Compromising Miss Tisdale

by Jessica Jefferson

  And then there was Ambrosia.

  A family like that didn’t need someone disrupting their lives. A woman like her didn’t need to fall for a man like him.

  He didn’t turn when he heard the door to the library open. Rather, he sensed her arrival with every fiber of his being. Duncan inhaled deeply, the scent of mint preceding the girl he was certain would follow. All at once, his senses came alive. His ears detected every sound, listening intently for the whisper of silk slippers crossing the tasseled rugs. The coarse black hair on his arms stood up, anticipating her proximity. He turned, only when he could no longer stand the suspense.

  She startled, stepping back before stepping forward.

  “Lord Bristol,” she acknowledged frostily.

  The location was not lost on him. He could feel his abdomen tighten at the memory.

  Libraries. The smell of leather-lined volumes would forever more trigger a hardening in his trousers.

  “Miss Tisdale,” he returned. “No pianoforte today?”

  “This isn’t Wednesday,” she said as if he were gravely mistaken, rather than mocking as he had intended. “I thought this afternoon I could sneak into the library and steal a few books. I apologize for disturbing you. I didn’t think anyone else would be here.”

  He nodded toward the weathered trunk set near one of the desks. “I wish I weren’t, but duty calls.”

  She did not speak an acknowledgement, instead made her way toward one of the shelves and quickly removed two books.

  “Please, don’t rush on my account.” He peered out toward the pond from between the heavy velvet drapes again. “Arduous work, reviewing accounts and such. I’ve only just opened the one book and I’m already thoroughly bored with it.”

  “It’s not as bad as all that. I find numbers to be cathartic. There’s peace in the absolutism of arithmetic. There is always a correct answer and no ambiguity—quite a change from everyday life.”

  He dropped the curtain and allowed his gaze to casually graze over his shoulder. “If you find reviewing ledgers so enjoyable, then I do say, Miss Tisdale, you really should get out more.”

  He saw her struggling to repress a smile and he felt a tugging at his chest that he blamed on whatever he’d had for midday meal. Ambrosia had worn a gown of white muslin, her hair pinned in a casual chignon at the base of her neck. Her skin was a shade darker than cream, a unique trait amongst a population that prided itself on its fish-belly pallor. She looked like summer.

  Duncan cleared his throat and looked back out the window. “It seems fitting, though,” he declared in his best attempt at the ennui so prevalent amongst his peers.

  Ambrosia hugged her books against her chest. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  He shrugged, sensing her defenses going up again. A part of him knew he was goading her and welcomed her pique as opposed to her indifference. “I meant nothing except that I would expect someone as regimented as you would enjoy a task so monotonous.”

  She did not seem happy about the comment, frowning so that small lines gathered at the corners of her mouth.

  How he wanted to kiss them.

  “Lord Bristol, it is not the monotony that I find enjoyable, but rather the predictability. Is that such a bad thing? To know what to expect? Personally, I find it rather comforting.”

  “But boring,” he countered.

  “Of course you would say that.”

  Duncan leaned against the wall by the window and crossed his ankles in front of him. “And by that, what are you implying?”

  She jutted her chin out. “You’ve said it yourself. You are a rake and thrive upon spontaneity and throwing caution to the wind. Obviously, you love to be shocking. Isn’t that why you don’t subscribe to all the latest fashions? And your gambling? It’s all for shock value, isn’t it? The public brawling, showing up late to every event, even your mistress?” Ambrosia had whispered the last word almost inaudibly, but the very fact that she had actually uttered those most improper syllables made him stand to attention.

  So, obviously, she did subscribe to some gossip.

  “Mistresses,” was all he said in rebuttal.

  Ambrosia’s eyebrow raised inquiringly. “Pardon me?”

  “Mistresses—plural. Having one mistress is hardly shocking. But having several certainly does make an impression.”

  Duncan gave her a moment to get over her surprise. “Are you angry at me?”

  Ambrosia opened her mouth to say something, but quickly shut it. Her nose flared a bit as she visibly relaxed her shoulders. “Should I be?”

  He knew this game. And she wasn’t very good at it. “Is this about what happened in the garden? Do you feel wronged in some way? Is that why you’re mad?”

  “Of course not,” she answered nonchalantly as if she had this kind of conversation daily. “What happened in the garden was of no consequence, I assure you. You made no promises, I held no preconceived notions—I know exactly what kind of man you are. You made that abundantly clear.”

  “Most women appreciate honesty.”

  “And I do. Your honesty was . . . refreshing. If only all men could be so damn honest.”

  The tension in the room had just shifted from uncomfortably palpable to wholly suffocating, when Lillian burst into the room. A tornado of taffeta and energy, she had entered rambling something about traveling out of doors obviously meant for Ambrosia. She saw Duncan at the window and instantly quieted. “I apologize, was I disturbing anything?” she asked with feigned innocence, looking between the two of them.

  The innuendo was poorly veiled. Duncan nodded an acknowledgement. “Of course not, Lady Colton. I was just reviewing some old accounts of my brother’s.”

  Lilly cocked her head to the side as if she were some sort of spaniel. “Wouldn’t such work be better accomplished at a proper desk than a window?”

  Ambrosia begrudgingly suppressed snorting out loud. “Lord Bristol is easily diverted.”

  Lillian smiled charmingly as she always did. Her bright personality untainted by the rather dark moods permeating the library. “As he should be,” she said, completely without cognizant of the argument she’d just interrupted. “Brightly contains many diversions which I am certain you will find far more appealing than the business at hand. Speaking of, I’m quite glad I’ve found you, Lord Bristol. My husband requests your presence on an impromptu fishing expedition. And you as well,” she finished, nodding in her direction.

  Ambrosia looked at Duncan and shook her head. “I’m afraid I must decline.”

  “Absolutely not,” Lillian objected. “Besides, you love the pond.” She bit her lip and looked aside. “At least you used to.”

  This got Duncan’s attention.

  “Perhaps another time,” Ambrosia insisted, backing away from Lillian and toward the door. “Mother recommended it. In fact, she’s already had Cook prepare a basket.”

  Duncan watched as Ambrosia’s shoulders sunk in acquiescence. He couldn’t be sure if Lillian was being truthful or just using the threat of her mother in a rouse to coax her on the outing. Either way, it was effective and Ambrosia nodded and set her books on a nearby table.

  Lillian smiled and clasped her hands to her chest. “Wonderful! The pond brings back such fond memories, does it not? Do you remember the time you left the bait in the picnic basket and scared Cook practically to death? Or when we used to dive off of that giant willow, into the water clad in nothing but our chemises? And Thomas wearing even less!”

  Lilly blushed when she realized she had just referred to undergarments in mixed company. “I do apologize for getting so carried away.”

  He smiled, charmed by her exuberance. “Quite alright,” he reassured and tried to imagine Ambrosia, clad only in her undergarments, jumping from a tree into a pond. The chemise he could certainly envision. Something he did quite often. But his mind failed to imagine her so playful.

  It must have been a long time ago.

  Lillian hooked her arm in Ambrosi
a’s and led her out of the library, leaving Duncan to contemplate what he had just learned.

  Chapter 21

  “Should we go off and look for them?” Ambrosia asked, the soft soles of her walking boots kicking up dirt in her attempt to catch up to Duncan’s long stride.

  Lord and Lady Colton had run off ahead and were not at the pond when they arrived. Duncan didn’t know where they had gone, but had a feeling he knew exactly what it was the two were doing. The young couple hadn’t been able to keep their hands to themselves since the quartet had left the house. Brightly had filled up with more guests arriving daily and it was probably near to impossible for the couple to have any time alone together. The fishing expedition had been their chance. Unfortunately, that meant he was left alone with a woman whom obviously harbored a great amount of animosity toward him.

  It was better that way, he told himself. He’d led her to believe that perhaps he kindled an interest for her, but he’d made his intentions, or lack thereof, known. It was probably the most gentlemanly act he had ever committed. But in the wake of their stolen moments in the garden, he was left with nothing but a skeleton of the woman he had come to know. She wasn’t rude by any means, just indifferent—which was a hundred times worse. She was exactly the woman James had described weeks earlier and the enigma whose betrothal status was wagered upon at White’s. She was again the ice queen he’d once aspired to thaw.

  They arrived at the creek after a silent walk together. Not even a tedious comment regarding the unseasonably warm weather had been made.

  Was there anything worse than hostile civility?

  Duncan took the bag off his shoulder and began removing his supplies. “Will you also be fishing today, Miss Tisdale?”

  She shook her head. “I had not planned on it.”

  He smiled and held out a makeshift rod Will had provided for him. “I know. But you can’t plan everything.”

  She stepped back as if the rod was some sort of venomous creature.

  “Take it,” he urged, giving her his best smile.

  “I hardly think it is suitable–”

  “It’s probably not,” he finished for her. “But sometimes the most fun can be had from the least suitable activities.”

  “And you would certainly be the expert,” she volleyed.

  He laughed at her wit and took back the rod to use for himself. Duncan sat on a large boulder shouldered against the creek and removed his boots. Ambrosia did not turn her back, but did make a conscientious effort to avert her eyes and look at everything but his legs till they were safely placed in the water.

  “Your modesty humors me greatly, especially given our brief history,” he declared, casting his line into a grassy marsh.

  Ambrosia ignored the innuendo, but her scarlet blush reached all the way to her hairline, betraying her embarrassment.

  He laughed to himself. “You know, one of my uncles taught me to fish years ago and I just loved it.”

  “I was unaware you had more than one uncle.” Ambrosia stepped closer to the shoreline.

  He drew back his rod and cast it out again, this time landing in clear water. “I don’t. However, it would hardly be appropriate to refer to one’s lover or paramour in such terms in front of a child, so they all became uncles and aunts to me.”

  Ambrosia crept closer still, carefully placing her feet on stones to avoid the muck. “A child should never be exposed to such dalliances. I’m sorry to hear of it.”

  He shrugged. “It’s never bothered me much. Some of the blokes were quite good to me. Like the one who taught me how to fish. I was left alone much of the time, so I was thankful for any attention I received.”

  “I can’t imagine my parents having a marriage like that.”

  Duncan snorted. “Aren’t yours the exception to the rule?”

  “That’s quite a jaded view of the world. My sister’s relationship seems to be just as harmonious as my parents’. Speaking of, where do you think they ran off to?”

  “Please call me Duncan,” he requested. “I wouldn’t suggest looking for them.”

  “Lord Bristol,” she said defiantly. “If that is what your opinion of marriage is, then I can certainly see why you would be leery of the institution.”

  A small disturbance in the water caused him to stumble a bit, but he quickly recovered. He didn’t bother responding to her observation. They both knew it was accurate.

  “Fishing was one of the few things I enjoyed that didn’t result in getting in trouble or being punished,” he declared, checking the end of his line to verify his bait was still intact.

  Ambrosia tapped the water with the toe of her boot. “Then times have not changed overly much?”

  He was unable to suppress the smile that sprang up from her goading. “Not terribly much. I’m afraid my behavior has become an expectation now and really, I’m simply fulfilling my destiny as it has become known to me. If I didn’t behave reprehensibly, people might actually start to worry.”

  She raised one of her finely tapered eyebrows. “That explains quite a bit about you, my Lord.”

  “Duncan,” he corrected again.

  There was more she wanted to say, her face betrayed her by appearing entirely too stiff and she kept biting her lip.

  A lip that he wanted to bite. Nibble it, really. Lick it, suck on it . . .

  Duncan cast his line.

  “I believe much of what you do is because you feel it is expected of you,” she declared regally from atop her perch on a stone at the water’s edge. “People expect you to be shocking, so you want to fulfill those expectations. I know something about appeasing others’ exceptions myself and it’s become quite obvious to me. But I do believe you have far more to offer than what you have put out thus far.”

  At first, her perceptiveness had caught him off guard. She was so calm and even tempered that he was reminded of a Latin proverb Richard used to refer to—something about deep rivers and quiet sound. The depths of Miss Tisdale were ever surprising.

  “Miss Tisdale,” he waited for her to insist he call her Ambrosia, but his wait was in vain. “Did you really dive off of that willow over there?” The tree was massive and even its lowest branch was a bit high to contemplate jumping from into such relatively shallow waters.

  “It was years ago.”

  “Is that a confession?”

  She let out a breath, seemingly aware that being anything less than forthcoming would result in an afternoon of constant badgering. “The pond is quite deep over there. When it was particularly warm, we would come out and swim. All of us. I had the notion one day that it would be fun to jump into the pond from that branch. The long one overhanging the pond,” she pointed toward a great branch, swaying slightly with the breeze. “Lillian joined me, but Tamsin was a terrible coward when she was younger and refused to come up, and Rose was ever cautious and simply sat at the shoreline pleading for us to come down. After a few successful goes, Thomas, not to be outdone by his sisters, followed us but jumped off of that branch there,” she pointed to a much less substantial branch with a jagged edge quite a ways up from the other one. “It broke on his second attempt. He hit my branch on the way down and broke his arm.”

  Ambrosia’s eyes filled with something akin to light and became nothing short of polished sapphires.

  “It sounds like you were quite carefree in your childhood,” he stated quietly.

  She continued staring off into the weeping willow on the other side of the pond. “I know what you must think of me, Lord Bristol. That I am entirely too proper. Everyone does, you know. But I wasn’t always like that. I’ve always been responsible, yes, and never as blithe as Tamsin, but I wasn’t wound nearly as tightly as I am now. I’ve never been too keen on surprises, though at times I was still able to surprise myself. But, situations change, and people sometimes have to change with them.”

  He sat down upon a nearby rock, small waves lapping against the sides of his buckskin trousers. “What situation changed for yo
u?”

  “My brother and I fell sick at the same time, you know. It was a terrible fever. I remember lying in my bed, shaking so that I thought my bones would break from the severity of it. I remember one night, it was the night my fever broke, because for the first time in a rather long time I was able to hear the others around me. I could hear their conversations and understand their words. I wasn’t strong enough to open my eyes and make my consciousness known, but I was aware nonetheless. I heard my parents speaking in hushed tones and my father kept repeating, don’t take my boy. My mother reassured him that God wouldn’t be so cruel as to take his only son. They needed a son to carry on the family line—to hold the title. They were heartbroken when he died. Everyone was. Devastated, really.”

  Ambrosia took a steadying breath before continuing, still staring at that tree. “I wished I had been the one to die. I was a daughter, one of four, and I could never offer to my family what Thomas could. I was practically an excess when you thought of it amongst those terms. But God had allowed me to live in place of my brother and I accepted the responsibility of being the eldest Tisdale. Granted, I could not hold the title or inherit the estate, but there were some things that I could do. I vowed to be the best daughter I could, emulating my brother in every way. I am my parents’ consolation prize, and so I do what I can to make them proud. To feel less like God hadn’t made a mistake by taking him instead of me.”

  Duncan listened to her words, unable to fathom how this magnificent creature could feel her survival had been a mistake.

  “I’m certain your parents wanted you to live just as much as your brother,” he found himself actually livid at her low opinion of herself. How dare she devalue herself when he had held her in such high regard? “Your life is just as valuable. This is how fate meant for it to be.”