Romancing the Countess

by Ashley March

  Chapter 6

  Tell me again, darling. Tell me a hundred times, a thousand. I will never forget the first time you whispered it in my ear. It will never be enough. Tell me you love me.

  It could have been a beautiful day. The late-morning sun shone brightly overhead. A fleet of pristine white clouds drifted lazily across the sky. An early autumnal wind swayed the leaves on their branches, quietly stirred the water, and sifted gently through Sebastian’s hair.

  It would have been a beautiful day, if not for the black figure marring his view of the landscape: the formerly inconsequential Leah George, who’d quickly managed to make herself into a pestilence.

  How innocent she appeared, from the tip of her black parasol to the hem of her black skirts. In fact, he could have applauded her—she used the widow’s veil to add to her facade of quiet rectitude, the crepe lending her solemnity while lies issued one after another from her mouth.

  “. . . boating at Linley Park was one of his favorite pastimes . . .

  “. . . and we thought he’d gone missing, only to discover he’d spent the entire afternoon on the lake.”

  His gaze followed her gesture toward the four wooden skiffs bobbing at the lake’s edge. Various male servants had been summoned from the house to attend to the guests, and each one stood with a rope in his hands, mooring the boats to the shore.

  “Once he was gone, I found a few pieces of poetry he must have written while he was out here. About a bird landing on the bow, of the different colors of the water throughout each of the seasons. Of the immense peace he felt in his soul when he was alone on the lake.”

  Head swiveling, Sebastian stared incredulously at Leah. There were lies, and then there were gaudy, excessive leaps of imagination. Ian might have been known for his recitations of poetry and literature, but he did it solely to gain favor with the ladies. The only poem Sebastian had ever known him to write was a limerick about a sailor’s whore and a wooden dick.

  “Oh, how lovely they sound,” Mrs. Meyer said, the other ladies concurring with her. “Perhaps you might read them to us this evening?”

  “I . . .” Leah made an inarticulate noise. Though the others likely assumed she’d been overcome with emotion, Sebastian preferred to think it was the sound of sputtering. “Yes, of course. Perhaps. But I’ve spoken for too long. With four boats, I believe it best to split everyone into two groups of two and two groups of three, with the gentlemen as the oarsmen.”

  She paused, and even with the parasol mostly obscuring her profile, he could see the calculating tilt of her head as she determined how to divide the guests. No matter where she placed him, he planned on refusing her direction. Besides being curious bits of fancy, her lies made it clear he couldn’t trust any decisions she made.

  Boating. Ian’s favorite pastime, for God’s sake.

  “Miss Pettigrew, Mrs. Thompson, why don’t you join Mr. Dunlop?” she directed. “Lord Elliot and Mrs. Meyer in the next boat. Mr. Meyer, Lady Elliot, and Lord Wriothesly. Which then leaves myself and Lord Cooper-Giles.” Her parasol shifted, and a beam of sunlight pierced through her veil to expose the small smile she aimed at the baron. “That is, if you don’t mind listening to me reminisce about Mr. George for a while.”

  “Of course not, madam,” Cooper-Giles replied. “It would be my pleasure.”

  Sebastian crossed his arms and frowned. It wasn’t that the unmarried Cooper-Giles was a scoundrel who might influence Leah to further corruption and scandal; in fact, besides his proclivity for gossip, the young baron probably had the truest moral compass of them all. No, it was Leah he worried about. No matter how well she tried to pretend, he doubted five minutes would pass before Cooper-Giles discovered how singularly happy she was to have a dead husband rather than a live one.

  “I apologize, Mrs. George,” Sebastian said, stepping forward. “If I had known about the boating excursion earlier, I would have spared you some trouble. You see, I’m afraid I can’t join you. Motion sickness, you understand. But I don’t mind standing here—alone—and watching. I’m sure it will be just as amusing.”

  The sun highlighted the corner of her mouth and the curve of her cheek as her chin slowly lifted toward him. Her eyes remained shadowed behind the veil. “Why, Lord Wriothesly. I’m very sorry. How dreadful a malady.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “My cousin Herbert is exactly the same way,” Mrs. Meyer volunteered. Sebastian smiled at her.

  “Is he?” Leah asked. “I must confess, I’d heard of becoming ill at sea, but never on an inland body of water.”

  “Oh, yes. Even the smallest waves upset him terribly.”

  “How extraordinary,” Leah murmured before looking once again at Sebastian. “Of course we understand, Lord Wriothesly, but I wouldn’t dream of asking you to stay here by yourself. Perhaps you would prefer to retire to the house until the boating ends?”

  Sebastian waved his hand. “No, no. I’ll be fine, as long as I don’t go on the lake.” Glancing around at the other guests, he added, “Please, enjoy yourselves. I’ll just stay here.”

  Miss Pettigrew looked hesitantly at Leah, then at Sebastian. “Mrs. Thompson and I would be happy to keep you company, if you like.”

  Almost immediately Mr. Dunlop, who had been assigned as the oarsman for Miss Pettigrew and her companion, offered, “I will stay as well.”

  Sebastian raised a brow. Mr. Dunlop wasn’t being very subtle in his pursuit of Miss Pettigrew. Sebastian sighed and shook his head. “But I wouldn’t wish to spoil the day,” he said. “Mrs. George clearly wished for her guests to enjoy boating on the lake . . . just as Ian did.”

  As Mrs. Meyer opened her mouth to speak, Sebastian suspected everyone might soon return to the house. After all, an earl still curried more favor and ingratiation than the lower-ranking widow of a viscount’s son, regardless of how eloquently she spoke of her deceased spouse.

  But Leah interceded. “Nonsense. I will stay here with you, Lord Wriothesly. Miss Pettigrew, Mrs. Thompson, and Mr. Dunlop will go boating as planned. Lord Elliot, Mr. Meyer, and Mrs. Meyer will go in the second boat, with Lord Cooper-Giles and Lady Elliot in the third.”

  Sebastian gave her a nod. “Thank you, Mrs. George. That’s very kind.”

  “Please, my lord,” she murmured. “You were Ian’s closest friend, so dear to him. How could I ever abandon you? He would think I had betrayed your friendship, something he would never have done.”

  Sebastian stiffened. How sweet and beguiling her tone as she fired the first volley. A reminder of Ian’s betrayal, of the reason Sebastian had to endure her presence during this little house party: to conceal both his friend’s and his wife’s unfaithfulness. It had been meant to wound, and she had met her mark.

  Although he couldn’t help but flinch at her words, he was careful to maintain a polite expression before the others. Once they turned toward the lake, he followed Leah to a stone bench shaded by the meandering branches of a yew tree, ducking beneath her parasol when it would have pierced his eye—and not accidentally, he suspected. The other guests stepped into the boats with the help of the servants. Baron Cooper-Giles looked remarkably relieved, he noticed, to not have to listen to Leah muse on and on about Ian for the next hour or so.

  Beside him, Leah cleared her throat. “I should apologize,” she said quietly.

  Sebastian watched a servant give the third boat a push from the shore.

  “I was very much looking forward to the boating. I didn’t expect you to sabotage me.”

  “Did you not satisfy him in bed?” Sebastian asked abruptly. Needing to place the blame somewhere. Wanting to hurt her as well.

  He sensed her go rigid, saw her hand grip the parasol tighter out of the corner of his eye. “If you are implying he sought out Lady Wriothesly because I—”

  “That’s exactly what I’m implying.” He shouldn’t have sat so close to her. He could smell her again, that clean, soapy, strictly unfeminine scent. “It’s a valid assumption, since you’ve nev
er had children. Could he not bear to touch you? You’re not beautiful like she was, or soft and womanly. And you’re loud. Hell, you don’t even smell like a proper woman. Angela—”

  “Yes, my lord? I’m sure you mean to continue telling me how she was the ideal wife? A paragon of virtue, perhaps?”

  “She . . .” Sebastian set his jaw. When would he cease thinking of Angela as the woman he’d wanted her to be?

  He refused to look at Leah. But he could feel her stare, and twin lines of heat scored his upper cheeks. No other person had ever made him so easily ashamed; then again, he’d never had reason to regret his behavior before. She’d meant to apologize, and he hadn’t even allowed her that courtesy. He forgot to leash his fury around her, forgot to be a gentleman.

  “I suppose I could ask whether you satisfied Lady Wriothesly as well,” Leah continued, “but I truly don’t want to know.”

  Sebastian watched Mr. Meyer and Lord Elliot attempt to synchronize their oar strokes.

  He and Leah sat beside each other on the stone bench, the sun sneaking through the tree’s cover to dapple the ground with random beams of soft, golden light. One minute after another passed, until the sound of her breathing next to him seemed to enter his subconscious with a quiet permanence, and he could predict the spacing of each slow inhalation.

  Out on the lake, Miss Pettigrew laughed prettily at something Mr. Dunlop said.

  Sebastian shifted, uneasy with the silence beneath the yew tree, one that became even louder after the echoes of laughter died away. Even strained and oppressive, it felt too intimate. He might be curious about her motives, might need to know why she behaved as she did so he could prevent her future foolishness, but he didn’t want to know her like this. Not her scent, nor the pattern of her breathing, nor even the calm dignity she maintained when responding to an undeserved attack.

  In the end, it was she who spoke first, her voice light and ironic. As if they were simply two ordinary people engaging in an ordinary conversation. “With your illness, I assume you didn’t go boating with Ian much.”

  Sebastian turned his head toward her, his posture easing as he gave her a small smile. “No, not quite.”

  She, too, looked at him, and this close, even with her veil as a mask, he could see her face. The sherry tint of her brown eyes. The slim point of her nose. The overfull decadence of her mouth, as if God had felt guilty for not giving her any feminine curves elsewhere.

  Grimacing at this detailed analysis of her features, Sebastian focused again on her eyes. Her rather plain, unexceptional brown eyes. “In fact, I don’t remember going boating with Ian at all. Or seeing him go boating. Or hearing of him boating. Rather, I distinctly recall Ian telling me how he feared any body of water larger than a stream after his near-drowning incident as a boy.”

  Leah blinked. “Oh. Well, that’s most unfortunate.”

  “Unfortunate that he didn’t like boating, or that I caught you in a lie?”

  “The first, of course. Then again, you’re the only one here who would have known. I made sure to invite only those who weren’t close to Ian. And obviously even I didn’t know him as well as I thought, since he never confided his fear to me.”

  He’d never told anyone else, as far as Sebastian knew. Ian only informed him when Sebastian had found him shivering and crying after the Eton masters made everyone participate in a swimming competition one day.

  “And the poetry . . .”

  Cocking her head to the side, she gave her parasol a lazy twirl. “I suppose I did get carried away, didn’t I?” Then her mouth curled upward in a coy, flirtatious little smile. He stared, discomfited by the realization that Leah George knew how to give a coy, flirtatious smile.

  Shrugging, she looked out over the lake again. “As I said, I wanted to go boating.”

  “I see. Dare I ask what’s next in store for us? Did Ian also like to knit, or paint watercolors, or compose hymns in his spare time?”

  She slid him a sidelong glance from behind the veil. “Tarot cards. He loved to read tarot cards.”

  He groaned, and she laughed.

  “I can be quite magnanimous, though. As his dearest friend, you’re more than welcome to suggest activities Ian preferred.”

  Activities Ian preferred . . . Well, there was fishing, and hunting. Dancing and playing cards. And then there was fucking Sebastian’s wife.

  “No,” he said.

  Leah nodded, her gaze settled once again on the others. “Miss Pettigrew and Mr. Dunlop seem to get along rather well, don’t you agree?”

  He didn’t give a damn about Miss Pettigrew and her potential suitor, not when his mind had suddenly become too busy torturing him with lurid images of Angela and Ian—of him pleasuring her with his hands, of her bucking beneath his thrusts. The good mood he’d been inclined to indulge in abruptly disappeared. “Tell me, Mrs. George. If you wanted to go boating, why not simply go boating? You have servants to accompany you. Why invite scandal by hosting a house party? Why disregard my request for this?”

  She didn’t speak.

  “I am not accustomed to being ignored.”

  Without warning, she stood and strode from the bench. Sebastian followed. As he opened his mouth to question her again, she whirled toward him.

  “My apologies, my lord. I believe the boating excursion is almost over, and our picnic—” She took a deep breath, then smiled. It was a small, polite gesture, and for once, Sebastian found himself missing the grand, obscenely extravagant curve of her lips. “I do hope you enjoy it,” she finished, then turned away.

  There weren’t many trees on this side of the Linley Park estate. Near the chalk hills, the land was mostly rolling grassland, with only a few oaks and yews dotting the landscape.

  To keep the guests shaded during the picnic, the servants constructed an awning and laid out food on tables below: lobster tails, poached chicken, iced champagne, berry tarts, fresh custard with cream, and more. Satisfied, Leah dismissed the servants and returned the few yards’ distance to the lake.

  Wriothesly was helping Lady Elliot and Baron Cooper-Giles out of their boat, with the other two vessels rowing to shore close behind. Though she stood still as she waited, a slight breeze lifting and teasing the hem of her veil, her heart continued to thump erratically inside her chest.

  It wouldn’t be difficult to tell him the reason why she’d decided to host the house party. After the welt of humiliation from being compared to Angela, explaining her loneliness couldn’t have made the wound to her pride any more painful. If he would be willing to listen, he might appreciate the careful thought she’d given to how she could host the party with the least amount of scandal possible, how she’d even written Viscount Rennell for his permission first. Yes, she might have planned the activities for her own pleasure, but everyone believed she did it to honor Ian’s memory. In terms of reprehensible behavior, she had a far way to go to either disgracing herself or raising suspicion about the affair.

  Still, even though the truth might appease him, she couldn’t help wanting to keep a little of herself locked away. For two years she’d given while Ian took. Although she’d tried after a while to hide her feelings from him, to show him nothing but polite courtesy, she knew by the regretful way he looked at her sometimes and the thoroughness of his lovemaking that he saw everything. Her anger, her sadness, the fading hope that one day he would end the affair and return to her. Even if it was only loneliness she felt now, didn’t she have a right to leave that small piece of vulnerability unspoken?

  “What a marvelous idea,” Lady Elliot exclaimed as she caught sight of Leah. “I can well understand why Mr. George enjoyed boating here so much.”

  With the same smile she’d pasted on for Wriothesly, Leah gestured toward their makeshift pavilion. “I’m so glad you liked it, my lady. It’s such a beautiful day, I thought we might also have a picnic.”

  Lady Elliot, middle-aged with an inquisitive beak of a nose and a wry pinch at the corners of her mouth, leaned
in. “If I may be honest, Mrs. George . . .”

  “Please,” she said, her shoulders stiffening. God knew how much more brutal honesty she could handle today.

  “You aren’t quite the scandal I expected.”

  Leah’s smile turned genuine. If only she had spoken loudly enough for Wriothesly to overhear. “I’m very sorry to disappoint.”

  “Yes, well . . .” Lady Elliot smoothed her skirts as they began walking toward the awning. “Although it’s not quite the amusement I had hoped for, your devotion to the late Mr. George is most touching. I’d like to think Lord Elliot would do the same for me were I to pass before him, but I can’t imagine he’d do anything more than lift a glass of whiskey in my name. Perhaps light a cigar. Or tumble one of the housemaids.”

  Leah’s breath caught. “I’m sure he wouldn’t—”

  Laughing, Lady Elliot waved her off. “No, of course not. He’d be too afraid I would come back and haunt him. But this—well, Mrs. George, let’s just say that you’ve almost made me believe in love again.”

  “My husband was . . . a very special man,” Leah said, lowering her eyes to the ground. Somehow the lies didn’t roll off her tongue as easily when she was alone with one of her guests. Hoping to bring someone else into their conversation, she glanced over her shoulder.

  Lord Wriothesly walked behind them with the Meyers and Lord Elliot. And he was staring directly at her.

  Flushing, Leah jerked her gaze ahead. Strange how she’d always been able to dismiss her mother’s criticisms so easily, but Wriothesly’s outburst had made her doubt herself. Even now, with the knowledge of his proximity and how he looked at her, she couldn’t help being acutely aware of the straight, unswerving line of her body—from the slimness of her shoulders to the narrowed angles of her hips.

  Perhaps Ian thought her as plain as the earl did, but he’d made her feel beautiful. Not just with words, but with the way he looked at her, with the way he touched her. Until she’d realized how deceitful even his silence had been.