‘No…’ She could hear the reluctance in her voice and so could he.
‘My dear Mrs Stratton, you are so close to capitulating…’
A shiver ran along Deb’s skin, raising goose pimples. Richard was rubbing his fingers over her hand with gentle repetition, and this lightest of touches was enough to make her burn hot and cold at the same time.
‘Admit you are tempted…’
‘No, I am not,’ Deb said, firing up. ‘I am not in the least inclined to accept your suggestion.’
Richard released her hand and sat back in his chair. ‘Well, you responded to that challenge, at any rate,’ he said wryly. ‘I must remember not to do that again, unless I wish to achieve the opposite reaction to the one I was wanting.’
He drained his wineglass. ‘We should return to the ballroom, I believe. We are quite alone and no doubt the servants are waiting to clear the tables.’
Deb looked around and realised to her shock that all the other guests had finished supper long ago. The conservatory was deserted and, with its coloured lanterns and pools of shadow, it suddenly seemed a vastly different and very private place. The splash of the water mingled with the faint strains of music from the ballroom, but it seemed to Deb as though the silence was alive and waiting. The summer moonlight poured through the glass roof and sprinkled the tiled floor with silver. Richard stood up and offered his arm to her and she put her hand gingerly on it, as though just the touch of him might be unsafe, enough to trigger an elemental reaction. His arm was warm and hard beneath her fingers and it seemed a very long way to the ballroom door…
Her senses were concentrating so hard on Richard that she was not watching where she stepped. There was a patch of darkness between the pools of lantern light and she missed her step, catching her heel in the flounce of her gown. It was instinct on her part to hold more tightly to Richard’s arm to steady herself. And no doubt it was also instinct on his part to slide his other arm about her waist, drawing her hard and sure against him.
She thought that he would kiss her, but instead he held her close, his mouth against her hair, the warmth of his hands a shocking, heated seduction through the thin satin of her dress. Deb’s cheek was against his shoulder and the mingled scent of sandalwood and his skin made her head swim. She could hear the beat of his heart beneath her ear. She felt warm and safe and protected, yet alive in every part of her being. In some strange way it felt even more intimate than his kiss and such affinity shook her deeply. She looked up helplessly into his face, felt his arms tighten about her and saw the intense desire darken his eyes. She fought the devastatingly strong urge to hold him close and never let go. This was madness.
Deborah freed herself from his arms and moved away from him, as though mere physical distance could break the hold he had on her.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, with a superficial brightness that suggested they had been conversing on the weather or the state of the roads. ‘I must go and mend my skirt.’
She made her way, a little blindly, to the ladies’ withdrawing room and found herself standing before the mirror, leaning on the top of the chest of drawers as though for support.
She stood there, trembling, staring at her reflection and wondering what was the matter with her.
Richard Kestrel had held her in his arms and she had taken both pleasure and consolation in the experience. In that moment she had felt cherished and loved as well as desired. She had known that Richard wanted her. The touch of his hands on her body had conveyed the depth of his need. Yet he had not kissed her, but had held her with tenderness as well as desire. It had been frighteningly tempting to give herself up to the embrace. No doubt if common sense had not reasserted itself, she would still be clasped in his arms, oblivious to the world, for all to see.
Deb tucked a wayward curl behind her ear and noted that her hand was still shaking. She knew it was the force of her thoughts that raised this nervousness in her. For this was no mere attraction to a handsome man. What she felt for Richard Kestrel was far more insidious. He stirred longings in her that were buried very deep and had been denied for a very long time. He had awoken a need for the physical bond that she had expected from marriage but had never found, and he had stirred in her a longing for an emotional closeness that she had never experienced.
Deb folded her arms as though to protect herself from the coldness within. Until that moment she had not realised how vulnerable she was. For three years she had lived retired and imagined that she could spend the rest of her life in such a manner. And then Richard Kestrel had appeared and had made her face up to the folly of that particular belief.
So now she had a stark choice. She could abandon the precepts and principles that had governed her life so far in order to seek the delights of a love affair. She had no doubt that to become Richard Kestrel’s mistress would be to experience a heady bliss, a dream of physical fulfilment. Yet she was afraid, afraid that the emotional intimacy she craved would still elude her and ever more terrified that she would want too much and end up being hurt more deeply than she ever had been by Neil Stratton.
Deb stared hopelessly at her reflection. She was afraid of marriage and yet she longed for the solace of true love. She ached for physical satisfaction and yet she could not imagine it without tenderness. She rejected the advances of a rake and yet she ardently desired for him to make love to her. She was a mass of contradictions and, that being the case, she must play safe. She had no choice after all. She must protect herself against Lord Richard Kestrel and the perilous attraction she felt for him. She must enforce her decision with iron determination. She must not see him again.
Richard Kestrel walked slowly into the ballroom. He saw Olivia Marney watching his progress with her eyebrows raised like perfect half-moons. No doubt she had already seen Deb erupt through the door that led to the conservatory and had drawn her own conclusions. She met Richard’s eyes quizzically but with no censure. Richard smiled at her. He liked Olivia and thought Ross to be a complete fool when it came to the matter of his wife. Not that Richard was tempted to play Ross false. Olivia was lovely, but she lacked Deborah’s passionate flame.
He took a glass of wine from a passing servant and stood with his shoulders propped against the doorway, waiting for Deb to return. He did not flatter himself that she would rejoin him. Very likely she would cut him dead. Very likely he deserved it. He had pushed her to act on her attraction to him, had prompted her to take it further by word and by deed. He had held her in a scandalously close embrace in a public place where anyone might have seen them. He had felt the softening in her body as it responded to him and the weakening of her defences. And now…He wanted to take Deb home and make love to her and instead he had to stand here and pretend to a cool interest in the proceedings at the ball.
Lily Benedict was smiling at him, but he did not cross the room to join her. He knew that there were plenty of women who would be more openly receptive to his advances than Deborah Stratton, but he did not wish for their company. He wanted Deborah, and that meant that he had to give her time, court her slowly. He sensed that in time he might be able to gain her trust and the prospect was more appealing than any quick seduction had ever been.
He gave an ironic smile. No one knew better than he that a true rake would not be troubled by such scruples. A true rake took what he wanted and be damned to the consequences. He did not deserve the name of rake any more. He had not been entitled to it from the moment he had set eyes on Deb Stratton and she had occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of all others. He had not been entitled to the name of rake from the moment he had decided that he wanted to marry her.
Briefly, Richard considered making Deb a declaration. It would assure her of his sincerity, about which she had patent doubts. On the other hand, it was a risky strategy. He had not given himself enough time to win her trust, nor convince her to put aside her fear of marriage. If he proposed to her now, she might well run from him and then he would lose all that he had gained. He wou
ld have to wait.
Richard finished his wine and put the glass down gently on a nearby table. Deb had returned to the ballroom now. Apart from a high colour and a militant sparkle in her eye, there was nothing in her behaviour to suggest that she was discomfited. As he had suspected, she ignored him and went over to join Olivia, who was chatting to Lady Sally Saltire.
Richard’s smile turned wry. He had set himself a difficult task in courting Deb and there would be those who would advise him to turn from his pursuit to a more receptive quarry. Lily Benedict was still giving him a come-hither look, but it was about as appealing as a plate of leftover roast beef. Across the room Deb sparkled as Owen Chance came across to solicit a dance. Richard felt a tightening of something inside, which he recognised as a very possessive jealousy. He had pulled that trick on Ross earlier and now this was his reward. How appropriate.
He watched Deb take Owen Chance’s hand and join the set of country dances that was forming up. He watched the play of light across her expressive face and the way that her irrepressible curls bounced on her white shoulders. He saw her smile and felt the tug of it deep inside him. He knew he was not going to disengage. He could not.
He watched her as she performed the complicated steps of the dance. He found that he could not take his eyes off her. The situation was filled with irony. Deb found it difficult to trust him because of his reputation as rake. He had ceased to be a rake from the moment that he realised he loved her. He could not control his feelings for her. Deb did not know it, but she had him utterly at the disadvantage.
Chapter Seven
‘Today, ladies, I thought that we might move on to discuss the poetry of John Dryden,’ Lady Sally Saltire said, opening a copy of the same poetry book that Richard Kestrel had given to Deborah the previous week. ‘We have plenty of poems to choose from. Would you prefer “London after the Great Fire” or “Farewell, Ungrateful Traitor”?’
There were groans from several members of the reading group. ‘Must we read something so dry, Sally?’ Lily Benedict besought. She gave Deb a sly, sideways glance from her slanting dark eyes. ‘I am sure that the majority of us would rather talk about love poetry, would we not, Deborah? How about those faithless Cavalier poets—Rochester or Sedley?’
Deb flicked open her book. She felt a little self-conscious. She had spent quite a while reading through the poems and wondering whether they had also been Richard’s favourites. She could picture him alone in the library at Kestrel Court, one candle burning at his elbow as he flicked through the pages. A lock of dark hair would fall across his forehead and in the pale light he would look like one of the poets of old, penning lines to his lady love…
A line of text caught her eye. ‘If I by miracle can be this livelong minute true to thee, tis all that heaven allows…’
Deb sighed. If anything was true of Richard Kestrel, then it was that. He would never be able to be constant to one woman for longer than a minute and probably not even that. She was foolish to imagine it could be so.
Since Lady Sally’s ball the previous week, Deb had thought long and hard about Richard Kestrel—too long and too hard, probably. She had not been able to come to any conclusions other than that she was spending an unconscionable amount of time on him, which was unprofitable and made her heart ache. Her only hope was that the trip to Somerset for her brother’s wedding would distract her thoughts—and that the appointment of a temporary fiancé would give her both purpose and interest.
She looked up to see that the other members of the group were watching her. Lady Benedict’s eyes were bright with malice and Lady Sally Saltire looked shrewd, as though she had already divined the cause of Deb’s trouble. Deb dragged up a bright smile.
‘Why do we not read “The World” by Henry Vaughan?’ she suggested. ‘It is a very beautiful poem.’
Some half an hour later the discussion had flagged and Lady Sally encouraged them to put their books aside and come out into the conservatory.
‘I am most excited,’ she confided. ‘You will recall that I had commissioned a watercolour calendar a few months ago? Well, I received my first copy from the publisher today. Only come and see. It is even better than I had envisaged. The ladies of the ton will be mad to buy it when I go up to London next month!’
When Lady Sally had first mooted the idea of a watercolour calendar featuring pictures of various local gentleman, the members of the reading group had been quite scandalised. Even though the project was for a charitable cause, it had seemed utterly outrageous to parade a group of eligible gentlemen simply to whet the appetites of ladies of fashion. The vicar, Mr Lang, on hearing of the calendar, had even taken to preaching against it from his pulpit, much to Lady Sally’s amusement. Already her rakes’ calendar, as she called it, had achieved exactly the effect that she desired. Anticipation amongst the ladies of the ton was extremely high and charitable causes would benefit!
The ladies crowded around the easel where Lady Sally had mounted the book. Helena Lang grabbed Deb’s arm in a thoroughly overexcited manner.
‘Oh, Mrs Stratton, I heard a rumour at the ball that Lord Lucas Kestrel had agreed to be sketched without his shirt!’
Olivia Marney, overhearing, could not help but laugh. ‘I fear that is completely untrue, Miss Lang, although if anyone were likely to be so outrageous I suspect it would be Lord Lucas. In fact, I had it from Ross that he posed in army uniform, and very fine he looked too.’
Lady Benedict was pushing all the other ladies aside in her haste to be first to view the calendar. She pressed one white hand to her lips to stifle a peal of laughter.
‘Oh, Sally—all our rakes, and in magnificent style!’
It was true. As Lady Sally turned the pages of the calendar slowly and the ladies viewed the pictures, it became evident that the conservatory at Saltires was one of the hottest places in the kingdom. The pictures were magnificent. There was the Duke of Kestrel, looking handsome and athletic mounted on his coal-black horse, Thunderer. There was Cory, Lord Newlyn, adventurer par excellence with the wicked twinkle in his eye that had melted the heart of every lady for miles around. Lucas Kestrel looked every debutanté’s dream and every chaperon’s nightmare in his army uniform, whilst Richard Kestrel was dark and dangerous in evening dress. Deb felt her breath constrict in her throat and turned the page quickly, to where Ross Marney was depicted, virile and good looking in navy uniform, with the wind ruffling his dark hair and his blue eyes smiling.
Deb saw Olivia put a hand up to her throat and saw the pink colour stain her cheeks and smiled to herself that, for all their difficulties, Olivia and Ross were not indifferent to each other.
‘Good gracious,’ Olivia said, her voice not quite steady, ‘Mr Daubenay certainly knows how to present a gentleman looking his best. This book should make his reputation as a water colourist, Sally.’
‘I hope so,’ Lady Sally said, smiling. ‘He did have remarkably good raw material to work on!’
Lady Benedict was fanning herself ostentatiously. ‘I do believe that I need to sit down, Sally,’ she said, ‘and perhaps a cool drink, after that display of unabashed manhood. One scarcely knows where to look.’
Deb knew it was evident from the reaction and from Lady Sally’s self-satisfied smile that the project would be a raging success. None of the ladies of the ton would be able to resist parting with their money for such a good cause—and for the benefit of ogling a dozen personable gentlemen.
‘You will have ladies beating a path to your door to buy a copy, Lady Sally,’ she said, with feeling.
Lady Sally laughed. ‘I plan to hold a ball at the end of October to launch the book and I am trying to prevail on all the gentlemen to attend. I am hoping it will be quite a sensation. In fact…’ she ushered them back into the drawing room and rang the bell for refreshments ‘…I had another idea. I thought to auction the original of the book as well as sell copies. I suspect there might be much competition for the original version.’
The ladies were m
uch struck by this and whilst they drank their cooling lemonade they discussed the plans for Lady Sally’s ball. Helena Lang, whose father the vicar disapproved so heartily of the calendar, was extremely upset that she would not be able to attend the London ball, and Lady Benedict also expressed her disappointment that her husband’s ill health kept her, as always, in the country.
‘What would be simply marvellous,’ she said, eyes lighting up, ‘would be if you were to hold a special private view here, Sally, before auctioning the calendar up in London. It would attract a great deal of notice—why, the Hertfords and the Prince of Wales might even attend!’
Helena Lang clapped her hands. ‘Oh, please, Lady Sally! That way I may persuade Papa to allow me to be present…’
Deb’s heart sank. She felt peculiarly out of sorts at the thought of Lady Sally’s calendar heroes displaying their undeniable physical prowess before the ton. However, since everyone else thought it a marvellous idea, she was obliged to concur and walked back to Midwinter Marney with Olivia in rather a bad mood.
‘Is Lord Marney at home?’ Olivia enquired casually of the butler as they went under the Doric portico and through the big front door.
‘Yes, my lady,’ Ford replied. ‘Lord Marney and Lord Richard Kestrel returned a little while ago and are down in the stables.’ He hesitated. ‘Shall I ask them to join you for tea, madam?’
Deb pulled a face and shook her head, for the thought of Lord Richard’s company was the final strain on her poor temper, but unfortunately Olivia was stripping off her gloves and appeared not to notice her sister’s disapproval.
‘Please do, Ford,’ she said. ‘We shall all take tea together.’
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