An Extraordinary Flirtation

by Maggie MacKeever

  Beau remembered what Ianthe had looked like as a girl, before she had become so unhappy. He regarded his daughter with disfavor. “Your aunt is far from an antidote. You will apologize to her.”

  Apologize? Zoe had never been asked to do such a thing in all her life. However, Beau was looking stern. So were Squire Anderley and Baron Fitzrichard. Even Ianthe appeared less watery than was her wont. “I’m sorry, Cousin Ianthe. I didn’t mean to compare you to a dried fruit.”

  As apologies went, this one was substandard. Fitz surveyed Ianthe thoughtfully through his quizzing glass. “Patches and powder and paint, Indian satin and Flanders lace would suit you. Or perhaps I am recalling a portrait of some earlier Loversall.”

  “Brasilia,” Ianthe said gloomily. “She stabbed herself with her lover’s sword.”

  Fitz refused to let his own spirits be deflated. “I’ve often wished I had lived in a previous age. How I would have enjoyed, for example, a Spanish drugget coat lined with Persian silk or a scarlet cloth suit laced with gold; diamond buckles and purple feathers and a full curled wig.” He contemplated Paul, who was looking revolted. “I wonder what era might have suited Squire Anderley. I think—Yes, a corsair. He seems prone to a certain bloodthirst.”

  Paul snarled an answer. Fitz embarked upon a dissertation regarding the proper tying of a neck-cloth, Ianthe smoothed her handkerchief on her knee. Zoe sulked.

  Beau felt guilty. It was hardly for him to censure his daughter’s conduct; Cara was supposed to do that. Although he could hardly expect Cara to protect his precious lamb from wicked Lord Mannering. Beau knew what a man of that ilk was after. He should know, being a man of that ilk himself. Or he had once been. For all the pleasure he was deriving from his own excesses of late, he might as well remain at home. This reflection put him in no better charity with his fellow profligate.

  However, due to all that profligacy, Beau well knew how female minds worked. “Very well, you may have Mannering,” he said, in tones so low that the others couldn’t hear.

  Zoe was instantly all smiles. “Oh, Beau, you are so good to me!”

  Beau held up his hand. “You may have him if you can bring him up to scratch.”

  Zoe’s smile vanished. “I don’t want to bring him up to scratch!” she snapped. Ianthe looked at her with approbation, and she lowered her voice. “I want him to seduce me, which is quite a different thing, and it is quite absurd of you to look so shocked, considering how many damsels you have no doubt seduced yourself.”

  Shocked? He was horrified. If Cara had done what she was supposed to, Beau wouldn’t be having this embarrassing conversation with his daughter. “That’s different!” he said.

  Zoe fixed him with a look known universally to parents. “How is it different?”

  Beau could hardly explain to his daughter that he’d never seduced a maiden, for although such a declaration probably wouldn’t shock her, either, it would certainly discompose him. He narrowed his eyes. Could it be—

  No it couldn’t! Zoe was a maiden, or she wouldn’t be going on about wanting to not be one, which was an appalling thing for a papa to have to hear. “It just is. And I’ll hear no more of this nonsense, miss!”

  The opera singers retired then, and Zoe’s swains hurried back into the room. A young woman dressed in white muslin approached the harp that sat in one corner of the room. The harp had a beautifully carved Egyptian figurehead forming part of an elaborate beech and satinwood frame. The young woman wore a resolute, if somewhat terrified, expression on her face. “There!” Fitz said proudly. “M’cousin is about to perform.”

  Chapter 12

  While Fitz’s young cousin was embarked upon “Passacalles de primero tono,” with an expression of intense concentration and a very polished style, Lady Norwood was seated with Lord Mannering in front of his cozy fire. On a table between them lay an Elizabethan backgammon board, the game markings and decorations inset with mother of pearl, the shakers and counters fashioned of red-and-white ivory. Cara was a ruthless player, as Nick should have remembered. She had immediately waged an all-out attack on the blots on his home board, and with a clever bit of hit and cover, and a hara-kiri play, had maneuvered him into a position in which he was trapped on her ace point trying to get a shot.

  “Do you accept a double?” she asked. Nick shook his head. He would not resign the game tonight, no matter how high the stakes grew.

  Play continued until Cara had three checkers remaining on her two point against his single checker bravely doing battle on his one. Nick rolled the dice, and looked, and laughed. “The coup classique,” he said.

  Cara looked down at the board. “Odious man.”

  Nick rang for his maidservant. Cara had contrived somehow to let him win, and now she was hiding a smile. “Would you like some tea?”

  Tea was hardly a fitting a drink for a lady engaged in an assignation. “Some sherry, perhaps.”

  Nick gave the order, and stretched out his long legs toward the fire. He was wearing neither a jacket nor a cravat—why should he not be comfortable in his own home, or one of them?—as a result of which Cara longed to touch him, and smooth the hair back from his brow, and slide her hands inside his shirt. Idly, she toyed with a doubling cube.

  She was nervous, and Nick knew it, and was even perhaps a little pleased to see her so; as well as amused that she had dressed herself in a severely high-necked long-sleeved gown and a corset so rigid she could barely breathe. “I trust your journey here was uneventful,” he said.

  “Yes, thank you.” Uneventful, but oddly exhilarating. The dark streets had not been frightening but familiar, for Nicky had said she would be safe, and in this Cara trusted him, if in little else. The hackney driver had greeted her with a tip of his hat and a wink, as the little maidservant had met her with a smile at the front door.

  The girl returned with a sherry decanter and a plate of biscuits, which she set down on the table before bobbing a curtsy and backing out of the room.

  Cara nibbled on a biscuit and watched as Nick poured sherry into a glass. “You keep a small staff here,” she said.

  Nick handed her the sherry, then touched her cheek. “I can be alone here or not, as I wish. Despite your accusations, this isn’t a trysting place. I’ve brought no woman here but you.”

  Cara froze. Nick trailed his finger along the line of her jaw, then moved away. She took an unladylike gulp of her sherry, which he pretended not to see. “This house came into the family along with the daughter of a scrivener, and has since served as residence of choice for my more reclusive relatives, most recently a dowager great-aunt.”

  “Who doted on you,” Cara guessed.

  “No. But she didn’t loathe me, like she did the others.”

  “You visited her? Brought her posies?”

  “No. I couldn’t abide the old witch.”

  “Ah. But the others did. Brought posies, that is.”

  “They did, and that reminds me— “ Nick rang again for the maidservant. She appeared as quickly as if she had been waiting, or eavesdropping, right outside the door. “Fetch the Sophora japonica from the conversatory, Mary. Jacob will help you.” The girl looked doubtful. “The tall brown thing. With leaves. Jacob will know.”

  Cara looked intrigued. “You have a Sophora japonica?”

  Nick smiled. “I thought it might content you until I can arrange to visit Kew.”

  Mary returned, with a grizzled manservant who bobbed his head shyly at the sight of his master’s guest. Between them they carried a slender and somewhat bedraggled seedling stuck in a small tub. Nick eyed it doubtfully. “It is—or I’m promised it will be—a Japanese pagoda tree.”

  Cara set down her sherry glass and knelt beside the tub. Gently, she touched a leaf. “It’s beautiful. No one has ever given me so nice a present before.”

  Surely she jested? Nick wondered if Norwood had not realized that Cara would prefer a living thing to the finest jewel. And then he wondered what she would do if he reached out this
moment and drew her into his arms. Her lips reminded him of plump strawberries tonight. Damned if he didn’t want to lick, nibble, and taste the woman from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.

  As if she knew what he was thinking, Cara rose, pink cheeked. “Surely no victim of blackmail has ever been so cosseted before.”

  “I would like to cosset you ever more,” said Nick, but prudently refrained from saying how. Instead, he showed her some of the treasures in his parlor, demonstrated the use of the perpetual almanac, pointed out the more curious of the volumes on his shelves. Culpeper's Complete Herbal and The English Housewife only mildly intrigued her, but New Principles of Gardening, written by a Mr. Langley, who espoused rural gardening in the spirit of old Roman ruins, caught her interest. Cara leafed through the old pages, and mused that perhaps her brother’s garden might benefit from an obelisk. She suspected that it already had at least one rabbit warren, another garden embellishment of which Mr. Langley approved, for reasons known only to himself, for the creatures munched ceaselessly on growing things. Nick suggested that Cara take the book home with her to peruse at her leisure, and then set out to amuse her with gossip, from Corn Laws and the National Debt and Select Committees to elopements, infidelities, bankruptcies, and suits for breach of promise, and a certain gentleman who had become so besotted with his mistress that he cut his wife and family in public. By the end of this disarming recitation, he had gotten her settled once more in her chair, her slippers abandoned on the floor, and her feet propped in his lap, where he was lazily massaging them with an expertise that made her want to purr.

  The sound of his voice both soothed and stirred her senses. Cara chuckled. “Can all that be true?”

  Nick smiled at her. “Most of it. I like to hear you laugh.”

  He was talking now about Lord Byron and his half-sister, two people Cara had never met and about whose misbehavior she didn’t care in the least. Nick’s touch warmed her to her toes.

  His head was bent. Cara studied his profile, the high cheekbones and strong jaw. The bruise where she had hit him. She wished she might kiss it well. And then perhaps she’d kiss his neck, his throat, open his shirt even further and press her lips to his chest.

  Once she had known those features by heart. Now Cara wished that she might learn them all anew. Nicky was even more handsome now than he had been when—Well. Each time they met, the memories grew stronger, and her desire to know how much—or how little—he had changed.

  Nick looked up to see her regarding him thoughtfully. Perhaps she was wondering about his intentions, which must surely be as obvious as her reasons for wearing that graceless dress. Cara looked as prim tonight as was possible for her, which wasn’t very, considering that her stockinged feet were in his lap, and her glorious hair was already coming unpinned. He moved his hand to her ankle, and waited to see what she would do.

  Blissfully, she wiggled her toes. “Will you truly take me to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew?”

  Yes, and make love to her there in the Herbarium and the Orangery and at last in Merlin’s Cave. “I will take you anywhere you wish.”

  Cara watched his hand move lazily on her ankle. The marquess didn’t appear in the least like a man out of his senses over Zoe or anybody else. Or like a man who could be shattered by the loss of a mere ladylove. Cara wondered if he had a ladylove. She longed to scratch the trollop’s eyes right out. “Why did you never marry, Nicky?”

  His lips curled. “I was waiting for you.”

  “But I was already married.”

  “To a man three times your age. Chances were that you would outlast him.” Nick didn’t mention how many times he had wished to assist Norwood to shuffle off this mortal coil.

  Did she believe him? Cara didn’t know. His touch was like a drug, lulling her to imprudence, and an almost overwhelming sense of intimacy. “Perhaps you have noticed that I am encouraging you,” she murmured. “Now will you discourage Zoe?”

  Nick knew the moment her mood softened. Her whole body relaxed. Her prodigious fine body, which he itched to release from those damned stays. As he longed to release her hair from its pins. How splendid she had looked mounted on horseback. He dragged his thoughts away from different types of mounting, lest he go too fast, and frighten her away. Unfortunately, the next thought that occurred to him was that, though it might be difficult to make love atop a horse, it would be child’s play to make love in a chair. His chair, in which Cara was sitting so relaxed.

  Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her hair gleamed in the firelight, her bosom strained against the confines of that dratted dress. “The devil with Zoe,” he murmured. “I don’t want to talk about your niece tonight.”

  Nor did Cara, truth be told. Still, she had an auntly duty to perform. “Let her down easily, I beg you, Nicky. For the sake of the family.”

  “Your family spends entirely too much time pandering to the chit.” Nick stroked Cara’s calf. “Perhaps we might talk about Norwood instead. And about why you married him when I had just laid my own heart at your feet.”

  Because she had been as young and foolish as Zoe. Because Norwood had been steady and mature and safe. “Because you laid the rest of yourself elsewhere. In Lucasta Clitheroe’s bed, to be precise.”

  He hadn’t, actually. At least not then. But Nick didn’t wish to ruin the rest of the evening with an argument that he could never win. “That was a long time ago.”

  Nine years, ten months, and three days, to be precise. Was Nick truly content that his nephew should be his heir? Unusual, if true. Perhaps the marquess was wise enough to realize that he would be miserable tied down to just one woman. Not that marriage had curtailed the amorous pursuits of any man she knew. With the exception of Norwood, of course, but Norwood had been of an age when the fires of youth had burned to embers, and he was content with her. Cara missed her husband. If not an ardent lover, he had been her friend. He had cherished her. And treated her rather as if she were a favorite grandchild.

  But Cara was no child. She was a grown woman, and Nicky’s hand had progressed up her calf to toy with the embroidered silk garter tied above her knee. Her skin tingled, pleasurably.

  Beau feared the marquess would play fast and loose with his daughter. Would he mind if the marquess played fast and loose with his sister instead? Would Cara mind, herself? Well, of course she’d mind, but perhaps minding would be worth it in the end. Nicky had gone to great effort to bring her back to London if what he said was true.

  His hand had moved to her knee, and gone no further. Perhaps, now that he had seen her, and spent time with her, he had changed his mind. It would be like Nicky, to politely try and spare her feelings.

  He had not kissed her tonight. He had not kissed her again after the first time. Perhaps that kiss had disappointed him. Cara had not kissed anyone in such a manner in a very long time. Even her own brother told her she was dull and drab. Not that she had ever kissed Beau in such a manner—unlike Lord Byron and his half-sister, apparently—but she hoped she could trust him to be truthful about her looks.

  Cara wanted to be desirable. She wanted Nicky to find her so. Lord knew she found him desirable. Abruptly she said, “I am no longer a green girl.”

  Nicky had been waiting to see if she would box his ears for his various presumptions, although he was not especially worried, since her toes curled blissfully against his thigh. “And I thank God for it. If you won’t tell me about Norwood, perhaps you would like to talk about Paul Anderley.”

  Cara didn’t want to talk about anyone. She wanted to give herself up to the pleasure of Nicky’s caress. If, that was, he could be induced to keep caressing her, instead of merely lounging there with his hand on her knee. “Squire Anderley is a neighbor. He has been kind to me, no more.”

  Squire Anderley hadn’t struck Nick as the least bit kind, but rather as a man with a purpose. “Your neighbor who followed you to town.”

  Cara shrugged. “It is a hunter’s strategy to block all the earths while
the fox is going about her business. Paul wants Norwood’s property. It marches next to his.”

  Nick knew damned well that property wasn’t all Anderley wanted. Easy enough to recognize a dog-in-the-manger attitude when he was experiencing one himself. “And what do you want?”

  She didn’t want him to stop touching her, for one thing. “Freedom, I suppose. Paul seems to think that sheer persistence will eventually wear me down.”

  Nick had been about to untie her garter. Now he paused. Did Cara think that he also sought to wear her down? If so, it was unworthy. Wasn’t it? His hand slid back down to her ankle, and then to her toes.

  He had lost interest, Cara thought glumly. As Norwood used to do. It was true, then: she was too old for an affaire. Her companion, however, was not. The man looked positively pagan in the firelight. Any damsel threatened by this bold marauder would immediately immolate herself upon his chest.

  Of course Nicky was destined to have an amour, as he had said himself. Or amours. Countless numbers of them, no doubt. Cara couldn’t bear the thought.

  If older now, she was surely also wiser than she once had been. Cara wrapped herself in dignity. “You don’t have to try and pretend to want me, Nicky. It is very kind of you, but I know I am no longer in your style.”

  Pretend to want her? She thought he had to force himself? Could Cara not know how magnificent she was?

  Nick felt like throttling someone. Norwood might have been a likely candidate, but he had already stuck his spoon in the wall. “What is my style?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” Cara folded her fingers together in her lap to keep from grabbing his hand and plopping it back down on her knee. “But I would think she should be young, at least.”

  Unaware that Zoe had inspired her elders with an acute awareness of their mortality, Nick regarded Cara with astonishment. “My love, you are an idiot,” he said, and got up to tend the fire.

  Her feet felt chilled without his warmth. Cara tucked them beneath her chair. Indeed, all of her felt chilled, despite the nearness of the fire. If only she might wrap Nicky around her like a warm blanket. His shirt strained over the muscles of his back as he knelt on the hearth. Her hand itched to stroke down his back, across his hips, his—Um. She licked her lips.