The Bridal Season

by Connie Brockway

She gazed at him with an odd combination of composure and resolution. The look was familiar—rather like the expression on the faces of men about to ride into battle. “Quite all right. Just tell me when it is my turn.”

  The rest, as they say, was history. By the end of that famous game, croquet as played in Little Bidewell had been forever transformed.

  At first, the two women made at least a cursory effort to go through a wicket on their way to hunting down each other’s balls. Soon, however, both had abandoned all pretenses, and long after even the worst teams had hit the final peg and retired, they charged from one end of the field to the next, smacking into each other’s balls. And they did so with smiles like rictus and voices dripping equal parts honey and venom, every civility attended.

  “Ah, Mrs. Bunting,” one gentleman heard Lady Agatha say, “however do I conspire to keep hitting your most unfortunate ball?”

  Mrs. Bunting replied with a shrill little laugh. “I dare not venture a guess, Lady Agatha, but whatever imp of perversity guides your ball must certainly be incensed by my own amazing inability to shoot past your ball without striking it!”

  And so it went.

  Despite initial heroic efforts by both Anton Bigglesworth and Sir Elliot March to bring the game to an end, eventually the two male factions surrendered to the inevitable and withdrew from the field altogether, leaving it to their partners.

  By six o’ clock the other members of the party were milling about the back entrance to The Hollies. Eglantyne, with Lady Agatha’s disreputable little dog Lambikins curled in the crook of her arm, flitted nervously about, casting worried glances toward the kitchen where Gracie Poole could be heard to make increasingly loud comments about overcooked food.

  By this time, only Sir Elliot seemed to have any real interest in the outcome. He’d appropriated a folding chair and set it on the edge of the playing field. There he sat, boot on his knee, his expression mildly quizzical and totally masculine.

  If not for Squire Himplerump, the contest may well have gone on until dark, what with polite Little Bidewell society not willing to offend either Lord Paul’s saintly wife or the vivacious, highborn Lady Agatha.

  The squire’s appetite would not be gainsaid. He’d gone foraging for leftovers under the empty marquee when he’d spied Lady Agatha’s abandoned trifle. Unfortunately, it was on the far side of the trestle table. Unwilling to exert himself, he’d stretched across the table for it, lost his balance, and pitched forward.

  The poor table was no match for his two hundred and fifty pounds. It broke with a loud crack and the squire crashed to the ground. Immediately everyone turned in the direction of the squire’s howls, hastening to offer aid.

  Everyone but Letty Potts.

  She was standing on the embankment, having stalked Catherine Bunting’s yellow ball there. She’d been anticipating sending it careening across to the other side, but as soon as she heard the sound of splintering wood, Letty, ever quick to recognize an opportunity, decided the time had come to end the game—as the victor. After all, she reasoned, you can’t win if you can’t find your ball.

  With these thoughts chasing one another in less time than it takes to draw breath, Letty raised her mallet between her shoulder blades and hauled off with a stupendous swing, a swing so marvelous and so powerful that the momentum of it pitched her clean off her feet and over the edge of the embankment—even as it missed the yellow ball.

  She somersaulted down the hillside like a wheel of cheese, head over heels in a flurry of ruffles, tumbled hair, and flying limbs before coming to an abrupt stop at the bottom. She lay flat on her back in the thick green sedge, her breath coming in ragged jerks, the clouds overhead spinning madly. She moved her hands gingerly down her torso. She was unbroken but indecent, her skirts rucked up under her bum.

  She tried to sit up to adjust them but fell back with a thud. Stars rollicked across the black backs of her eyelids. Far off she heard a woman call, “Where did Lady Agatha go?”

  The blood drained from her face. She’d die of mortification if that spoiled, pasty-faced Catherine Bunting caught sight of her like this, smelling of sedge, legs bare, hair mired with grasses and twigs. With a wince, she gingerly turned her head and squinted up the hill.

  A masculine figure stood near where she’d gone over, his back to her. There was something familiar about his silhouette, the breadth of those shoulders, the dark clipped hair that brushed the stiff white collar…Sir Elliot. Of course.

  She held her breath and prayed for him to go away. She’d rather Catherine Bunting saw her than him.

  He was looking up and down the field. “I don’t believe she’s here,” he called back. “Hm. She’s apparently left you the field, Catherine.” He bent over and picked up the yellow croquet ball. “Here’s your ball. Ah, well.” He laughed, bouncing it lightly in his palm. “I guess she realized she was outmatched.”

  Only by supreme effort did Letty choke back a growl. She didn’t hear Catherine’s words, but she didn’t need to. Her tone conveyed her gloating quite clearly.

  She heard Elliot again, answering some man’s query. “By all means. I’ll just wait a bit for my father. He’s nipped down to the stables to see Taffy’s latest litter and shouldn’t be but a few minutes.”

  The sound of other voices droned on a bit more and then faded altogether. Letty counted to a hundred and then to five hundred. A cricket scurried across her arm and she caught back a gasp. Her legs began to itch.

  Finally, Sir Elliot thrust his hands in his trouser pockets and began walking down the ridge toward the house. Letty released a soundless sigh of relief. He stopped.

  “I say.” He turned his head and looked directly into her eyes. “Would you like some help climbing out of there?”

  Chapter 13

  If it’s got a beard or a battery,

  you’re going to have trouble with it.

  Letty had once played the part of a girl who fainted whenever confronted with a dicey situation. Right now, she couldn’t think of a better response. So she raised the back of her wrist to her brow and closed her eyes. “Oh,’’ she moaned softly. “Oh…dear me. Can you? Please? I… I feel a bit…light-headed.”

  Sir Elliot’s skeptical expression vanished, replaced by one of gratifying concern. He plunged down the steep hill and dropped to his knees beside her. She started to rise, but he pressed her back, his distraught gaze roving over her.

  “Just lie still,” he said, and his voice held such honest concern that she felt an odd, unpleasant sensation prickling her…her what? It took her a second to identify the source of her discomfort and when she did, she was amazed.

  She was, she realized, ashamed.

  She had no compunction about using a man’s vanities and pettinesses to finesse him into acting the way she wanted. But a gentleman shouldn’t be penalized for being…well, decent.

  Besides, she thought defensively, she didn’t want the grass staining those perfectly tailored trousers.

  “Should I fetch Dr. Beacon?” Elliot asked.

  “No.”

  “But you just fainted.”

  She acceded to her stupid conscience with poor grace, struggling up to her elbows, and blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “No, I didn’t. Not even a little bit.”

  “But you said you were light-headed.” He looked so uncomprehending. But then, she reminded herself dolefully, he was just a simple country gentleman, magistrate duties notwithstanding, and no match for the wiles of a sophisticated, worldly woman such as herself.

  “Wishful thinking.” She flipped her skirts down over her knees. “If my sensibilities were a bit more accommodating, I would have nipped off into la-la land as soon as I realized my petticoats were showing. Unfortunately, they’re not and I’m not.”

  She smiled lopsidedly at him and, instead of chastising her as she fully expected him to, he started laughing. She liked the way he laughed; she liked the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners and how the thick fringe of his eyelashe
s then hid his blue-green eyes and how deep dimples scored his lean cheeks. But most of all she liked the sound of his laughter, the surprised pleasure in it.

  He held out his hand to help her up, and she took it. His hand was big, his fingers long. It engulfed hers.

  “I suspect you think me a terrible romp,” she said.

  “No. I think you are charming.” He pulled her to her feet. She came upright, promptly tripped on a divot, and fell straight into his arms. Her hands flattened against the hard wall of his chest and were caught between their bodies.

  She looked up. His smile faded. His heart beat slow and powerfully beneath her palms. The heat of him sank into her flesh and coursed up her arms. She was holding her breath, she realized, and he was going to kiss her.

  He bent closer. Her eyes drifted shut. Yes! She wanted to kiss him, only…only… A needle of panic plunged through her anticipation.

  Only how the bloody hell did a lady kiss?

  If she kissed him in the manner her body and her mouth and her heart—and the rest of her—clamored for her to do, he would find her out for a fraud as soon as their lips touched. No gently bred lady kissed the way she wanted to. Her response was sure to betray her. But how did a—

  His lips brushed hers with exquisite gentleness. They were warm, firm, and velvety. Her fears stepped back, thrust into a corner by the sweetness of the sensation.

  So, she thought vaguely as his lips burnished hers, this is how gentlepeople kiss. He molded his mouth more firmly to hers. She sighed, wanting to open her mouth, just a bit, just enough to experience his kiss with the sensitive inner lining of her lips. The desire seemed so natural.

  But a lady wouldn’t open her mouth, she told herself severely, and clamped her lips tightly together.

  He laughed against her mouth. Laughed! Gently. Like his kiss. Tantalizingly. Like his kiss.

  He swung her lightly around, supporting her with his arm, bending her backward and following. He teased her with his gentleness, while the same gentleness taunted her with wicked promises. He cupped her chin with his free hand and brushed his thumb lightly over her lower lip while nibbling along the edge of her jaw, working his way inexorably toward her lips. Then he touched the very corner of her mouth with the tip of his tongue.

  Sensual shocks jolted through her.

  Her resolve to be ladylike shimmered like mist, insubstantial and weak and fast-fading. He kissed her again, a full, open-mouthed kiss this time, demanding and hungry. It burned her thoughts to cinders, leaving only wonderful awareness of the strength of his arms, of the desire that rippled and spread between them even as her mouth opened and…oh, Lord!

  His tongue swept between her lips, stroked her tongue with masculine possessiveness, plundered her mouth with infinite skill. Nothing in all her vast, urbane experience had ever felt so wanton. Pinpricks of light exploded across her eyelids as she sank unresistingly into pleasure.

  Mouth and heat, thundering heartbeat and steel-banded arms. And sounds! Sweet sounds of abandonment. Inarticulate, intoxicating, purring sounds rose from deep within her throat She clutched his tense upper arms, seeking an anchor because any minute she’d be swept away, lost in him.

  He lifted his head, his rapid breath sluicing over her heated face. She raised her hands and combed her fingers through that silky, clipped hair, trying to draw his head back down to hers. He resisted.

  She opened her eyes, feeling woozy and dull-witted and sensual, but mostly just anxious to return to kissing: innocent, wicked, wondrous kissing.

  “Forgive me, Lady Agatha.” His voice was rough. His chest rose and fell in deep, harsh cadence. “I am, after all, a simple country gentleman and most unused to the temptations of a worldly woman such as yourself.”

  She blinked uncertainly up at him, still drugged by passion. Simple country…? She frowned. He smiled.

  Understanding plunged through her. He was mocking her!

  She pushed against his chest as hard as she could, but he only smiled more broadly. That was the worst of it—his smile wasn’t sardonic or cruel! It was indulgent and…and gentle!

  Ah!

  “Let me go! Release me this instant!”

  His amusement disappeared. “Agatha, please, I didn’t mean—”

  “No!” she demanded shrilly. “If you are the gentleman Little Bidewell seems to think you are, you will unhand me at once!”

  He looked shocked.

  Ah, yes! she thought bitterly, he could mock a poor girl all he liked, but let anyone cast aspersions on his all-holy gentleman’s honor and that made him blanch!

  At once he lifted her to stand upright. As soon as she was upright, his hands dropped to his sides and he stepped back.

  “Agatha—”

  It was too much. He hadn’t even been kissing her!

  “Do not call me Agatha!”

  He inclined his head. Whatever emotions he was feeling by now he’d hidden behind a grave, unreadable mask. “I beg your forgiveness, Lady Agatha. I know you have no reason whatsoever to believe me, but I give you my word I am not in the habit of forcing my,” he swallowed, the only sign he felt any real regret, “my attentions on unwilling women.”

  “Oh?” she asked haughtily. “You generally force your attentions on willing women? How noble of you.”

  He flushed, but continued doggedly on. “I suspect I deserved that.”

  No, he didn’t. She hadn’t resisted his “attentions” at all. She resented his mocking her after she’d so apparently enjoyed those blasted attentions. Of course, she couldn’t tell him that.

  “Please, try to understand,” he said. “I am—”

  Her glare cut off his words as effectively as a muzzle. “If you dare tell me you are a simple country gentleman again, I shall… I shall… I don’t know what I shall do, but it will be very, very loud!”

  His brows drew together. He scowled. He opened his mouth, clamped it shut, gave her a quick assessing glance, and opened his mouth again. “Excuse me for being dull-witted. May I ask whether I am apologizing for kissing you or for teasing you?”

  “Teasing?” she echoed disbelievingly. “Teasing? I’d call it jeering, sir.”

  “I am an unconscionable cad. I should never have teased you except—” He didn’t look like an unconscionable cad. He looked delicious, his dark hair tumbled, his mouth relaxed—not a bit of mortification to him. In fact, he looked a touch predatory. Satisfied.

  There was more that he wanted to say. She’d have staked a month’s pay on it. If she’d had a job.

  “You should never have teased me except what?” she prodded.

  He leaned in toward her and lifted her chin with two fingers. Drat her treacherous body; she shivered. His smile was lazy, but his gaze was piercing. “Except that I couldn’t resist.”

  “Resist what?” she asked, and cursed the high, breathless quality of her voice.

  “Resist demonstrating that your worldliness was more fiction than fact,” he whispered. “You, Lady Agatha, in the common parlance with which you are so fascinatingly familiar, ‘ain’t so tough.’”

  “Mother of Mercy!” Grace Poole breathed, bending out of the second-story window, Master Bigglesworth’s binoculars pressed to her eyes.

  “Lemme see!” Merry demanded, tugging at the cook’s sleeve. “Your turn is up!”

  “Oh, dear,” Eglantyne murmured, wringing her hands. At her feet, dear little Lambikins yawned. “It’s not only improper, it’s possibly immoral, spying on them like this.”

  “T’aint really spying, mum,” Merry explained. “We’re only gaugin’ how effective our methods is been to date. How’re we to know what to do next if’n we don’t know how far things is progressed?”

  With a sudden preemptive thrust of her hip, Merry knocked Grace Poole away from the window and at the same time snatched the binoculars from her hand. Grace, eyes ringed with circular dents, didn’t even protest. She staggered back from the window, her hand pressed to her chest. “I got me palpitations!” she wh
ispered.

  “They’re not fighting, are they?” Eglantyne asked.

  Merry didn’t appear to hear. She stood in the window, staring through the binoculars, murmuring, “My. Oh, my. My,” over and over.

  Eglantyne vacillated over what to do.

  The party had moved inside and were enjoying a lovely buffet. When she’d noticed Agatha’s absence, she’d gone in search of her. Instead, she had discovered her wayward staff in this upper bedroom, spying…or rather gauging the success of their matchmaking plans. Eglantyne still wasn’t quite sure how she’d become part of their schemes.

  Doubtless it was the result of all these wedding plans. No one seemed to be able to converse about anything but brides and happily-ever-afters. No one seemed to realize that there weren’t happily-ever-afters for those the bride left behind. That the child one had loved and adored, whose hair one had braided and whose scrapes one had bandaged, that that child would walk out of the only home she’d ever known and never return.

  Eglantyne sniffed and felt a preemptory paw beat against her skirts. She looked down. Lambikins was grinning up at her, his pink ribbon of tongue curling foolishly. He tapped at her hem again. Why, he wanted to be picked up! She bent and scooped him up. He gave her a quick lick on the cheek. She smiled, oddly comforted by his warm weight in her arms.

  She hitched her shoulders, forcing her melancholy away. Of course, she’d agreed to help Grace and Merry with Sir Elliot and Lady Agatha. She was most fond of Elliot and always had been.

  He’d been a charming rapscallion in his youth and had matured into an honorable and conscientious man. Sometimes she wondered if he wasn’t too conscientious. Sometimes he looked so vulnerable in his gravity, and so alone.

  What better woman to chase away somberness than the vivacious Lady Agatha? Certainly, her bohemian ways had provided a tonic to Elliot. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked so wholly and pleasurably immersed in the moment, or laughed so openly.

  Anyone could see that Elliot and Lady Agatha would suit. And clearly they were interested in one another. But just how interested? She mustn’t be a coward. Resolutely, she set Lambikins down and held out her hand. “Merry, I would like the glasses.”