by Bliss Bennet
Her eyes widened. How had Theo come to speak with such conviction? And on a topic upon which she’d not even schooled him?
A few moments of silence followed his speech. But slowly, heads began to nod. And then voices chimed with assent. And soon, the room buzzed with the sounds of practical, common sense compromise: extra constables for the day of the fete; a ban against all hard spirits; and the addition of more evening competitions, to keep the young men, the ones most prone to mischief, out of trouble.
Reverend Strickland remained in purported charge of the meeting. But it was Theo, not the rector, who guided its direction. Reminiscing with the older villagers; tossing in a light jest whenever tensions threatened to escalate; soliciting the opinions of each person at the table, including Mrs. Lacey and Harry—why, Theo even soothed the young clergyman’s wounded amour propre with the occasional judicious compliment. Their new lord might be lacking when it came to matters of money, but his open, expressive manners and natural enthusiasm went a long way towards creating harmony among the argumentative.
Before she even know it, the meeting had come to an end, with the entire room in agreement that the feast should continue. All thanks to Theo Pennington, who had never before bothered to involve himself in the affairs of his estate, or its tenants.
He did it for you, a ridiculous voice in her head whispered.
The wink he threw over his shoulder as he offered his arm to Mrs. Lacey at meeting’s end did nothing to calm her suddenly racing heart.
“About time you returned home, Theo Pennington, you sad scamp.” Mrs. Lacey took Theo’s arm and walked with him down the aisle of the nave to the church door. “To think of doing away with the fete! Such disrespect to the farm laborers, not to mention your own mother. How hard she worked to make it such an agreeable holiday for them. Reverend Strickland is an educated, earnest man, but a touch of your irreverence every now and again would do him the world of good. And his parishioners.”
Theo found it difficult not to grin like the veriest fool at the unexpected words of praise. And from the late rector’s wife, too, a lady whose approval had never been easily won. But today’s vestry meeting had gone well, surprisingly well. Almost as well as his talk with farmer Croft earlier in the week, when he’d decided to extend the farmer’s lease for another year. Perhaps, if he could trust Haviland and Mr. Atherton to see to the financial aspects of the estate, becoming an adequate, if not entirely estimable, viscount might not be completely beyond his grasp.
Theo patted the older woman’s hand where it lay on his arm. “Now, Mrs. Lacey, best be more stinting with your flattery, or you’ll soon have me on my knees, begging you to become my countess.”
“And you know how painful your inevitable refusal would be to his finer feelings,” Harry added as she joined them by the church door, smiling as she caught his eye over the smaller woman’s head.
Mrs. Lacey chuckled. “As if I’d ever wed a scoundrel such as he! Do you think I’ve forgotten how you stole the sheets off my line to make an effigy for Bonfire Night? And after you’d already sent your brothers, and even poor Harriot here, to beg a penny for the guy from me, too.”
Theo laughed, too, although part of that memory stuck as sharp as a pin. He’d always put Ben or Kit in charge of all pecuniary matters his childhood schemes might require, bestowing each task as if it were an honor to the brother chosen rather than a sign of his own ignorance. Oh, how they would fight for the privilege! And Harry, too, the times when they’d allowed her to join.
“A penny?” Sir John Mather bustled up the aisle. “It will take far more than a penny to pay for this day’s work, I vow.”
“Now Sir John, take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves,” Mrs. Lacey opined.
“Yes, yes, but who is to fund the extra constables, and the prizes for the additional games, I’d like to know?” Sir John continued, his voice fretful. “I am sure I am in no position to take on any more financial burdens. I pay far more than the size of my estate warrants as it is, Saybrook.”
Theo cursed the old man under his breath. Must he go and spoil Theo’s rare sense of accomplishment by nattering on about financial matters?
“That is a discussion to which my steward should be party, Sir John. And yours as well. When Miss Atherton’s father is feeling more the thing, they can sit down together and work out the particulars.”
“Yes, well.” Sir John’s booted foot kicked at a tuft of grass in the churchyard. “Haven’t got one anymore, now, have I.”
“No steward?” Harry exclaimed. “But what’s become of Mr. Burns?”
“Oh, you know these young men today.” Sir John waved a careless hand. “Can’t settle to anything for long. Besides, Haviland should be seeing to the affairs of what will one day be his own estate.”
“Then I will sit down with Haviland and discuss the fete and its costs when we dine together on Monday. And you are welcome to join us, Sir John, if you like.”
“Oh! You’ve invited young Mr. Mather to dine, have you?” Approval rang clear in Mrs. Lacey’s voice. “I did not think you wouldn’t cast off an old friend simply because he’d taken up gainful employment. But one never knows what affected airs a man will pick up after mixing with the quality in London.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sir John’s expression darken.
“Well, if I demanded all my friends be as indolent as myself, I’d hardly have any companions at all,” Theo said before the fellow could set off on another tedious lament over Haviland’s lowering choice of profession.
Mrs. Lacey grinned. “Nor any relations, either. A time-consuming task, being a political wife, but Miss Pennington was bred to it from the cradle. And your youngest brother will take orders before long. I do hope Kit’s new lady is a busy, useful sort of girl, one who will be able to support him in all the tasks that fall to the lot of a clergyman. Tell me, will they be visiting Saybrook soon? I am eager to make her acquaintance.”
Theo tried not to shudder at the thought of a meeting between Mrs. Lacey and Kit’s bride. Busy, useful sort of girl, indeed.
“Very soon, I’m certain. Ah, but here is Miss Atherton, waiting with infinite patience while we prate on, though she must be anxious to return home and see how her father fares. If you will excuse us, Mrs. Lacey? Sir John?”
After a nod to the knight and an comically chivalrous kiss on the hand for the widow, Theo tucked Harry’s gloved fingers in the crook of his elbow and made his escape.
They walked in surprisingly companionable silence through the village, he and Harry. With most people, he’d be quick to fill in any lag in the conversation with bright, meaningless chatter. But with her, somehow, the quiet did not strike him as so oppressive, so empty. How strange, to feel connected to another person, even when neither of them spoke a word.
As the lane left the village to wend its way through Saybrook pastureland, Harry cleared her throat. “I must thank you for coming today, and for speaking on behalf of the feast. Particularly since you’d no wish to become involved in Oldfield’s affairs.”
He shrugged. “Not worth a curse, I assure you.”
“No, truly. It was not nothing,” she insisted. “If you had not spoken in its favor, Mr. Strickland would have convinced the others to denounce it, if not call for its discontinuance altogether. And with such persuasive eloquence, too. I do not think even my father could have made a more convincing argument.”
“Now, Miss Atherton, must I caution you, as well as Mrs. Lacey, to be less free with your flattery?”
The brim of her bonnet was not large enough to hide the sweet blush that rose in her cheeks. Would she look so when Haviland, or some other lucky fellow, actually did propose?
But her embarrassment did not keep her from stopping in the lane and turning her eyes up to his. “It is not flattery when you’ve earned the praise, Theo.”
Why, she sounded almost angry. But not at him. No, she was upset on his behalf.
�
��Do you think just anyone can walk into a room of squabbling gentlemen and create accord amongst them with a few well-chosen words? It’s an admirable talent, that. Especially when you put it to good use as you did today.”
“As I so seldom do. Ah, do not protest, Miss ever-responsible Atherton. I can hear the reprimand lurking like a viper behind the praise. But you see, it is so very unpleasant to fail.”
She pinned him with narrowed eyes. “So rather than try and fail, you would rather not try at all?”
“Fewer apologies to make that way,” he offered with his most insouciant smirk.
Harry, though, did not laugh. “But what if you try and succeed? As you did today.”
He shrugged. “An altogether rare occurrence, I assure you.”
“Truly? When else have you failed?”
Hell’s teeth. When had he not?
And there Harry stood, asking him to reveal every instance to her. As if sharing those failures would somehow turn them into triumphs.
No. Taking responsibility for his misstep with her, and being forgiven, was one thing. But prying him open with her sympathy like a fishmonger shucking a clam was quite another. For she did not have the power to pardon all his other mistakes and faults.
He reached out a gloved hand and snatched the straw bonnet from her head and held it over his own. “I failed when I let scrawny Harry Atherton beat me every time we played tag. But you’ll find me quicker on my feet now than I was when we were children.”
With a laugh, he ducked under a fence rail, hat ribbons trailing in his wake.
“Theo Pennington! What in heaven’s name has come over you?” He caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye, setting her hands on his hips. “We’re a few days away from the full moon, and I know for a certainty that not a single intoxicating beverage graced the vestry this morning. An early case of midsummer madness, perhaps?”
Instead of replying to her question, he only dropped his own hat by the side of the lane and replaced it atop his head with hers.
Her eyes narrowing, she pursed her lips, hiked her skirts, and set off after him.
Success.
He led her on a merry chase, circling behind trees, pushing through hedgerows, skirting the swampy patches that had not yet fallen to the advancing army of drainage. Harry always had liked a good romp, even long after her parents had begun to chide her for such unladylike behavior. It was a kindness, really, to give her cause to race around like a wild creature every now and again.
He allowed her to come within striking distance once, then again, but shot off, laughing, before she could actually lay a hand on him. She huffed with annoyance, but gamely kept following, her chest rising and falling in a tempting display of her curves. Who would have guessed that teasing the proper Miss Atherton would prove so entertaining?
But as they came to a low hillock, she cried out, and stumbled, then fell to the ground in a heap.
His heart pounding, he raced back and dropped to his knees by her side. “Miss Atherton? Harry? Are you hurt?”
Damnation. Why did he always take things too far? With a gentle hand, he rolled her from her side to her back.
Instead of the expected grimace of pain, though, her lips were pursed as if she were about to be kissed.
As he leaned over, she released a puff of air, blowing a cloud of salsify seeds up into his face.
“Tag,” she said, barely able to get the word out for laughing.
He sat back on his heels, panting, batting away the ticklish seeds as he waited for the blood to stop ringing in his ears. “You do not play fair, Harriot Atherton. For a round of tag to end in the proper manner, the fellow who is ‘it’ must actually ‘tag’ his pursuer, not attack him with virulent herbage.”
Laughing even harder, she placed a hand on his shoulder then set her lips to his cheek. A casual touch, lighting as soft as a butterfly on a bloom, and fluttering away just as fast. Why then should it make him feel as if an entire kaleidoscope of the creatures had taken wing in his chest?
Harry’s head pulled away, but her eyes could not seem to break free of his own. He stared at her, gaze roving from her high, flushed cheekbones, the plushness of her lips, to the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat. Then, back to those brownish, greenish, goldish eyes as the friendliness in them gradually faded, replaced by a question he wasn’t sure he knew quite how to answer.
Until he found himself moving forward, pressing his lips to hers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Unfamiliar. Strange. Dangerous.
But so very, very tempting, Theo Pennington’s kiss. Almost instantly reducing Harry to a trembling puddle, those soft, warm lips against hers. Was it possible that another’s touch could make a person vibrate right out of her own skin?
To her confusion, and her shame, Harry had been kissing Theo Pennington almost every night—in her dreams. But they’d only been pictures, those night visions, without any depth or dimension. For how could she have imagined the sounds—the rustle of her skirts as he pulled her into his lap, the groan deep in his throat as he nibbled his way along her lower lip, the sigh in her own as he cradled the back of her head in his broad, gloved palms. Or the scents—sun-warmed grass, the lemon and bergamot of his eau de cologne, the underlying musk of their summer sweat. Or, as her lips parted and he delved into her mouth, the taste—salt and sunshine and the sharp bite of his morning tea, redolent with unfamiliar spice. Intoxicating, stunning, to sense so much, all at the same time . . .
Pleasure, rich and golden as the sweetest clover honey, flowed through her veins as she stilled for his exploration. And then she was the honey, heated, boiling over drop by sensual drop into the welcome of his mouth, to be devoured by their mutual desire.
Her fingers twined themselves in his wheaten curls when his bare hands—when had she taken off her gloves? when had he?—began an exploration of their own, thumbing the curve of her throat, gripping the span of her waist, surging upward over her stays to whisper over the tops of her breasts. Wanton that she was, she arched into his touch.
And then she was kissing him, too, slanting her mouth over his, honey fermenting into the most intoxicating of meads. No longer languid, but urgent in her need.
So urgent, the pounding of her blood echoed in the very air.
Or was it his?
She stilled. No. Neither. It was the beating of a horse’s hooves against the hard-packed dirt of the lane.
She jerked her mouth away and stared at the man below her. Swollen lips, tousled hair, pupils wide with want. And a hand sliding up the column of her neck, even now tempting her to fall back down into the lulling depths of his kiss.
Her lips trembled. Heaven help her, had she learned nothing from that excruciating experience with Lieutenant Chamberlayne in Brighton? To be practically trysting with a man of Theo Pennington’s rakish reputation, and in the middle of a public way, no less. And he a man who might have cause to send her father to gaol, or even an asylum.
After untwining her hands from his hair, she tried to stand. But his arms pulled her back. “Harry?” he asked, his voice husky and low. “What’s the matter?”
His grasp loosened, though, as the sound of the oncoming rider grew more pronounced. With a muttered curse, he sat up, then slid her gently off his lap.
She scrambled to her feet, searching for her abandoned gloves. There, by the hedge of hazel. Did she have time to brush down her skirts and still pull them back over her shaking fingers? Yes, just, before an unfamiliar horseman trotted around the bend in the lane.
“Benedict!” Theo called out as the rider pulled up his mount directly beside them. “What the deuce are you doing in Lincolnshire?”
She wished she might hide in the hedge. For it wasn’t just a stranger who had almost discovered them trysting in the lane. It was Theo’s own brother.
Benedict Pennington, one beaver hat upon his head and another tucked under his arm, swung down from the saddle. “Retrieving your possessions, it would seem
,” he said as he placed the hat he carried firmly atop his brother’s head. “At least I’m assuming this is yours. Who else would be heedless enough to leave one of Mr. James Lock’s famed creations just sitting about on a fencepost?”
“Who else indeed,” Theo said with a laugh. “And encouraging others to be just as rash, too, alas.” He stooped to retrieve her own bonnet before his brother’s inquisitive horse could snatch it up between its teeth. “Miss Atherton, you remember my brother Benedict?”
She grabbed her hat back from Theo with a wince, then dipped into her most graceful curtsey. “Welcome home, Mr. Pennington. Have you come to keep your brother company?”
Benedict Pennington gave a short nod. “Henry Atherton’s chit, isn’t it? No, Miss Atherton, I’m not here to provide companionship for Lord Saybrook, of that you may be certain.”
Benedict Pennington’s scathing air made her polite response catch in her throat. Angry, no doubt, to find his brother alone with the daughter of his steward. Or, even worse, had he come to help Theo search for the missing money?
“If you’ve done being rude for the moment, shall we walk on to the house?” Theo asked with his usual good cheer. “Assuming that Saybrook House is your intended destination, Ben?”
Benedict Pennington only grunted.
This abrupt, stern-faced man did not remind her at all of the kindly youth she’d nursed the most painful calf-love for all those years ago. Her gaze swept back and forth between the brothers, trying to reconcile her memories of them as boys with the two men who now stood beside her.
How could he remain unaffronted by the brusqueness of his brother’s manner?
But the affable Theo only winged an arm toward Harry, who placed her own hand decorously atop it. And to think, just moments before that very hand had been plunged deep into his thick hair. She could only imagine the harsh words his brother would have vouchsafed them if he’d come across them in the midst of that shocking embrace.
