“Not necessarily. The trouble is, we won’t know until we meet the girl. Although, to be fair, it is not really our concern.”
“True.” She sipped her sherry. “What would your life have been like if you had married at Bart’s age? Did you have an unsuitable first love?”
“Definitely unsuitable, though I’m not sure you could dignify it with the description of love.”
“Then you have always been a sad rake,” she said lightly.
“On the contrary, I was a very happy rake. But I don’t believe you want to go any further with that.”
“Of course not,” she said hastily. “I just thought you might understand Bart better than me, by remembering your own feelings at his age. But it seems you were not of a romantical nature.”
For a moment, he didn’t reply, merely sipped his brandy, and she wondered if she had appalled him by her vulgar speculations.
“I suppose it depends on one’s definitions of romantical and love,” he said at last. “I loved my life, embraced it to the full, but I never called fun or even affection by the term love. But perhaps not from the cynicism you imagine. I was waiting for a great lightning bolt to strike me. I knew I would recognize it as my great love, but I never did.” A deprecating smile flickered across his face. “You could call that notion romantical if you wished.”
The conversation had rushed far beyond Bart, and she suspected such personal revelations were rare for him. Still, she couldn’t help asking, “Then you’ve given up on your lightning bolt?”
He met her gaze. “On the contrary.”
She searched his eyes, sure they were trying to tell her something, then the heavy lids fell, concealing whatever it was. She wanted desperately to ask him about the princess, but the conversation had already gone well past the bounds of propriety.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I’ve thought I simply didn’t recognize the lightning for what it was until too late when I found I was mourning the loss of…someone.”
“Who?” she blurted.
“Oh, one or two over the years. Most recently, I suppose, the sister of that adventurous Ottoman prince I told you about.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “We were friends—much as you and I are friends. I valued her company, for she was learned and witty and beautiful to look at, too. Sel—the prince let me know he would give her to me in marriage. But I never asked.”
“Because you didn’t recognize the lightning bolt? What happened to her?”
“She married someone more politically useful to her brother—who led my poor prince into all sorts of trouble with the sultan. But that is another story.”
Something in the way he smiled, deliberately banishing the nostalgic sadness from his expression, made her heart ache. Perhaps he saw that, for unexpectedly, he brushed his knuckles across her cheek. It felt almost like a caress, and the blood rushed into her face.
“Don’t look like that,” he said. “It passed, and I still enjoy my life. But now it is your turn.”
“For what? I have no adventures, no romantic tales of love to entertain you with.”
“What, no one since the seaman when you were twelve? How old are you now?”
“Two and twenty. And no, I can honestly say there has been no one. To be fair, I lived quietly with my father and Amelia, and the only gentlemen I met were those I had grown up among. When I obtained my post with the princess, although I encountered supposedly more important people, most of them merely wanted something from the princess. I found that unappealing in the extreme. And as you know, the princess was not generally received in society, so we rarely went anywhere but the theatre occasionally.”
She broke off, realizing too late that she had probably just accused him of wanting something from the princess.
But he didn’t appear to notice the implication. He merely raised his brows and said, “I can’t believe no one who called on the princess tried to court you.”
She laughed. “Why on earth would they? I had no influence on Her Highness, and I am merely an unacknowledged natural grandchild of the king’s late uncle. I have no dowry and nothing to inherit except my father’s prize money. Even our house will return to the royal estate when my father dies.”
“Trust me, you still caught a few eyes.”
She glanced at him uneasily. “That? I assure you, marriage was not the intention!”
“Of whom? What happened?”
Too late, she saw that he had tricked her into revealing something he hadn’t actually known. She dismissed it with an irritable wave. “Someone who should have known better cornered me and made me what he clearly imagined was a charming proposal for which I should have been grateful. I wasn’t.”
A frown flickered on his brow, though his eyes remained steady. “How did you escape his clutches?”
“I trod on his foot quite hard, and then the princess came in. People think she is a rather loose chaperone, but she will not stand for attentions that are clearly unwelcome. I believe she read him a pithy lecture and barred him until…” She broke off, her eyes widening.
“Until when?”
“Until the night of the orgy. He was there, though I hadn’t seen him since she’d dismissed him on my last duty. He may have visited before that night, of course, but…”
“It is a reason for malice. You rejected him, and the princess humiliated him. Who is this man?”
She had no reason to keep it secret. “Lord Barden.”
The name seemed to echo between them and fade into the silence.
“He is a spiteful man,” Sir Joseph said slowly. “And utterly self-centered. He is more than capable of ruining a young woman for some imagined slight.”
“But whoever did this is trying to ruin four of us,” Hazel objected.
“He may have tried the same tricks with them.”
Hazel blinked. “With the daughter of a duke?”
“Perhaps not,” he agreed reluctantly. “Have any other so-called gentlemen subjected you to such insult?”
“None so blatant that I was obliged to physically assault them, but I gave one or two blistering set-downs. They humbly begged pardon and left me alone.”
“My money’s still on Barden.”
“Only because you don’t like the man.”
“I like him even less now. Is that why you were angry with me? Because you thought I was like him?”
“No!” Her gaze dropped. “I never thought of you in the same breath. I thought… I thought you took advantage of the princess. Men do, you know.”
“Yes, I do know. But isn’t that just what Barden was trying and failing to do to you?”
“I was not willing,” she retorted. “Any fool could see that Her Highness liked you.” She blushed to the roots of her hair and took a restoring gulp of sherry. She should not be having this conversation with anyone, let alone with him.
“I like her, too. I like the way she embraces life and love, how she makes the most of the very mixed hand she has been dealt in both. She is larger than life, and for one night, we made each other happy. It was never destined to be more or less than that.”
She shifted, trying hard not to remember the expression of rapt contentment on the princess’s face the next morning. Or to think of the undoubted attractions of the man sitting so close to her now. But she could not help wondering how it felt to be held in his arms, to feel his kisses on her lips, his caresses on her naked body.
“It is none of my business,” she said huskily and cleared her throat. “I have no experience of such matters, so I should not have judged you.” She cast him a fleeting glance because she couldn’t help it. “Do you regret it?”
“No,” he said at once. “But I regret running into you that morning.”
The hurt took her breath away. She stumbled to her feet. “Forgive my impertinence. I should ret—”
He stood with her, grasping her hand to prevent her flight. “Wait. You misunderstand me. I mean only, we should have met on some neu
tral ground—in the drawing room, in the park, anywhere that would not make you think badly of me.”
She frowned, searching his face. “You care whether or not I think badly of you?”
“It’s not good for my pride as a diplomat.”
“I never know whether you are laughing at me or at yourself,” she complained.
“What makes you think I’m laughing?”
“Your eyes. Your face may be serious, but your eyes always give it away when you are laughing.”
“Where?” he demanded.
“There,” she said, reaching up to touch the skin at the corner of his eye. “A tiny crease twitches into being, and there is a definite glint.”
Smiling openly, he caught her fingers against his face, and she realized with a lurch of her heart that he now held both her hands. “You flirt most charmingly.”
Heat surged up from her toes. “I don’t flirt at all!”
“Well, you should,” he said outrageously. “It is usually fun and quite harmless.”
Part of her wanted to tug free of him and storm out the room, but she seemed to be held frozen by his eyes, which did indeed glint, but with something more than laughter, something warm and compelling that caught at her breath.
Slowly, he raised one hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. Then he raised the other and turned it so that he could drop a kiss on the inside of her wrist. This time, his lips lingered, and a thrill seemed to run through her veins like fire.
He released her but didn’t step back. She could smell his clean, masculine scent, make out every crease, every tiny quirk of his expressive lips. If he bent just a little, if she stood on tiptoes, she could kiss him.
It seemed as if she couldn’t move. He leaned toward her, and excitement rushed through her—just an instant before sense arrived in its wake.
Gasping, she whisked herself away with a mumbled, “Good night.”
His voice followed her, low and amused. “You see? Fun.”
A choke of laughter escaped her, but she still fled.
Only in the safety of her bedchamber, with her head buried in the pillow, did she realize that he was right. A few words, the touch of his lips on her hand, and she felt alive as she never had before. It was exciting, euphoric…and probably extremely dangerous.
But it was fun.
Chapter Eight
“Well?” Lord Barden flung at his valet as soon as Rogers had presented him with his tray of morning tea and toast and newspapers.
“It wasn’t easy, and I was up half the night,” Rogers said with a sniff. “But I finally managed to find the hackney that picked up a young lady resembling Miss Curwen in Oxford Street. He took her to the Blue Boar Cellar in Aldgate.”
“Aldgate? Don’t be ridiculous, that wasn’t…” Barden broke off. The Blue Boar was a coaching inn, catering for travel to the ports and other towns of Essex. “Essex.” He scowled. “Who the devil does she know in Essex? Did you go there? Did you discover what coach she took?”
“No one could or would tell me what ticket she bought. But in any case, apparently she didn’t get on it.”
“She bought a ticket and didn’t get on it? Why not?”
“I don’t know, my lord. But I checked the timetables, and there were three coaches that morning that she could have meant to take.”
“Three? That hardly narrows it down. Damn it all, the girl has no one but her father and grandmother. Where the devil was she going?” He paused with his teacup halfway to his mouth. “Wait. There was a governess she wrote to frequently. Did she go to a family in Essex? No! It was to Lady Boxton!”
Around the civilized hour of midday, he duly called on Lady Boxton, who looked surprised but not displeased to see him. She had, he recalled, a daughter who had come out during the Season, and whom she no doubt hoped to palm off on him. No chance, he thought with amusement. I have larger fish to fry!
Instead, he made trivial conversation and eventually brought the conversation around to his sister, who was, he claimed, looking for a governess. “Perhaps you have a recommendation? I’m sure you mentioned someone you were happy with for your own charming daughters. Is she still with you?”
“Miss Sprigg,” Lady Boxton said with delight. “Indeed, she would be perfect for your dear sister’s family, but no, she is not with us now. In fact, she left us only a month ago to be married. To a vicar in Essex, I believe.”
“Mr. Hawtry?” Barden asked, plucking a name out of the air.
“No, that wasn’t it. Armstrong or something of that nature… Armitage! That was it. Not that it matters since she’ll be no help for you or your sister. I can ask around if you wish?”
“That would be most helpful,” Barden said. “And do you stay much longer in London?”
He left only a few minutes later, armed with the name that would almost certainly lead him to Hazel Curwen and the continuation of his plan. Once more, he was rather pleased with himself because he could and would make her suffer.
*
Hazel rose early with a new excitement in her heart. She didn’t understand it, but it was all tangled up with Sir Joseph, in particular with the strange turn in their conversation the previous evening. With the touch of his lips on her hand, her wrist. With the warm gleam in his eyes that wasn’t quite laughter.
Of course, she had begun it, she remembered with embarrassment as she crept downstairs, by actually touching his face, a reprehensible moment of impulse that showed she was altogether too comfortable in his company. Was that the catalyst? Had she thus invited him to flirt?
Had she meant to?
She walked through the dining room, drawn by the pale, yellow light seeping through the cracks in the shutters. Since they were still hiding, she opened them warily, but there was no one in the garden, just birds singing their joy at the new day.
It was odd, she thought, unbolting the door and stepping out into the garden, but she shared their joy. Just for a few moments, before the day’s problems and her ruined future could take hold, she could appreciate the beauty of the day, rejoice in the sweetness of the birds’ blended songs, and the glorious colors of Amelia’s garden.
As she walked among the roses, she remembered that Joe—when had she started thinking of him as Joe, without even the Sir?—had given her a rose yesterday afternoon. Of such gestures, she imagined, tragic mistakes could be made. Were she a young girl, dazzled by his looks and charm, intrigued by his half-understood humor and wit, and fascinated by his foreign adventures… If she had been such a poor creature, she might have taken the gift of the damaged rose as a love token and harbored false hopes.
Especially when taken with the odd flirtation in the evening.
Fortunately, she was not a young girl but a fully adult woman who had witnessed many a flirtation, meaningful and otherwise, during her duties with the princess. And she knew Joe wasn’t really flirting with her. He was just entertaining her, opening her eyes to the small pleasures of such passages that did not need to end in demeaning proposals or threats to her virtue.
This recognition would make it a simple matter to meet Joe again with the calm of friendship. So why, she wondered, was there a trace of wistfulness to this realization?
She halted her steps, for without noticing, she had walked through the garden and emerged from the gate and stood now on the path to the churchyard. Fortunately, it was early, and there was no one around. She gazed out over the well-kept yard, and the fields beyond that would soon be humming with activity. It was time to retreat to the house.
Only as she turned did she see the figure sitting on the bench in front of the church. A man, a stranger, and yet something about him was familiar. And he had obviously seen her, for he rose, doffing his hat and bowing respectfully.
It was the hat that struck her memory. A man at the inn where she and Joe had breakfasted, wearing a hat that had been damaged on one side. A hat just like this stranger’s. As they’d left the inn, Joe had asked, Tell me, do you know that man…he was
at the Blue Boar.
Her stomach lurched with alarm. There was no great coincidence in seeing the same traveler twice in one day, but that he should reappear here at this one isolated spot—that was quite a different story.
Retreating was pointless. If she ran now, she wouldn’t know why he was here. Something to do with the conspiracy at Connaught Place? Was he a villain of this piece, or perhaps even some servant of the princess’s trying to help her?
Far-fetched in the extreme. On the other hand, he did not look immediately threatening. Indeed, he made no move to approach her. So, taking a deep breath, she walked along the path toward him. She noticed his horse quietly cropping the scrubby grass outside the churchyard.
“Good morning,” the stranger said civilly with another bow. “It is already a beautiful day, is it not? One that makes us eager to thank God for it.”
She immediately latched on to this possible reason for his presence. “I believe the church is open, but the vicar is away. There will be no service until Sunday when the curate of the neighboring parish will come.”
“That is always good to know,” he said politely.
So, he hadn’t come to church. “Do you live nearby?” she asked blatantly. It was, after all, another reason for his presence. He could easily live in the village.
“No, I’m just passing. Looking for someone, as it happens.”
Her stomach gave an unpleasant twist. “Who?”
“A gentleman.”
The relief was so great that she actually started to say, I don’t know any gentlemen. Which, of course, was a lie and an unbelievable one at that. Fortunately, she managed to change the words to, “I don’t know which gentleman that could be.”
“He will know.” The man smiled and bowed. “Tell him the owls approach his cooking pot.”
She blinked, unsure what to make of this sudden gibberish. But the man merely bowed and walked away. Slowly, she began to walk back to the vicarage, but she made sure he actually mounted and rode away before she bolted back into the garden and ran round to the “hidden” rose garden.
On the lawn in front of the window, Joe sprawled with his own peculiar elegance in the chair by the garden table. His face was turned up to the sun, his fingers playing idly with the cup in front of him. He wore no necktie, and his coat and waistcoat were rakishly unbuttoned. One of the vicar’s books was open in his lap.
Pursued by the Rake Page 8
