by Win Hollows
Both Georgiana and Laura burst into fits of laughter, which they tried to muffle behind their fans. Once their laughter had subsided, Gia slumped against the wall. "Oh, I don't like him at all," she voiced amusedly.
"Neither do I," Laura agreed.
Laura suddenly whacked her friend's arm with her fan, her expression intent. "How can I avoid him if our mothers seem determined to throw us together?"
Gia's face showed her confusion as she straightened. "What? Whose mothers? Lord Arberley?"
Laura huffed. "Lord Rothstone's and mine. Remember?"
Gia quickly determined the turn of the conversation. "Oh, that again. Why do you want to avoid him?" she asked earnestly. "He's rich, titled, without any enormous scandals attached to him, and handsome as the devil."
"Because he's crazy!" Laura insisted, thinking of the way he had declared that they were courting.
"You really want my advice?" Gia said in a serious tone.
"Yes."
"If you're being forced into the carriage, my dear..." Gia paused, her smile growing.
Laura frowned, not liking where this was headed.
"You might as well enjoy the ride."
"I've always been good at chess. That's something you should know," Rem continued, oblivious to Laura's attempts at signaling her mother, who walked several yards ahead with his mother. They were strolling through Vauxhall Gardens, her arm wrapped firmly through his and held there with a ruthless iron grip. Every time they took a step forward, her hip grazed his thigh, making her very aware of just how thin the material was that separated them. Laura smiled tightly and tugged at her arm, but he did not budge.
"Hmm, let's see, what else?" Lord Rothstone mused. "Ah, yes. I love the color green," he said, and stroked Laura's upper sleeve with his free hand. "It's so...primal." He gave her arm a small squeeze. "Don't you think?"
"Not at all," Laura responded icily, smoothing down her olive green dress. "Green is cool and refreshing and very...proper. Yes, proper," she said firmly.
Lord Rothstone's mouth tightened, as if suppressing a smile. He finally relinquished her arm, and Laura sighed in relief, only to gasp as he moved his own arm around her waist and pulled her even closer to his side. Laura's heart increased its rhythm as she breathed in his woody scent.
"I, too, think green is refreshing. When I first saw you this morning, I was much...revived," he finished in a low voice.
Laura's nerves tingled. She swallowed audibly, feeling his scrutiny. His face was very close to hers, although he was quite a bit taller than her average height. Laura tried to keep her own gaze away from the sharp line of his jaw, his rugged profile. Despite the chilly, damp air that had descended in the night, Laura felt herself becoming warm. She could feel the heat emanating from his body as well, a fact she was trying to ignore. Nevertheless, Laura had to admit the warmth felt good, in more ways than one. The ornamental trees provided some shelter from the cold breeze, but it still was not the best day for a walk through the infamous pleasure gardens. There were few others there who had been brave enough to risk what Laura thought was going to be a downpour within the next hour.
"You have a freckle on your neck," Lord Rothstone commented softly.
Laura reached up automatically, searching for the offending spot. She knew precisely where it was, just below her jawline- a pale apricot splash. Unfortunately, Lord Rothstone got there first with his hand, and Laura's fingers inadvertently covered his. She pulled away from his embrace hastily, shivering as his warmth left her.
They walked side by side now, Laura trying to keep at least three feet between them, but having little success as Lord Rothstone kept inching closer. Laura could hear her mother and Lady Rothstone laughing up ahead. It was good to hear her mother laugh. Lady Parrington was a naturally lively person, but she had few social peers in the country to keep her occupied and was always animated when in the company of Penelope Rothstone.
"Miss Parrington. Laura. May I call you Laura?" Lord Rothstone asked pleasantly as he moved closer to her on the path.
"No."
"You may call me Rem. All of my friends do," he informed her.
Laura look at him sharply. "You have friends? I never would have guessed."
Rem laughed. "Yes, well, few they may be, but they are the only men I would trust to have beside me in a pinch."
"Ah, pinches," Laura said knowingly. "Now what kind of pinch are we talking about?"
"Would you like me to show you?" he asked, reaching out.
"No!" Laura screeched, backing away with a laugh.
Rem smiled. "You have a wonderful laugh. Like bells."
"Why do you keep saying things like that?" Laura hugged her arms around her torso.
"Why not?" Rem asked, studying her.
"Because... Laura thought. "Because it makes you sound ridiculous."
Rem nodded slowly. After a moment, he said, "I think I'll take that chance."
"Why? Why me?" Laura asked him seriously, looking at the line of his straight nose.
Rem's lips quirked. "Don't so easily dismiss your kissing skills, Miss Parrington."
Laura gasped. "You cad! You would dare mention that- that..."
"That what?"
"That mistake!"
Rem stopped walking abruptly. Laura stopped as well and turned back toward him. He was looking at her with an expression she couldn't read. She had the feeling she had said something atrocious, made a terrible blunder, but she didn't know what it was. Not knowing, however, did nothing to quell the tightness in her stomach.
Rem stood in silence for a long time. Laura could hear their mothers' voices growing faint as they rounded a corner up ahead. She didn't know what to say to break the silence.
Finally, Rem did it for her. "There are times, Miss Parrington, when one does something out of a motive that isn't pure. When we do things we are not proud of, that we hope we never do again."
He paused, and, for some reason, Laura felt that she might burst into a thousand pieces for want of a way to contain whatever was going on inside of her.
"What happened in the garden was not a mistake," he said in careful tones. Rem walked past her, down the path towards their mothers.
Laura watched him as he walked calmly away, the wind rustling his hair. The tightness in her stomach rose up to fill her chest and throat. Enjoying the ride, Laura thought, felt an awful lot like crying. This was past her depth. Past anything she had experienced. Remington Rothstone was a man she couldn't predict, couldn't control. She wanted to retreat back into her former world, the one that didn't have anyone vying for her attention or forcing her down paths where she didn't know what the right course was. Back to a slow pace instead of this constant rise and fall of emotion. There were too many interactions all at once, too many people, too much to take in.
But, Laura realized, there was no going back. Her time of hiding in the country, was over. Everything ahead might be unknown, but there was only one choice: to go forward. To accept that her life was changing and to try and make the best of it.
Change was not necessarily bad. Perhaps Rem was right. Perhaps a kiss in a moonlit garden was not a mistake. Laura didn't know. But she was going to find out- event if it meant putting up with a very confusing Remington Rothstone until she did.
By the time Laura and Rem caught up to their mothers, the ladies had decided to go to lunch at the Rutledge Hotel, which was only a short carriage ride from the gardens. As they ate creamed crab sandwiches with dainty scones covered in raspberry sauce, Lord Rothstone once again reverted back to his charming self. Laura more than once slapped his hand with her fan under the table to stop it from straying near her leg and had to stop him from trying to lick raspberry sauce off her finger.
Oddly enough, it seemed that neither of their mothers were the least inclined to pay attention to anything he was so obviously doing right in public. They happily engaged each other in oblivious conversation while Remington continued his assault on Laura's senses.
/> "Don't even think about it," Laura warned him as he attempted to bring a spoonful of chocolate mousse towards her mouth.
"What?" he replied with wide eyes.
"I'm not a child. I don't appreciate being fed like one."
Lord Rothstone chuckled and swallowed the spoonful of mousse himself. "Oh, I wasn't planning on feeding it to you," he countered, looking at her through his lashes.
Laura's eyes followed to where his were fixated and gasped. "You wouldn't dare!" she exclaimed, discreetly adjusting the lace at her low neckline. She whipped out her fan and began to cool her heated cheeks.
"Wouldn't I?" He took another bite of dessert and smiled.
"Mother. Mother!" Laura tugged on Lady Parrington's wrist where she sat down the table. "I need my shawl back."
What, dear?"
"My shawl. I need it. It's...cold in here."
"But," Lady Parrington looked confused. "You're fanning yourself."
Remington coughed into his fist.
Laura snapped her fan back down into her lap. "Well, now I'm cold."
Lady Parrington frowned, but shrugged off the white cashmere wrap and handed it to Laura as she resumed her conversation with Lady Penelope.
"My, we are fickle today," Rem commented, the edges of his lips twitching.
Laura wrapped the shawl around her shoulders and made sure to cover the entire front of her torso. She looked around the grand dining salon, praying that none of the other finely-dressed patrons had seen their exchange.
Something then caught his attention behind her, and his focus shifted. His mouth pinched itself into a tense line. Laura turned her head to see what he was looking at, but there was no one behind her, just the large, glass-paned windows with navy-blue velvet curtains framing them looking out onto the street.
"What is it?" she asked.
Remington blinked, his eyes clearing. As he looked back at her face, his expression became sunny once again, and he smiled ruefully. "Nothing. I just don't like the rain."
"Well, most people don't," she pointed out, knowing that his moment of tension had to be about more than that.
"True”
"I fear you’re in the wrong country, Sir. Why do you dislike it? Will you melt?"
He raised a brow in disdain at her jab, and then his expression changed to an introspective one. "Not that I know of. However, water and I don’t get on well.”
"You are very odd," she pronounced, wondering what his real reasons were for abhorring precipitation.
"And you are very lovely," he countered, trailing his gaze over her shoulders.
"I refuse to engage you in conversation," she announced, picking up a spoon and dipping into her chocolate.
"That's fine. I'll just tell you more about me, then, shall I?" He leaned back in his chair and propped one heel on the other knee. "I use the title Viscount instead of my courtesy title of Marquess because I don’t want my father to feel like I’m waiting for him to die off. And as Viscount, which I inherited from my uncle, who had no heirs, I have three estates currently. When the sad day comes that I’m Duke of Windmere, I will inherit twelve estates, eight of which I've never seen before. I suppose I should visit all of them eventually, but my favorite is a small manor just south of Bristol. It's surrounded by the woods, and the beach is a mere minute's walk from the back entrance. I spent several summers there as a child, and some of my best memories-"
"Do you really think I want to sit here and listen to you list your titles and properties and their assets?" Laura interrupted. "You're quite ruining my pudding for me."
Rem considered this for a moment, a ridge forming between his brows. "Well...yes, actually. Most women would want to know exactly what they'd be getting in the enticing bargain that is me." He smiled winningly and waggled his brows.
"I'm not most women," Laura countered flatly.
Remington leaned forward, contemplating her stubborn expression. "I'm beginning to see that," he murmured.
Chapter 5
Laura smoothed her hand over the cover of the fairytale book again, which she had hidden beneath her pillow. She lay in her bed, picking at the blue satin counterpane and thinking of the events of the day. The afternoon's entertainment with the Rothstones had been cancelled because of the downpour that had ensued as they had been eating lunch. Laura and her mother had taken leave of them at the Rutledge, Astoria having already accepted an invitation from Penelope to meet at a ball the next night. Lord Rothstone had ordered their carriages be brought round and had used an umbrella to walk from the safety of the building out to his conveyance, not letting a single drop of odious water touch his person. Remington had been faultlessly courteous to Laura in front of their mothers at they took their leave, which had only irked her further.
There had to be some way of finding out what he was up to. One didn't simply declare they were courting someone with no encouragement from the other party. Of course, Laura thought, the way she had kissed him in the garden could be viewed as encouragement, but she knew that her recent attitude towards him as been as discouraging as possible. He couldn't possibly think that she wanted any more contact with him, not with the way she had treated him today.
Laura growled and flipped over, trying to find a more comfortable position. Sleep had been eluding her for over an hour, but neither her brain nor her body was inclined to shut down as long as she kept thinking about the problem of Remington Rothstone. And, apparently, she couldn't stop thinking about him. That was really the problem. Every other suitor she had let down easily enough, but with Remington, she wasn't even sure she wanted to.
Accepting that she wasn't going to be able to succumb to the arms of Morpheus quite yet, Laura rose and went to her painting table. Lighting a lantern, she sat and began to sort through various stacks of photograph plates for one she felt like painting. After glancing at a few recent ones, she decided on a photo she had taken last year of a fox sleeping in a wooden glen. It had been a very lucky Dag shot, as foxes were rarely to be caught unawares. But Laura could only assume that the creature had felt no threat from her presence, having become accustomed to her frequent wanderings in that part of the forest. The little rusty fox had stayed right where he was, even when he awoke during Laura's noisy packing of equipment. He had simply opened one eye in annoyance, sighed, and closed it again, barely moving a hair. Laura smiled at the small image in her hands, remembering the drowsy sun-drenched trees and grasses she had hiked through that day, and the small miracle of a lazy fox willing to pose for a picture. She laid out her small paint pots in their usual order and uncorked them, their acrid smell familiar and comforting. A dented tin plate on the left side of the desk soon became marred with various shades of orange, red, and brown as Laura mixed different paints together to create the right colors for the sleeping fox.
Once she settled into the familiar process of painstakingly applying pigment to the black and white image, Laura felt her nerves begin to uncoil. Her thoughts once again returned to Lord Rothstone and his dauntless pursuit of her. Why wasn't he cowed by her lack of response? If she had been subjected to the cool gazes and constant buffers that she had thrown at him, Laura was sure she would have crawled away in mortified humiliation by now. But her disdain hadn't seemed to have any effect on him so far. Throughout the day, he had constantly tested the boundaries of propriety and her patience, remaining oddly cheerful despite her rebuffs.
Except for her mention of the kiss in the garden, that is.
Laura held her brush aloft, hesitating before attempting to highlight the muzzle of the fox's delicate nose. Lord Rothstone had become wooden, all levity leaving him at the allusion to their kiss as being a mistake. Perhaps he had taken it as a slight to his sensual abilities. Shivers made their way up her spine and across her scalp as she became enveloped in the memory of being held close to his body, the firm length of him pressed against her own lines. His lips had taken hers in skillful manipulation, despite the frenzy that had been stirred up in them both. A slo
w wave of need began to curl its way through her abdomen. Laura gulped and took a deep breath. Surely he couldn't doubt his abilities when it came to the fairer sex. He had seduced her into participating wholly in that kiss, no matter how she had tried to deny her own culpability.
Then again, she had slapped him afterward.
Laura put her hand over her mouth to stifle an inelegant snort of laughter. She had to concede that perhaps he had gotten mixed signals from their encounter.
Dipping her fine-pointed brush into the white paint pot, she lightly brushed the fox's muzzle and face, giving him the distinctive fur pattern she remembered him having.
A barely discernable tapping sound invaded Laura's concentration. She stopped and listened, wondering if it was just her imagination, which had been known to give her frightening flights of fancy late at night when she couldn't sleep. Her ears strained in the silence, hoping she was not about to have another sleepless night for fear of soundless knockings and sightless apparitions.
Tap tap tap.
No, it was most certainly real and coming from her door. Laura got up from her desk and went to the entrance of her bedchamber.
"Who is it?" she whispered.
"It's Papa, Dear."
Laura breathed out in relief and opened the door. "Hello, Papa. Is something amiss?"
Her reached out and brought her forward for a peck on the forehead. "No, no, sweetheart. I saw the light under your door and wondered why you were still up so late."
Laura picked her dressing robe off its hook and came out into the hallway. "Oh, you know. Just couldn't sleep for some reason."
He smiled knowingly. "Well, in that case, would you like to come have a cup of chocolate with me downstairs? You can tell me all about your wondrous experiences in London so far."
