The Bridal Quest

by Candace Camp

  She began to count out the waltz, and they moved, their steps rather stiff and awkward.

  Irene looked up at him and asked, somewhat suspiciously, "You are not pretending to be less able to dance than you really are, are you?"

  He laughed. "No. I fear that this is, in fact, the way I dance."

  "All you need is practice," Irene told him encouragingly.

  "My dear lady, you have not taken refuge in the polite lie before. Please do not start now."

  She had to chuckle. "All right. Then let me say truthfully that you are not the worst with whom I have taken a turn around the floor. Not the best, either, it is true. But I do believe that practice will bring improvement."

  He bowed his head briefly in acknowledgment. "Thank you. Then we shall practice."

  So they did, sweeping around the floor to Francesca's playing. Their task was made more difficult by the necessity of dodging the other pieces of furniture in the music room, which was not set up for dancing. But after knocking over a stool and backing into a chair, they paused to rearrange the chairs a little, forming a vaguely circular path around most of the impediments. They danced along it for a time or two, and Gideon began to relax and move less stiffly, without such concentration on his steps.

  As his confidence increased, he looked more at her face and less at his feet. Indeed, he looked at her at such length that Irene felt a flush beginning to creep up into her cheeks.

  "Have I grown a third eye, sir?" she asked somewhat sharply. "You have been staring at me far longer than is polite."

  "I am sorry. No doubt it is more of my poor upbringing," he responded without the slightest trace of regret in his voice. "It is probably also impolite of me to point out that there is something different about you."

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Different? Different from what?"

  "From the way you looked when I first met you. Your hair, I think. It is not the same."

  "A woman often chooses different hairstyles, my lord," she retorted.

  "I like the one you chose last night and today," he told her. His voice deepened a little huskily as he went on. "It is softer, a little less ... tightly bound. It makes a man think ..."

  Heat spread in her at his words. She knew she should not ask, should not permit him to go on in this way. It was not at all the thing. It was dangerous.

  Yet she heard herself saying, "Think of what, my lord?"

  "Of taking it down," he answered, and the huskiness of his voice sent a thrill through her. "Of seeing all that glory unbound and spilling over your shoulders."

  This time it was Irene who stumbled a little, and his hand tightened on her waist, keeping her steady. She looked away. "This is not the sort of conversation we should be having. Your speech is far too warm, sir. Far too familiar."

  "It is not polite?" he asked sardonically.

  "It is not proper," she corrected. "A gentleman does not speak to a young unmarried lady in this manner." She raised her eyes to his face a little defiantly, thinking that she must not let him see how his words had affected her.

  "Ah, but we both know that I am not a gentleman." His eyes were on her, and she could not mistake the heat in them any more than she could mistake the meaning of his words.

  His low voice was like a caress across her skin, making her tremble.

  "You must not say such things to the girls you will be courting," she said firmly, struggling to ignore the response she felt inside her.

  "I am not saying this to any of them," he pointed out, adding, "I don't have any interest in any of them."

  "You have not met them yet."

  "I do not have to meet them to know that they will be by and large giggling and foolish, or proud and disdainful. And that none of them will have anything to say that is not what they have been trained to say since they were born. And not one of them will be as interesting to me as you are."

  Irene drew a sharp breath. "I told you that I was not interested in marriage, Lord Radbourne."

  "Do you not think, since you are engaged in correcting my every word and move, that you could at least call me by my name?"

  "That is your name," Irene protested.

  "No. It is not. The Earl of Radbourne is not me. It is some entity that has nothing to do with who I am at all." His voice turned hard as he spoke, his face drawing into its usual severe lines and angles. "I have been Gideon all my life."

  It was not proper, she knew, to call him by his given name; they had known each other only a few days, after all. To call him Gideon would indicate an intimacy between them that was not right. And yet, after a long moment, she said, "All right. Gideon."

  His face relaxed, and his hand tightened slightly around hers. Irene glanced away. She felt as if she were sliding down a rather slippery slope. How had this situation gotten away from her? She had started out correcting Gideon, quite rightly, for speaking to her in a most improper way, and somehow she had wound up agreeing to call him by his first name, something she did not do even with men she had known her entire life.

  She was simply not accustomed to this—the man, the situation, the feelings that boiled within her, seeming to bubble up to the surface at inopportune moments. Irene knew that she had a certain reputation for prickliness; there were those who proclaimed that it was more her disagreeable nature than her lack of dowry that had kept her from receiving an offer when she was younger. However, she did not mind that people thought her difficult and sharp-tongued. She would rather be that than a spineless chit who giggled and simpered and looked up with awe at a man, no matter how idiotic the fellow might be.

  Lady Irene Wyngate, she thought, was the sort who knew her own mind. She was not easily swayed, and she rarely felt mystified or confused—in particular, she was not confused about herself. Yet ever since she had met the Earl of Radbourne, she had surprised herself. She had felt things she had never felt before, had acted in ways that she would never have thought she could, and she had been pushed this way and that by a tumult of sensations and emotions. She felt, quite frankly, a loss of control that she had never experienced before, and the feeling left her a little shaken.

  When the waltz ended and they stepped apart, Irene moved a few steps away from him. She turned toward Francesca, who was paging through her music, looking for another waltz to play while the dancers took a short rest.

  Irene took a breath and said, "Lady Francesca, I think that I would like to—to stop now, if we may."

  "Of course." Francesca looked over at her in surprise. "I am sorry. Are you tired? I was not thinking, I should not have kept on playing."

  Gideon frowned, starting toward Irene. "Yes, we should take a few minutes. Perhaps we should have some tea."

  "No, I'm not—" Irene started to dispute the idea that the dancing had wearied her, but she stopped, seeing the easy opportunity. "That is, yes, perhaps you are right. But I don't need any tea. I think that I should go upstairs to my room. I—I have a bit of a headache, I believe."

  She could not quite meet Gideon's eyes, and she turned quickly back to Francesca. "If you do not mind, perhaps we might continue this tomorrow?"

  "Of course." Francesca smiled and waved a hand. "I feel sure that Lord Radbourne will be more than pleased to escape our clutches for an afternoon. I shall just go along and discuss the plans for the party with Lady Odelia."

  "Thank you." Irene gave her a small smile and, without another look at Gideon, fled the room.

  Once she was safely in her own room, she flung herself into the chair by the window and spent the next few minutes castigating herself for being such a coward. Whatever was she doing, hiding up here? It was yet more evidence of how unlike herself she had been behaving.

  She was not the sort of woman to engage in the socially acceptable deception of a headache that she had just used in the music room. She did not flee from men because she could not handle them. Far less did she flee because she could not trust herself!

  Irene drummed her fingers upon the arm of the chair.
She did not understand why this one man affected her in this way. But she could not allow it to continue. She must return to her old self.

  She should go for a long walk, she decided—the sort of ramble she was wont to take when they were at home in the country. A little fresh air and healthy exercise would restore her, make her see things more clearly.

  Determined, she stood up and pulled on the sturdy boots she had brought for walking and a chip straw hat with a wide brim to shade her face. She ought, she knew, to change into an older dress to avoid getting dirt on the hem of the new one she had on, but she could not undo all the buttons of this dress by herself, and she did not want to ring for the maid to help her. She would just as soon not advertise that she was going out for a walk after she had just pleaded weariness and a headache.

  She slipped down the backstairs and out the rear door into the garden. She did not linger along the tended walkways there, however, taking instead the shortest way through toward the meadow beyond.

  It was not long before she came upon one of the small pathways that wound their way through so much of the English countryside. She was not sure which way it ran, but she turned in the direction that seemed least likely to bring her back in sight of the house and struck off.

  The path led along a small ridge and offered a fair prospect of the countryside. Below her she could see the meadow stretching off to farms and, in the distance, the Cotswold hills. To her right were trees and then another slight slope, on the top of which stood an old square gray stone tower and partial walls of the same stone.

  It must be the ruins of the old Norman tower that the butler had told them about when they first arrived. Irene thought it might be worth some exploration later. She stopped for a moment and shaded her eyes to look at it.

  Suddenly she heard the jingle of a bridle on the pathway behind her and the sound of a horse's hooves. She turned to look and saw a man riding toward her on a large bay gelding. Her stomach dropped.

  Lord Radbourne was the man on the horse's back. And she was well and truly caught in her little white lie.

  Chapter Ten

  Irene thought for a single harried instant of turning and running, but she firmly clamped down on that impulse. Had she not just resolved to be strong, to return to her accustomed ways? She would meet this problem as she always had: straight on.

  She stiffened her spine and watched Gideon approach. She recalled that Lady Odelia had told Francesca that Gideon was a poor rider, but Irene could not help but think that he showed quite well on horseback. He might not have the excellent form of many of her male acquaintances, who had ridden from childhood, but that fact did not detract from the picture of power he presented, with his wide shoulders squared and his large, leather-gloved hands holding the reins, his muscular thighs clamped against the horse's sides.

  Irene swallowed and straightened even more.

  "Why, Lady Irene," Gideon said as he drew near, laughter lurking in his voice, as he swept off his hat to her. "What a surprise to find you here."

  "Indeed. I am equally surprised to meet you," she retorted. "Did you follow me?"

  "No, I thought you ensconced in your bedchamber with a headache, if you will remember," he responded and swung down from his horse. He took the reins in his hand and led the horse closer to her. "I decided to take a look at one or two of my farms, as the rest of my day was suddenly free."

  Feeling that some explanation was in order, Irene told him, "I thought perhaps a turn in the fresh air would relieve my headache."

  "Ah, I see." He nodded. "Then I shall just walk with you ... unless, of course, you prefer not to have company."

  The roguish gleam in his eyes was too much of a challenge for Irene to resist. "Of course not," she replied. "Indeed, my lord, I believe that there are a few things that we need to discuss."

  "Really? Points about my manners? Or my dancing skills? And I thought we had agreed that you would call me Gideon."

  "Gideon," she said, deciding that she would give in on that small point. "Though, of course, it would not be proper to address you so when we are in company."

  "Oh, no, indeed. Then I must definitely be Radbourne to you."

  "I know this all seems a joke to you," Irene told him stiffly. "But these are the rules by which we live, and it does a lady little good to be seen breaking them. I am considered odd enough as it is. I do not wish to add any questions about my honor to the gossip."

  He frowned. "Indeed, I cannot imagine that anyone would dare question your honor."

  "I hope to give them no cause to do so," she countered.

  He bowed his head in acceptance, and they continued to walk. After a moment, he said, "Now, what was it that you wished to take me to task for?"

  "It is not that I wish to take you task. It is more ... that I wish to clarify my position here. I agreed to come to your home to help Francesca, and that is all. I had hoped she made that clear to you and your great-aunt."

  "She did."

  "I tried to make it equally clear to you that I have no intention of marrying you."

  "You did."

  She shot him a sideways glance. "And yet, this morning, you made remarks to me—"

  "Remarks?"

  "Compliments, I suppose you might say."

  His eyebrows vaulted up in an expression of innocent surprise. "Am I not allowed to compliment you?"

  "It was your manner, sir. It was not the compliment of a ... a gentleman to a woman he does not know. Or of a brother to a sister."

  "No. They were not the compliments of a brother. But then, I am not your brother."

  "You are being obtuse. Purposely so, I warrant. Your remarks were ... You were flirting."

  "Am I not allowed to flirt with you, either?"

  "No," she answered crossly. "Oh, do not put that astonished look upon your face again! You know exactly what I am talking about. You spoke to me in a ... well, in a seductive manner."

  A faint smile touched his lips. "I am glad to see that my intention was clear."

  "But I told you—"

  "I know what you told me, Irene."

  "Then why do you continue to pursue the matter?" she asked with some heat, not even noticing that he had used her first name, though she had not invited him to. "I repeat, there is no hope of my marrying you, so I see no sense in your making advances toward me. Do you hope to change my mind? You will not, I assure you."

  "No, I can see that your mind is set in stone," he retorted.

  Irene's brows drew together in a frown. "Now you are insulting me."

  "You did not wish me to compliment you, if you remember."

  She heaved an exasperated sigh and turned her face away. They walked on in charged silence.

  After a moment, Gideon said mildly, "In any case, I did not ask you to marry me. Surely you noticed."

  "No, but you were making advances toward me. You have admitted that."

  "Well, you said only that you would not many me. You did not forbid ... other matters."

  Irene came to an abrupt halt and swung on him, her face lighting with outrage. "What! Are you saying— Do you dare to think that I— That I—" She sputtered to a halt, unable to bring herself to say the words.

  His smile was slow and knowing, an acknowledgment of the suggestive implication of his earlier words. Irene knew that she should have felt insulted by it, even repulsed, but instead she found that the curve of his lips, the light in his leaf-green eyes, set up an ache deep in the pit of her abdomen. She released a shaky breath, knowing she should step back from him, should tear her gaze from his, but she could not. She did not want to, and that was the most shattering realization of all.

  "Even a woman so disinclined to marry ... does not necessarily seek to bar herself from all relationships," he said carefully.

  "You think that I would dishonor myself? Bring shame to my name?" she asked, appalled at how shaky her voice came out. Would he realize that it matched the trembling inside her? Could he know, just by looking into h
er eyes, that he had awakened in her the lust that she denied?

  "Never dishonor. I do not think you capable of dishonoring yourself." He took a half step closer to her, dropping the reins and bringing his hands up to curve around her upper arms. "What would you have us do? Deny what lies between us? Forget the fact that when I touch you, your skin turns hot beneath my hands? That when I kissed you, you kissed me back?"

  Irene closed her eyes, unable to look into his face any longer for fear she would wantonly throw herself into his arms. She wanted, quite badly, to feel his lips against hers once more. She could remember their taste, their texture, and her own lips tingled at the memory.

  "No," she whispered almost fearfully. "It is not true. There is nothing between us."

  "I thought you were not a woman who lied," he shot back, and his hands tightened on her arms, pulling her closer.

  Then his lips were on hers, hungry and seeking, and all rational thought left her. Irene went up on her toes, her mouth pressing into his with an equal hunger, and her arms went around his neck, holding on to him as heat rushed down through her in a storm, sweeping aside all else.

  In this moment there was nothing but the feel of his hard body pressed against her all the way up and down her length, nothing but the harsh thrum of lust in her loins, the pounding of hot blood in her veins. Their kiss was long and deep, as though they could summon up each other's souls. Irene trembled in his arms, bizarrely weak, almost faint, and yet she had no desire to end the kiss. She wanted him, his taste and heat, the hardness of his masculine body. She yearned to drink him in, take him inside her, and was stunned at the very fact that such a feeling lived in her.

  His hands slid up her back, moving to caress her sides, then sweeping down to curve over her buttocks. His fingers dug into the soft flesh, cupping her and lifting her up onto the hard, pulsing evidence of his desire. Irene had never felt a man in this way, indeed, had not even imagined the feeling, but she knew at once what it was, and a pulse began to throb between her legs.