Mr. Powers laughed, a laugh that made him lean back and open his mouth wide. Eleanor envied his emotional exuberance.
“No, my partner is keeping things chugging along, so to speak,” he said, winking in Eleanor’s direction.
She groaned in response before thinking about how proper ladies, dukes’ demure daughters, were not supposed to groan, no matter how bad—or how splendid—the pun was.
“Introduce me, Alex?” Mr. Powers said, nodding to Eleanor.
“Of course. Lady Eleanor Howlett, may I present Mr. Powers, currently—so to speak—of the Powers and Smith Railway company.”
“Charged, I’m sure,” Eleanor replied, holding her hand out to Mr. Powers. She might as well be who she was, for now at least.
His expression was puzzled for a moment as he shook her hand, then he burst into another envy-inducing guffaw. “Excellent, my lady.” He poked his finger at the side of his head. “Got to keep the wheels turning is what I say.”
“Don’t stoke the fire, my lady,” Lord Alexander said. “Charles here is just on track to outpun us all.”
Both Eleanor and Mr. Powers groaned at that, while Lord Alexander just grinned delightedly.
She hadn’t expected him to appreciate a good pun. A slow warmth spread over her that had nothing to do with the sun overhead.
“Care to play, Alex?” Mr. Powers said, gesturing to the field. “Bob there has to run home to his wife, and we’re already down one fielder.”
Lord Alexander glanced over at Eleanor. “I don’t think—” he began.
“Oh, go ahead. This will be a new experience for me,” she said. Besides, now that she had her spectacles on, she thought it would be delightful to watch Lord Alexander engage in an athletic pursuit.
If she were admitting things to herself, like a duke’s disgraceful daughter would.
“All right then,” he said, beginning to remove his jacket. He handed it to Eleanor, who froze before taking it.
That was a new experience as well, having a gentleman hand her his jacket. The gentlemen of her acquaintance generally wouldn’t even dare to be seen in her company without a jacket on, much less hand her the one they’d just removed.
Lord Alexander didn’t seem to notice her shock, however, only rolling up his sleeves, exposing his wrists and forearms.
Eleanor felt overwhelmed, to be sure, by the sight of everything. By being able to see things, thanks to her spectacles, and also by what she was seeing. Lord Alexander’s strong wrists, his stronger forearms with intriguing lines running up them, sprinkled with a dusting of golden hair.
His arms looked so different from hers, so male, she felt herself start to lean forward for a closer examination, only to jerk back in horror. She wasn’t supposed to be examining Lord Alexander’s forearms, for goodness’ sake. She was only here to experience new things, and new things did not include a man’s body parts.
At which point she felt as though her corset was suddenly tighter, her stays digging into her side as she took a deep breath.
“Wish me luck, Lady Eleanor,” Lord Alexander said before loping onto the field.
She took a moment to admire his long legs striding across the field before resuming her rebuke of herself. While also still enjoying the view.
“Yes!”
At the call, Alexander took off running, relishing the feel of his breath coming fast and hard in his lungs, his leg muscles straining as he pounded over the field’s dodgy surface.
It was exhilarating, engaging in this kind of all-out physical activity, something he’d only discovered one day when Bennett had dismissed him from their parents’ house, saying he was driving him crazy with his pacing.
Alex had walked through the park at a furious clip, merely nodding to the people of his acquaintance who bid him good-day. Eventually he’d wound up in this part of the park, where nobody he knew would venture since it was so unfashionable.
And it was here he had found Charles, and the other cricket players, engaged in one of the most intense games he’d ever seen. Afterward, Charles had come up and introduced himself and invited Alex to join them in a future game. It was the only thing he’d found—besides his various romantic activities—that could calm his mind and his body so he could sleep and think without distraction. The men he played with came from all walks of life, from butchers’ assistants to industry types such as Charles, to a few other third and fourth sons of aristocratic families. All of them united by the desire to have a good game. As simple as that. Which was entirely refreshing, and Alex had found himself collecting more friends and acquaintances.
This game wasn’t quite as intense as that first one; there weren’t enough players, as Charles had mentioned, and the heat of the day made them all more languorous. But not Alex, who wanted the exhaustion of the exercise more than staying cool.
He’d sweated through his shirt, forgetting Lady Eleanor was there when he drew it up and over his head, tossing it to the ground as he prepared to take another swing.
It was only when Charles nudged him in the ribs that he remembered. “Your lady over there looks as though she’s imitating a hot piece of coal, she’s so bright.”
Alex turned his head slowly to look at her. Yes, she was the chaise-longue color again, but this time he couldn’t fault her for it. It wasn’t as though she had likely ever seen a gentleman’s upper body before. At least he was surmising she hadn’t.
He wondered if she was overwhelmed at the sight, then shook his head at himself. Of course she was, but he hoped she wasn’t regretting agreeing to this bargain, recalling their first encounter in the bookshop.
When they’d seen that drawing of a bare-chested Hercules fucking his woman so thoroughly.
Damn it, and now he felt warm throughout. He wished he could separate his natural inclinations from the task of convincing Bennett’s bride-to-be that she would be his bride, but he found it nearly impossible. Especially now, standing there at the edge of the playing area, those quirky spectacles perched on the end of her nose, her entire face rosy from whatever she was feeling.
Knowing, too, that Bennett didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
“I’d better take her back,” Alex muttered, grabbing his shirt from the ground and pulling it back over his head as he marched to her.
“I think that’s enough overwhelming for today, don’t you?” he asked as he took her arm and led her back to the curricle.
“You brought her to a cricket match?” For once, Alex knew precisely what his brother was feeling, since his tone was entirely and uncompromisingly bemused.
“I did.” He shrugged, wishing he could just return to his room and strip down for a bath. Lady Eleanor hadn’t spoken much on the drive home, while Alex had searched his mind frantically for appropriate topics, none of which he could come up with. Asking her, “Did you like what you saw?” and, “How about that pitch?” were both too vague and horrifyingly specific.
Instead, he’d spent the time noticing how her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, and how pretty her eyes were behind the glass of her spectacles. And that her mouth was full and her lips looked appealing, even though he knew he should absolutely not be thinking of her that way.
But he was Lord Alexander Raybourn, whose only skills were athletic in nature, whether on a cricket field or in the bedroom, so he couldn’t help but think of those things.
He nearly laughed aloud when he thought about combining the two. And then spent the remainder of the ride figuring out the rules for such a game of cock-cricket or whatever it would be called.
“And you thought taking her to see a group of men running about a field of grass fussing about a ball would convince her to marry me?” Bennett continued. Engrossed in his own thoughts, Alex had forgotten he was there. He hadn’t told Bennett about Lady Eleanor’s request to be overwhelmed, because it sounded odd, even in his own head. As though it meant something entirely different.
“Well, I have to think marriage to you is more a
ppealing than watching a cricket match.” Alex wanted to wince, his explanation was so appallingly bad.
Bennett snorted. “Thank you, brother. Your support and admiration of me and my character is remarkable.”
“But the thing is, Bennett, I think you should be the one to take her about. It’s you that’s going to have to marry her, after all.” As though it were a chore. Which made Alex want to wince all over again.
“I don’t have time. Nor, honestly, do I have the inclination.” Bennett spoke as bluntly as Alex usually did. “She’s perfectly pleasant. She has a substantial dowry, and appears in good health.” As though he was discussing his favorite horse, only he spoke more enthusiastically about the four-legged creature. “She seems to need some attention I don’t have time to spend on her.” He shrugged. “So I want you to continue to try to persuade her to marry me. By taking her somewhere other than a cricket match.” He paused, and tilted his head to look at Alex’s face. “Actually, never mind that. Just do it however you want to. I haven’t got time to fuss over where you are taking the woman who has demurred at becoming my bride. There are more important things to worry about.”
More important than the decision of who you’d spend the rest of your life with? Not for the first time, Alex was grateful he was the second and less responsible son. Of course that meant he was now the one to discover more about Lady Eleanor.
Eleanor focused on keeping her lips pressed together as she entered her house, merely nodding as Cotswold exclaimed over the state of her hair and the grass stains at the bottom of her predictably white gown. Because if she did allow herself to speak, she was fairly certain all she would be able to say was, “I’ve seen Lord Alexander’s chest, and it is magnificent!”
And that wouldn’t be appropriate for so many reasons.
“My lady, your mother and your sisters are taking tea in the Purple Room”—so named because her mother had insisted on decorating it in all the shades of that color she could find—“and they asked you to join them when you return.”
Eleanor nodded in an automatic response, then shook her head vigorously. “Not yet.” I need time to stop thinking about the way he looked, how the muscles in his back shifted as he ran. “I just want to go wash my face.”
Maybe while she was up there she could give her brain a rinse as well so she could wash the images out of her head. Only she doubted there would be anything to chase those pictures away. Much like the Hercules and Dejanire picture, she thought how he looked running up and down that field would forever be emblazoned in her memory.
“Where did you go with Lord Alexander?” Olivia demanded as soon as Eleanor entered the room. She had washed her face, but her mind was still ruminating on everything she’d seen and done, with the emphasis on the seen part.
“Come sit here, my dear,” their mother said, patting the sofa seat next to where she was sitting.
Eleanor stepped over Ida, who was engrossed in building some sort of mechanical thing on the floor, smiling at Pearl who was curled up in one of the far chairs, her feet tucked under her.
“Thank you, Mother,” she said, taking the cup of tea her mother had prepared. Eleanor took a sip, wondering if this would be the day her mother remembered how her eldest daughter took her tea.
Too much sugar, no milk at all. Today was not the day.
She glanced at Olivia, wrinkling her nose. Olivia put her hand to her mouth suppressing a giggle. It was a bet among the four sisters—five when Della had been living with them—as to which daughter’s tea their mother would finally get correct.
Thus far, the closest was Ida, simply because she took her tea with nothing at all, and their mother had come very close to completely forgetting to do anything to the tea once she’d made it. But at the very last minute, just as Ida was beginning to allow a triumphant smile to cross her face, their mother had snatched a piece of lemon and squeezed it mercilessly into the cup.
“We went to the park. In Lord Carson’s curricle,” Eleanor replied, keeping her gaze fixed on the leg of the chair Pearl sat in. She didn’t want to reveal anything that might make her sisters ask even more questions, or to admit to anything shocking. Even though there was plenty to admit there, and she knew her sisters would find the entire afternoon fascinating.
Her mother wouldn’t recall anything, so she could have told her about Lord Alexander and the Discarded Shirt, but the Duchess of Marymount had a disconcerting habit of occasionally surprising everyone with blurting out a particularly odd and out-of-context detail. “My daughter Lady Eleanor very much enjoyed seeing Lord Alexander Raybourn’s vast expanse of chest,” for example. Told to a group of matrons whose daughters were jockeying for position in the marriage mart, eager to find anything that would discredit one of the other competitors. Probably with Lady Vale there, just to make things even more horrible.
Not that marriage was a competition; if anything, Eleanor would have to say she regarded it more like a prison sentence, one that would only be cut short by death.
And now she had chased away all of her indecent thoughts regarding Lord Alexander because she was currently envisioning herself trapped in a tiny cell with Lord Carson, and nothing to do but stare at one another. That might be tolerable if it were Lord Carson’s brother, or at least tolerable for longer, but she couldn’t imagine it was a future worth looking forward to. No matter who was in the cell with her.
“The park sounds boring,” Olivia said. “Although that curricle was stunning. That is Lord Carson’s, isn’t it?”
Ida looked up from whatever she was building, her eyebrow fully raised. “You know perfectly well it is—you went and spoke to the coachman all about it. And I believe I saw you look around as though you were going to hop up into it.”
“Hmph,” Olivia replied, thereby confirming what Ida had said.
“It is Lord Carson’s curricle, yes.” Eleanor smiled at Olivia to let her know she was fine with whatever girlish passion her sister had for her not-yet-husband. Girlish passion, or womanish passion, for that matter, was fine as long as it was not acted upon.
Which of course brought her mind back to Lord Alexander and his Handsome Chest. She hadn’t done anything, after all; she’d just looked. Thoroughly.
“What else did you do? Unless you just drove around the park for the hours you were out.”
“We—” Went and saw a cricket game? How did that sound? Did it sound as shocking as it was? Likely not. And here she was again, asking questions when she’d gone so long without asking any. “We went to a playing field where we watched some men playing a game. Cricket.”
“Cricket!” Pearl echoed, making everyone in the room stare at her. She promptly shrank back into her chair turning a bright pink color.
“Do you like cricket, Pearl?” Eleanor asked gently. Perhaps Pearl could explain the rules, even though that held even less appeal than Lord Alexander doing it.
“She does. She likes to whack the ball back and forth when nobody is about,” Olivia said in a dismissive tone. “It sounds as though she and Lord Alexander have something in common.” She accompanied her words with a scornful eye roll that left no one in doubt about what she thought about that.
“I hope Lord Alexander was able to talk some sense into you regarding his brother’s suit,” the duchess said. “I presume that is why he asked you to go for a drive.”
“He did mention his brother, yes, Mother,” Eleanor said. She’d have to walk a fine line between sharing enough information to persuade her mother to allow her to spend more time with Lord Alexander, yet not so much that her mother saw the encounters as possibly dangerous to the potential engagement.
It was a conundrum she wasn’t sure even Ida’s impressive brainpower could solve.
“I still don’t understand why Lord Carson isn’t taking you out himself if it’s him that wants to marry you,” Olivia said, getting to the heart of the matter right away.
“Lord Alexander mentioned that Lord Carson is very busy with some family
business dealings.” It did sound weak, didn’t it? And it definitely did not bode well for their future together. Although perhaps that meant they’d be occupying separate prison cells? Something to look forward to, Eleanor thought ruefully. At least she’d have some time to herself.
“Nothing should be more important than love,” Olivia proclaimed, her tone as earnest and fervent as a young girl’s could be. Which was a remarkable amount.
“Love doesn’t enter into this equation,” Ida said, glancing up from her project. “This is a matrimonial enterprise, where one side gains something from the other, and vice versa.”
“Someday, Ida, you are going to fall head over heels in love, and you’ll find yourself as confused and foolish as anybody,” Olivia declared.
Ida only shrugged in doubt.
“Eleanor will be seeing Lord Carson at the Lindens’ tonight,” her mother said complacently. “He will find time to speak to Eleanor about his suit. I am certain that her refusal is only nerves. I refused your father three times before I finally agreed, and look how well that turned out!”
At least their mother was so oblivious to other people she didn’t see the looks of dismay the sisters shared.
But that meant Eleanor would also likely see Lord Alexander tonight. Fully clothed, but not less compelling, and dangerous to her state of mind.
Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad:
Welcome the opportunity to see underneath a gentleman’s jacket and shirt, particularly if the gentleman in question is of an athletic persuasion.
Chapter 8
Eleanor couldn’t help but locate Lord Alexander in the crowd at the Lindens’. She told herself it was only because he was so much taller than everyone else, and even her poor eyes could find a gentleman who towered over the crowd, but she also had the suspicion she wanted to find him.
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