much as looking at her again, Alec turned and walked back to the carriage. Isabella’s smouldering eyes followed him every step of the way. She watched with no small degree of outrage as he tossed the pelisse inside, and then returned with easy strides to settle himself cross-legged beside the picnic basket as if nothing out of the way had occurred. To Alec, obviously, might meant right, and his high-handed assumption of authority infuriated her.
Isabella eyed him narrowly as he bit into a leg of roast chicken with blithe unconcern.
“You are an ill-mannered cur, Alec Tyron.”
“Then you have your work cut out for you, don’t you, Madame Tutor? As soon as we reach Amberwood, you may busy yourself by attempting to smooth out all my rough edges. But in the meantim
e, why don’t you help yourself to some chicken? The Carousel’s cook has a way with it.”
Berating the maddening creature was clearly a waste of her time and effort, Isabella decided after a moment in which the state of her temper hung in the balance. Seeing that he was paying her exposed charms no particular attention, and secretly admitting that she was beginning to feel a great deal better now that the hot pelisse was no longer swathing her to her chin, Isabella gave up her ire and came over to sit, legs curled at her side, on the opposite side of the cloth. She was careful to keep one slim hand spread over her shocking décolletage, however. Arranging her skirts around her so as not to expose her ankles, she kept a sharp eye on Alec. If he dared to ogle her …
But he seemed far more interested in his luncheon than her charms. Gradually Isabella relaxed enough to find a drumstick of her own and begin, daintily, to eat. Casting fleeting looks down at herself as she picked the meat from the bone, she finally decided that, sitting up as she was, the cutout was not so revealing that she must keep a hand constantly plastered over it. Indeed, she probably looked foolish doing so. After a succession of lightning glances in Alec’s direction, each less wary than the one before, Isabella finally allowed her hand to drop.
“Tomorrow you may send for a dressmaker and order yourself a wardrobe, if you wish, I’ll stand the nonsense, of course.”
His attention still appeared to be concentrated solely on his meal, and his tone was nonchalant. But clearly, from the timing of his remark, he had been watching her more than she knew. His offer, though of course she could not accept it, clearly was meant to please her. Despite his toughness, the appalling conditions of his birth and upbringing, and an infuriating high-handedness that she suspected was inbred, Alec Tyron was at heart a very kind man, she was discovering. Isabella put down the bread she was getting ready to bite into, and smiled at him.
“It’s very generous of you, Alec, and you must not think I don’t appreciate the offer. But you cannot buy my clothes. It wouldn’t be proper.”
Tiger's Eye Page 17
