“Now, sir, you may talk.”

  “Not with your silvery eyes fixed on this abominable carpet.”

  “It is not abominable! Mama had it brought in from China.”

  There was a silence between them as the viscount regarded her sternly.

  “Oh, very well, then, it is hideous,” Anastasia allowed.

  “I tried to have it removed to Mama’s suites, but she would not hear of such a thing, for her own rooms are decorated in the Egyptian style.”

  “Spare me the details!” The viscount shuddered, though his eyes were alight with sudden laughter. Anastasia found herself dimpling in return, though she could not think why.

  “There, that is better. You are looking at me directly now, and I must tell you, I find the sensation charming.” The viscount surprised himself, for truly he had not meant to engage Anastasia in a flirtation. He had sworn never again to let his head be ruled by his heart, and by God, he meant to live by that! Still, there was something about Anastasia that quite overset such well-laid plans.

  “Come here.”

  For some reason, Anastasia felt compelled to obey. She took three steps forward and rather shyly stopped when confronted with the small obstacle of Lord Waverly’s very handsome chest.

  Now it was Andrew’s turn to feel his pulses run riot. He quelled the urge to crush her into his arms and very properly stepped back, though he took both her hands in his in the process.

  “My lord!”

  “We are practically engaged, Anastasia. I shall take such liberties because I find it extraordinarily pleasant.”

  “Do you always do things that please you?”

  “No . . . I’ve been known to take cod liver oil upon occasion, and I also, very infrequently of course, feel obliged to put in an appearance at a ball or two.”

  “Which you find irksome?”

  “Impossibly so.”

  Anastasia digested this in silence. “I once danced with you, you know.”

  “I know. It was at the Havershams’ soiree. But I have the advantage of you, for it was not once, but twice, that we danced.”

  “Oh! You remember!” Anastasia pulled her hands from Andrew’s and placed them on her flushed cheeks.

  He smiled. “I take it from that edifying remark that you remember, too. After, we strolled to Lord Carmichael’s aviaries and I brought you a glass of lemonade. It was then that I decided you would be suitable for Bertram.”

  “How kind!” Anastasia’s eyes flashed. She remembered the moment well, but Bertram had been far from her mind at the time. She blushed to think of what had been on her mind.

  “Temper, temper! ” The viscount’s tone was teasing, but he eyed Anastasia closely. She seemed more than unusually overset at a simple passing memory. Perceptively, he wondered why.

  “Anastasia, I took you by surprise the other day. Truth to tell, I took myself by surprise. I have always thought Bertram would make an excellent heir and have never considered marriage for myself.”

  “Except to Lady Araminda Tarradale.” Anastasia’s heart beat wildly at her impertinence, but her eyes held his steadily. If she were to leap into this thing, there must be no ghosts to stand between them.

  She had touched a nerve, for His Lordship’s back grew rigid and there was a faint twitch in his cheek.

  “Yes. Except for Miss Araminda Fallows, as she was then.”

  “She betrayed you.”

  “Not, I would hope, common schoolroom gossip, but yes, she did.” The viscount’s tone had become uncompromising, and Anastasia felt she had lost the sudden warmth that had sprung up between them.

  “You, however, shall not.”

  “No”

  “That is all I ask, Anastasia. I cannot hope for love, for that is a gift that is not, I believe, destined to be mine. Love is a mutual matter—mutual madness, one might say. It is not in my power to give it, so I cannot, in all honesty, expect to receive it.”

  He watched the light die out of Anastasia’s eyes and wondered if he had been the cause. He hoped not. Still, he was not prepared to offer her Spanish coin. He liked her too much to dally with her affections as his had once, in the past, been dallied with. Yes, he had strange, romantic, soaring feelings for her. These he attributed to passion. And passion, he hoped, had a place of its own.

  “Do you know what I think?”

  “What?” Her voice was almost a whisper.

  “I think I should immediately take your good father’s advice.”

  “Papa?” Anastasia looked bewildered.

  “Yes. It was he who directed me to your chambers, though I shall have something to say to him for not warning me what was to become of my boots!”

  Anastasia looked down, virtuously avoiding an overlong glimpse at handsome thighs encased in buckskins. Too late, she realised that his calves, too, were an affront to her virtue, for their sharp, firm lines were definitely distracting to her intentions. These, of course, were to view the state of Lord Waverly’s elegant Hessians and pronounce judgment.

  Since the boots were still gleaming, despite a few flecks of dry mud, she took leave to declare she had little sympathy for his plight.

  To which he replied that she was clearly a shrew and he had little choice but to tame her.

  Which was when the very proper Miss Richmond eyed him warily and asked how he intended to do that.

  Lord Waverly grinned rather wickedly and murmured that he would either spank her or kiss her and since he was in an excellent humour, she had the choice. Miss Richmond then suffered a severe relapse of heightened pulses and chose, rather gingerly, the latter option.

  “Come a little closer, then.”

  “I am not sure I should!”

  “Afraid?”

  “Definitely not!” Anastasia sounded indignant, though in truth she was trembling, despite the fact that it was not at all cold in the hopelessly ornate music room.

  “Well then?” The viscount made it a little easier by taking a pace forward himself. He was strangely surprised by the tension he himself felt, for all his numbed heart and experienced ways.

  Anastasia stumbled forward, and he caught her rather tenderly for a man determined on a loveless path. Then, positioning her firmly, so that her head was cradled quite comfortably, he bent his lips close to her own and proceeded to tease her with kisses close to her mouth, but not quite touching her delicious, deep pink, lush lips. At first, Miss Richmond seemed happy to comply. Then she shook herself out of his arms and admonished him soundly.

  “That is not fair, sir! I shall suspect, in a moment, that you are merely a tease!”

  “And I shall suspect you are a siren, for I have never before taken such pleasure from a chin, I will have you know.”

  Anastasia afforded him one of those breathtaking smiles that quite illuminated her features.

  “Cry truce, then! Are you satisfied, or shall we try again?” She startled herself with her brass-faced boldness, but somehow the viscount peeled off her layers of properness and stripped her down to truth. And the truth was, quite definitely, that she found the viscount more attractive than her very decorous dreams, and more magnetic than any human being she had ever before encountered. The discovery made her quake with apprehension, yet a part of her yearned quite brazenly for more—much more—of the same.

  What of the odds that he did not love her? Plenty of marriages were built on less, yet the tension between them could not be denied. She could see by his eyes that he hungered for her, she had no need for the confirmation of his touch. Still, now that she had felt the warmth of his hands, had tasted—or almost tasted—the sweetness of his mouth, she knew that the hunger was reciprocated, for why else, even now, would she be pulling him toward her, tipping his head forward, drowning in the very caress that moments before he had denied her?

  Neither noticed the door opening, but both heard the crash that followed. It was Vivienne, of course, smashing a prized vase—though it was so gaudy Lady Richmond was well rid of it—in her haste to make a quiet, unobtrusive exit. Poor Miss Townsend! She started to make a thousand apologies as she picked up the pieces, not sure whether to go or to stay. Wondering, too, how on earth the viscount had managed to slip past the butler, the housemaids, and Lady Richmond herself.

  The moment had been broken, but the lingering effect of it remained as a curious testament. Anastasia, when she had recovered herself sufficiently to look up, regarded Lord Waverley with wondering eyes. The smile she received in return was most gratifying, for it held none of the reserve that she had previously sensed.

  “No! Don’t leave, Miss Townsend. Allow me to help you. If you are not careful, you shall be cut by the glass. I have the advantage of gloves.”

  So saying, the viscount smoothed out the moment and dropped to his haunches. Neither woman could help noticing how firm he looked, with his straight back and modish buckskins so tight that they creased slightly as he sifted through thorns and glass and long, speckled stemmed roses.

  Vivienne was the first to lose her shyness. She leaned over toward Anastasia and winked. Then, with a merry lilt to her voice, she declared that for once she had got things right.

  “I, Anastasia, am your companion and chaperone. Just think how pleased Lady R will be when she hears what a scandal I have just averted!”

  The viscount raised his head at that, but he noticed at once that the very proper—or latterly not so proper—Miss Richmond did not seem at all perturbed by this announcement. Instead, she threatened to throw Vivienne out the window, at which the miscreant giggled and declared that that would not be necessary, since the spectacle itself had been its own reward.

  The viscount’s lips twitched. The little varmint needed a good spanking, but she was adorable! She would lead Bertram into so much mischief his head would spin, but somehow Andrew did not think Bertram would consider this an impediment. Though she was by no means the sultry beauty that Anastasia was, she was nevertheless sufficiently shapely to catch the eye. She also possessed a vivacity that was both pleasing and—he hated to even think it—entertaining.

  His eyes caught Anastasia’s in amused indulgence. Her own reflected his, and he was pleased at the sudden understanding that had sprung up between them. True, he could not offer her his heart, but he could give her his home, and he was determined she would be happy in it.

  He picked up a few last petals and splinters of gild and glass and placed them neatly on the occasional table. Then he stood up, looked around for his hat which had, strangely, been dislodged from his smooth, dark head at some point or another, thanked Anastasia as she handed it to him, and executed a delightfully formal bow. This only served to make both ladies notice how trim his waist was and how deliciously hard his torso.

  Fortunately, he was oblivious to these unmaidenly thoughts as he prepared to nimbly return from whence he came. Just as Anastasia was feeling a most disproportionate pang of loss at his leaving, he turned round, walked straight up to her, and laughed. “I have taken a great deal of trouble, at risk to both your impeccable reputation and mine, to ask you a question. I’ll be damned if I leave without the answer!”

  Anastasia’s heart beat a little more wildly, if that was possible. He was again breaching the proper distance between them, and it was hard to think under such grossly taxing circumstance.

  “The question . . . ?”

  “Yes. I am afraid I have rather taken matters for granted. There is still time to draw back, if you wish. I have a posy of flowers in my saddlebag for this exact purpose, and do you know, I have forgotten it?” The viscount was beset by a sudden nervousness that Anastasia found touching. If there were any reservations she might have had, they vanished completely at this simple indication that though he did not love her, he was not, at least, indifferent.

  “Will you marry me, Miss Richmond?”

  “Even without the posies, my lord, I shall marry you.”

  Neither noticed Vivienne creep from the room. It was only when they heard a dull thud followed by a muttered and thoroughly unladylike curse somewhere down the hall that her absence was observed. The viscount’s eyes twinkled and his shoulders shook a little. Anastasia’s mouth twitched and a tiny, telltale dimple appeared in her cheek.

  Then all was forgotten as the viscount very ingeniously sealed their bargain with a small sampling of the sweetness that was to be theirs for a lifetime.

  EIGHT

  The wedding day dawned crisp but fine, a state of affairs Lady Richmond declared “providential,” though she continued to peer endlessly outside for any signs of rain. Carriages had been rolling in an almost carnival-like procession from Brampton to the splendid cathedral just off Grosvenor Square. True to form, Lady Richmond had seen fit to invite the world and his wife to witness what she rather inaccurately described as her big day. Lord Richmond had earlier preceded the wedding party, ostensibly to attend to minor details of space and choral arrangement. No one who knew him was deceived. Lady Richmond, in her element, was proving as unbearable as anyone had predicted.

  At precisely eleven, she knocked on her daughter’s door and burst in, in a swathe of crimson robes and a turban that defied belief, concocted of peacock feathers of varying dimensions. Her rather podgy neck was banded by diamonds of the first stare, and these were mirrored in the large bracelets that adorned her arms.

  “Good Lord, Anastasia! Whatever are you thinking of? You cannot simply wear a posy of cornflowers on your head! People will think you a debutante at her first ball, not a young lady about to be elevated to the ranks of the nobility!”

  In truth, Anastasia looked charming, radiant even, for the cornflowers were interspersed with little dewdrops and violets that matched exactly the colour of her gown. This was a delicate blue that cascaded gently from the waist, ribboned beneath the bust but permitted to remain uncorseted, so that Anastasia’s own soft curves were outlined gently. The sleeves were a flowing, wispy white satin, caught up in a puff that was accented by royal blue ribbons. Lord Waverley had bribed her ladies’ maid to reveal the exact shade of the nuptial gown. Accordingly, the flowers he had sent, together with the note, had been perfect. Anastasia had placed the note in tissue paper and scented it with lilacs and some merry blue cornflower petals. Though it did not speak of love, its tone was all that she might have wished for. She had never, in all her tender years, looked more splendid.

  “Lord Waverley was thoughtful enough to send me the bouquet and the coronet of flowers. I would like to honour him by wearing them, if I may.” Though she was polite, her words spoke of a firmness that brooked no argument. Lady Richmond eyed her for a moment in silence. The diamond tiara would have been so much more gratifying, but there! Anastasia had the same stubborn flaw as her father. Perhaps she should wear the tiara, though the cost of the turban had been perfectly appalling. Lady Richmond weighed up this unexpected dilemma just as Vivienne tripped lightheartedly into the room.

  “Ready?”

  Anastasia felt light-headed. She glanced around at the room which in a few hours would no longer be her own. There were the familiar potted plants, the bedstead with its heavy oak carving, the elaborate drapes, the great arch windows with their lead lighting. Soon to be memories. She suffered a moment of panic that was transparent to her companion but fortunately not so to her imperceptive parent. Vivienne stepped forward and gave Anastasia’s hand a squeeze. For once, she was tactful enough not to say anything, though she did laugh a little when Miss Richmond threatened to become a “watering pot” and spoil her elegant finery. At this, Lady Richmond dropped the tiara she was fingering and looked at her daughter in horror.

  “Don’t be absurd, Anastasia! I shall never hold my head up again if your gown does not do me credit!”

  “Then I shall stop sniffing at once and prepare to depart.” With these resolute words and a smile to her dresser, into whose hands she had placed herself entirely, Miss Richmond allowed herself to be led out to her waiting carriage.

  Lord Waverley was heart-stoppingly handsome as he waited for her, hands clasped elegantly behind his back. His valet, a notable personage of considerable talent, had not given him a moment’s peace all morning. Still, it appeared that his efforts were not for nothing, for Lord Waverly looked spectacular in a dovetail morning coat of dark black that hinted, ever so slightly, of a sultrier blue. To everyone’s surprise, his waistcoat, contrary to prevailing fashion, did not sombrely match. Rather, it was contrived of a glimmering brocade, the colour strongly evocative of cornflowers and violets.

  His starched white shirt points were pristine, of course, but their impeccable height was matched only by the most perfect rendition of the mathematique, clasped handsomely with a brilliant sapphire that shimmered in the light of the cathedral’s many flickering candles. As even the most bucolic of people knew, this style of neckerchief was hell to achieve and almost impossible to carry off with due aplomb. Lord Waverly did both, though his manner did not in any way indicate he was preoccupied with the fall of his cravat. Neither did it reveal that he was overly concerned with the gleam of his top boots, though these shone in a most gratifying manner.

  Lady Jersey, always a wit, whispered behind her fan that there was no need to seek a mirror in the powder rooms, for Lord Waverley’s footwear was more than any lady could require. Lord Waverley, catching the smiles, raised his brows a little and saluted. This caused several heart flutterings and wild blushes, for in truth he was the very devil of a man and a sad loss to all who had leanings toward the personable gentleman.

  And then there was a hush as the bride and her family made their entrance. Lord Waverley, catching sight of Anastasia, drew in his breath. Though he had bribed her maid handsomely, nothing had prepared him for the spectacular vision of beauty that now confronted him. Many who had regarded Miss Richmond as a wallflower in the past, now swiftly—in bewilderment even—revised their opinions. The choir, on cue, began their chant.

 

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