Chapter 4
Adelaide rose the next morning with every intention of putting the events of the night before behind her. It was a remarkably easy decision to make, requiring only a brief reflection on what a fool she’d made of herself. Drinking whiskey, kissing strangers in a garden, promising to avoid her suitor—she could scarce believe her own behavior.
She could, however, take very good care not to repeat her mistakes. She would dress, go to breakfast, pay her attentions to Sir Robert, and otherwise pretend she had never met a man named Mr. Connor Brice.
She made good on the first and second intentions. She enjoyed less success with the third and fourth. Sir Robert was not present at breakfast, a detail she all but overlooked during her spectacular failure at ignoring the existence of Connor Brice.
He wasn’t at breakfast either—she noticed this immediately—and she spent the next hour trying to figure how she might inquire after him without confessing to all that they’d met the night before.
She finally gave the effort up when Mrs. Cress stood from the table and suggested the guests join her for a stroll about the grounds. Adelaide demurred, claiming a lingering headache made her poor company. She added the lie to her ever-increasing list of sins. She hadn’t a headache. She’d woke that morning feeling fit as ever. A small, welcomed, and undeserved blessing.
Her guilt increased when she slipped out one door of the breakfast room just as Sir Robert entered through another. She would speak with him soon, she told herself firmly . . . but not right now. First, she needed a long walk to settle her mind.
She briefly fooled herself into believing that it was fresh air and solitude she sought as she made her way through the garden, taking care to stay well away from the other guests.
It was such a lovely morning, after all. The late summer sun warmed her back while a light wind caught at her skirts and cooled her skin. All around her were the sights and sounds of a well-loved garden—the hum of bees amongst the asters, the tidy mounds of sweet william, and the lush and wild growth of an ancient climbing rose. She concentrated on each, doing her best to distract herself from thoughts of Connor Brice, but her best proved woefully inadequate.
Her mind was filled with thoughts of Connor. She wondered when she might see him again. She wondered if she might see him again. She wondered if he might kiss her again. She wondered how and when, exactly, she had become a shameless tart.
Disgusted with herself, she spun on her heel and began a determined march back the way she’d come. She would go to her room and stay there until dinner, or until Sir Robert requested her company. Whichever came first. She passed the rose and the sweet william, turned a corner, and there was Connor.
Her feet came to an abrupt halt. So did her heart, a split second before it started again with a painful thud.
He sat not six feet away, on a bench that had been unoccupied on her first passing. Leaning back, with his long legs stretched out before him, he looked relaxed, confident, and even more handsome than she remembered. Probably, it wasn’t rational to think twelve hours was a sufficient amount of time to have forgotten how someone looked. But she wasn’t inclined to think rationally at present, not while the sun was weaving brighter strands of gold in his hair and he was giving her that wonderfully inviting smile.
“I wondered if I might see you here,” he murmured.
Too late, she realized that she should have been a little less preoccupied with wondering when she might see him and a little more concerned with what she ought to say to him if she did.
Because what she did say—or croaked, to be accurate—was, “Morning.”
And, really, he was the first man she had ever kissed—there had to be an infinite number of more eloquent statements to croak than that.
He shifted his large frame, making room for her on the bench. “Will you sit?”
She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t. She did anyway and felt like the proverbial moth to the flame.
“You weren’t at breakfast.” Though not a brilliant comment, she deemed it an improvement over her first attempt at speech.
“I rose early.” He turned his head at the sound of distant laughter in the garden. “Why aren’t you with the others?”
She shrugged, affecting a casual demeanor. “I’m not fond of crowds, particularly. I prefer the quiet.”
“Shall I leave you to your thoughts?”
“No. I’m not fond of solitude either.” It occurred to her that he might be angling for a polite way to be rid of her. “Would you care to be alone? I didn’t mean to impose—”
He tilted his head at her, full lips curved in amusement. “Are we back to being shy with one another?”
“I don’t mean to be.” She plucked at an imaginary piece of lint on her gown. “I don’t know why I should be.”
Well, yes, she did. She’d kissed him, an act that should make any decent young lady blush. And now she sat there making idle conversation as if the two of them were acquaintances merely passing the time. It was, in a word, awkward.
“I could fetch a glass of whiskey if you like,” he offered. “Or a fire poker.”
She stopped plucking and laughed. It was a relief to hear him speak so casually of their last meeting. Like poking fun at the pitiful condition of her mask the night before, acknowledging the obvious was far easier than dancing around it.
“That won’t be necessary,” she said primly. “Thank you.”
“Are you certain? You were remarkably confident with a bit of drink in you and a weapon at hand.”
“I cannot believe I was so ill behaved.” She threw him a look of censure, but there was no heat in it. “I cannot believe you would be such a cad as to remind me.”
“I liked you ill behaved.” His mouth curved in the most wicked of grins. “I liked being a cad.”
That, she decided, was much, much too casual. And dear heavens, that smile. It could tempt a woman to all manner of sins. It had tempted her to sin. She looked toward the house. “I should go. I shouldn’t have—”
“I shouldn’t have teased,” he cut in gently. “I apologize.”
She eyed him warily. “If I stay, will you promise to behave as a gentleman?”
“You have my word as a cad.” He smiled again, but there was no wickedness, just a disarming silliness that eased her tension. “Tell me what you did after we parted last night. Was your tardiness noticed?”
“No.” She hesitated, uncertain of how much she cared to admit. “I never went. My sister gave my excuses.”
“Your sister, Isobel?”
She nodded and leapt at the chance to settle on a safe topic. “Yes. Isobel with an ‘o.’ ” She laughed softly at his raised brows. “She often finds it necessary to make that distinction.”
“Adelaide, Isobel with an ‘o,’ and Wolfgang, correct? An unusual set of names.”
She stifled a cringe at the mention of her brother. Wolfgang’s circumstances were public knowledge, but she’d rather hoped that knowledge had managed to slip by Connor.
“My mother was Prussian,” she replied, setting her embarrassment aside—something she’d become all too adept at over the last year. “Her mother was Italian.”
“But the best part of you is British.”
She smiled at that. “My father liked to think so. He liked to say so as well, but only to nettle my mother.”
His tone and expression turned gentle. “They didn’t get on.”
“Oh, they did,” she assured him. “Very much. They liked to tease, that’s all.”
“A common way to show affection.” He reached behind him, plucked a bright yellow flower, and held it out to her. “I believe this is another.”
Flattered, she extended her hand to take the offering. “Thank you—”
He drew the token out of reach. “Do you know what it is?”
“Yes. It’s Helenium, brought from the Americas.” It was also known as sneezeweed, which she didn’t see the benefit of mentioning.
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bsp; “Do you have a favorite?”
“Flower?” She shook her head. “No, though I’ve a fondness for poppies.”
“Poppies. I’ll remember that and buy you a dozen.”
She blushed with pleasure at the thought. She’d never received flowers from a gentleman, not even Sir Robert. “You can’t. Buy them, I mean.”
“Everything can be bought.”
“But they won’t last. They wither as soon as you cut them.” For her, that was part of their appeal. Poppies couldn’t be tamed in a vase or lost in a bouquet. “They have to be appreciated in the garden, just as they are.”
He twirled the flower between long, elegant fingers. “Will this last?”
“For a time. Without the proper nutrients, everything will wither eventually.”
“Until then,” he said and handed her the bloom.
Their fingers met on the stem, and she remembered how those fingers had felt trailing across her cheek. The memory made her blush and pull the flower free with more force than she intended.
“Isobel paints them,” she blurted out before remembering that Isobel no longer painted because they had long since run out of funds for supplies. “She has a tremendous talent for it. My father used to say that when I gardened, I created beauty for a season, and when my sister painted, she captured an essence of that beauty for eternity. He was a hopeless poet.”
“Do poets come any other way?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” she replied with a smile. She was glad she’d chosen to stay. It was so pleasant to sit with a man and make interesting conversation. She’d forgotten just how pleasant.
With Sir Robert, she listened. Or tried to listen, if one wished to be precise. The man wasn’t a bore, exactly, but he was predictable and more than a little redundant. Always he spoke of his most recent acquisition for his stable, then his most recent purchase from the tailor, and finally his most recently acquired tidbit of gossip, which generally concerned an individual she had never met and knew nothing about. If she were very lucky, he would vary his routine with a complaint or two about his staff. Her contributions were limited to “oh, my” or “oh, yes” or “what a pity” at the appropriate pauses in conversation.
Sir Robert never asked her questions. He knew nothing of her family, her past, her likes or dislikes. She very much doubted he was aware of her interest in horticulture, or her sister’s gift for art.
It was different with Connor. He made her laugh, made her think, made her feel. He had learned more about her in less than twelve hours than Sir Robert had in four months.
The exchange reminded her of the lively debates and long, rambling talks she’d once shared with her father. He’d encouraged her to think for herself, to be an active participant in the conversation. She missed that, missed having a man speak with her rather than at her.
“Where are you?”
Connor’s murmured question pulled her from her musings. She shook her head. She didn’t want to think or talk about Sir Robert. Not this morning. Not just this minute. She didn’t want to think about the years of mindless interaction ahead of her.
“I was woolgathering. Tell me what your family is like.”
“My mother was Irish, and my father was a British gentleman with Scottish holdings.”
She frowned a little. That was fairly nondescript. “Do you have siblings?”
“None I care to claim.”
She thought at first that he might be jesting, but a quick search of his features showed no signs of humor.
“I have felt that way once or twice,” she admitted. There had been days when she wanted nothing more than to renounce Wolfgang.
“About your brother,” Connor guessed.
She nodded reluctantly. So much for the hope he’d not heard of Wolfgang’s failings. “We were very fond of each other as children.”
“But now . . .”
But now her brother sat in prison because of debts he’d accumulated through a combination of obstinacy and selfishness. And he would continue to sit there, unless she did something about it. Suddenly, the morning didn’t seem quite so charming. The changing light, the warm air, the whisper of the breeze through leaves, it all seemed rather sad.
“I wish . . .”
“What do you wish?”
She wished she had Isobel’s talent for capturing beauty. She might have stolen a moment or two that morning and kept it for herself.
It was an impossible dream, an unreasonable expectation.
“I wish to return to the house.” She rose and, before she could think better of it, asked, “Will you escort me?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? There’s nothing amiss with a lady and a gentleman taking a stroll from a garden in broad daylight.” Particularly when there were no other guests about to see and comment.
“Not generally, no.”
“I can’t imagine any circumstance that would . . .” The most horrifying thought occurred to her. “Dear heavens, you’re married.”
“No. I haven’t a wife, or a fiancée.”
She blew out a short breath of relief. Her sins were many. She had no desire to add adultery to the list. “Then why—?”
“Because I haven’t an invitation either.”
“To come in from the garden?” She gave a small, perplexed laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“To be in the garden,” he corrected.
The implications of that statement sank in slowly. “You jest.”
He gave her a sheepish smile. “I’m afraid not. The lady I wished to avoid last night was your hostess.”
“You . . . You’re an interloper?” Oh, good Lord. No wonder he’d been hiding last night and missing that morning at breakfast. “Why would—?”
“To see you,” he replied easily.
“We just . . . You can’t . . . I have to go.” She spun around and headed for the house at a pace just shy of an outright trot.
“Adelaide, wait.” Connor caught up and fell into step beside her.
“You should have told me. You should have . . . Good Lord, you broke into the house.”
“The door was open,” he countered. “It was a ball. I’m not the first gentleman to invite himself to a ball. Happens all the time during the season. It’s an accepted practice.”
Having never participated in a London season, she had absolutely no idea if that was true.
“Accepted or not, it was wrong, and you ought to have told me—”
“I should have. Will you stop a moment so I can apologize properly?”
She shook her head. “Sir Robert will be looking for me.”
And if he was not, she would begin looking for him. It was well past time she remembered why she had come to Mrs. Cress’s house party.
“You can’t marry him,” Connor said gruffly.
“I haven’t a choice,” she admitted, hoping bluntness would put an end to the matter.
“You do. Marry me, instead.”
“What?” She threw him an incredulous glance and increased her pace. “No.”
“Why not?”
Why not? Was the man unhinged? “I’ve only just met you. We scarcely know each other.”
“I’m one-and-thirty. I have all my teeth. I’ve never before proposed to a lady. And I have more money than Sir Robert.”
“Those are not—”
“I’ve thought of nothing but you for months.”
She stumbled to a stop under the rose arbor and spun to stare at him. “We met last night.”
“I’ve seen you before, bringing your nephew to see his father. You passed by my window every Saturday.”
She shook her head in patent disbelief. Though most of the people in her village of Banfries were familiar to her, she couldn’t claim to have met everyone who resided in the four miles between her home and the prison. “You’ve watched me?”
“Just for those minutes I could see you.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t kn
ow what to feel about it. Should she be flattered? Unnerved? Offended? She rather thought she was all three, but they were buried under a mountain of astonishment.
Evidently interpreting her silence as encouragement, Connor smiled and reached for her hand. “Marry me, Adelaide.”
In the absence of anything else to say, she settled for the obvious. “You’re in earnest.”
She couldn’t believe he was in earnest. It was even more alarming that a small part of her was tempted to accept his offer. She knew almost nothing of Connor Brice except that he was willing to sneak into a party to which he was not invited and watch a woman through his window for months before speaking with her. He could be a drunkard. Or a consummate gambler. He could be a thief or a murderer. He could be all four.
She didn’t love Sir Robert, but four months of courtship had afforded her some assurance of his character.
Those four months had also depleted much of her inheritance. She was out of time.
“I can’t.” The words felt thick and sour in her mouth. Her hand felt cold and empty when she pulled it away. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”
Connor stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “Not to Sir Robert.”
“He’s a good man.”
“Give me time to prove I’m a better man. Give me another day.”
She shook her head. Every day she put off Sir Robert was a day her family’s future remained in peril. The risk of offending Sir Robert was too real, the consequences too great.
“I’m offering another option,” Connor pressed. “I’m giving you the chance to have something more than—”
“I don’t need more. I don’t want it.” How easily the lie slipped from her tongue. “I want to secure what I have.”
That, at least, was the truth.
A hardness settled over his face. “Is there nothing I can say to change your mind?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry.” She stepped past him, only to have him catch her arm and spin her around again.
“Kiss me good-bye,” he growled. “Give me that, at least.”
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