“You’re quite right.”
She blinked. Her anger faltered a bit at this unexpected admission. “I am?”
“Yes, and it seems I must again ask your forgiveness, Miss Deverill. What I said was unpardonable and arrogant, and you are perfectly within your rights to dress me down. In my defense, I can only reiterate that where you are concerned, as we both now know, I am . . .” He paused, swallowing hard as if he found it difficult to continue. “I am painfully aware of my susceptibility where you are concerned. I find myself doing all manner of things I would not usually do because I am feeling things that I don’t usually allow myself to feel.”
“Yes, well,” she muttered, a bit mollified, but still prickly and terribly self-conscious, “that makes two of us.”
“Yes.” His face gave nothing away, but his gaze lowered to her lips. “I rather thought that might be the case.”
She wanted to ask what made him think so. How had she given herself away? But then, she remembered how she’d twined her arms around his neck and rubbed her foot along his leg, and she saw how stupid that question would have been. How could he not have known what that kiss had made her feel?
Heat flooded her face, but she could not move. Panic made her heart race, but she could not run. He was thinking about that kiss, perhaps about doing it again, and she could not help thinking about how it would feel if he did.
Her lips began to tingle and her heart hammered like a mad thing, but then he returned his attention to the bow, and she felt a stab of disappointment.
“You’re drifting.”
“Hmm?” Irene frowned at his profile, trying to regain her scattered wits. “What?”
“You’re drifting.” His arm stretched out over her shoulder again to realign the ship to a course parallel to shore, then slid away again at once. “Best watch where you’re going.”
At once, she returned her attention to steering the ship, realizing much to her mortification that if he had kissed her right then and there, she would have let him, even though practically everyone on the ship could see them if they’d chanced to turn around and look to the stern of the boat, and she discovered a new appreciation for his suggestion that they maintain a discreet distance.
“This is a tricky part of the river,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “I should take over.”
Irene was happy to let him. She excused herself and rejoined the others, accepting a champagne cup from the footman along the way, in the hope of steadying her frayed nerves and highly strung emotions.
She sank into her deck chair, where the talk of the others flowed around her, but though the other ladies tried to bring her into their conversation, Irene remained preoccupied, appreciating that she had a serious problem on her hands.
Her plan to persuade Henry to change his mind instead of having his mother change hers wasn’t going to work. For one thing, it was exactly what he would be expecting her to do. And besides, it wasn’t playing the game fair, given his ardent passion for her, as he put it. Just the memory of those words was enough to rekindle the feeling, and Irene hastily got to her feet and walked to the rail before the other ladies could see her blushing. This situation could not continue. But what, she wondered as she stared moodily out at the water and sipped her champagne cup, could she do about it?
Her first line of attack—Henry’s plan—had been doomed to fail from the start. Her second plan was also out the window. She had no third. And despite the unexpected events of a few days ago, if the duchess married her Italian, Irene had no illusions where Torquil was concerned. He might have a passion for her, but it would not stop him from putting an end to Lady Truelove and Society Snippets. For those, she well knew, he had nothing but disdain. And worst of all, every time she looked at him, she found herself longing for him to kiss her again.
Irene leaned her elbows on the rail with a sigh. How on earth was she to get out of this mess?
Chapter 14
As a boy at Eton, Henry had first learned that many Catholic priests of the Middle Ages made a daily ritual of flogging themselves. He’d found that a baffling fact, not only as a staunch Anglican, but also as someone who’d always possessed a great deal of common sense.
Now, however, with the fragrance of Irene’s skin and the warmth of her body so vivid in his memory, Henry began to understand the compulsion of self-torture. And he’d certainly been living like a priest for far too long.
No wonder he’d asked her to take the wheel. He’d known it would give him the perfect excuse to stand behind her, inhale the scent of her, touch her, however fleetingly. And he’d been awash in lust as a result.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d taken out his self-inflicted frustration on her with his boorish accusation, providing her with all the more reason to resent him, and providing himself with all the more cause for self-condemnation.
Yes, he was a glutton for punishment.
A cough brought him out of this reverie, and he glanced up to find his mother a few feet away, an expression on her face that all sons of loving mothers know. He tensed, but when he spoke, he worked to make his voice light, hoping to keep his secret well-hidden. “Mama, what are you doing back here? Want to be like Miss Deverill, do you, and have a go at steering the ship?”
“Would you allow it?” she asked.
For some reason, he was a bit nettled by that question. “Why wouldn’t I? Why does everyone think I’m such a tyrant?”
That made her laugh. “Not a tyrant,” she said, moving to stand beside him. “Just a man who is the admiral of his fleet, and who believes it is his sworn duty to ensure that all his ships sail in what he feels is the proper direction.”
His defenses faltered. “Yes, well, if that’s what I believe, I fear I’m doomed to disappointment,” he muttered. “The women in my life, alas, don’t seem willing to be as predictable as my yachts.”
“No,” she agreed and paused beside him. “Miss Deverill in particular,” she said after a moment, “is a woman who charts her own course. And does it rather well, too.”
Even the mention of her name was enough to threaten his tenuous hold on self-possession. He kept his attention fixed on the helm. “Stop matchmaking, Mama,” he said, hoping he sounded as indifferent as he wished he could feel. “Miss Deverill is not, by any stretch of the imagination, in my life. Nor would she ever wish to be. She has no use for our sort. She’s made that clear enough.”
“You may be right.”
She didn’t broach the topic he’d attempted to lead her toward, so he turned his head and met her gaze, tackling it for her. “In mentioning the women in my life, I was referring to you.”
She turned away, running her gloved hand over the brass surface of the compass behind them and rubbing her fingertips together as if the instrument had dust. “Oh?”
“Don’t be coy, Mama. Not with me.”
“Very well.” She turned back around and looked at him again. “I suppose I couldn’t avoid this moment for two entire weeks. Just don’t let it become a row, dear. We have guests.”
“Do you love him?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. He’d expected no other answer. “Even though he wants your money?”
“It’s not a matter of want. He has no means or income of his own, and he has relations to take care of. He can’t afford to marry a woman who doesn’t have money. Fortunately for both of us, I have plenty to support us, for otherwise I fear we should have had to part. A peer isn’t the only sort of man who has duties and responsibilities to the members of his family, you know.”
“And despite the mercenary aspect of his courtship, you trust him with your future?”
“Yes. You see, he loves me, too, Henry.”
Her voice was steady, her gaze unwavering. He found that incomprehensible, given the man’s reputation with women. “How can you know it’s love? How can you be so sure?”
“I am as sure as one human being can ever be about another.”
“Giv
en human nature, that’s not so very sure. Even if it is love, how do you know it will make you happy?”
“I don’t. Nothing in life is absolutely sure. Sometimes, I think you find that a difficult thing to accept, Henry.”
He swallowed hard, afraid she was right about that. But he liked predictability, damn it. “And your daughters? We have already discussed how their future will be affected. What of that?”
“There will be scandal, but we shall do what we can to mitigate the damage. And if the result is that Angela and Sarah find men who care for them enough to marry them in spite of their mother’s choice, then my marriage will have been a good thing for their future, not a bad thing. Position and suitability are not everything when it comes to matrimony. In spite of your own unfortunate experience with marrying for love, you do see that, Henry, surely?”
“Position and suitability are not the only considerations, no,” he allowed with a sigh, “but I doubt Angela and Sarah will see it that way.”
“I can make them understand that, if you help me.”
“I’m not sure I should,” he grumbled. “Or one of them might take it into her head to run off with the chauffeur, and then where shall we be?”
She laughed. “Oh, my dear. I shall have to caution them against that, for I fear a chauffeur in the family would be too much for your nerves.”
He sighed, studying her face. “I’m not going to win this fight, am I?”
Her laughter faded, but her smile lingered, a faint, knowing curve. “Which fight are we talking about? The one you are having with me?” She turned her head to glance at the ladies gathered near the front of the boat, and at one in particular who stood a little apart, staring out over the starboard rail. “Or,” she went on, looking at him again, “the one you’re having with yourself?”
He stiffened, appalled that he might be more transparent than he’d thought, at least to his mother’s keen observation, and it was his turn to look away. But he could still feel her gaze on him and sense the understanding in her smile, and it made him hotly uncomfortable to think she might know the true cause of his torment. “God, Mama,” he managed, “I hope you’re not intending to be indelicate.”
“I could, I suppose. But I won’t.”
He thanked God for that small favor.
“But,” she went on, “I am worried, I confess.”
Of course she was. “I know what worries you.”
“Do you, indeed?”
He squared his shoulders and looked at her, facing the fear rattling around in his own mind even as he gave his mother the credit of it. “You fear I shall make the same mistake twice. Lose my head.”
“I’m not afraid about you losing your head, Henry. I’m afraid of what might happen if you lose your heart.”
He wasn’t surprised that she would attempt to put romantic connotations to what he felt about Miss Deverill when there was nothing romantic about it, but he could hardly articulate what he actually was feeling to his own mother in order to argue the point. “If it were about my heart,” he said instead, “why should that worry you? In our last conversation on this topic, you seemed to feel I should make better use of that particular muscle than I have been.”
“So I do. But I fear you persist in viewing the loss of one’s heart as a mistake, and for you, a mistake is something to be avoided at all cost. I wish I could make you see how wrong that is.” She turned away before he could argue. “Losing one’s heart is never a mistake, Henry,” she said over her shoulder. “No matter what may come afterward.”
A convenient philosophy, he supposed as he returned his attention to the river, and no less than he would expect, given her current situation. Mama was in a romantic—and to his mind, unrealistic—haze. He knew how that felt. All was bliss, and everything in the garden lovely, and following one’s heart seemed as inevitable as breathing. There was nowhere to go from that height of dizzying, unreal happiness but back down to earth, where one usually landed on the bedrock of reality with a bone-shattering crash.
“My heart, Mama,” he said at last, “is in no danger of being lost.”
She didn’t answer, and when he turned his head, he found that she was walking away, already too far away to hear.
“Miss Deverill’s virtue,” he muttered with a sigh, “might be a different matter entirely.”
Irene decided it was probably best if she avoided Henry for the remainder of the day. When they docked at the yachting station at Kew, and journeyed to the pavilion, she walked with Clara, behind him and his mother. The more formal rules of seating that applied at dinner were not followed for a picnic luncheon, and she was glad of it, for that meant she did not have to sit at the duke’s right hand, and she chose the very opposite end of the table. No doubt, he was as relieved as she.
When they took a stroll through the famous gardens after their meal, they had only been walking for a few minutes when the duchess moved to fall in step beside her. “Now, Miss Deverill,” she said, taking Irene’s arm, “we are approaching the Italian knot garden, and that is where Torquil arranged for Ellesmere to be after luncheon so that we shall run across him. The viscount is amenable to the introduction, Torquil has assured me, so when the moment comes, I shall introduce him to you and your sister. He may only bow, accept the introduction, and go on, or he may wish to converse for a bit. He was of two minds on that when Torquil met with him.”
“If he does wish to converse with me, I shall have to let him,” Irene said, making a face. “And for Clara’s sake, I shall be all that is polite. But I hope you do not expect me to like him.”
The duchess laughed and patted her arm. “Of course not, my dear. I have many relations I don’t like. Ah, there he is.”
The man coming toward them along the path was old, and though Irene had expected his appearance to reflect that, she hadn’t expected him to be so thin and frail. He moved slowly, making good use of a cane, and leaning on the arm of a man perhaps two decades younger. His son George, Irene supposed, Mama’s brother.
The approach was leisurely, but when they were abreast, the duchess took a step forward. “Ellesmere, how delightful to see you,” she said. “And your son, too. How lovely.”
She turned, drawing Irene and her sister forward. “Viscount Ellesmere, Lord Chalmers, please allow me to introduce you to my friends, Miss Irene Deverill, and Miss Clara Deverill. Ladies, Lord Ellesmere, and his son, Lord Chalmers.”
The viscount sniffed, looking them over as they bowed. “I shan’t bow to you,” he said as they straightened, and Irene glanced over her shoulder at Torquil, still several yards behind them, wondering if all his good work had been for naught. If the man wouldn’t even bow—
“Getting too old for that sort of thing,” he went on gruffly, regaining her attention. “Hurts my back. Bad enough I’m walking around on this hard ground.”
He turned to the duchess. “I’ve never met your friends, Duchess,” he said gruffly, “but the Miss Deverills and I are actually related.”
“Indeed?” She made a show of surprise, then one of enlightenment. “Oh, good heavens,” she added with a little laugh, “I do believe you are. I’d forgotten.”
Irene watched this little exchange with mixed feelings. They all knew the facts, the whole meeting had been prearranged, and yet, they all had to pretend it was a happy coincidence. A week ago, she’d have condemned such a charade as hypocritical, even downright silly, and yet now, as she was taking part in it, she had to admit that such pretenses probably made things easier on everyone. Perhaps some of these social rules weren’t as useless as she’d thought. Sometimes, she thought, sliding a glance at her shy sister, they might even be useful.
The old man gave a cough, bringing her attention back to him. He was peering at her sister, and Irene tensed as he gave a harrumph. “You look like your mother, girl, you do, indeed.”
Fully aware the viscount might think that fact something for which to denigrate his younger granddaughter, Irene moved to jump in, but t
o her astonishment, she saw his face and stopped. His pale blue eyes were watery, but not, she realized, because of his advanced age. Astonished, she stared as he blinked several times, then looked away, out over the gardens.
But if she thought that sign of tender sentiment would extend to her, she was mistaken. When his gaze swerved to her, he gave another sniff, one she suspected was less favorable. “You, young woman, look far more like your father. He was a handsome fellow.”
As was her custom, Irene took refuge in a pert reply. “Was that a compliment, Grandfather?” she asked, pasting on a smile. “I shall take it as one, for no girl can have too many compliments.”
“You’ve a saucy tongue in your head, girl,” he said, but somehow, she fancied that he didn’t seem to mind. For Clara’s sake, she was glad. Nonetheless, when he returned his attention to the duchess, Irene couldn’t help being relieved.
“Your friends seem a genteel pair of girls,” he said grudgingly.
Irene resisted the impulse to express the hope he’d recover from the shock.
“Duchess,” Lord Chalmers said, entering the conversation, “my father doesn’t entertain much anymore, and prefers to remain at his house in Brentford, but I am thinking to give a house party once the Twelfth sends us all to our estates. Mine, as you may know, is in Surrey. If you would honor me, I shall send your family an invitation.”
Upon the duchess receiving that idea with favor, the viscount glanced over Irene and Clara, and gave his son a nudge with his elbow. “Invite her friends, George,” he added. “Girls need society. It’s good for them. Now, if you will forgive us, Duchess, we must return to our guests.”
He turned, and leaning heavily on his son’s arm, he walked away. Her party did the same, turning in the opposite direction.
As they walked back to the pavilion, the duchess once again fell in step beside her. “That went well, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” Irene turned her head, looking back over her shoulder at the frail old man who had disinherited his daughter for running off with a man whose family printed newspapers, and she couldn’t help wondering how long Ellesmere’s good opinion would last if she managed to keep her paper and continue publishing it. “It went well for now.”
The Truth About Love and Dukes Page 20
