The Saint

by Madeline Hunter

  Dante gestured dismissively. “Sordid and nettlesome things. I doubt they are worth the trouble. Sell them out or hold them, as you judge best. After how you scraped us through when Milton died, I would be a fool to question you.”

  They rode in silence through the oak and ash forest filling the back of Laclere Park. Vergil much preferred this approach to the broad sweep of landscape facing the front, and always instructed his coachman to take it. Normally it served as a transition space for him, a few miles in which to prepare himself for the role of the Viscount Laclere and the responsibilities that it entailed.

  He had first come this way when summoned by news of Milton’s death, choosing the longer route in order to delay that arrival, churning with conflicting emotions and spiking resentments at the changes in his life suddenly decreed by his older brother’s demise.

  It was in this forest that he had finally accepted the new reality and its attendant restrictions. Little had he guessed how complicated his brother’s death would make his life. Along with restrictions, mysteries and deceptions had waited for him at journey’s end.

  Dante suddenly leaned toward the window. He squinted. “What the . . .”

  “Is something wrong?” He pushed Dante’s head a bit and stuck his own to the opening.

  “There, over in the lake. Wait, some trees are in the way. Now. Isn’t that Charlotte?”

  The trees thinned while they began to pass the lake. Two women bathed in the water, laughing and splashing. Naked, for all intents and purposes, since their chemises had gone transparent from the water. Hell, yes, it was their younger sister, Charlotte, with that maid, Jane Ormond.

  The water broke and a third feminine body rose up. A soaked chemise adhered to her skin and obscured little. Pretty shoulders . . . tapered back . . . nipped waist . . . graceful hips . . . finally the tops of enticing rounded buttocks slid into view. Long blond hair fanned in the eddies and then sealed to her body in a thick drop from a well-formed head.

  Her slender arms began skimming the water’s surface, creating waves in the direction of her playmates. The other two squealed and started a massive counteroffensive of splashes, sending sprays of water all around her until she appeared like a vision emerging out of a misty dream.

  A shriek of joyful protest reached them. Laughing, she turned to run from the assault.

  Vergil could not be sure that those large blue eyes actually saw the passing coach with its two stunned occupants. But she paused, and one arm slid across her breasts and the other hand drifted to the shadowed triangle just above her thighs. For the briefest instant before she turned and knelt, she assumed the pose of a Botticelli Venus, a goddess lovely of face and luscious in form, dripping wet, still virginal and modest, but ripe and waiting. The combination of protective instincts and erotic suggestions that he had experienced in the gaming hall surged with force.

  He and Dante found their sense at the same instant. They straightened and sank back into their seats.

  His brother eyed him with suspicion. “Who was that?”

  “I cannot be certain, but I think it was Miss Kenwood.”

  Dante closed his eyes and rested his head against the seat’s back. “Let me make sure that I understand my position, Vergil. I am required to marry that? I am to be sacrificed on the altar of the god of financial stability and be forced to take as my lifelong partner that female we just saw? A girl so distinctive, unusual, and independent that she bathes almost naked in full view of a road, in broad daylight, and influences our sister to do the same thing? You intend to coerce me, if necessary, by threatening my allowance? She is the bride whom you have chosen for me?”

  “Yes.” There really was nothing else to say.

  Dante held his pensive pose a moment longer. His eyes opened. Their limpid warmth glowed. A very male smile slowly broke. “Thank you.”

  “Very good, Pen. Very good.”

  Penelope flushed an even deeper pink than the hue her skin had assumed while he told his tale. “Do not blame me. I certainly did not countenance such a thing. She has been the most gracious guest. Her behavior has not been untoward. Well, to my knowledge, at least.”

  She added the last with a little grimace. Penelope was smart enough to recognize that today’s lark indicated that she might not know the full extent of Miss Kenwood’s activities. Vergil imagined a whole string of scandalous episodes played out under the unsuspecting Penelope’s nose.

  “Our time here has gone swimmingly well.”

  “Under the circumstances, swimmingly is not the best choice of words, Pen.”

  She hung her head, embarrassed at failing at her charge. He patted her shoulder reassuringly. She simply did not have it in her to see the worst, and was always too understanding.

  Bianca Kenwood probably had seen immediately what she had in Penelope, and had taken advantage of it.

  What was needed for Miss Kenwood was an old harpy of an aunt whose force of will would brook no defiance, whose steely gaze would make young women tremble, whose strict admonishments would summon immediate submission.

  Unfortunately, no such aunt existed.

  “Perhaps bathing thus is common in America.”

  “Please, Pen.”

  “I will speak with her, and give Charlotte a good scolding.”

  “You will do no such thing.”

  “You intend to instead? Oh, Vergil, I wish that you would not. She gets a peculiar look on her face whenever your name is mentioned. I suspect that she sees you as a gaoler, and if, on meeting you again, the first thing you do is lecture on behavior . . .”

  “I won’t say a word about it. No one will. Not to Charlotte, either. To mention it would be to admit Dante and I had witnessed it.” He didn’t even want to contemplate that confrontation. To mutually acknowledge what had occurred would create an impossible awkwardness and a difficult . . . intimacy. “We are left with no choice but to ignore it. I will speak with Charlotte in more general terms about not permitting herself to be influenced.”

  Dante joined them, looking happy and refreshed in a change of clothes, perfectly pressed and exquisitely tailored. His expression glowed expectantly beneath carefully mussed hair, slightly long in the romantic fashion.

  “It was kind of you to join us for a few days,” Penelope said, rising to give him a kiss.

  “One misses the family sometimes, Pen. In fact, I shall probably stay, oh, about a week. Yes, a week should do it.” He cast Vergil a wink that made Penelope frown curiously.

  Vergil returned a reproachful glance. Penelope did not know about their plans for Miss Kenwood. Also, for some reason, his brother’s self-confidence rankled him.

  “A whole week? That is wonderful, Dante, and very kind. I know how you hate the country unless there is good sport.”

  “Well, Pen, there is sport and then there is sport. I’m told Verg has bought a new horse that needs breaking and I felt obliged to help him, since I have such a hand with the animals and it is a gift to me besides.”

  “A new horse? Vergil, you didn’t tell me.”

  “It arrives in a few days,” he muttered. Clever Dante. Enjoying his metaphor and getting a horse in the bargain. Not such a bad metaphor. Miss Kenwood did not really strike one as unfinished so much as unbroken. Just like Dante to size a woman up in a few seconds from seventy yards, and delight in the challenge awaiting him. No wonder he looked so insufferably content.

  The filly in question joined them shortly, arriving with Charlotte in a faint rustle of petticoats. Charlotte looked charming as usual, her willow-thin elegance still softened by childish innocence. Beside Charl’s dark hair and white skin and pale pink dress, Bianca Kenwood appeared a bit of a country miss.

  Her blue dress was a little dated and plain. Her skin bore a light, unfashionable tan, but his sense of its flawless beauty had been correct. Her golden blond hair was coiled into a simple knot that emphasized the feminine but firm jaw outlining the bottom of her heart-shaped face. She hardly fit the definition of a f
ashionable beauty, but she possessed a singular prettiness and exuded health and carried herself with mature grace.

  Dante studied her with calculating eyes during the few moments before Penelope called him over for an introduction. That examination made Vergil uncomfortable. Suddenly he felt soiled by this business. Ridiculous. Such things were arranged all of the time, and usually with less subtlety.

  Dante advanced on his prey. His success with women resided less in pursuit than in magnetism. A lady had once blurted out to Vergil that when Dante looked in a woman’s eyes, she felt as if he could see her soul, and his attention absorbed the breath out of her body.

  If so, Miss Bianca Kenwood’s soul was not easily observed. She took Dante’s greeting with ease and didn’t appear the least bit breathless. Vergil could not help but admire her poise, even though the plan had been for her to fall in love at the first sight of Dante.

  “And you remember Vergil,” Penelope added quickly, gesturing in his direction.

  “I could hardly forget Mr. Duclairc. I am delighted to see you again. Perhaps before you leave we might have some conversation.”

  “Of course, if you wish it.”

  Oh, she wished it. She had been saving speech after speech for two weeks now. She had hardly buried her resentment of the imperious interference that had sent her here.

  She realized that she was glaring at him, and that everyone else was watching her do so.

  “You are finding your stay pleasant?” Dante asked, guiding her toward the settee.

  “Very pleasant, thank you.”

  He sat beside her, giving her his full attention. He was a handsome man, but a little fine in form and face, as if God, in sculpting the bones of his older brother, had used up the best materials and then had to make do. Beautiful brown eyes regarded her from beneath thick lashes. A spark of inappropriate familiarity glowed in them.

  Yes, they had seen. She had argued with Charlotte that no one had looked out the carriage that passed. In truth, she thought that she had seen faces peering at her for a moment, but when nothing was said during the hours since their return, she just assumed . . .

  “So you are named after the Italian poet,” she said, very discomforted that Vergil Duclairc had gazed upon her practically naked body. Oddly enough, the fact that his brother had also done so didn’t bother her much at all.

  “It was my father’s unfortunate idea. He fancied himself an epic poet and named his sons after the great ones. Our eldest brother was Milton.”

  “It might have been worse. He could have chosen your names from among the heroes and not the authors.”

  Charlotte giggled. “That would have been horrible. Ulysses and Aeneas and such.”

  “Or he could have moved into his fascination with the Arthurian tales sooner than he did,” Dante agreed. “Lancelot, Gawain, and Galahad.”

  They played with that awhile, Penelope joining in. The man at the window did not, but Bianca sensed him following the banter with more interest than his occasional look indicated.

  She could see her adversary clearly from her position. He cut a fine figure, tall and lean, but with shoulders and legs that suggested more strength than obviously visible. He did not scowl now and, yes, he was quite handsome in a strong-boned, harshly chiseled way. The blue eyes still startled, piercing out from beneath dark eyebrows.

  They pierced now, catching her looking at him. She turned her attention to Dante, managing, she hoped, not to flush. She had the uncomfortable sensation that in that glance the viscount was remembering what he had seen by the lake.

  Dante had been saying something to her. She responded with a question of her own, falling back in her ill ease to the sort of small talk typical at home. “And what do you do?”

  Total silence faced her.

  “Do?” Dante repeated after a ten count.

  “Your brother sits in Parliament, as I understand it. What is your occupation?”

  Charlotte giggled. Vergil’s jaw looked more set than usual, but a glint appeared in his eyes while he turned his full attention on his brother.

  Dante smiled. “I am a gentleman.”

  “I would never suggest otherwise, but how do you employ yourself?”

  “When my brother says that he is a gentleman, he does not beg your question, Miss Kenwood. He answers it,” Vergil said.

  In other words, being a gentleman meant that one had no gainful employment. The refined young man beside her suddenly appeared as foreign as the Indians she had seen on occasion when her mother toured the towns near the frontier. This was another example of what Aunt Edith had meant when she had warned that Bianca would find this country familiar in some ways, but very odd in others.

  “Surely you have gentlemen in the United States,” Penelope said.

  “We have men of great wealth and position. There are estates as large as this. But a man who does not work . . . well, it is considered almost sinful.”

  She immediately wished that she hadn’t put it quite that way, even though such indolence was evidence of a serious fault in character. She had no desire to insult these people, three of whom she had no argument with.

  The one with whom she did have an argument broke the awkward silence. “How quaint. But then your country is young still.”

  Coming from any of the others, she would have let it pass.

  “Old England is learning that there is strength in youth.”

  “You refer to our last war. A minor skirmish. It would have ended differently if Bonaparte did not occupy us as well.”

  Somehow, barely, she kept a civil tone. “My father died in that skirmish, Mr. Duclairc.”

  Another thick silence fell. Penelope smiled weakly and rose. “Why don’t we go in to dinner?”

  Dante demanded Bianca’s attention during the meal. The viscount did not speak much. She looked over several times to find him scrutinizing her, as if he wondered what he had. Nothing but trouble, she wanted to warn him. You really should send me packing at once.

  She had every intention of cornering him after dinner in order to make that clear, but Vergil excused himself as soon as they returned to the drawing room. Dante stayed, however, and joined them for cards.

  He complimented her play far more than her skill deserved. With familiarity and the passing hours, his smiles assumed an unsettling warmth. She began to get suspicious that Vergil was avoiding her, and using Dante as a distraction.

  “Where is the viscount?” she finally asked Charlotte. “Perhaps he would like to take my place here.”

  “He is in the library, I expect. Or his study.”

  She rose. “Excuse me. I will invite him to join us.”

  She did not wait for permission, but walked from the drawing room and aimed down the corridor for the library.

  He was there, sitting at the desk and poring over some papers in a folio. He glanced up at her entrance and rose.

  “You appear startled to see me. Have I done this wrong? Am I supposed to apply for an audience?” she asked.

  “Of course not. I assumed that my brother and sisters would keep you entertained this evening, that is all.”

  “Cards do not amuse me long if the hands are thrown to me. If we were playing for money, I would have already won your brother’s entire fortune. I decided to give his pride and generosity a rest.”

  “He is only trying to make you feel welcome. However, I am glad that you sought me out. I want to apologize for my careless comment in the drawing room. I should have been more sympathetic to the possibility that you suffered in the war. I did not intend to demean your father’s sacrifice.”

  The sincerity of his expression disarmed her. He did not appear nearly as stern as was normal for him.

  “Perhaps now you understand why I do not welcome a long visit in this country, Mr. Duclairc, and why I do not want to partake of the society for which your sister tries to prepare me. I want to return to London so that I can tend to my affairs there as quickly as possible.”

 
; “The war is long over, Miss Kenwood. Our countries are friends again. As to your affairs, I am tending to them for you.” He said it with a firm smile that indicated he considered that particular direction of conversation ill-advised.

  “You are convincing me that I made a mistake in coming to England. I should have followed my first inclination and told Mr. Williams to have the investments that I inherited sold out.”

  “That cannot be done. Most of it is in trust. Short of petitioning the Chancery Court, a very lengthy process that would take years, it is impossible to break the terms.”

  “So he explained. My second inclination was to have him arrange to send the income to me in Baltimore.”

  “Then why didn’t you? Especially if you blame us for your loss?”

  “As I explained in London, I had reasons for coming.”

  “Yes. Your opera lessons.” His tone managed to convey relief that those plans were now dead.

  It would take more than this man’s disapproval to kill them. They were very much alive, and she was desperately impatient to progress with them.

  “Whatever my reasons, I am in England for only a short spell and I have interests that cannot be satisfied while I am in this house. I do not accept your interference. I do not need a guardian.”

  “Considering how I met you, I think it is obvious that you do. Today has done nothing to change my belief in that.”

  He was referring to the lake. Nothing in his expression really changed, but a provocative ripple eddied from him to her. It entered her body and shivered down her limbs. Yes, he had seen her in that soaked chemise. Despite his dispassionate demeanor, he was seeing her in it again right now.

  For an instant, lights entered his eyes that said he knew that she knew. That acknowledgment added a dangerous nuance to his masculinity. She suddenly felt at a disadvantage and had to struggle to regain her indignation.

  “I fail to understand why you are so determined to take on the trouble of me.”

  “Your grandfather’s will gave the responsibility to the Viscount Laclere. He had intended it to be my brother, but since he did not change the will after Milton’s death, it falls to me. I do not shirk my duties, no matter how troublesome they may be.”