Only a Kiss

by Mary Balogh

  It was a good thing she was farther than arm’s length away, he thought, and that her freedom of movement was hampered by the cat on her lap, or it was altogether possible he would be nursing a couple of stinging cheeks by now or a cracked jaw.

  And was it true? Did he want her as a lover? Lady Barclay? The marble woman? She could not be less like his usual sort of amour if she tried.

  But perhaps that was the point?

  “Friendship seems unlikely but possible,” she said. She was looking at the cat.

  He did not say anything. He was even holding his breath, he realized before releasing it. She was going to allow him to come again, was she? And did he want to? Was it wise—in the evenings like this when there was not even a servant in the house, much less a chaperone? Did she care? Did he?

  Her eyes were upon him.

  “I am not sure about the other,” she said.

  Was he understanding her correctly? But she could not possibly mean anything else than what he thought she meant.

  The air fairly sizzled—and it had nothing to do with the fire, which had burned rather low.

  He got abruptly to his feet to put more coal on it.

  “I must be on my way,” he said when he had finished. “I have disturbed you enough for one evening. No, you need not move. I can see myself out. But remember to lock the door when you do get up.”

  He stood before her for a few moments, looking down at her. Then he bent over her, without disturbing the cat, and kissed her briefly. Her lips were soft and warm. Not responsive, but not unresponsive either. He straightened up.

  “Imogen,” he said, purely for the sake of hearing her name on his tongue.

  “Good night, Lord Hardford,” she said softly.

  The rain had eased a bit and the wind had dropped, he found as he stepped outside, although he was surrounded by almost pitch-blackness. He had started something tonight—perhaps. But what?

  Friendship?

  An affair?

  Part of him was elated. Part was frankly terrified. But why? He had had friends before, though not many female friends, it was true. And he had certainly had plenty of affairs.

  None of them, though, had been with Imogen Hayes, Lady Barclay.

  12

  “I must confess,” Sir Matthew Quentin said, “that I have occasionally enjoyed a glass of good brandy with an acquaintance or neighbor without inquiring too closely into its place of origin.”

  “I suppose I have done the same,” Percy admitted. “I have never been keen on the idea of smuggling, though. Not just because the government is thereby defrauded of revenue, but more because the people who really benefit are not the ordinary man who does the hardest work and takes the biggest risk, but those few who direct operations from afar and terrorize anyone who threatens their operation. They make a fortune out of terror and oppression and the sure knowledge that there will always be a market for luxury goods and that even people with no direct involvement will join a conspiracy of silence. No one wants to stick his neck out over something that cannot be stopped anyway.”

  “Oh, I agree,” Sir Matthew said. “I suppose you have been discovering, have you, that the old earl encouraged the trade and allowed it safe haven on Hardford land in return for some creature comforts? More ale?”

  They were sitting at their ease in Sir Matthew’s library awaiting luncheon, to which Percy had been invited. Paul Knorr, his new steward, had arrived from Exeter the day before, three days after a letter from Higgins informed Percy of his appointment. The man was now conferring with Quentin’s steward over luncheon and ale at the village inn. Percy was optimistic about Knorr. He was young and well educated, son of a gentleman of Higgins’s acquaintance, and he was keen to get on with his new duties. He had managed his family’s land for a number of years before his father’s death, but now his elder brother had inherited and he had sought employment elsewhere.

  “Thank you,” Percy said, and waited for his glass to be refilled. “The beach and the cellar of the dower house, you mean? That was all stopped, though, was it not, when Lady Barclay took up residence there?”

  “Was it?” Sir Matthew looked at him with raised eyebrows. “But even if not then, it probably did come to an end two years ago. One can hardly imagine Lady Lavinia being agreeable to the idea of having smugglers and their goods in her home.”

  In her home? Inside the house, did he mean?

  “I suppose not,” Percy said. “Now Mrs. Ferby . . .”

  They both laughed.

  They were interrupted by Lady Quentin, who came to inform them that luncheon was ready. She wanted to know more about Paul Knorr and whether Ratchett was likely to retire soon. Percy satisfied her curiosity as far as he was able. But mention of the elderly steward reminded him of something else.

  “Ratchett has a nephew,” he asked, “who went to the Peninsula with Viscount Barclay as his batman, I believe?”

  “Instead of that poor boy who broke both his legs no more than a month or two later,” Lady Quentin said. “He would have been safer in Portugal. What a dreadful accident that was, falling from the stable roof. We never did find out what he was doing up there.”

  “A great-nephew, I believe,” Sir Matthew said. “He was appointed head gardener at Hardford after his return, though he was none too popular with some of us. He could give no account of what had happened to Barclay and his wife beyond the fact that they had been captured by a band of ferocious-looking French scouts while he was bringing them firewood and was without his musket. I suppose he could have done nothing to help them anyway. There were those, though, who felt that he ought at least to have waited until he did have word, one way or the other. If he had stayed, he might have helped escort Lady Barclay home. She was, I believe, in something of a state. Understandably so.”

  “Poor Imogen,” Lady Quentin said. “She and her husband were quite devoted to each other. But that man, that so-called head gardener, does not know the difference between a geranium and a daisy, or between an oak tree and a gorse bush, I swear. His title is a sinecure. Oh, I do beg your pardon, Lord Hardford. I am being spiteful. You must be impatient for your mother’s arrival. All your neighbors, ourselves included, are agog with eagerness to meet her.”

  The day was all but gone by the time Percy and Knorr returned to Hardford.

  “I must remember to refer to you as the understeward,” he said. “One would not wish to hurt the feelings of an octogenarian.”

  “Mr. Ratchett does have handwriting that I envy,” Knorr said with a smile. “And the books are very clear and easy to understand.”

  He had missed a visit from Lady Barclay, Percy discovered. Lady Lavinia thought it a great pity. Percy did not. He went out of his way, in fact, to avoid her during the next couple of days, as he had done yesterday and today. He did not know what had possessed him that evening at the dower house. He still did not know why he had gone there. He also did not know why he had said some of the things he had.

  I think I came to Cornwall in the hope of finding myself, though I did not realize that until this moment.

  May I seek refuge here occasionally?

  I want you as a lover. But failing that, friendship will do.

  He squirmed at the memories, especially of that last exchange. Lord! He would swear that he had had no idea what was about to issue from his mouth when he had opened it.

  Friendship seems unlikely but possible, she had replied. I am not sure about the other.

  That was the point at which, far too late, he had leapt to his feet and fled. But not, he recalled, before kissing her.

  No, he preferred to keep both his person and his thoughts well away from Lady Barclay until he had himself well in hand.

  Whatever that meant.

  * * *

  Imogen did not set eyes upon the Earl of Hardford for four whole days after his evening vis
it to the dower house, even though she got up her courage on the second day to call upon Aunt Lavinia and Cousin Adelaide. He was out with the new understeward, acquainting him with Sir Matthew Quentin’s well-run farms and experienced, efficient steward. Mr. Knorr was a young gentleman of keen intelligence and pleasing looks and manners, her aunt reported, though why Cousin Percy would go to the expense of hiring a second steward when there was already Mr. Ratchett, she did not know.

  Imogen thought it was probably because an active steward was desperately needed for Hardford, but the earl was too kind to force Mr. Ratchett into retirement. She had conceded, albeit reluctantly, that he was indeed capable of kindness.

  She had also conceded that she found him more attractive than she had found any other man—and that, disturbingly, included her late husband. She had never thought of being attracted to Dicky. He had been her best friend, and everything about him had pleased her—even that. Lord Hardford had dared give it a name, in her hearing. It had really been quite shocking of him. Sex. There. Yes, sex with Dicky had pleased her. It had pleased him too. But . . . attraction?

  Was not attraction just sex? Divorced from liking or friendship or love? It seemed distasteful.

  She wanted it.

  She wanted to satisfy a craving she had suppressed for most of her adult life. More than eight years. And she wanted to do it with a man of obvious experience and expertise. She did not doubt Lord Hardford had both.

  She had even expressed some willingness—I am not sure about the other.

  He could not possibly have mistaken her meaning.

  She was still not sure.

  Perhaps it would not be so very wrong. It was not as if she was planning to commit herself to any long-term relationship, after all, anything that would bring her real happiness. Only the satisfying of a natural craving. It was natural, was it not? For women as well as for men?

  Perhaps she would be at peace again if she let it happen. He would go away after a while—she felt no doubt about that, especially now that he had hired another steward, who was young and intelligent and presumably competent. Lord Hardford would go away, probably never to return, and she would be at peace once more, or as much at peace as she ever could be.

  In the meanwhile . . .

  Would it be so wrong?

  The thoughts and the mental debate teemed through Imogen’s mind even while she listened to her aunt’s animated chatter about the visitors that were expected, though she did not know how many were coming or even exactly when, and Cousin Percy did not know either. It was very unsettling. Aunt Lavinia went on to talk about the entertainments they must plan. It had been a veritable age, she said, since there was any evening entertainment at Hardford. Dear Brandon had not held with such things But now . . .

  Imogen let her prattle happily on. And she was hugely relieved—and disappointed?—that the earl did not come home while she was there. He did not come back to the dower house either in four days, and Imogen paced, upstairs and down, unable to settle to any activity for longer than a few minutes at a time. She would have paced the cliff path and the beach too, but she was afraid of running into him. The farthest she went, except for that one visit to the hall, was the garden, where she found that the first snowdrop had bloomed.

  He did not come, and she was safe from her own weakness and indecision. She did not have to decide if it would be wrong or not.

  On the fifth day, Mrs. Primrose brought news with Imogen’s luncheon. A pageboy, sent from the hall with fresh eggs, had brought word of the arrival of two grand traveling carriages full of passengers and a few riders in addition and a great deal of baggage and noise and bustle. And then later in the afternoon the same pageboy returned with a hastily scrawled note in Aunt Lavinia’s hand inviting Imogen to dinner so that she might meet a number of long-lost cousins, though some of them were not strictly speaking relatives as they belonged to the maternal side of Cousin Percy’s family.

  His mother had indeed not come alone, then.

  Even while Imogen was thinking up excuses for not going, her eyes focused upon the last two sentences—Cousin Percy asked me particularly to write to you on his behalf, dearest Imogen, with apologies for not doing so himself. He is busy with his loved ones.

  The invitation came from him, then, even if the apology was probably Aunt Lavinia’s invention. And it was only proper that he invite her, Imogen supposed reluctantly. She was, after all, the widow of his predecessor’s only son. And by the same token, it would be unpardonably rude of her not to put in an appearance.

  She sighed and went to the kitchen to inform Mrs. Primrose that she need not prepare an evening meal.

  * * *

  It could have been worse, Percy thought as he dressed for dinner. All his relatives, both paternal and maternal, might have descended upon him—as they still might, of course. There could be a dozen packed carriages bowling along the highway at this very moment in the general direction of Hardford. One could not know for sure.

  Aunt Edna, his father’s sister, had arrived late in the morning with Uncle Ted Eldridge. Their son, Cyril, had come with them, as had the three girls, Beth and the twins, Alma and Eva. They had been in London, kicking their heels according to Cyril, waiting for the Season to begin so that Beth could be fired off into society and onto the marriage mart. The prospect of passing some time by coming to see Percy in his proper milieu and to celebrate his thirtieth birthday, albeit belatedly, had appealed to them all, without exception.

  Aunt Nora Herriott, his mother’s sister, had been equally enthusiastic over the invitation and had come with Uncle Ernest and their sons, Leonard and Gregory. They also had come from London and had met the Eldridges by chance at a toll booth and traveled with them thereafter.

  One big, happy family come to jollificate with him, Percy thought as he considered the fall of his neckcloth with a critical eye and gave Watkins a nod of approval. Was jollificate a verb? If it was not, then it ought to be, for it perfectly described what his family clearly had in mind for the next week or so. One shuddered at the very thought.

  And it might not be just family. According to Cyril, Sidney Welby and Arnold Biggs, Viscount Marwood, were thinking of ambling down this way too and might already have begun ambling.

  And then, in the middle of the afternoon, just when things had been calming down at the house, Percy’s mother had arrived in company with Uncle Roderick Galliard, her brother, and his widowed daughter, Cousin Meredith, and her young son, Geoffrey.

  The arrival of the infant had eclipsed all else and had brought everyone and his dog—or, rather, everyone and the Hardford strays, which had, as usual, escaped from the second housekeeper’s room—converging upon the child to offer unsolicited hugs and kisses and squeals and exclamations and yips and barks and a growl from Prudence. He was admittedly a pretty child with his mop of fair curls and big blue eyes. Percy had done his bit too by snatching up the boy and tossing him toward the ceiling to shrieks of glee from said infant, cheers of encouragement from the male cousins, and assorted squeals of fright and cries of alarm from the female cousins and aunts—while Meredith looked placidly on.

  His mother had been filled with ecstasy on her arrival. Even Mrs. Ferby, whom she insisted upon calling Cousin Adelaide, had been unable to escape her hugging arms and delighted exclamations of bonhomie. To find some shared blood between those two would probably take the dedicated researcher all the way back to Adam and Eve, but to his mother, Mrs. F was family. His mother and Lady Lavinia were, in fact, a matched pair and had taken to each other like bees to pollen.

  He was already dreaming of availing himself of the peace and sanity of the dower house, Percy thought grimly as he raised his chin for Watkins to position his diamond pin just so in his neckcloth. Though peace was probably not quite the right word. Lady Barclay did not much like him, and he was not sure he greatly liked her. Except that he had told her he wanted to be
her lover but would settle for friendship. And she had told him that friendship was possible though improbable and that she was not sure about the other.

  So were they friends or were they not? Could they be?

  Should they be?

  He could not for the life of him make any sense of it.

  She was coming for dinner. At least, she had been invited and would probably come out of a sense of duty if for no other reason. Anyway, she could not hope to hide out in the dower house for long before it was discovered and invaded by his family, and she must have the sense to realize that. His mother had already learned of her existence and simply could not wait to embrace her—not meet, but embrace.

  It was enough to make a grown man wince.

  “No, no,” he said in response to the stricken look on his valet’s face. “You did not stick the pin in me, Watkins. Carry on.”

  Lord, he hoped she would come. And he hoped she would not.

  She came.

  They were all gathered in the drawing room when Crutchley announced her—yes, he actually did, his chest puffed out, his voice projecting his words into the room, silencing the hubbub as everyone turned curious eyes his way. He was behaving like a majordomo at a grand ton ball. Having all these visitors under his charge had gone to his head.

  It must have been a bit daunting to walk alone into the room in a sort of silence, with every eye turned her way, but she did it with calm grace. Her near blond hair was smooth and shining, but it was styled quite simply, especially when one compared it with all the curled and crimped and ringleted heads of his aunts and cousins. Her dress was of dark green velvet, long-sleeved, only very slightly scoop-necked and falling in loose folds from beneath her bosom to her ankles. It was quite unadorned, and she wore no jewelry except tiny pearls in her earlobes and her wedding ring. She was not sparkling with bright smiles, though she was not scowling either.

  She set every other woman in the room in the shade, including Beth, who was wearing some of her new London finery and whom he was certain was destined to become one of the acclaimed beauties of the upcoming Season.