by Julia Quinn
“I see,” she said breathlessly. He looked quite dangerous, his dark head bent toward hers, and yet, she wasn’t afraid. At least, not terribly.
“No. I don’t think you do,” Neill said. “Not yet. But I intend to remedy that.”
And with that, he leaned down and touched his mouth to hers, a brief, shivering glide of his lips over hers that made her knees go weak; and then it was over too quickly. Far, far too quickly.
“I came here for you, Kate Peyton. I have waited for four years to woo you and win you and make you my bride,” he said in a low, fierce voice. “And I do not give a damn what your intentions are or whom you’ve decided you would like to marry, whether it be the local vicar or a landed earl, because no one, no one, will ever love you as deeply or passionately or honorably as I have and do and will love you. No one.”
Her eyelids snapped open. He loved her? He’d waited four years to court her? And yet he’d stood by while she flirted and simpered and played asinine games and pretended to be a polished woman of the world when all the while all she’d ever hoped to accomplish had been to spark some emotion in him that wasn’t appropriate and avuncular and dutiful! Oh!
“Then why didn’t you say so at once?” she exclaimed, reaching out and shoving him so hard in the chest that he stumbled back a step.
He stared at her in astonishment.
“Why did you not simply”—she shoved him again—“tell me you loved me?” She pushed again, violently. This time he didn’t move. It didn’t matter. She was furious, and it felt good to shove someone!
She braced her hands against his broad, hard chest, preparing to heave him straight over, but he grabbed hold of her wrists, keeping her hands locked against him.
“Because it wouldn’t have been respectable.”
“‘Respectable’?” she mouthed, astonished.
“Yes. I would not have it thought that I abused the intimacy granted me by my position as your chaperone to pursue my own ends. It would be considered ignoble. Dishonorable.”
“Oh, that’s rich, indeed!” she laughed bitterly. “Since when did Neill Oakes give a farthing for the opinion of others?”
And now the anger in her had finally set fire to the anger in him. “Since your father informed me that, until I’d developed a sense of purpose, values, and honor, I would not be allowed to pay you court.”
“He did?”
“Yes. Four years ago, just before you caught up with me at the footbridge.”
The tension seeped out of her, and her rigid fingers relaxed against his chest, yet still he held them in place. His own expression softened as he stared down at her, reading her recall of the scene as she discovered new meaning in the words he’d said so long ago.
“He made me swear, on my honor, that I would not court you until you were eighteen,” he said more gently. “I intended to abide by his wishes, but that same day when you kissed me, I knew I did not, in fact, have the resolve or fortitude to stand silently by as each day you grew more lovely, more winning, more … Kate. And the thought of having to watch other men court you in the meantime, as I knew they must, ate at me like acid.
“I realized I was not the man I thought myself. And I determined then that I would be the better man, the man you deserved, and not some spoiled brat who insisted on his way. So I bought a commission.” He gently moved her two hands together, encircling both wrists in one of his own large hands and freeing the other. He reached up, brushing her cheek with a featherlight touch. She could not tell if he shivered or if it was her.
“But I did not count on how much harder it would be to be away from you, to be unable to watch you turn from girl to woman, to hear only secondhand of your antics and scarps and virtues and demerits. I imagined Tom must have thought I was mad, I hounded him so for every detail of every incident that regarded you.”
“I didn’t intend to stay away so long. But duty once answered is a jealous mistress, and not until Napoleon was well and truly vanquished was I able to return here to you, free of obligation and responsibility, praying you had not found someone else in the interim.” His expression abruptly grew grim. “But apparently I was away too long, for now you tell me you’ve set your cap at some poor fool. Well, Kate, I cannot let you do that.”
“Why?” she asked, gazing up into his harsh face, longing to hear him say the words she’d dreamed so long of hearing from him.
“Because no one else knows you like I do. No one else understands you like I do. You’d terrify any other poor bounder with your bullying and sharp tongue. He’d have white hair within a fortnight of making you his bride.”
This was not what she’d expected to hear, and she stared at him, shocked speechless.
“It’s true,” he said, nodding sententiously. “You’re a virago and a tyrant and an angel and a sylph and a faerie princess and a tempest.”
“I am not!” she said indignantly, her hands balling into fists on his chest.
“You are!” he declared, and now, for some reason, he’d begun laughing, his strong white teeth flashing in his dark, dirt-smeared face. “Kicking me like the veriest shrew and screeching like a harridan. The earl would be appalled.”
“The earl—” she sputtered to a stop. “I do not give a fig for the Earl of Briarly’s opinion.”
He snatched her close, half-lifting her in his embrace. “Then who is it? Who have you set your mind on, Kate? Tell me what poor wretch you’ve a mind to spend your life tormenting?” And though his tone was cajoling, there was a fierce earnestness at its core. He gave her a little shake. “Tell me, I say!”
“Why?” she demanded. “So you can go and warn him of how near he stands to a dire fate?”
“No. So I can know what sort of man finds favor with you. What is his name?”
He looked so raw and exposed that she could not taunt him further even though his damned nobility had set her on a rack of frustration and despair this past week. “Neill Oakes.”
His dark brows dipped in consternation as his gaze roved over her face, searching for irony or worse, but all he saw were her eyes, deep and dark, shining with a soft earnest light and a wash of unshed tears.
“You. Neill Oakes. The same man I set my heart on when I was fourteen.” She gave a little laugh. “We harpies and viragos are a fiercely loyal lot. Once we pick our victim, there is a no-more-faithful scourge. You are the only man I have ever loved or ever will.”
She pulled her hands free of his and wrapped her arms around his shoulders as she had done four years ago and, as she had four years ago, she stood as tall and pulled his head down to meet her kiss. “And now, lest you dare leave me to wait for you another four years, Neil Oakes, I intend that you should compromise me.”
“What?” he asked, startled.
“I have heard of other women who use this ploy to bind a man to them, and I find I am not above such machinations.” She nibbled at the beard-roughened angle of his dark jaw, and he shuddered. “Of course, such schemes and ruses only work on the men who value their honor.”
“Dear Lord, Kate, be careful what you start—” he whispered hoarsely.
“This was started a long time ago, Captain Oakes. Four years ago. So here, now, once again and only once, I will ask you: Will you kiss me?”
This time he did not stand as if transfixed. With a low sound of hunger, he swept her high in his arms as his mouth descended greedily over hers. He moved to the pile of blankets and eased her down amongst them, his mouth still married to hers. She arched up against him, reveling in the delicious weight of him, the powerful musculature, the heated dense skin. He opened his mouth over hers, his tongue lining the seam of her closed lips until she instinctively opened for him and tasted his tongue.
She was a country miss. She knew the ways of male and female, and she had waited so long, so eagerly, so ardently for this. Her hands flowed up beneath his ruined shirt, following the bunching muscles in his back up to the wide shoulders, clutching him closer. His kiss slipped from the c
orner of her mouth, to the angle of her jaw, then along her neck, a slow, heated, wet kiss that dropped to her neckline.
He nuzzled aside the thin fabric, baring her breast, his lips exploring with excruciating thoroughness the plump womanly flesh until at last he found her nipple and drew it deep into his mouth. She bowed off the blanket, pleasure spearing through her, her head thrown back as she clutched at his hair, holding his dark head to her.
When he lifted his head, his eyes were as jetty as the night and his expression fierce and triumphant. “You will marry me.”
“Yes,” she panted.
She wrapped her arms around his flanks, but he held her down, feathering kisses over her neck and cheeks, nipping at her shoulders and sucking her earlobes. “Soon?” he murmured.
“In all possible haste.”
“Swear it.”
“I swear it!” she vowed. “Only now, please … do … oh, please.”
And he did.
Chapter 16
A very glum-looking Tom Peyton presented himself at Lady Finchley’s later that afternoon and gave a long and completely incomprehensible explanation as to how he had found himself suddenly able after all to perform his brotherly duties and once more act as his sister’s chaperone.
Carolyn, standing outside on the front terrace beside her husband while she listened to the young man, could not help but wonder if the black eye the young Mr. Peyton was sporting might have had something to do with this turnabout, but was too polite a hostess to inquire. It did not keep her, however, from speculating later that evening to her husband. Nonetheless, she welcomed the young man back warmly; Tom Peyton was a handsome, robust-looking fellow, and now that he’d returned, it meant that Captain Oakes who, despite what Briarly believed, had not shown the least untoward attention to Kate Peyton all week, could consider himself free to mingle with the other young ladies, adding a sum total of two eligible bachelors to the mix. Which made things a great deal more interesting for the unattached young ladies in attendance although, to her disappointment, Georgina showed no particular interest in the man.
Several hours later, as Carolyn was reorganizing the teams for the croquet tournament that afternoon, a footman announced that visitors were arriving. Surprised, Carolyn gathered her husband and went out to the terrace to greet their new, unexpected arrivals, only to find they weren’t unexpected after all, as it was only Captain Oakes in Briarly’s blue cabriolet, attending Miss Peyton. But then she saw riding along behind them a handsome, whipcord-thin gentleman of middling years.
“By Jove,” Finchley murmured. “If it ain’t old Peyton himself. Invited him, of course, but I thought he wrote back declining. Wasn’t surprised. I don’t think the old fellow’s been in society for a decade at least! Now what brings him here?”
“A fifteen-hand Arabian with the looks of the Byerley Turk, if I’d have my guess.”
Carolyn looked around to find her brother Hugh had joined them on the terrace.
“I wonder if he’s breeding horses up there on that farm of his,” he murmured. “Shouldn’t have loaned Miss Peyton my carriage had I known her father was breeding horses of that quality up there. Oh, well, from the looks of things, it’s too late for regrets now.”
“Whatever are you talking about, Briarly?” Finchley demanded, as the footmen hurried forth to help Miss Peyton down and assist Mr. Peyton to alight.
“Miss Peyton. I offered her the use of my carriage and suggested she find herself a suitable escort—like her chaperone, Oakes—and go to Parsley. Pray don’t look at me like that, Carolyn. I thought it about time she and the captain get on with their, er, romance.”
Carolyn peered more closely at the handsome black-haired captain and the petite silvery blond woman at his side. Sure enough, Kate’s color was high and her eyes bright as the captain bent with all solicitousness nearer her, his gaze tender.
“Good heavens, Briarly, I didn’t know you were such a romantic,” Carolyn said with a laugh.
“Not romantic. Practical. The poor blighter was chasing off every fellow who dared pass more than a pleasant minute with Miss Peyton, and I feared he might go from growling to more physical means of doing so and thereby ruin Caro’s fete. Can’t have that, can we?”
“Oh, no, no. Course not,” both Carolyn and Finchley hastened to assure him, though behind his back they traded amused looks.
“So, how did Mr. Peyton come to be involved?” Finchley asked.
“Don’t know, expect we’ll find out though soon enough.”
And the trio essayed smiles as Mr. Peyton mounted the steps, Captain Oakes and Miss Peyton following at some little distance behind.
He stopped at the top and beamed at them. “Well now, I expect you wonder why I am here,” he said without preamble. “I know I sent me son Tom to watch over Kate here, and in the usual way of things that would be all well and good. But things aren’t as usual. Neill here”—he gestured casually at the tall young man behind him—“has asked for Kate’s hand in marriage, and I gave him my consent to ask her and ask her he did and apparently she said yes because now they’re all in a dither to get leg-shackled. And young people in a dither ain’t to be trusted. And Tom, good lad though he be, ain’t no match against a young couple in a dither and less of an obstacle if they intend to do anything they oughtn’t. So that’s why I’m here and thanking you kindly for your hospitality.”
And as he shook Finchley’s hand and traded greetings with Briarly, Carolyn couldn’t help but notice the smile Captain Oakes bent on Kate Peyton at Mr. Peyton’s explanation or the pretty way she colored up in response and Carolyn wondered …
But then she decided it was not her place to wonder, and she tucked her hand into her husband’s and led the way in to tea.
Chapter 17
That night before dinner, Carolyn drifted through her drawing room surveying all the unmarried women. Frankly, eligible spouses for Hugh were falling by the wayside, though her annoying brother didn’t show any signs of realizing what he was missing. First he was too slow to catch Gwendolyn before Charters snapped her up. And then Oakes practically stole Kate out of his very arms, if Carolyn understood Hugh’s reference to “courting” Kate correctly.
It was profoundly annoying.
It didn’t help that her husband was so unruffled. “Leave Hugh be,” Piers had told her earlier. “He’ll find someone on his own.”
Caroline had caught herself chewing a fingernail. “Hugh is just so irritating. He spends all his time out in the stables. He might as well have stayed on his own estate and trained that stupid horse there. He hardly ever appears for the afternoon games, and yesterday I could have sworn that he brought the stink of the stables into dinner with him on the bottom of his boot.”
“If you ask me,” Piers had said, “he’s not interested in those women you’ve got on your list.”
“Good thing,” she had retorted. “Because both of them found spouses before he got around to doing more than kissing their hands.”
“I think he wants Georgina,” Piers had said.
And then he had waltzed out of the room before she could even tell him that she had a suspicion of the same thing herself, which was just like a man.
But was Georgina interested in Hugh?
That was the thought that made Carolyn’s heart sink, even as she circulated amongst her party, listening to the chatter and smilingly throwing in a comment here and there. Georgie had never shown the slightest preference for Hugh that Carolyn could remember.
How could she? Carolyn wrinkled her nose and tried to remember that she had a little sister’s point of view. She would be the first, the very first, to say that Hugh was a prince among men … sometimes. He was strong, and honorable, and true to the bone.
But if there was one thing Hugh wasn’t, it was elegant. And Georgina? Carolyn knew her best friend as well as she knew herself. Georgie could spend an hour absorbed by the sheen of a fabric or the weave of some gorgeous silk from India in a way that even Caro
lyn couldn’t. And Carolyn considered herself extremely well turned out.
Whereas … Hugh?
She knew for a fact that he had a valet, but a casual bystander wouldn’t, half the time. Not to mention the fact that he was currently causing a scandal among the matrons by throwing off his shirt while training that horse of his. It was beyond scandalous. Not only was he not elegant; half the time he wasn’t even clothed. Several of the strictest mamas wouldn’t let their daughters anywhere near the stables for fear they might catch sight of his chest.
She sighed, noticing that Georgina had not yet appeared in the drawing room. No, it would never work. Hugh was probably attracted to her just because she was so dainty and beautiful—but the opposite would never be true. Georgie wouldn’t settle for a man who sometimes had manure on his heels and could rarely be found in the dining room, and never on time.
Carolyn paused for a moment next to Gwendolyn and Charters. Somewhat to her astonishment, they were smiling benevolently at Octavia Darlington—who was standing rather closer to Allen Glover than one might expect of casual acquaintances. But poor Allen wasn’t the type to be able to pop the question without encouragement, which Octavia looked eager to give him.
“I know that look,” a voice said in her ear.
It was Piers. “I was just thinking,” she said in a hushed tone, “that a certain young couple merely need a little nudge—”
“Don’t make me play any more of those damned games,” Piers said with a groan. “I beg of you, Carolyn!”
“I’ve asked hardly anything of you,” she said indignantly. “Here you’ve been running off every morning grouse hunting, and I merely request a little time in the afternoon. And just look how well it’s working, Piers! I vow this house is a veritable Cupid’s nest.”
“Just don’t make me play any more games,” her husband growled again. But she could tell he wasn’t truly aggravated.
“Perhaps something that would mix up the seating at dinner,” she said musingly.
