He gave her a look of mock apology. “I have no shame, it seems.”
“You must indeed be desperate to resort to such tactics,” she said with perhaps more assurance in her voice than she actually felt. “But Joanna is still my sister. You can’t buy her loyalty.”
“Are there chocolates in there?” Joanna asked. The girl bent down again, but Stuart used the tip of his stick to shut the lid again before she could acquire an answer to her question.
“I said no peeking. You’ll have to wait for lunch to find out what’s inside. Be a darling,” he added, cutting off her protest about waiting as he held out the remaining tickets. “Take charge of these for me.”
When Joanna complied, he reached for the handle of the picnic basket and picked it up. “Shall we board?”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned away and started for the train, Joanna beside him. Edie followed in their wake, watching as he crossed the platform, and though he seemed to be managing the heavy basket rather well, she couldn’t help noticing the stiffness of his right leg as he moved, and she wondered if she ought to call for a porter. When he stood aside at the entrance of their first-class carriage so that she and Joanna could board, she did not follow her sister up the steps and onto the train. Instead, she paused beside him, gesturing to the basket. “Perhaps I should carry it—”
“No, thank you. I can manage.”
“If you won’t let me take it, you should have a porter do so.”
“I’ve never been much good at doing what I should.”
His voice was light, but there was an unmistakable hint of steel underneath that told Edie arguing about it would be useless. She boarded the train, but as she followed her sister along the aisle between the fat, high-backed armchairs that lined each side of the car, she glanced back over her shoulder to watch him. He was able to ascend the steps with the basket in one hand by leaning heavily on his walking stick with the other, but Edie could tell it hurt. She caught the grimace that crossed his face, and even though it would probably have done no good, she wished she had argued more strenuously about a porter.
“Edie?” Joanna’s voice called to her from the other end of the coach, but Edie didn’t turn around. Instead, she kept her gaze on the man now coming toward her along the aisle.
“Are you always so foolishly stubborn?” she asked him as he halted in front of her.
“I’m afraid so.” He smiled. “Are you sure you don’t want to just give in? I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.”
“Edie!” Joanna’s voice came again, impatient and eager. “Do stop dawdling and come look!”
She took a deep breath, heartily grateful for the distraction. Turning away from those smoky eyes, she found her sister standing about a dozen feet ahead of her with a wide grin on her face.
“Heavens, Joanna, you look like the Cheshire cat. What is making you smile like that?”
“Look what’s in your seat.” With a dramatic flourish she gestured to her right, and Edie stepped forward to peer over the high back of her chair. There, in all its splendid English glory, was another Fortnum and Mason picnic hamper.
“That one’s yours,” Stuart’s voice murmured behind her.
A cry of delighted surprise was out of her mouth before she could stop it, but she pressed her lips together at once, hoping he hadn’t heard it. He might be playing to win this game, but so was she, and she didn’t want to show him a shred of encouragement. But when she turned toward him and looked into his eyes, she knew it was too late.
“I’m glad you like my gift,” he told her, laugh lines creasing the corners of his eyes. “It has all your favorites, too. Fresh bread and Irish butter, olives, pâté de foie gras, smoked salmon, cherries . . . there’s even a tin of your American baked beans in there, though why you like them so much truly baffles my British palate.”
“How do you know what my favorite Fortnum and Mason foodstuffs are?” But even as she asked the question, she was sure she already knew the answer. “Joanna, really!” she said, feeling hopelessly outmatched at the moment. “Did we not discuss the importance of discretion just last night?”
“I didn’t tell him anything!” Joanna denied, laughing as she took the seat kitty-corner from Edie’s, her back to the engine. “Not this time, I swear. Although I would have if he’d asked me,” she added, and leaned around her sister to look at Stuart. “She likes champagne, too.”
He leaned around Edie to offer his reply. “Thank you, petal, but I’ve always known that. Which is why,” he added as he straightened and returned his attention to Edie, “the conductor has an excellent bottle of Laurent-Perrier chilling on ice for you at this moment.”
“You brought me champagne, too?”
“Of course. What else would one drink with a Fortnum and Mason hamper? The real question is . . .” He paused a fraction of a second, and when he spoke again, his voice was a low murmur only she could hear. “How shall you thank me?”
Her stomach dipped, an odd, weightless sensation rather like riding the electric lift at the Savoy. She tried to ignore it. “With a simple thank-you?”
“How mundane.”
She saw where this was going. “I suppose,” she murmured back, “you’d like a kiss instead?”
He leaned closer, and as she looked into his eyes, she saw their silvery gray depths darken, turning smoky. For no reason at all, she blushed, even before he said, “God, yes.”
Her toes curled in her shoes. The tips of her fingers began to tingle.
“You could do it right here,” he went on, his voice still low enough that only she could hear. “It would shock all the passengers in first class out of their snooty British sensibilities. Think how fun it would be.”
“You have strange ideas of what’s fun,” she scoffed, striving to sound as derisive as possible, but to her mortification, her voice came out in a strangled whisper because she couldn’t seem to breathe properly.
“You only say that because you haven’t kissed me.” His lashes lowered, his gaze dropped to her mouth. “Yet.”
The warmth in her fingers and toes flooded through the rest of her body in an instant. Her skin flushed, her throat went dry, and her limbs felt inexplicably languid. It was such an unexpected feeling, so unlike anything she’d ever felt before, that she didn’t know what to do.
She wanted to move, but couldn’t seem to find the will to do so. She wanted to look away from those smoky eyes and the promise in their depths, but she couldn’t do that either.
It was just a picnic basket, champagne and a bit of flirtation, just the sort of thing any man bent on seduction might do, and she’d told herself only yesterday that such tactics would not work on her. The idea that she might be softening already forced Edie out of her flustered daze.
“We should sit down,” she said primly. “People are starting to stare, and despite your blatant attempts to flirt with me, I have no intention of giving them a reason for such scrutiny.”
“Really, Edie, where’s your sense of adventure?” He sighed, shaking his head. “Have it your way, but if we are to sit down, you’ll have to move back a bit first.”
When he lifted the basket in his hands, she realized what he meant, and she took several steps back to be out of his way. He moved to set Joanna’s lunch on the small table beneath the girl’s window, then he removed Edie’s from her seat and put it on her table so that she could sit down. He took the chair opposite her, and just in time, too, for he’d barely tucked his hat and stick beneath his seat before the final whistle blew and the train began moving out of the station.
“Where’s your picnic hamper?” she asked, raising her voice a bit to be heard above the puffing steam engine as it worked to pick up speed.
He laughed, leaning back in his chair. “Even I, as fond of Fortnum’s as I am, thought three hampers was a bit thick. I’m hoping to sp
onge off you.”
“I haven’t looked in my basket yet.” She gave a sniff. “I don’t know if I want to share.”
“So you’ll let me starve?”
“You won’t starve. There’s a dining car. Or Joanna will share with you. You’ve become her new best friend, it seems.”
He leaned forward, moving closer to her. “Jealous?” he murmured. “Afraid you’re being displaced?”
“No!” she denied, her reply far too vehement. She was a bit jealous, she realized. How ghastly.
“Don’t worry,” he said as if reading her mind. “You’re still her favorite. I’m a very distant second.”
“Third,” she was happy to inform him. “Daddy is far ahead of you.”
“I stand corrected. So, won’t you share your lunch with me? C’mon, Edie,” he coaxed, “I brought you champagne and everything.”
“You are the most absurd man!” she said, but her voice was not nearly as stern as she would have liked. “And unlike my sister, I can’t be bribed.”
“But it’s an excellent vintage, the same one we were drinking that night in the garden.”
She glanced at Joanna, then leaned closer to him. “Keep your voice down,” she admonished. “You remember the vintage of the champagne we drank?”
“I remember everything about the night we met, Edie,” he said, his voice low in compliance with her request. “How could I not? It changed my life. The last time you and I drank champagne together, wonderful things happened. I’m hoping history repeats itself.”
“You mean if I drink it, you’ll leave?” She smiled sweetly. “Fetch the bottle.”
“You are quite determined to keep me at arm’s length, aren’t you?” He tilted his head, studying her. “I would dearly love to know why.”
“No,” she said with feeling, “you wouldn’t. The champagne notwithstanding,” she rushed on before he could pursue the point, “I’m not sure you’re playing fair. You are allying my sister on your side, which is two against one. Where is your British sense of sportsmanship?”
“I intend to employ all the weapons in my arsenal. And in her defense, Joanna isn’t who told me about your love of Fortnum and Mason.”
“Then how did you know?”
“Reeves, of course. I bought her a hamper, too. You see?” he added, as she gave a groan. “It’s not two on one, but three. You’ll be even more outnumbered once we reach home. I’ll have the other servants on my side as well. Soon, all of us will be aligned in a vast conspiracy to impel you to kiss me.”
Appalled, she straightened in her chair. “You can’t do that!” she cried. “You can’t!”
“What can’t he do?” Joanna’s voice called from across the aisle, intruding on their conversation and making Edie realize how loudly she’d spoken.
“It’s nothing, dearest,” she answered her sister, and leaned closer to Stuart once again. “You are not intending to tell the servants about our bet, surely?” she whispered.
“I already warned you, I will use whatever weapons I’ve got.”
“The servants have been answering to me for five years,” she said, rallying. “You think you can earn their loyalty in a matter of a few days?”
“I don’t have to earn it. I was born with it. I am the duke. Besides,” he added, leaning back in his seat with a grin, “Cecil’s a useless twit who can’t be dragged out of Scotland, and all the servants know it. So the hope of having an alternate heir to the dukedom will spur everyone at Highclyffe to the most shameless acts of matchmaking. You haven’t a prayer.”
Edie fell back in her seat, too horrified to reply. The ten days ahead suddenly seemed like a lifetime.
THEY ARRIVED BACK at Highclyffe just before teatime, and Edie made for her room straightaway, fearing that soon it would be the only refuge she had. But even the privilege of privacy usually accorded to a married woman in her boudoir wasn’t quite as private as she’d hoped.
She had barely changed into a pale pink dressing gown, dismissed Reeves—after offering yet another lecture on discretion where her husband was concerned—and lay down on her bed for a nap, before there was a rap on her door.
“May I come in?” Stuart’s voice, though muffled by the heavy door, was unmistakable, but before she could answer with a most emphatic refusal, he opened the door. “Are you dressed?” he asked through the opening.
Edie was off the bed in an instant. “No, I am not dressed!” she lied, hoping to stop him from coming in. “And you have no right to push into my room.”
“I’m not pushing in, I’m in the corridor. And since you’re not dressed, I’m not looking. I’m exercising true gentlemanly fortitude and staring at the carpet.”
His head was bent, and he did seem to be looking at the floor, and Edie sighed, giving it up. “For heaven’s sake, you don’t have to stare at the carpet, and I’m not naked, so stop imagining the possibility.”
“I’m always imagining that particular possibility,” he said, and opened the door wider, straightening to look at her. “I sat outside my tent in Kenya at night and imagined it quite often.”
“Oh, you did not.” He’d thought about her while he was in Africa? Naked? Her face grew hot, but at the same time, her heart gave a queer little leap in her chest that had nothing to do with embarrassment.
“Yes, Edie, I did.” He came in, but when he started to close the door, it was a step too far into her privacy for Edie to bear.
“Leave it open.”
His dark eyebrows lifted a bit at the sharp edge to her voice, but he didn’t quibble. “If you like,” he said, and pulled the door wide again. “I just didn’t think the corridor was an appropriate place to discuss my carnal imaginings about you while I was in the bush. And by the way,” he went on, meeting her eyes across the bedroom, “I have no intention of stopping that particular activity now that I’m home.”
The color in her cheeks deepened. She felt vulnerable, exposed, as if she really were naked. She wrapped the folds of pale pink silk more tightly around her and turned away, feeling the sudden, desperate need to do something. She walked to her dressing table, sat down, and began fiddling with the bottles as if selecting which hand cream to apply was suddenly the most important thing in the world.
“I’d ask what you thought about me while I was away,” he went on as she opened a jar, “but I’m reasonably certain you never spared me a thought.”
“That’s not true.” The words came out before she could stop them, and she wished she could take them back, for they made her feel even more vulnerable than before. “It would have been impossible,” she said, striving to sound offhand about it as she lifted her gaze to look at his reflection. “Everybody talked about you all the time. Your navigation of the Congo was in all the papers. And that butterfly you discovered was in all the scientific journals.”
He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, watching her face in the mirror, grinning in a way that made her wish even more that she’d held her tongue. “You read the scientific journals, do you?”
She opened the jar, scooped out a dollop of cream, and began rubbing it into her hands with wholly unnecessary vigor. “Was there something you wanted?” she asked, desperate to change the subject.
“Actually, yes. I came to ask if you would like to take tea with me on the terrace by the library?”
Her hands stilled at a memory of tea on the terrace. Something he’d said flashed through her mind.
Shall we, Edie? We are married, after all.
“Tea together?” she asked, striving to appear cool and indifferent as she looked at his reflection in the mirror. “Is this to be part of your two hours today?”
“I’m not intending to require it, if that’s what you mean. I simply thought having tea together would be a good opportunity for us to become better acquainted. And,” he added softly, “I have fond memories of t
hat terrace.”
There was tenderness in his face. It hurt to see that, for it made her think of what she might have had if Saratoga had never happened.
“I don’t think,” she said after a moment, “that tea on the terrace with you is a good idea.”
“It’s only tea, Edie. Joanna and her governess will be there, too.” He smiled a little. “So, you see? I’m foiled again in my desire to ravish you over the cucumber sandwiches.”
Heavens, if she couldn’t even sit down with him for something as innocuous as tea, the coming ten days would be unbearable. “You’re right, of course,” she said. “Give me a few moments, and I’ll join you on the terrace.”
He nodded and left, and Edie returned her attention to the mirror, noting her flushed face with some chagrin. The idea that he’d been imagining her naked body flustered her, flummoxed her, and made her afraid, but with a wholly different sort of fear than she was used to. It made her wonder what he would think if he saw the real thing, and she feared it would surely be a disappointment.
Which was a ridiculous fear indeed. Not only because he’d never have the chance to see her naked but also because she didn’t care in the least what he thought of her. Edie picked up her brush and started to push some wayward curls back from her forehead, but then she realized what she was doing and stopped. If she didn’t care what he thought, why was she primping?
Edie slapped down the brush, stood up, and tugged the bellpull for Reeves to help her change into a tea gown. As for ravishing her over the sandwiches, he could think it all he liked, but even without the presence of Joanna and Mrs. Simmons, he wouldn’t have a chance of success.
Chapter 10
WHEN STUART CAME out to the terrace, he found Joanna already there. With her was the same small, indomitable-looking, gray-haired lady he recognized from the Clyffeton train platform as Joanna’s governess. The girl’s introduction confirmed the fact.
“A pleasure to meet you at last, Mrs. Simmons. I see that you have returned from your aborted journey to Kent. I must offer you my apologies, for I fear I was the cause of your departure without your pupil.”
How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days Page 13
