“Are you afraid of me, my lord?”
Geoffrey’s gaze snapped back to her. Annoyance glittered in his eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
She smiled up at him, and then dipped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I assure you, you need not fear being alone with me. I’ll not bite.” Abigail held out her arm.
Geoffrey stared at her like she was the mythical sea monster, Ketos. He stared so long she began to feel rather foolish standing there with her arm out to him, for all the passing English lords and ladies to see. She lowered her arm but met his gaze directly. She’d not be cowed or humiliated by an English lord. Not when she’d come here for an attempt at a fresh start for past transgressions.
“I didn’t think you would,” he said at last. And closed the small distance between them. This time, he extended his arm.
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t think you would bite,” he clarified.
Her lips twitched. She hesitated a moment, and then placed her fingertips along the sleeves of his coat. “I was merely jesting,” she murmured. “Are you always so serious, Geoffrey?” she asked, when they began strolling along the walking path.
“Yes.”
She stole a peek up at him. “And laconic?”
“Yes.” Pause. “And it wouldn’t do for you to be overheard calling me by my Christian name.”
The crunch of gravel beneath his booted feet and her slippers filled the quiet.
“That might be true.” She winked up at him. “But I plan to do so, just the same.” This man had saved her from Lord Carmichael’s unwanted attention. He’d seen her shamed and humbled at his feet. It seemed odd to think of him by any name other than his Christian name.
Abigail stopped, and forced Lord Redbrooke to either halt, or drag her down to the ground. “I wanted to thank you for your intervention at Lord Hughes’s ball.”
The muscles under the fabric of his coat tightened, and for a long moment, it seemed he might not respond. Perhaps the decorous gentleman had been appalled at having come upon her as he had that night. She disentangled her arm from his and wandered several steps ahead, needing to place distance between them, uncomfortable with the idea of his scorn.
Except there was no scorn in Geoffrey’s tone as he spoke. “There is no need to thank me, Miss Stone. I would have intervened for any young lady in your…circumstance.”
Abigail walked to the edge of the lake. She studied the short flight of a swan as it glided upon the water’s surface and dunked its head a long while before emerging with a fish in its mouth. She believed Geoffrey would have come to the aid of any woman who’d been in a like situation. And yet, it hadn’t been just any woman he’d rescued.
He’d rescued her.
“You saved me from certain ruin,” she said, softly. If he hadn’t come upon Lord Carmichael…she shuddered, there was no doubt he would have violated her.
Gravel crunched under Geoffrey’s feet, indicating he’d closed the space between them. “Do not make more of it then there was, Miss Stone. I’m no hero. I merely came to the aid of an innocent young woman, as any gentleman would.”
The unknowing reminder of her sullied virtue burned like vinegar tossed onto an open wound,
She expected she should be deterred by his almost scathing tone. “I’m not a naïve young miss, my lord. I’m not so foolish as to believe in fairytales.” And most certainly not in the silly dream of a hero. She peered at him from the corner of her eye.
He caught his chin between his thumb and forefinger and proceeded to study her like she were an oddity he couldn’t identify. “I thought all young ladies believed in fairytales.”
She snorted. “Only the silly young ladies do.”
He fell silent.
Abigail stared pensively out at the fowl swimming about the lake. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
Geoffrey looked around.
“The swans,” she clarified.
“Hmm.”
“I’m certain there is no more lovely sight than the swan etched in the night sky.”
“I’m certain you are wrong,” he said, with a softness she didn’t expect of him. Then with his next sentence, cool haughtiness replaced all imagined warmth. “And, swans are not etched in the night sky.”
“Do you know, they say Cygnus took on the body of a swan, giving up his immortality and all hope of a normal life, all to save his friend?”
Geoffrey snorted. “A foolhardy thing to do.”
“He did it because he loved him.”
“Mores the fool he.”
At the cynical twist to his words, Abigail glanced up. There was something so very hard, so very unyielding in those four words. It confirmed her earlier suspicions that this man had known pain. “Do you not believe in love, Geoffrey?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in fairytales, Miss Stone,” he shot back.
She folded her arms across her chest. “I’d not considered the Greek myths a fairytale, Geoffrey.”
“Lord Redbrooke,” he automatically corrected. He peered down his aquiline nose at her. “And, you appear to be splitting hairs.”
“You never answered my question as to whether you believed in love. Are you being deliberately evasive, my lord?” She detected the imperceptible tightening at the corners of his mouth and suspected there was merit in her charge.
“I believe emotions such as love only disrupt a well-ordered world.”
Yes, her great folly with Alexander was proof of that…and yet, deep inside, part of her dreamed of that elusive, beautiful sentiment.
She looked out at the swan as it dunked its long neck under the water’s surface once more. “A well-ordered world is a dull world, Geoffrey.” Abigail felt his heated gaze upon her and she looked up at his stern countenance. “Do you know what I believe?” She didn’t wait for him to respond. “I believe you are very different than the stern, too-proper figure you present to Polite Society. I believe under the veneer of propriety, you are a man of passion and humor…and…”
Something ruthless and unforgiving flashed in his eyes, and the remainder of her words died upon her lips.
“Considering you’ve known me but several days, you presume a great deal.” His tone was harsh.
Abigail tipped her chin up a notch. “With your cool rigidity, you make it seem as though there is something wrong in finding joy in life.”
He leaned close, so his lips were a mere hairsbreadth from hers. “Do not speak of what you don’t know, Miss Stone.”
She raised a single, black brow. “I know that for all the struggle and difficulty I’ve known, a life without joy is a life not worth living.”
His jaw hardened. “So you’ve known struggles and difficulty, Miss Stone?” he asked, his words as satiny as the smooth edge of a blade. “Is that what has brought you to England?”
Her stomach clenched uncomfortably at how remarkably close to the mark his well-placed question had come. Still, she refused to be cowed by his questioning. “I did not say that.”
“You needn’t have to. It is written in those creased little lines at the corners of your eyes.”
Abigail took a step away from him. Then another. And another. She pressed her palm to her breast, noting the way his gaze fell to the slight swell of bosom revealed by her modest sapphire blue muslin dress.
“Ahh, so that is it.”
He was as relentless as a hunter stalking its prey.
“You’re wrong.” She’d braved the scorn of her American compatriots. She could not countenance having to weather the very same scandal. Abigail willed strength back into her spine. She tipped her chin up, and took a step toward him so the mere span of a hand separated their bodies. “I’m merely here visiting my uncle.”
Geoffrey inclined his head. “Do you know, Miss Stone, I find I don’t believe you. You seem to me a woman of many secrets.”
Warning bells went off at the accuracy of his supposition.
Not many secrets. Rather one secr
et. One very shameful, damning, and damaging secret. She should be filled with terror at how very close Geoffrey had come to the truth. Abigail wet her lips. Instead, she was nothing more than a shameful creature unable to take her eyes from the broad width of his shoulders, the thick corded muscles of his arms, the sun-kissed, olive hue of his skin.
He lowered his head, his breath fanned her cheeks.
Another breeze wafted over them. It caught the strand of lace woven through her hair and the fabric danced to the ground, mocking her shameful wantonness.
The magical pull between them shattered, Abigail dashed ahead, reaching for the precious lace, but the wind caught it and carried it further down the walking path. She hurried after it, but Mother Nature seemed to be playing a cruel kind of game. The fabric slipped through Abigail’s fingers. The wind continued to carry it along. She gasped as another breeze carried the precious gift from home out onto the lake.
“No,” she cried, and took a step toward the edge of the water. Water touched the tips of her satin slippers.
Geoffrey came to stop alongside her. His gaze moved from her to the lace atop the smooth surface of the water. “It is just a piece of fabric, Miss Stone.”
“It’s not,” she said. She’d not expect him to understand.
“It appears as though it is,” he drawled.
“My sister gave it to me,” she blurted. “She told me to touch it whenever I was lonely and missing my family. She…” Abigail took a deep breath, knowing how silly she must sound waxing on about the seemingly insignificant piece.
Geoffrey was indeed correct; it was nothing more than a small piece of fabric, but to Abigail it represented the fragile thread that connected her to the family she’d been forced to leave behind. “I know it seems utterly fool…”
Geoffrey cursed. He bent down and tugged at his black Hessian boot.
She gasped. “What are you doing?”
He tossed the boot aside, and reached for his other foot. “Retrieving the blasted thing,” he muttered. “Can’t have you crying in public. People will assume I’ve reduced you to tears. Gossip will spread,” he mumbled, and waded into the water.
Abigail swallowed back the laughter that bubbled in her throat as Geoffrey picked his way through the water.
He glared over his shoulder, back at her. His foot slid out from under him and he flung his arms out in a futile attempt to stop his fall. “Bloody hell.”
Abigail clamped her hands over lips, horrification and humor blended as one. Nearby lords and ladies gasped and halted to observe Lord Redbrooke’s display.
He rose out of the shallow depths. Water ran in rivulets from his soaked chestnut locks, down his rugged cheeks. His coat, hopelessly beyond repair, hung open, displaying the translucent water-dampened fabric of his white cambric shirt.
He glowered at the voyeurs witnesses to this great spectacle and they had the good sense to scurry off.
Abigail rushed over. “My lord, I don’t know what to say. I…”
He held out his dripping hand and displayed the slip of lace, clasped between his thumb and forefinger, more precious than the crown of diamonds Dionysus had given his Ariadne. “Here.” Geoffrey waved it about.
Abigail grasped it with her fingers. Her throat moved up and down as she fought back a swell of emotion. Geoffrey had rescued her first from certain ruin and now, he’d sacrificed his fine attire and braved the censure of passing members of Society, all to save her piece of lace.
“Thank you.”
She blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“You can simply say thank you.”
A giggle burst past her lips. She tried desperately to quell the inappropriate expression of mirth. After all, considering his scandalous actions it hardly conveyed suitable appreciation.
Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed, apparently of like mind.
“Th-th…thank you,” she managed between deep gasping breaths of laughter. She clutched the Italian lace to her chest, all amusement dying at the hard-indecipherable expression he leveled upon her.
Her toes curled in the soles of her slippers. In America, she’d become accustomed to the gentleman’s gentle smiles and the teasing light in their eyes. There was nothing soft, or teasing about Geoffrey. He was as different from Alexander as the day sky was from the night.
Perhaps that explained the tug of unwarranted and unwanted interest in Lord Redbrooke…the gentleman who’d been quite clear in his intentions for her cousin, Beatrice. Beatrice, however, had been equally clear that she’d little interest in making a match with the viscount.
Silent pity filled her with the knowledge that Beatrice would never welcome his intentions.
Abigail shifted back and forth upon her feet. “You should return home.”
He arched a single, icy, wet brow. “Are you suggesting we not finish our walk?”
“Well, no. Not considering the state of…oh, you’re making light of me.”
Hmm. So it appeared, Geoffrey did have some degree of humor. Even if the firm set to his mouth and frown at the corners of his eyes suggested him incapable of cheerfulness.
Abigail studied the lace in her hands, and then looked up to find Geoffrey’s heated gaze trained upon the distracted movement of her fingers.
“You should leave, Miss Stone.”
She tilted her head back and leaned closed, whispering, “In light of last evening, and today, do you still believe we shouldn’t call one another by our Christian names?”
“It…”
She held her fingers up, so close to his mouth they might as well have been touching, so close, that the hot, seductive scent of brandy upon his breath fanned her skin. “…wouldn’t be proper,” she finished for him.
If they hadn’t been so close she might have failed to note the way his throat bobbed up and down, the first real indication that Lord Redbrooke, Geoffrey, was not as indifferent toward her, as he led her, and mayhap himself, to believe. But she was this close. And she saw it.
He yanked his stare to a point beyond her shoulder. “Madam, we are in public. And you are making a spectacle of you and me. If it hasn’t been clear to you before this point, I have launched a formal courtship of your cousin, with the intention of marriage to Lady Beatrice. Therefore any of this improper closeness and attention you are demonstrating is to cease immediately. Is that clear?”
Her stomach clenched at the pained reminder of his interest in Beatrice, and more than that…the clear condemnation in his eyes, that indicated he’d judged her and found her wanting. In that moment, she forgot about his rescue at Lord and Lady Hughes’s and his recovery of the scrap of lace given her by Lizzie. In that moment, she hated him for making her feel less than the gravel under his sopping boot. And more, she hated herself for having given away her virtue to Alexander Powers and proven this pompous lord correct.
“It is abundantly clear,” she said, when she trusted herself to speak. “Thank you for the lace, my lord. I bid you good day.”
Abigail remembered to dip a curtsy. The servant who’d been hovering discreetly in the distance rushed to keep up with Abigail. As she fled, Geoffrey’s heated gaze fairly scorched a hole upon her retreating frame.
A gentleman does not engage in common activities. Ever.
4th Viscount Redbrooke
~9~
“My goodness, Geoffrey! Whatever have you done?” his mother screeched as Geoffrey sailed through the front doors of his townhouse, leaving a trail of puddles in his wake.
He stomped past her indignant frame and started up the stairs.
“Geoffrey!” she called, from the bottom step. He paused, and spun about so quickly he sent bits of water spraying. His mother gasped as water landed upon her cheek. She brushed it back as though he’d tossed a dead trout at her person.
He didn’t suspect Abigail Stone would be so shocked by the feel of water upon her skin. Quite the opposite, really. He imagined she’d embrace the cooling feel of it. All manner of wicked yearnings filled him, all of which
involved Abigail Stone laid out upon satin sheets, her arms open, her…
“Did you hear what I said, Geoffrey?” His mother’s harsh question jerked him back to the moment.
“No.” He continued his climb.
“Geoffrey,” his mother cried. The soft thread of her slippers upon the marble steps confirmed her pursuit.
He hurried his steps.
“A kitchen maid heard from Lord Carmichael’s groom that you went swimming at Hyde Park and were touching that, that American woman. Whatever were you thinking? It is unfortunate enough I had to expect such scandals from your sister, but…you…?”
Geoffrey stopped so suddenly, his mother stumbled against him. He wanted to toss his head back and snarl at the mere mention of Lord Carmichael, that reprobate bastard. To think he’d ever considered for even an infinitesimal moment, wedding his sister Sophie to that fiend. He held a finger up. “First, I did not go for a swim. I fell into the lake.” A bloody lake he’d rushed into. That, however, was neither here nor there. “Second, that American woman is the cousin of the Duke of Somerset and some respect should be afforded the lady for the connection to that distinguished title.”
Considering any further discussion on the matter officially ended, Geoffrey continued his march. He reached the main hall when his mother called out to him.
“You do know what they say about American women. Nothing proper. They are a scandalous lot, Geoffrey. Why, even her name, Abigail. What decent Englishman and woman name their daughter after a lady’s maid?”
He fisted his hands, as a thin haze of rage descended over his vision. Geoffrey tamped down the immediate defense that sprung to his lips. To do so, however, would encourage Mother’s argument. And he’d long tired of discussing the matter with his mother.
Unfortunately, she seemed quite eager to continue the rather one-sided discourse. “You are the last male in line for the Redbrooke title. You mustn’t do something as…as foolhardy as to sully the title with American bloodlines. Why, her father is a footman.”
“Was a footman.”
Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous Page 8
