“How to please a woman.” He gave her a speaking look, flexing his arms as he rowed.
Celia pretended to take affront and tried to ignore the healthy display of masculinity in front of her. “And I suppose just because everyone considers you such an expert—”
“Everyone? Really, I had no idea my fame was that widespread.”
“—you think you know all there is to it—”
“I am always ready to learn more, madame.”
“You’re such a scoundrel!” she exclaimed. He just gave her a sinful smile in reply, until Celia blushed. “So what is the secret, then? What did you tell Mr. Percy?”
Anthony shrugged. “Oh, nothing much. Start by rubbing her feet—” He broke off, laughing, at Celia’s horrified exclamation as she looked wildly around to see if any of the other boats were near enough for the occupants to overhear. “Of course not. I didn’t know that would please you. You might have turned me out on my ear, scandalized at the very suggestion of someone fondling your naked ankles.”
“You manage to make it sound even more wicked than it was.” Satisfied no one could hear him, she settled back into her seat.
Anthony dug in the oars again, sending the boat across the lake with a lurch. “Ought it to have been more wicked? You must tell me these things.”
“You aren’t answering my question, so I shan’t answer yours. What did you tell Mr. Percy?”
Anthony rowed in silence for a few minutes. At this rate, he would take them all the way across the lake. “I told him to pay attention to his wife,” he said finally. “To talk to her. To listen to her. I told him that a happy wife is a faithful wife. What Percy did after we spoke, I cannot say. I did not mean to advise him on his marriage.”
“How do you know so much about marriage and wives?” Celia leaned forward, studying him.
His mouth twisted. “I’ve seen a lot of bad marriages, and even more unhappy wives.”
“Then what makes a marriage happy?”
Again he hesitated a long time. “I know an unhappy marriage is one where there is little affection or respect between the parties,” he said. “A companionable warmth, even, will make each person care more for the other’s happiness, and therefore do less to ruin that happiness. An unhappy wife will do things a woman who is even moderately contented would never do.”
“And what makes a wife happy?”
He looked at her, then grinned. She realized she had been holding her breath for his answer. “I am still hoping to learn, when I have a wife of my own.”
Celia licked her lips, feeling very daring. “And what would you do, if you had a wife?”
He leaned forward under pretense of rowing, bringing his face very near hers. “Right now, at this moment?”
She nodded.
“In this boat, on this lake…with my wife?” he asked.
Celia nodded. He leaned back on the oars, looking thoughtful, then leaned close again as he brought the oars forward for another stroke. “I think…” His golden gaze wandered over her face. A sensual smile curved his mouth. “Ah, what a question you pose, my dear.”
“And you have no answer?”
“Oh, I have an answer,” he replied softly. “Many answers. I was merely savoring the prospect of my answers.”
“Now you must tell me.”
Anthony grinned again, leaning back on a stroke of the oars. “I should prefer it a bit darker.” He rowed again. “As dark as night, in fact. Yes, that would be best. A night with no moon, but a warm breeze.”
“Night?”
Anthony made a low noise of assent. “Late at night, when all others have long since retired to their beds. But we—my wife and I,” he clarified with a gleaming look. “We would steal out of the house together and row out on the lake until it was just the two of us, alone. Just like this.” He leaned toward her again and his voice dropped. “Then I’d put up the oars, and we would lie down in the bottom of the boat…”
“And?”
That wicked smile returned. “And count the stars.” He pulled back on the oars. “What else would one do out on a moonless night in a boat?”
“Wretch,” she said with a laugh. “You know I thought you were going to say make love!”
“Make love in a boat?” He made a scandalized face. “How obscene. How shocking. I can’t believe you would suggest such a thing.”
Celia blushed but laughed again. “Now you’re making sport of me.”
Anthony grinned. “Not at all. Never suggest such a thing. But perhaps you’ve been contemplating it,” he said suddenly, his eyes lighting up. “Is this a fancy you’ve taken lately, my lady? Far be it from me to refuse—”
“No!” she cried, feeling the blush extend over every inch of her skin. “Of course not!”
“Hmm.” He rowed again, watching her with a devilish smile. “How unfortunate.”
“I shan’t speak to you anymore,” she announced, turning in her seat and presenting him with her profile. Anthony grinned again and rowed some more, leisurely. They were quite alone on the water now. The others had not kept pace. He pushed aside the thought that it was not entirely proper. He was alone with Celia, at her instigation, and he was savoring every moment of it.
“Anthony,” Celia said after a while, “I have been thinking about something you said last night. I—I have been wondering what you meant.”
“What is that?” Unconsciously he tensed, wondering what the hell he had said that made her hesitant.
“You said you had come to persuade me.” She turned back toward him. “What did you mean?”
“Ah.” His shoulders eased. “To persuade you that I’m a decent fellow.”
She dismissed his light comment with a wave of her hand. “I’ve known that for years.” He glanced at her sharply, but she was already speaking again. “What did you really mean?”
Anthony rowed again, turning the boat in a wide, lazy circle. “That is what I meant. To persuade you that I won’t hurt you. That I don’t want to disappoint you. That you wouldn’t be throwing yourself away, if you were to decide…” Anthony let the sentence remain unfinished as she jerked her gaze away, her cheeks scarlet. Oh, Lord, he thought in sudden dismay.
“Why?” she asked, head bent. Her fingers were white around the handle of her parasol.
“Why?” he echoed stupidly.
“Why would you want to persuade me of that?” She lifted her eyes. “Why me?”
He was so surprised by the question, he couldn’t reply. Why Celia? Because it couldn’t be anyone else, whispered a voice in his head. Because he cared what she thought of him, when he didn’t give a bloody damn what anyone else thought. “What do you mean?” he asked cautiously.
She twisted the parasol handle between her hands. “The other night…in the library. I said nothing when my mother and David accused you of…of seducing me and ruining me. But you wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t told you to meet me there, and I don’t think you would have…” Her whole face was scarlet now but she plowed onward. “I don’t think you would have made love to me if I hadn’t thrown myself at you. And yet when everyone blamed you, you didn’t say a word.”
Anthony raised his eyebrows. “Should I have said something?”
“I would not have faulted you,” she said somberly. “And afterward, I wondered why on earth you would even agree to my request to pretend that we are considering marriage. I was a complete coward. I did nothing to help you or defend you. And when you said you wanted to persuade me…I had to wonder why on earth you would harbor any kind feelings for me at all.” Anthony stared at her. Celia raised her hands helplessly. “I—I know you could have any woman you wanted. I just can’t think of any reason why you would want me.”
No, he thought. There’s not one reason, there are a thousand. He put his back into another stroke of the oars, turning them back toward the shore where they had departed. David Reece would follow them and toss him in the lake if they lingered too long. “I can have an
y woman I want? What a relief it is to hear that.”
She pressed her lips together in a reluctant, reproving smile. His own grin faded and he shook his head.
“If you were any other woman I would think you were trying to tease compliments from me. But I know you. I have always had a very high regard for you. I have always considered you my friend.”
“A friend,” she repeated slowly.
Anthony winced at his own carelessness. What words of passion and devotion, he told himself. Is it a wonder she’s not swooning at your feet already? “A very dear, trusted friend,” he tried to clarify. “But also a beautiful woman. And dear to me. And—” He stopped, wondering when he’d become such an imbecile.
“Oh,” she said. “I see.” But he knew she didn’t.
“You think I am not sincere?” he asked, trying to shift the conversation to safer ground. He would much rather hear her thoughts and feelings than try to express his.
Her gaze was pensive, a bit troubled. “No. I don’t know. I know you are sincere in your efforts to help avoid a scandal, and I thought—I hoped—your letters…” She looked away. “I have been thinking about our bargain,” she said. “And I believe—”
A shout from another boat interrupted her. David, rowing his wife, and the Percys had caught up to them, drawing alongside and exchanging good-natured teasing about rowing abilities. Anthony tamped down his urge to row away again and ask Celia to go on with what she was saying, as she laughed and talked with Mrs. Percy and Lady David. Had she decided what she wanted to do? Anthony rather thought any scandal wouldn’t be extreme. They were surrounded by Celia’s family and friends, none of whom would likely wish to tarnish her name, particularly not by linking it with his. If she decided to refuse him, Anthony thought she needn’t suffer much—at least in society’s eyes.
But that meant she must decide whether she wanted him for himself, and not to preserve her reputation. Why me? she had asked, as if anyone would need a reason to love her. She was beautiful, exquisitely desirable. She was generous and kind—the kindest person Anthony knew, most likely. She was charming and well-mannered, loyal and passionate, strong and loving. She was even wealthy and well-connected, which didn’t matter much to Anthony but he knew that alone would draw men to her like flies to honey.
Which meant she was nearly everything a man could ask for in a wife, while he…he was nearly everything a woman would not want in a husband.
Percy challenged him and David to a race back to shore. David shook his head at once; his wife cradled one hand around her swelling stomach and grinned. But Anthony took up Percy’s offer, relieved to banish his dark thoughts with exertion, even nodding when Percy leaned across the water to murmur something about ten pounds to the winner.
He concentrated on rowing then. Celia and Mrs. Percy cheered them on with much laughter and cries of delight. Celia put down her parasol and held tight to her bonnet as they flew across the water. “Oh, we’re leading,” she exclaimed, looking at him with glowing eyes. Anthony, never one to lose a wager willingly anyway, redoubled his effort, and they reached the shore almost a full boat length ahead of the Percys.
“Well done!” cried Celia, leaping out of the boat and splashing ashore with no regard for her slippers and skirt. Anthony jumped out after her, dragging the punt onto the grass as Percy staggered ashore pulling his own boat.
“Hamilton, you bloody scoundrel,” he panted. His fair hair was plastered to his forehead with perspiration. “I might have had an apoplexy trying to keep up with you.”
Anthony laughed even though it made his chest burn. “More sport, less brandy, Percy.”
His friend groaned, then leaned over to cough violently. His wife hurried up to pat him on the back as David rowed his boat up, shouting with laughter at them. Celia turned to Anthony, tucking her hand through his arm very naturally. “Good show,” she whispered with a sparkling glance.
He grinned at her, his own breathing still harsh. “I like to win.”
She laughed, and they all started back toward the house. Mrs. Percy was clinging devotedly to her husband, and Percy seemed to be soaking up her attention with pleasure, letting her blot his flushed face with her handkerchief. David helped his pregnant wife along with great tenderness, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her across a patch of mud despite her shriek of protest. Celia’s hand nestled in the crook of his arm as if it belonged there, and Anthony, surrounded by happy married couples, began to think it did.
Because this, he thought to himself as they walked leisurely back to the house, this was what it would be like to be married to Celia. Her hand on his arm. Her warm presence at his side. Her face turning toward him, bright with joy over something as silly as a boat race. He had never felt so content and peaceful in all his life. He never wanted this day to end.
When they reached the house, the Percys went upstairs together, still arm in arm. Lady David tried to hide a yawn, but her husband saw and led her off. Anthony and Celia stopped in the wide, airy hall, a bit awkwardly. Of course he couldn’t escort her up to her room, or to his, not in the bright light of day.
“I should change,” she said ruefully, lifting her skirt a few inches to examine her soaked slippers and stockings. “I was so excited to win, I jumped right into the lake.”
“It was a hard-fought battle,” he said, admiring the trim, wet ankles she displayed. She laughed and bid him farewell, and he stood at the bottom of the stairs watching until she had disappeared up them, with one last tiny wave and a smile at the top. He lifted his hand and grinned back at her, but then she was gone, and he was alone again.
As usual. But perhaps…not for long.
Chapter Twenty-One
Celia tried without success to find another chance to talk to Anthony alone in the next week. A few days of rain kept the party housebound, and someone always seemed to be nearby when she got up her nerve to discuss that topic: why he would want to persuade her to marry him. Celia couldn’t help but think she was a fairly ordinary woman, even before one considered how many more beautiful and sophisticated women Anthony must have known and could have pursued.
She didn’t want him to pursue someone else, of course. She wanted to be the one he wanted above all others. But she was afraid of disappointing him, as she had clearly disappointed Bertie, and Celia thought she would rather have her heart crushed now than later. The fact that Anthony was so charmingly self-deprecating and evasive in their conversation in the boat, when she had tried to ask what he saw in her, only made her wonder more.
He still paid her attentions, although in more subtle ways. A tiny boat, folded of silver tissue paper, was on her breakfast tray one morning. Agnes cheerfully admitted he had given it to her in the hall, and Celia set it on her mantel, smiling every time she saw the little reminder of their triumph on the lake.
Another morning a box with her name on it was delivered from a fashionable London shop. Mystified, Celia opened it to find a pair of sky-blue satin slippers with a small raised heel and ribbons to tie around her ankles. Her mouth dropped open, and she took one slipper out to admire it. What lovely, lovely slippers, embroidered with flowing vines and adorned with tiny beaded flowers.
It was a shockingly personal gift, and one she should refuse. She and Anthony were not even engaged, of course, and it would be highly improper for her to wear them. But she spirited them up to her room anyway, delighted and a little surprised to find they were a perfect fit, and an exact match for her new evening dress. How had he known? she wondered as she studied the shoes in the mirror, holding up her skirts to see them as she turned her feet this way and that. And again, he hadn’t taken credit for it, although no one else could have possibly thought to send her slippers like these. There was no card in the box. It seemed he listened to, and remembered, every word she said. Celia let her skirts fall as she stared at herself.
Was she worthy of such a man?
She began watching him more thoughtfully. No wonder he was an enigma to most o
f society, she thought, watching one night at dinner as he waded through a barbed conversation with aplomb. Lord William seemed to want to provoke him and was constantly making little comments that seemed innocent, except to Celia. Anthony deflected them all with a slight smile, as if nothing could dent his armor. He ignored comments that probably would have brought David or Mr. Percy to the brink of violence, and Celia realized that he valued control.
After dinner the mood was lazy. The gentlemen joined them early. Several people wandered into the garden to enjoy a warm, clear night after all the rain, and the ones left in the drawing room were enjoying quiet pursuits. Celia sat with Vivian, helping her untangle the embroidery threads she was using in a tiny frock for her baby. Vivian’s pregnancy left her tired and ill much of the time, and she had not joined the guests for most of the party. This was the first time she had stayed after dinner, in fact.
“You needn’t hide away in the corner with me,” Vivian told her as Celia sat near her on the sofa.
“Oh, no! I long to have a quiet bit of conversation. And I’ve hardly seen you at all.”
“For all that there’s a bit much of me to see,” grumbled Vivian, discreetly pressing one hand to the small of her back. “Worse than a broken leg.”
Celia smiled. “David is so certain it will be a son.”
Vivian grimaced. “He is, and the babe kicks a bit harder every time he says it. I can’t decide if it’s a son stretching his legs or a daughter protesting.”
“David will be pleased, no matter which it is. He was always fond of Molly, and quite gentle with her.”
Vivian sighed, poking at the twists of colored floss. “So long as it’s easy to birth, I’ll be pleased, too.” Celia choked back a laugh, stealing another glance at Anthony, who sat nearby reading a book. “It’s been quite a party, I hear,” Vivian remarked. Celia barely heard her, caught by a sudden thought. What did Anthony think of children? He said he wanted to spare any child of his the cruelty of growing up without a father, but what sort of father would he be?
A Rake’s Guide to Seduction Page 21
