by Jane Feather
“My dear Meredith.” Patience bustled over to her. “What excitement!” She fanned herself busily, plump, beringed fingers curling around the ivory sticks. “Such attention as he paid you. Quite unlooked for! ”
“Quite,” Meredith agreed drily, then, seeing the flash of surprise in Lady Barrat’s eyes, moderated her tone. “It was a mere kindness on his part, Patience,” she fluttered, dropping her gaze, playing with her fan with a fair assumption of embarrassment. “He happened to meet Rob yesterday and was kind enough to say that he found the young scapegrace quite engaging.” It was half true, at least!
“Oh, I see.” Patience was clearly relieved at such a simple explanation for an extraordinary circumstance. “We are all sensible of your difficulties, my dear.” Her voice dropped confidingly. “Sir Algernon, you know, would be most willing to offer advice. A single woman is not equipped to manage growing boys.”
“You will thank Sir Algernon for me,” Meredith said with a demure smile. “Such consideration quite overwhelms me.” Her fan moved rapidly, hiding the flash of irritation in her eyes. Now, more than ever, she was determined not to reveal her carriage-less state to her hostess. Patience was clearly expecting her to make her farewells. It was hardly seemly for the widow to be amongst the last guests, but Meredith smiled blandly, turning toward the terrace. With any luck, Patience would be so occupied with bidding farewell to the others that she would not remember Lady Blake. She had simply to slip through the doors into the garden and make a discreet escape. It was but three miles home, easily walked in less than an hour even in thin slippers and an evening gown. Patience would just assume that she had left in her usual retiring fashion, too shy to intrude with her own farewells. A polite note of thanks on the morrow would satisfy the courtesies.
Her disappearance was simply accomplished for one accustomed to moving with speed and stealth and taking advantage of what cover was available. It was a soft night, heavy with the scent of honeysuckle, and, once clear of the house, Merrie, with a blissful sense of release from captivity, sat on a bank to remove her stockings and slippers, the better to enjoy her solitary walk. She was about to tuck the skirts of the loathed bombazine into the legs of her frilled pantalettes to free her stride when the unmistakable clop of hooves rang from around the corner of the paved road.
Merrie’s heart sank as she thought of the picture she must present. There was little hope that the rider would not know her. Strangers were not wont to be abroad at this time of night, and she would be a familiar figure to any resident for miles around. There was nowhere to hide, except the muddy ditch, but, for once, there was nothing illegal about her presence on the road in the middle of the night. Small comfort, perhaps—the sight of her would set the gossips’ tongues to running. The sound came closer and she pushed her shoes and stockings behind her on the bank—no time to put them on again. Inspiration would come, it usually did, but the explanation for her plight would depend on the identity of her discoverer. A local farmer would require something less elaborate than a fellow guest at the hunt ball. Tucking her bare feet beneath her skirts, Lady Blake sat upon the bank, a veritable picture of patience-in-waiting, as the horse and rider drew near.
“The deuce take it!” an all-too-familiar voice exclaimed. “If it isn’t Lady Blake, taking her ease by the roadside.” He sat the most magnificent black Meredith had ever seen, one hand resting casually on his hip, the other holding the reins loosely. Those eyebrows lifted quizzically, and his mouth curved in a smile that contained more than a hint of triumph.
Meredith gnashed her teeth in impotent fury. Anyone else she could have dealt with easily, but she had already developed the unwelcome conviction that, in Lord Rutherford, Merrie Trelawney was in danger of meeting her match. “I am sure you think it a most singular circumstance, Lord Rutherford,” she said stiffly.
“Well, yes,” he said with due consideration. “I think that I do.” He dismounted. “May I join you? You look most comfortable.” The gods had decided to smile on him at last, Damian thought complacently. What a stroke of good fortune to catch the deceptive little widow at such a monumental disadvantage. She could feign as many swoons as she wished, out here in the middle of the night, and they would do her not a whit of good.
Maybe an appeal to chivalry would work, Merrie thought rapidly and without much hope. “It is most embarrassing, my lord, to be discovered in this position.” A slight shudder shook the slender shoulders. “I cannot tell you how mortifying I find it, but I must beg you to continue on your way.” The long eyelashes batted vigorously, the full lips trembled beseechingly. “Pray continue on your way, my lord, so that I may continue on mine.”
“You cannot expect me to be so unchivalrous as to abandon a lady in such a plight,” he remonstrated, spying her shoes and stockings on the bank behind her. Now why the devil was she not wearing them? A bubble of laughter threatened his composure.
Meredith saw the direction of his gaze and bit her lip crossly. There was no possible explanation but the truth for that embarrassment. “I find it easier to walk barefoot,” she offered.
“But of course,” he responded smoothly. “Quite understandable. I am sure you have a perfectly good reason for nighttime peregrinations, also?”
Merrie, abandoning the masquerade, spoke acidly. “Since you are aware of that fact, sir, I suggest you accept my reasons as both sufficient and not your concern.”
It was not a suggestion that suited Lord Rutherford in the least. One did not look gift horses in the mouth and, if ever he had encountered a gift horse, it was now. He shook his head. “No, Lady Blake, I am not to be so easily dismissed. I will escort you home.”
Merrie wished she could stand up, straighten her shoulders, and walk away from him. To do so, she would either have to hitch up her skirt and petticoat and put on her stockings or pick up both shoes and stockings and proceed, barefoot and bare-legged. Neither alternative was a remote possibility. “I require no escort, sir. You need have no fears for my safety. I know the road and am well-known in these parts, so I am unlikely to be molested.”
Lord Rutherford thought, with an inner chuckle, that he had no fears for her safety. For some reason that he couldn’t yet fathom, he was convinced that Merrie Trelawlney was more than capable of taking a care for herself. But that consideration was not the point of this exchange. He was owed a victory and was disinclined to give it up, not when it hung ready for the picking. “I do beg your pardon, Lady Blake, but I find myself quite unable to leave you here.” He smiled apologetically. “Some quite ridiculous, and I’m sure unnecessary, notions of propriety prevent me.”
“Rules of propriety pertaining in London society, sir, do not apply in the wilds of Cornwall,” Meredith snapped. “You will have a miserable time of it during your visit here if you uphold such lofty standards.”
“I will remember your advice.” Lord Rutherford rose, bowed, picked up her discarded footwear. “You will find it more comfortable to ride if you replace your shoes and stockings,” he said, dropping them in her lap.
Meredith blinked, as if to dispel this dreamlike sensation of being quite out of control of the situation. “Lord Rutherford, I do not think you can have heard me correctly—unless your wits are quite addled—by Sir Algernon’s brandy, perhaps?” Mobile eyebrows lifted, all thoughts of caution dissipated under an anger that was as much defensive as aggressive.
“Both my wits and my hearing are perfectly sharp,” he assured her. “Yours, on the other hand, appear to be a trifle slow this evening.” Dropping on one knee in front of her, he took a stocking out of her lap. Even as she sat, transfixed on the bank, he possessed himself of one foot and then, with a skill that bespoke practice, slipped the stocking over the foot, smoothing out the wrinkles as he eased it over both ankle and calf, calmly pushing up her skirt to facilitate his progress. Meredith, after a moment’s frozen horror when she watched his fingers sliding up her bare leg, feeling the stroking warmth smoothing over her skin, lashed out. Her flat palm, p
owered with the full force of her arm, cracked against his cheek.
The gray eyes closed for an instant, his head falling back under the blow, but the hands remained on her leg. “You would do well to remember, Merrie Trelawney, that that is the one and only time you will do such a thing without my permission.” The voice was level, his face, seared with the scarlet mark of her hand, quite expressionless. And the top of her stocking reached her thigh.
She wanted to hit him again more than she had ever wanted to do anything in her life but, to her utter fury, found that she did not dare. The note of chill certainty in his voice was one she had never heard before although it would have been familiar enough to any man under the command of Colonel, Lord Rutherford. Desperately, she tugged at her imprisoned leg, bracing herself with her hands on the bank beside her. The maneuver achieved nothing, and her garter slipped over the top of her stocking before her unlikely maid turned his attention to her other leg.
“I could kill you,” she declared in a choked whisper. “How dare you do this to me?”
“You gave me little option,” he said coolly, “having refused to do it for yourself. There now.” Her slippers slid over her feet, her skirt and petticoat were pulled down to her ankles, and Lord Rutherford stood up, extending his hand. “On your feet, Lady Blake.” His fingers snapped imperatively.
Quivering with temper, Merrie turned her head away from him in mute defiance. “Dear me,” he said, shaking his head in mild exasperation. “You do not appear to be an apt pupil at all.” He bent and, before she had time to realize his intention, scooped her up into his arms. Forgetting his unspoken warning, Merrie slapped him again. There was an instant of dreadful silence during which she fancied she could still hear the resounding crack of her flat palm. Then he spoke very softly. “I repeat, Merrie Trelawney, you are not an apt pupil. You will not, I trust, deny my right to retaliate.” Meredith was speechless, shaking now with fright rather than rage as he set her down, standing her against the trunk of an oak tree. Both of her wrists were seized in one large hand, and she stood sandwiched between the tree and what suddenly seemed to be an alarmingly broad, sinewy body, radiating strength and determination.
Merrie forced herself to meet his eyes. She could not begin to imagine what form the retaliation would take, but she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear. A long-fingered hand encircled the slender column of her neck, the thumb feeling the wildly beating pulse at the base of her throat. “Mmmm,” he murmured, smiling slightly. Meredith did not, however, find the smile reassuring. “What exactly are you, Merrie Trelawney?” It was clearly a rhetorical question since, before she could reply, she found herself unable to do so. His mouth came down on hers, the pressure bending her head back, holding her immobile against the tree, the grip on her wrists tightening as she fought back in a wash of panic. Meredith thought she would suffocate under the bruising punishment of a kiss that pressed her lips against her teeth, her body against his length so close she could feel the rapid thud of his heart against her breast, the power of his thighs forcing her to be still. Then abruptly the pressure ceased although he continued to hold her. The lips on hers softened, the hand at her throat stroked gently before moving downward, gliding over the swell of her breasts beneath the stiff material of her gown. Merrie felt herself tremble deep within her at some core she had not known she possessed. She trembled, not with anger or fear this time, but with some sensation previously unknown to her. His tongue ran over her lips gently, then more insistently, demanding entrance. The hand at her bosom traced the outline of her breasts, circled their tips with knowing urgency until her nipples peaked hard and her lips parted to receive the exploration of a muscular tongue.
After what seemed an eternity of sensation, Rutherford straightened slowly, raising his head to look down at the stunned, heart-shaped face below. The sloe eyes were bemused, the full lips kiss-reddened, the ivory complexion tinged with pink. What had started out as retribution had taken a most definite turn in the reverse direction, he reflected, absentmindedly running a finger over the bridge of her freckled nose. “I think that perhaps you had better make a habit of slapping me,” he said with a smile. “I found the consequences most pleasant.”
“I did not,” Merrie denied in a stifled voice, turning her head away.
“Liar,” he accused, gently and without rancor. “But I’ll not prove it to you again tonight, much as I would like to. Let us go.” Taking her elbow, he turned her toward Saracen. “Do you prefer to ride pillion or before me?”
Meredith swallowed. “I prefer to walk—alone!”
“I should find it easier to have you before me,” Lord Rutherford continued as if she had not spoken. “Up with you.” Catching her by the waist, he lifted her onto the saddle with the firm injunction to hold the pommel. The black stood at least twenty hands, Merrie thought, looking down at the distant ground, wondering if she dared leap from her perch. “If you do, I shall simply put you back again,” her companion said, reading her thoughts with infuriating accuracy. He then swung up behind, reaching around her for the reins, asking with formal solicitude, “Are you quite comfortable, Lady Blake?”
Meredith, who did not think she had ever been less comfortable in her life, did not deign to reply. Chuckling, Damian nudged Saracen’s flanks and the horse moved forward, clearly unperturbed by his double burden.
Meredith found an arm at her waist. While common sense told her that it was necessary for her safety, all the sweet reason in the world could not slow her heartbeat or dissolve the goose bumps prickling her back at the inevitable close contact with Lord Rutherford’s broad chest.
Her companion coughed apologetically. “Could you furnish me with directions, Lady Blake? I am not familiar with the neighborhood, I am afraid.”
With a supreme effort, Merrie pulled herself together. “It would be both quicker and less conspicuous, sir, if we were to leave the road and travel as the crow flies. I do not care to be discovered in this enforced and compromising position.”
“Oh, but surely no one in this county would think anything of it,” he said blandly. “Now, if it were London ... But you were kind enough to advise me that rules of propriety in the wilds of Cornwall are considerably less strict.”
Meredith bit her lip. Would she ever have the last word? “If you will take the next gap in the hedge to your left, we may follow the bridle path.”
“As you command, ma’am.” Rutherford, for his part, was no stranger to the contours of the female frame, but he was finding the proximity of Lady Blake both disconcerting and distracting. There was a lithe suppleness to her, a vibrant tension in her body where it touched his, a muscular vibrancy rarely found in the fair sex, and his hands still carried the memory of her breasts, small and shapely beneath that hideous bodice.
Such thoughts did not allow for conversation. Once they had attained the bridle path, complete silence reigned until they broke through a small copse of young birch trees onto a gravel driveway leading to a long, low building, dark and silent under the moon.
Damian drew in Saracen, and into the silence came the unmistakable roar and crash of breakers. The salt tang of the sea filled the air, the night breeze was fresher, tipped with moisture. “Where is the sea?” he asked, frowning into the gloom.
“Beyond the house,” Meredith replied. “Pendennis stands atop the cliff, its back to the sea. We have approached it from inland.” It had been a civil enough question, deserving of a civil response, but now her voice sharpened. “If you will allow me to dismount here, Lord Rutherford, I may make my own way to the house in complete safety as you can see.”
“Indeed,” he agreed, swinging promptly to the ground. “I should be sorry to think I was the only one to enjoy our ride.” Reaching up, he took her by the waist again.
Meredith, to her annoyance, felt herself blush as he lifted her down, felt her body tense in anticipation as he held onto her after her feet touched ground. Then he was bowing to her with impeccable formality, an
d, thoroughly flustered, she returned a curtsy.
Knowing laughter gleamed in the gray eyes. “Would you perhaps have preferred another kiss, my lady?”
Merrie’s jaw dropped. “You are insufferable, Lord Rutherford.” Swinging on her heel, she walked away toward the house.
Damian stood, watching until she had disappeared around the side of the building. What an intriguing kettle of fish he had stumbled upon. A lively, attractive, unconventional young woman who, for reasons known only to herself, pretended to be a reclusive dowd. But, unless he was much mistaken, beneath that prim exterior ran a well of passion as yet barely touched. He had scratched the surface just a little tonight. What would be revealed if he persevered? Of one thing Lord Rutherford was convinced, there would be much pleasure in the persevering.
Yes, the cultivation of Lady Blake was going to provide considerable entertainment, he decided as he remounted and turned his horse back to the copse. His lordship was in sore need of diversion these days to keep the bleak sense of futility at bay, the sense that his usefulness was over, that life held only the prospect of the annual society round, the Season, marriage, succession to his father’s title, producing his own heirs, overseeing his estates, engaging in combat with nothing more dangerous than hand-reared pheasants. His lips curled. No, for a while he would remain in Cornwall amusing himself with the widow. He had ended this night the victor, well revenged for her earlier insults. Tomorrow, he would approach from another quarter. He could afford a little placation, a little softness, and, if conscience reared its ugly head, it could be quietened with the reminder that the widow had begun the game. She would receive only what she had invited. Whistling cheerfully, Lord Rutherford went home to his bed.
