by Gayle Eden
“I’ll do no such thing, my lady,” he answered, looking at her over a high scarf, he wore to block the wind. “You’ve not a soul with you this evening, so I am driving you and making sure you get home safe.” He winked. “I know you can shoot better than myself, but I still prefer to drive you.”
“Thank you.” She grinned. “I’m just going to Vauxhall. I’m not even sure I will stay long.”
She climbed in the coach and they were soon on the road. Lisette settled back in the warmed interior. She really should feel free, excited, less pressure—certainly less dread, now that there was no expectation with Marston. However, all she could think about was that nagging in the back of her mind—the one she’d had from the first time she had seen him—before her mother invited him to Wimberly. Something—drew her. Something intangible, compelling about him. She could never completely ignore it though she had pretended the opposite.
Of course, she had. Lisette did not want to lose her freedom. She did not want to be forced into accepting someone who was her opposite. Still, there were times she reacted violently, because she did not like how often that feeling came over her around him. Once, no more than once, meeting his eyes, she had felt the strangest urge to reach out and touch him, to soothe what lay too deep to see.
Lisette grunted at her thoughts. She had gotten what she wanted. No more pressure from the duchess. She was once again liberated.
When she stepped out of the coach at Vauxhall, she was delighted to recognize a couple doing likewise.
“Juliette!” She headed toward her friend.
The lady looked up, having her arm through her handsome husband’s.
They met, and Juliette laughed. “I thought you would be in bed all day after that amazing ball.”
“Amazing and shocking.” Lisette chuckled. She looked up at the Marquis of Wolford. “My lord.”
“Lady Lisette.” He winked. They were ordinarily informal with each other since he had been her brother’s friend forever. He murmured, “I see you have no maid with you tonight. What are you about, dodging the Viscount again?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not at all. I often go about by myself. And you will be pleased for me,” She looked at Juliette too. “I am once again free since Marston finally gave up his pursuit.”
“Pity,” Monty supplied dryly. “You need someone of his maturity and steady character.”
Though it was more forced tonight, she quipped, “Steady? Aloof and arrogant, you mean. He all but declared himself my intended.”
“I’d hardly call that standoffish,” Monty said under his breath. He looked at his wife with a resigned grin. “Since I take it you two are up for a chat. I will step over here and enjoy a cheroot. Let me know when you are ready to go to our box.”
“Oh, don’t let me intrude—” Lisette began.
However, Juliette took her arm and they strolled a bit in the well-lit area. “Nonsense. We have plenty of time, and besides, Monty knows I will be chaffing to hear to the details if you don’t tell me.”
“There is not much to tell.” Lisette did tell her about their exchange at the ball. Her friend already knew what had gone on at Wimberly, and how she had avoided him, because she had gone to their estate to visit and nearly begged to stay there instead of going back home and dealing with him.
Under that lamplight, her face and red blond curls framed by the fox fur on the hood of her long amber and black cape, Juliette mused, “Monty was talking of him. They knew each other, in a manner of speaking. There was a scene that took place before the ball—Monty and the Viscount attempting to distract Deme out by the study doors. But also, did you know that Deme got foxed the night before—because of that misunderstanding with Haven and it was the Viscount who fetched him from the tavern, and dried him out—apparently talked sense into him?”
“No. I didn’t know that.” Lisette was surprised.
“Well, I am always in agreement with you, about choices for whom we wed—and certainly it was unlike the duchess to set it all up, but I hope you will be more generous towards Marston now that there’s no expectation. He is a bit like my Monty, I think. But Monty was rather pensive when I said so, and murmured something to the effect that Marston was not so aloof and arrogant as he seemed—solitary.”
“Solitary?” Lisette felt that dip in her stomach.
Juliette waved her hand. “He put it like the Viscount was a man carrying too much inside of him, alone.”
Lisette swallowed and looked around, murmuring, “I am sure he is mistaken. Tis arrogance, that lofty thing the Marston’s are rumored to always have had…”
“Um. Perhaps. But even if that is so—the reputation—it would mean he hasn’t many friends.”
Lisette laughed and looked at her. “Well, of course, I will be civil to him if—we ever meet. I would not have been half so—well, the way I was, if I had not been caught off guard by mama just throwing him at my head. I feared she really would force some match. I believe I told him that it wasn’t him I objected to, but that I am not ready to settle down.’
Juliette smiled wickedly. “Oh, you should. Believe me, marriage, particularly to a man you desire—and love, one who likes you with spirit. Mmmm.”
“Shame on you.” Lisette chuckled.
“Ah, I haven’t forgotten, it was you who said you did not blame me for becoming lovers with Monty.”
They had linked arms and were walking toward the Marquis. “Your husband is deliciously handsome.” Lisette said, “And he’s completely daft for you.”
“True.”
They laughed and joined Monty, who invited Lisette to their box.
“No. Thank you. Now that I have talked to Juliette, I believe it was that, and fresh air, I needed tonight. You go on. I’ll walk a bit under Samuel’s eye, and then perhaps get a bite to eat before I go home.”
“Be careful.” He winked at her again.
“I will.”
Juliette said, before they went on, “We’re leaving for Wolford in the morning. Do come and visit when you get down.”
“I will.”
After they had gone, Lisette stood there, not really paying mind to the crowds and people on footpaths and arriving in coaches, or the orange sellers and other peddlers who were calling out from various spots. The air was tinged with coal fires, wood and that winter sharpness. Her cloak hem was likely damp and would crystallize soon.
She felt too restless now to go home. She checked to see where Samuel was, and spied him. He nodded, assuring her he was not going anywhere. This time, she walked further but slower on the path.
It would be so different now with Deme going off to Rose Hill, Haven with him, and wed. With her two brothers off in the service. The twins would be home this summer and likely stay. Her mama would not know what to do with a completely empty nest, and she missed them dreadfully since they had left for school.
Everyone was growing up and starting adult lives. Not that she minded becoming one. She had always been treated as someone with the ability to think for herself. However, part of her was sad that all their carefree fun was behind. She knew they would get together, have those competitions at Wimberly when possible. Even Jude was going to be studying law. Therefore, she supposed she had plenty of time now to gobble up life and amuse herself.
Lisette turned and walked back. She had gotten up to some larks, taken risks too in her visits to London. She enjoyed the excitement of seeing things taboo and forbidden, that were not really all that shocking to her. She enjoyed the company of people who were not the same stiff faced sticklers that made up the ton. That world was narrow and constricting, filled with people living shadowy lives. She felt sorry for anyone who had to be a prisoner to it.
There was a ruffle of male laughter to her right and Lisette looked over in a distracted way, only to halt when she recognized Viscount Marston’s tall form.
He was standing to the side and did not see her. He was talking to another male only a bit under his six foot four heig
ht. She knew this was not one of those times he was showing up where she was. He seemed engrossed in conversing with the man.
She made a step to go on, but the fellow with long hair, hatless, looked up and caught her eye. He murmured something and she knew what it was when Marston turned her way.
“Gentlemen.” She felt awkward, considering and aimed to proceed as soon as possible.
“Lady Lisette.” The Viscount’s eyes looked intense in the winter night. He glanced around, obviously noticing she had no one with her. “We have run into each other rather sooner than I expected.” He smiled faintly.
A couple passed in front of her. She waited. “Yes.” Her gaze moved to his companion. “I had thought to see the play but once here, realized it was only restlessness. A walk and air and I am quite content.”
He had followed her gaze and came toward her, inviting the man to join him. “If you’ll allow me. Lady Lisette Willingham, Mr. Smith.”
“How do you do.” She smiled politely.
“Well, thank you.” He returned it and Lisette, getting a clearer look at him under the lights was thinking his name hardly suited him. His face was interesting and there was something in his warm brown eyes…
She looked at Marston.
Mr. Smith said, “Allow me to fetch us something warm to drink.”
When he had stepped away she murmured, “Friend of yours?”
“Yes.”
“He has a—interesting face.”
“I’ve always thought so.”
She pulled her eyes from his own compelling visage, and followed where the man was walking toward a vendor. “What does he do?”
“He works for me.”
“As?” She glanced at him.
He shrugged. “My secretary.”
“Ah.” She nodded and smiled, but something about his tone, and the man, made her doubt that.
“Should you be here alone?”
“Samuel, the driver, is just there.” She motioned with her hand. “But I have been here dozens of times alone. Father and Deme keep a box here. What brings you?”
His gaze moved over her face but he said, “Restlessness,” with a bit of irony.
The man, Mr. Smith, returned and handed them warm drinks. He had his own and stepped back from them a bit, lighting a cheroot.
Sipping, studying him, she knew she was being obvious under Marston’s constant eye, but his friend intrigued her.
Glancing back at the Viscount, she searched for some benign subject while she finished the drink—thinking she must leave afterwards, considering it could be more awkward for him than herself.
Marston sipped. His lips breathed out a misty breath before he offered in quiet tones, “I am glad my words with you today dissolved any lingering tension between us, Lady Lisette.”
“Lisette. Please, no formality.” She grimaced to hide her flush.
Oh, there was tension, at least in her body, when their eyes met. But she said, after clearing her throat, “I must apologize. Now that I think on it, I have behaved rather badly during the… um. Though I implied otherwise, it was not you personally I objected to…”
Drat. She wished she had never started trying to explain.
He did that particular quirk of his lips and offered, “I understood perfectly.”
“I was horrid.” She offered bluntly whilst looking around, “I have always been plain speaking, but I was rude, and I apologize.”
“Accepted.”
Actually hearing a laugh in his voice, her eyes went back to his craggy face. For another moment thier eyes clung. He added, “I would expect no less from a woman with your spirit. I was doggedly persistent.’
She chuckled. “You were.”
Lisette walked over and handed her cup to Mr. Smith who was collecting them. “Thank you. That was the very thing.”
“You’re welcome.” His eyes touched hers too. She saw a smile and warmth there.
He went back to the vendors.
She regarded Marston.
Lisette was suddenly more than ashamed of herself. There were other ways she could have dissuaded him. She was filled with an odd regret. Looking at him objectively, without all of that expectation, she was seeing so much more.
Wetting her lips, she managed a smile and said, “I shall leave you and your—friend—to your conversation. I am glad we ran into each other this way. I should hate to leave London and never have apologized. It was gracious of you to accept, considering.”
Again, his eyes seemed to hold humor. “Had I not been the object of it, I would have found it completely entertaining. Particularly when I discovered you were ready to abandon your family and take up residence at Lord Montgomery’s estate.”
“Oh, lord.” She laughed aloud and shook her head. “I did take it to the extreme. But then, I am of the Wimberly clan, we are nothing if not that.”
His gaze was fixed on her smiling mouth.
When her laughter subsided, they were left with several moments of awkward tension, and Lisette realized—awareness. How ironic. She finally put a name to it and this was likely the last time they would encounter each other before she left London, and would be gone until the spring.
What brought her out of that consciousness however was realizing his friend stood there, and she was so engrossed staring at Marston she was ignoring him.
“Enjoy your evening.’” Nodding, Lisette turned abrupt to walk up toward the coach. She could feel them watching her and though she was ready to leave, she walked some distance past the coach and into the shadows.
She stopped and muttered, “Bloody hell. That was—odd. Embarrassing too.”
For a moment holding her gloved hands to her cheeks, she wished she could go back and do it all over again. Not—that she could bend to her mama’s will, but she would not have been so dramatic and called him those names…
Wheeling, she marched back and to the coach and climbed in. When they pulled out, she could not resist looking over.
Marston stood there, hands in his coat pockets, watching.
She knew then, on her way home, that it was not that feeling of (there he is again, or he is watching me again), dread, she felt. Rather, it was a, (you are daft Lisette, honestly daft.) Perhaps she just needed this time away from London, from him, and everything would be set to rights. She was sure of it. There were all sorts of things she wanted to do and now she could actually plan to do them.
* * * *
“Interesting,” Mr. Smith murmured to Elisha later that night as they sat in the library/study.
“That’s what she thought about you.”
The man grinned and arched his brow. “She’s beautiful. Quite unaware of it, I think. But perhaps, just comfortable with who she is. I had forgotten, having only seen her at a distance, how attractive she is.”
“Yes.” Marston poured a finger of whiskey and stood by the fire, looking into it. “She apologized.”
“She also lost her sense of time and place looking at you.”
“She’s leaving London until spring.” Elisha arose and drew in several deep breaths while he walked over and stared sightlessly out the window.
“You were very good with her, responding naturally and appearing at ease.”
“Don’t critique me tonight, Smith,” Marston grated. “I’m not bloody in the mood to be analyzed.”
“Of course not.”
Elisha instantly felt bad for his response. He rubbed his nape and offered calmer, “Forgive me; I’m not going to be much of a conversationalist tonight.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” Smith joined him, standing at his shoulder and after taking a sip from his glass murmured, “I shall be leaving soon for Gray Heath. Shall I give your regards to your mother and sister?”
“Yes.” That tone was tight, contained.
Smith laid a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t give up hope. All you have to do is attend what she enjoys and what makes her at ease with you.”
“I doubt I shall h
ave the opportunity.”
“You will. I believe that, my friend. I could feel something between the two of you, and it wasn’t just on your side.”
Chapter Three
The Wimberly mansion was in chaos the next morning—baggage and trunks being loaded, the duke in the lower hall, trying to help the duchess round up all her animals. Dogs barking, while Deme and Haven—already dressed for traveling too, were seeing to their own things. Lisette followed the footmen with her trunks while putting on her warmest coat. There was snow out, but the sun made an appearance.
Out on the street, Patrick and Samuel were on their perches, whilst everyone was getting in. Lisette would ride with her parents and was already in her seat, waiting for her Mama, who was standing in the doorway, still talking with the housekeeper.
She could hear Haven laughing and saying something to her father about taking the ribbons if Deme did not stop acting as if she was suddenly as fragile as glass just because she was with child. There had been an early call from the family physician, and he seemed to confirm it.
It was decided that Deme and Haven would wed via the special license and her parents would host a celebration in the spring. The couple would go to Rose Hill after the marriage. Patrick declared he would stay at Wimberly and keep working for the duke. He loved his position. He and his grace were all the closer friends since they would be grandfathers soon. In a sense, they had both raised Haven, and her becoming a part of the family seemed natural.
Finally, her Mama climbed in, the white fur swaddling her petite figure, and having a pooch in her arms. All the other creatures were finding a snug niche to ride in. The parrots were in a covered cadge.
“I will be glad to get home.” Lady Ellen sighed and settled back.
“The roads will be muddy. I hope I can get my nap without being jostled too much,” the duke announced and got comfortable in the corner.
Lisette reached in a carpetbag by her feet and pulled out a novel to read while both her parents were dozing.
She was caught up in it rather too quickly since the hero was tall, dark, and brooding.
