Their lips met. She was shy and inquisitive, hesitant but eager. She tasted like honey, her breath sweet and clean. He drew her closer, his hand splaying up her back, pressing her to him and desperately seeking more and more contact with her body. His mouth ground against hers, and she met his kiss with first hesitation and then abandon, her own hands now coming shyly up into his hair, her touch light, butterfly-like, maddeningly sensual.
He slipped his tongue out to tease apart her lips, and in that moment, she froze.
Oh, devil take it, he thought. He had frightened her.
She pulled back, her lips reddened from the kiss, her eyes wide. She was breathing hard, and as she took a step back, and then another, he saw that he had found the one thing that she was afraid of.
The response of her own body to a simple kiss.
She snatched up her hat, turned—and bolted.
Tristan watched her go, his spirits falling with every step she ran. He watched her splash through the puddles of sticky mud just outside the stables, watched her beautiful hair flying out behind her, and watched his hopes of getting to know the bold little miss disappear with every step she ran.
For a moment, he had forgotten his relentless pursuit of work. For a moment, his soul had felt light, free to float amongst the clouds with joyful abandon. And as he stood there, surprised by his reaction to this girl he knew only as “Lettie,” Tristan St. Aubyn realized how very, very depressed he had actually become with his single-minded pursuit of a loveless goal, and how much his nose-to-the-grindstone work habits had cost him.
Were continuing to cost him.
He walked back down the aisle and saw Amir looking at him with that flat, dead look of abandonment, of a challenge issued and denied.
He reached out and stroked the colt’s neck.
“Don’t worry, I’ll find her,” Tristan vowed. “For both of us.”
Chapter 5
“And just where have you been, Letitia?” Mama asked, looking up from her embroidery and pinning her daughter from over the top of the spectacles she wore these days for close-work. “I was looking everywhere for you.”
Letitia had returned to their host’s home an hour before, darting in through the servant’s entrance and dashing quickly back up to their rooms. Mama had not been there, and she’d taken advantage of that particular blessing to quickly employ a visibly nervous Beryl to put her back to rights. She’d found her mother downstairs in a parlor with her needlework. Mama did not notice that her hands were shaking, her lips puffy, her demeanor out of sorts. Thank the good Lord that her mother was so unobservant and wrapped up in her own affairs, Letitia thought. Still rattled by the dangers of her clandestine escapade, her nearness to getting caught and mostly, her meeting with the extraordinarily handsome Lord Weybourne, she did not feel as though she had enough wits left to do battle with her mother.
“I was with the horses,” she said. “I needed some air.” She sat in a nearby chair, shoving her hands between her knees and pressing her legs together to still their shaking. Her afternoon had brought excitement of a sort she hadn’t bargained for, but she was no nearer to finding a way out of the Homer Trout Situation than she’d been when she’d impulsively ridden off. Perhaps it was time for her to just say what was on her mind. “Do we really have to go to this Christmastide house party, Mama?”
Her mother looked up. “I thought you were looking forward to it. To seeing your friends.”
Letitia shrugged and looked out the window into the encroaching darkness. “It ... it is a long journey. I think I would just like to go back home to Lincolnshire.”
“It is tradition, to visit our friends at Christmastime. We will attend.”
Because you have plans for me. Plans that involve the odious Mr. Homer Trout.
“The roads will be bad, Mama. The coach, cold—”
“We will attend,” her mother said again, looking up from her embroidery once more. Her eyes narrowed imperceptibly. “Is there a real reason you do not wish to go, Letitia?”
She could not tell her that the real reason involved Mr. Homer Trout, because then Mama would know she’d been eavesdropping.
And she certainly could not tell her that the other real reason involved Lord Weybourne and the fact that his kiss had only enforced her conviction that she could never marry a man to whom she wasn’t attracted, because then she would be in more trouble than a chicken plucked, parted, and plunged into boiling water.
Oh, what had she done?
“No,” she said meekly, hanging her head so her mother might not see the truth in her eyes.
“I am glad to hear it. Now cheer up, Letitia. It is Christmastime, and I will not have such moroseness. Besides, one of your brothers might be there.”
“Simon?”
“Yes. Lady Weston has numbers to make, so I have written to him. As his ship is currently in London, I expect he will be in attendance. Pity that Sheldon is out at sea ... I would like to see him there, as well.”
“And Papa? Will he be there, too?”
“Perhaps, but probably not until Christmas Eve. He has not concluded his business in London.”
Letitia turned away, not liking the perceptive way her mother was studying her face. “The fact that Simon may be there does not make the prospect of traveling all the way down to Kent in the dead of winter any more appealing,” she said grumpily. Though truth be told, she was less enamored of the idea of seeing Homer Trout than she was of winter travel. And besides ... what man might she ever meet who could possibly compare to Lord Weybourne, and the strange, wonderful sensations he had aroused in her?
She had not been able to stop thinking of him.
He had spoiled her for anyone else.
She did not want to go.
“We will leave here and continue on our way first thing in the morning,” her mother said with cheerful finality, returning her attention to her embroidery. She pushed the needle through the linen, pulled up a silken thread of bright yellow-gold, made an elegant and effortless knot and pushed the needle back down through the fabric once more. “There will be eligible bachelors at Lady Weston’s party, and with several full days there to get to know each other I am hopeful that you will make a decent and respectable match.”
Letitia went to the window and looked out into the cold, misty darkness, her fingertips digging into the recessed embrasure and her mind growing more and more desperate.
If Mama will not turn back and take us both home to Lincolnshire, then I have to think of a way to put Homer off once we get to this party.
“Letitia? Please go and dress for dinner.”
“Yes, Mama.” Sighing, she turned from the window, bent to give her mother a kiss on the cheek, and moved quietly from the room. Oh, Lord, help me.
* * *
A house party.
A Christmastide house party.
Oh, why did I accept the invitation to go to this foolish, inane, sure-to-be-tedious thing? I have no time for this....
Tristan stood looking out over the flat Norfolk landscape as the day lightened through the copious cloud cover that was as integral to a British winter as fleas to a dog. He was depressed. Maybe if he were not, the crystalline beauty of everything covered in a hard, white frost might have stirred him to some sort of appreciation. Maybe if he actually enjoyed this season, he would be looking forward to seeing old friends and perhaps making some new ones down in Kent. God knew he had indeed been working hard.
But the girl in the stable....
He could not get her out of his mind.
It had been two days since she had come into his life, charmed the living devil out of Amir, shared a stolen kiss, and bolted, taking a piece of his heart with him. That, of course, was ridiculous in itself; he did not believe in love at first sight, and he knew nothing about her. Nothing.
And he still knew nothing except that she had made him feel things that he hadn’t felt for years.
She had made him feel alive.
H
e had spent these past day combing the village and going door to door, describing her and receiving nothing but empty looks and helpless shrugs and offers of a glass of this or a glass of that to celebrate the season. One could get good and foxed on a glass of this or a glass of that, and Tristan, who felt more and more desperate, more and more in a race against time the longer his search went on and the more fruitless it became, was not inclined to get foxed.
And now here it was, time to leave for that blasted house party if he was going to go at all.
She had flitted into his life and flitted back out just like that, a sparrow on wings, and the confident determination that he would find her had given way to a morose acceptance that, in all likelihood, he would not ... and maybe never would. He could not get the memory of what she’d felt like in his arms, out of his head. The scent of her hair, the sweet pliancy of her mouth, the way she just seemed to fit him so perfectly....
“My lord?”
He looked up, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. It was his valet, Ames. He responded with a raised eyebrow.
“Your coach has been readied, my lord. I have packed and loaded your trunks, and Cook has prepared a hot breakfast for you to eat on the way. Will you be wishing to leave soon?”
“Yes, best to get an early start.”
Ames bowed and went out but Tristan remained standing there, gazing morosely out over the back garden, at the pastures enclosed by hedgerows and fencing, all frozen beneath the night’s deposit of white crystals. It would be a long, muddy, cold trip down to Kent and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Or pretending to be happy and full of “cheer” in a house stuffed with dull strangers and twittering young women looking for husbands, when he could think of nothing but the girl who had run away from him.
He wished he could cry off.
He’d far rather just stay home.
Chapter 6
“Oh, Lenore—I am so glad you were able to make it. I know the roads down from Norfolk must have been positively awful!”
No sooner had Letitia and her mother, accompanied by their maids, arrived at Rivercrest Hall than the great doors to the mansion had swung open and Lady Weston herself was rushing across the foyer to greet them. If she had a sly and knowing smile for Lady Penmore, Letitia did not see it; if speaking glances were exchanged over her shoulder while she and her godmother embraced, she wasn’t aware of it. Servants had already whisked away their coats and hats, ferried their trunks upstairs, and Lady Weston was calling for tea before either Letitia or her mother could shake the cold from their bodies and gaze around the great hall in relief that they had finally arrived.
Lenore was excited and chattering, exchanging small talk with their hostess about the weather, their absent husbands, the roads down from Norfolk, and what was planned for this house party. Letitia, still thinking of Lord Weybourne and dreading the prospect of seeing Homer Trout, heard little of it. “You won’t have a moment to get bored,” Lady Weston was saying as they all walked down a corridor toward a drawing room. “The other guests are already beginning to arrive and tonight, I have a wonderful dinner planned where we’ll all have the chance to get to know each other. Why—”
“Will Homer Trout be there?” asked Letitia, no longer caring that Mama might put two and two together and realize she’d been eavesdropping back at Lady Ariadne’s home in Norfolk.
“Who?”
“Homer Trout.”
Her mother grabbed Lady Weston’s arm. “Homer Trout. You know him, Agatha! He was most interested in my Lettie last year, nice fellow, very well connected and in line to inherit—”
“Oh, yes, that Homer Trout!” said Lady Weston a little too brightly, and Letitia frowned in confusion and glanced from one to the other as they continued down the huge hall. “Why, I do believe he’ll be arriving sometime tomorrow, most charming young man if I do say so myself!”
Lady Weston and her mother exchanged another glance, and something niggled at the base of Letitia’s spine. Panic. These two were planning something.
Or hiding something.
Jane. She was Lady Weston’s daughter, also a Season Failure after failing to catch a husband. Jane would know what was going on here.
“Where is Jane?”
“Why, she’s in the Blue Drawing Room with Pru,” Lady Weston said happily, referring to Lady Prudence Carmichael. “Winnie is not here yet, but should arrive shortly.” The knowledge that the four of them—friends since forever—would all be here together for this house party cheered Letitia considerably; if anyone could help her escape the attentions and mole hair of Homer Trout, it was her friends. “Why, I do believe the three of them have been awaiting your arrival for the past hour!”
Letitia looked to her mama for approval to go seek her friends, was given a brief, austere nod, and hurried off, leaving Lenore gazing after her until she was safely out of sight.
The viscountess waited until she heard a distant door shut. Then she looked at her friend Agatha, the Countess of Weston, and began to giggle like a schoolgirl.
“Homer Trout?” said Agatha, brows raised. “Honestly, Lenore, what were you thinking?!”
“I was thinking that Lettie would be so horrified by the idea of him being here that she’d take an interest in one of our eligible bachelors in the hopes of finding herself affianced before Homer arrives,” she replied, trying to keep her laughter under control.
“She does not know that the esteemed Mr. Trout married an Essex girl and is settled happily at his modest estate in Dover?”
“No, and if she finds out, my schemes will be for naught.” It was then that Lenore noted the excitement in her friend’s face. “But you’re hiding something yourself, Agatha. I’ve known you for enough years that that sparkle in your eye can only mean one thing. You have news.”
“I do indeed.”
Lenore raised a brow, waiting.
“I will let Pamela tell you. Ah, here she comes, now!”
Footfalls sounded in the hall and the other two mamas, Lady Carlisle and Lady Portland, came forward, arms extended. Embraces were exchanged, appearances remarked upon (favorably, of course), the weather discussed, and with the lot of them happy and excited and feeling as devilish and naughty as they once had when they’d pulled a prank on the autocratic Mrs. Brickhouse back in finishing school, headed for a drawing room of their own.
“So,” Lenore said, touching Lady Portland’s plump white arm, “Agatha says you have something to tell us?”
“I do.” She pushed open the door to the study. “The handsome Lord Trent Ballantine seems to have captured my Winnie’s heart. Unless I miss my guess, he’ll be offering for her before this party is over.”
“One down, three to go,” said Clare, the Marchioness of Carlisle.
Agatha grinned. “And the party has barely started.”
Lenore, all too aware of her daughter’s keen ears and tendency to eavesdrop, shut the door behind them.
“Are the young gentleman beginning to arrive?” she asked, accepting a cup of tea from Agatha as she took a seat by the fire.
“In droves,” Pamela said. “Your son Simon sent word ahead that he’ll be here later this afternoon and may bring one of his lieutenants with him ... one can always count on the Royal Navy to deliver. Who else is already here, Agatha?”
“Lord Athmore, brooding and quiet as usual, but ever so handsome. Christopher Chance, who is still insisting that he’s not a pirate.”
Lenore’s eyebrow went up. “Is he not?”
“No, he has a letter of marque, of course.”
“Oh, dear,” said Lenore, thinking of her upstanding son, a Royal Navy captain who would not take kindly to a supposed pirate being in their midst. “That won’t hold much water with my dear Simon. We must endeavor to keep them away from each other so that we don’t have a naval battle out in your pond, Agatha.”
“It’s frozen at the moment.”
“The lord be praised,” added the pious Clare.
“Anyone els
e coming?”
Agatha settled back with her own tea, blowing gently across its surface to cool it somewhat. “My Stephen tells me that he’s invited a friend of his who breeds horses. A young, wealthy friend whose opinion he’s seeking on that new mare he bought at Tattersall’s. Stop grinning like a fool, Lenore, you know perfectly well who it is as it was by your insistence that he was invited!”
“Mine and his sister’s,” Lenore said, stirring her tea. “One must not forget she is a part of this, too.”
“A bachelor?” asked Pamela, perking up.
Agatha reached for a biscuit. “Indeed.”
“Titled?” asked Clare.
“An earl.”
Lenore lifted her teacup, her eyes bright and laughing above its rim. Her decision to spend the night at Lady Ariadne’s home instead of a local inn on the way down to Kent had not been purely a social call but a way to firm up some plans they had both been making. Letitia wasn’t the only one under subtle manipulation by a well-meaning family member....
“Do tell Clare and Pamela who this young gentleman is, Agatha.”
“Tristan St. Aubyn,” their hostess replied. “The very handsome, very unattached, and very eligible Earl of Weybourne, who took over after his father’s death as breeder of the Norfolk Thoroughbred ... the fastest horses in the world.”
Clare turned to Lenore. “Oh, he sounds perfect for your Lettie!”
“Yes, his sister Lady Ariadne and I were of the same mind,” Lenore allowed, sipping her tea. “I only hope that he has accepted the invitation to this little party of ours, as he seems disinterested in anything but horses, business ventures, and running his estate.”
“A driven man, by all accounts,” said Pamela.
Clare crumbled a biscuit on her plate. “Has to be, given what a cock-up he made of his life in his younger days.”
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