The Diamond Key, page 9
Usually Lord Boyce was still abed at this time of the morning, but today he had arisen soon after dawn, it seemed. He had sacrificed his sleep so that he might spend an hour or so at his toilette and still get to the park on schedule. Certes, it was not every day a fellow became affianced to an heiress, and Boyce wished to look the part. The hours were worth it, if he had to say so himself, for the ensemble that ensued.
Today he would be betrothed to the earl’s daughter, by hook or by crook, by fair means or foul, by noontime, by Jupiter.
He followed the path Scarecrow said she took most clement mornings, she and her maid. He passed a lowbred pair who were leaving the park, thank goodness. Females in that condition ought not be seen by delicate gentlewomen. Then he passed a young pageboy in a wig who was shouting at an ill-dressed lout whose back was toward Boyce. The bigger, older man’s dog, it seemed, had raised its leg on the boy’s satchel—which contained a change of clothes for his mistress, who had spent the night with her lover. Boyce shuddered. No wonder the quality did not patronize the park before midday. Lady Torrie would not, once they were wed. Boyce would insist on that.
Swinging his walking stick in what he considered a jaunty manner as he strode down the path, he looked up, pretending to admire the birds in the newly leafed trees. Lord Boyce would not know a pigeon from a partridge, and would have thrown his stick at the noisy creatures to stop their infernal racket, except his cane might have become scratched. Besides, there was Lady Torrie up ahead, speaking with her maid.
He walked closer, then stopped short. “Oh, my, what a surprise! Well met, my lady. I did not think to find any of my acquaintance in the park this early. I would never have guessed that you shared my interest in this, ah, refreshing time of day.”
“Good morning, Lord Boyce, and yes, I like to come to the park before it is crowded, to have a few moments alone with my thoughts before the day’s rush begins.”
The hint was so broad it could have hit a barn door. But not Lord Boyce. “I feel exactly the same! The, ah, empty spaces are so conducive to contemplation, aren’t they? And the air”—he sniffed delicately, inhaling the aromas of coal smoke, stagnant water, and horse droppings—”is so, ah, refreshing, do you not agree?”
“Yes, quite. Now, if you will forgive me—”
“Oh, think nothing of it, my lady. Perhaps we should continue our strolls together, to share our admiration of Nature’s bounty.”
“Thank you, but my maid and I are fully refreshed, as you say. We were about to leave the park.” But not by the way they had come, with its stale, sordid scenery.
“What, and miss this glorious sunshine?” Boyce prayed his hat shielded his face enough so his nose did not turn an unattractive pink. He raised his quizzing glass to inspect Lady Torrie’s skin and noticed the foolish chit was developing freckles, of all abominations. He would certainly put an end to these hoydenish morning walks. He replaced the glass in his pocket and held out his arm in invitation. “Surely you can walk a bit farther?”
“Do go on, ma’am,” Ruthie urged. She was still out of breath but, worse, the pace Lady Torrie set had roiled the maid’s uncertain digestion again. If she could pause a minute, maybe the spell would pass. “I’d be that grateful to rest right here on this bench, where I can keep sight of you and his lordship.”
Torrie saw that her maid was indeed looking sadly pulled again. She’d thought Ruthie fully recovered from her malady, or she would have taken one of the footmen for escort this morning. Torrie vowed to send for the physician herself as soon as they reached Duchamp House, which she intended to do as quickly as possible. “No, you will be better off at home. We will walk back slowly and hire a carriage at the park gate.”
“I regret I do not have my rig standing by.” Boyce regretted not having the blunt to hire the job horses that pulled his carriage. As soon as the betrothal was announced.... “But the woman might recover with a rest, as she says.”
Ruthie was nodding. Torrie was undecided—until she saw a tall, bare-headed figure coming up the path behind an older couple. She turned to Boyce. “Very well, sir, I will be pleased to accept your escort for a short stroll.”
Lord Boyce had trouble keeping up with her, she was walking so fast. His corset was too tight and his boots were more fashionable than well-fitting. Besides, they were going in the wrong direction. How could he hope to compromise a female when there was no one to see her fall from grace? The maid did not count, for she would be loyal to whatever her mistress wished her to say. Boyce did not have enough of the ready to bribe her to say Lady Torrie had given her virtue to him in the park.
If he had to, he could pull the earl’s daughter behind a bush and rip her clothing. Lady Torrie would be forced to wed him after indulging in what everyone would believe was a passionate tryst. But his own clothing might become disordered in the struggle. Besides, the strong-willed female was just as liable to complain of being attacked. Her father would horsewhip him.
No, his first plan was better: one kiss, suitably passionate, in front of witnesses, then a declaration. While she was too stunned to challenge him, Boyce would say that he had been overcome with emotion when his beloved accepted his proposal. If she denied the engagement, her reputation would be in tatters for allowing such liberties in so public a venue. He thought he ought to put his hand on her breast to guarantee her disgrace. With his gloves on or off?
Torrie wanted to walk down a side path, behind the bench where Ruthie sat. Boyce wished to head back toward the entrance, where the riders gathered before setting out and knots of people gathered, no matter what the hour. He pulled toward the left. She pulled toward the right.
“But I saw a particularly attractive bird in this direction,” Boyce said.
But Torrie saw a particular dog darting among the shrubbery where he was pointing. She tugged on Boyce’s arm, hard enough to wrinkle his sleeve.
“Very well, my dear. We will walk this way.” His lordship considered himself too much the gentleman to wrench a wench’s arm, but he was too needy to let go. He’d just have to hope that the elderly couple who walked toward them on the path were of enough consequence to blacken her name sufficiently, finding her in flagrante delicto. Or as flagrant as one could get in one’s clothes, in the park, in a hurry.
He let her lead him off the main walkway, but then he stopped as if to admire a flower, to let the couple catch up. Instead they seemed to get into some kind of altercation with another man who had come up the path, the same lout whose dog had misbehaved earlier. Botheration.
Needing to delay, Boyce decided to give his chosen bride one last chance to choose him.
“Lady Torrie,” he began, then decided the occasion required a more formal form of address—before he tore her dress, if necessary. “Lady Victoria, you must know how much I admire you. Your beauty and your spirit are the epitome of womanhood. Your very smile can bring the strongest man to his knees.” Of course not on the dirt, no matter the protocol. “I must beg you again to make me the happiest of men.”
Torrie was looking back toward her maid, trying to figure out what was happening. The elderly man was shouting, waving his cane, and the woman was pointing with her parasol to where the dog was running off with a sack of something in his mouth. Oh, dear. The man started flailing ineffectively at Lord Ingall with his cane, and Torrie could not help the smile that came to her lips. She’d like to give the viscount a few good raps herself. “Yes!”
“Then you will?” Boyce almost fell backward in shock.
“Will what?” Torrie asked, turning back to him.
“Marry me, of course.”
“Don’t be more foolish than you need, George. I have told you endlessly that I shall never wed you. I shall not change my mind.”
“Oh yes, you shall, my fine lady.” And he grabbed for her.
Torrie was so surprised that she did not resist for a moment, until she felt his mouth on hers, and his tongue trying to force itself past her lips. She could not decide whether to employ her knee, her fist, or the tiny gun her father had insisted she carry in her reticule. When she felt his hand on her breast, she decided on all three, in whichever order they came. Before she could draw back her arm, or raise her leg, though, Lord Boyce was flying through the air, headfirst, into a newly planted border garden.
Boyce picked his head up out of the primroses, which he could not tell from parsley, and moaned.
His plan was ruined. His clothes were ruined.
And a filthy mongrel was mangling the tassels on his boots.
* * *
Chapter 14
Boyce spit out a leaf, and then he spit out: “You!” His attacker had been the same busybody who had foiled Boyce’s attempt to look the hero in Lady Torrie’s eyes: Ingall. The same reprobate who should have been driven out of London. The same no-account who ...
“Yes, it is I.” Wynn really wished he had bought himself one of those quizzing glasses, like the one broken in Boyce’s fall. He could have brought it to his eye and scrutinized the maggot like the insect he was. If he ever found a proper valet, Wynn swore, he’d send the fellow out to purchase one. Meantime, he raised one eyebrow and said, “And I am enjoying the coincidence of our meeting again as little as you are, I am certain.”
Boyce, however, was the one struggling to his feet while Ingall did not seem the least discomposed.
“How dare you! I’ll call you out for this, sirrah!”
“Save your breath, Boyce. You are already looking apoplectic. And I will not duel you or anyone else.”
Boyce curled his lip. “Of course. Dueling is for gentlemen, and you no longer classify as such, I recall.”
“While you are refreshing your memory, you might remember that the last man who challenged me is worm-fodder. My aim has only improved, of necessity. Wolves, crocodiles, and man-eating tigers, you know, do wonders for sharpening one’s marksmanship.”
Now that was a hint Boyce did recognize. He brushed down his floral-embroidered waistcoat and conceded, “Well, I do not suppose any harm has been done.”
Wynn turned to Torrie. “I think that is for the lady to decide.”
Torrie was mortified. To be found in such an undignified situation, by this of all people, was outside of enough. “I can explain,” she began.
The viscount held up his hand. “I do not need to hear your explanation, my lady. I, for one, assume there is a good reason that a young woman would amble off alone with a rejected suitor.” Left unsaid was her own earlier, unspoken, rush to judgment.
Boyce decided to make one last effort. “Rejected? Why, it is no such thing! Lady Victoria has accepted my suit. I fear my joy overcame my good manners. If you had not so rudely interrupted, we—
“Stubble it,” Torrie said, borrowing one of her father’s favorite expressions. “You know it was no such thing.”
Wynn reached down to take a tassel out of Homer’s mouth. He tossed it at Boyce. “You heard the lady. There is no betrothal, and there better not be a repeat of this incident. Nor, I might mention, had there better be word of it stirred into this day’s portion of scandal broth.”
“There will not be,*’ Torrie assured him. “Think how badly the scene reflects on Lord Boyce, and he would be the only one to speak of it in public. I certainly shall not. Will you, Lord Ingall?”
Wynn shook his head. What, and drag a lady’s name through the mud the way Homer was dragging Boyce’s walking stick? Was that how poorly she thought of him now? He whistled for the dog. “You should be getting back to your maid. She will be worrying over the delay.”
“Heavens, poor Ruthie, and her not feeling well. I knew I should not have gone and left her!” Without a second glance to Boyce, she turned and headed back toward the main path where the bench was.
Wynn walked beside her, easily matching her hurried strides.
“Your escort is not necessary, sir. I am certain your own companion—”
“—has left the park. I will see you back to the bench, and then walk you and your woman to your carriage or a hackney.”
He had neither asked nor offered, Torrie noted, simply issued an edict. “You need not concern yourself. Unless you think the park is littered with importunate suitors.”
“I think it is populated by squirrels, pigeons, and pea hens who do not recognize danger until it jumps out at them.”
Well, she would not have gone off with Boyce in the first place if she had not wanted to avoid Lord Ingall, but Torrie did not say so. Instead she took her ivory-handled pistol from her reticule. “I am not as foolish as you seem to believe. I realize that I owe you another debt of gratitude for coming to my rescue once again, but the situation was not nearly so dire on this occasion. I would have managed.”
He looked at the pretty but adequate weapon. “Tell me, my lady, could you have shot Boyce? Could you have put the muzzle of your little gun against his heart and pulled the trigger?”
“I ... I am not certain. If he was intent on doing me harm, I suppose. But for taking liberties?”
Wynn believed the dastard was intent on taking a great deal more than a few kisses, but he saw no need to frighten her needlessly with unfounded suspicions. He did take the gun from her with one flick of his wrist to prove his point. He put it in his pocket, after checking to make sure it was not cocked. The gudgeon could have shot her own foot off— or worse. “You see how easily a man can disarm a smaller, weaker person? What would you have done had he turned the weapon on you, threatening you with bodily harm unless you agreed to his terms?”
“Lord Boyce? Now who is being foolish?”
“A desperate man can be the most dangerous. By all reports, Boyce has reached point non plus. He needs your dowry,”
“Gammon. Boyce knows very well that my father would not let me be forced into any marriage against my will. I have only to say no in front of the vicar. Besides, Lord Boyce might be a boor, but he is a gentleman.”
And Lady Torrie was still a naive ninnyhammer. A beautiful ninnyhammer, with eyes that were bluer than this April sky, but still a cabbage-head.
He had to show her that she was not invulnerable, despite being rich and titled and pluck to the backbone. She might be a game ‘urn, as they said, but she still needed a man to defend and protect her. Wynn felt it was his duty to expose her weaknesses, so she would be more careful in the future. That’s what he told himself, anyway.
It was a good excuse for doing what he wanted, what Boyce had begun.
So he dragged her behind a small stand of trees.
“What are you doing? My maid—”
“Has waited this long.”
So had Wynn. He pulled her closer. “Now, my lady, what would you do if Boyce did this?” He pinned her arms at her sides, loosely, without force, but with enough strength to show her she could not escape unless he let her. He bent her back slightly, then brought his mouth to hers.
Torrie knew he was trying to teach her a lesson, the arrogant jackass, but she was willing to learn a few facts about him—and his kisses—while he was at it. He did not grind his lips into hers as Boyce did, thank goodness. Instead, his lips felt ...
She could not describe how they felt, cool and warm at the same time, soft and hard, giving yet taking. Just when she thought she might have a better understanding of the conundrum, he pulled back.
Torrie sighed.
“What if he did this?” Wynn asked, tenderly kissing her eyelids shut, then placing butterfly kisses on her cheeks and her neck.
Torrie sighed again.
One of his arms started stroking circles on her back, then her side, and then started circling higher, toward one of her breasts. “What if he did this?”
If Boyce’s touch had felt like this, if he had made her feel like this, with every inch of her skin aching for his attention despite the layers of her spencer and gown and shift between them, she would have married him three years ago when he first asked. But this was not Boyce holding her so gently, so cherishingly, if such a word existed. If it did not, it should.
No, this was not Boyce. This was Ingall, Wynn, who would never hurt her or steal what she refused to give. Who made her feel like a flower unfurling, like a bird getting ready to fly. Who had saved her twice, saved her for him. She was sure of it. If the Fates had not meant them to be together, they would not fit so well together, their very breaths becoming one to share. She was where she was meant to be, by chance or by a grand design, and she meant to enjoy it.
Torrie leaned closer into his hand, into his hard body, into his lips, making little mews of pleasure that drove him to deepen the kiss.
“What,” he whispered into her mouth, “if he did this?” His tongue followed the whisper, lightly touching her teeth, then her own tongue.
Torrie was on fire, and she could feel Wynn’s answering heat, despite the layers of clothing between them. They were sure to leave scorched footprints in the grass where they stood. Everyone would know, and she did not care. Torrie felt she would die if he went further— and die if he stopped.
But then Wynn recalled where he was—and who he was. No matter what the gossip-grinders murmured, no matter what his body shouted, he was a gentleman. And Torrie was a lady. He stepped back, although it may have been the hardest thing he had ever done, to the hardest he had ever been.
He said, “You see? Boyce could have had you on the ground with your skirts up to your waist, without force.”
He did not see at all, Torriethought, if he believed she turned into a smoldering ember for just any man. Boyce could never have succeeded in benumbing her defenses, not for one instant, much less long enough to tumble her to the grass. Why, she would have boxed Boyce’s ears if he had taken one of the liberties Wynn had. In honesty, she had to admit to herself that Wynn had not so much taken liberties as he had been offered them. Embarrassed, she remembered pressing herself closer and closer to him, finding proof that he was as enkindled as she had been.
