One More Kiss, page 10
Their maid considered the question carefully. “Not always. There are some gentlemen it is wise to avoid altogether.”
Beatrice frowned. “Like Lord Jessup Pennistan?”
Darwell’s expression changed from thoughtfulness to one that hinted at deeply repressed anger. “Not Lord Jessup, miss. He is one of the finest gentlemen in the world. Let no one ever convince you otherwise. I know it. I have seen his goodness.”
The two waited for Darwell to go on. Cecilia’s eyes were wide with surprise at the maid’s vehemence as much as her words. Beatrice began to ask for details but Darwell raised her hand holding the brush.
“I will say no more. When I am no longer in service to you, you will both appreciate the fact that I am not a gossip.” She lowered the brush and inspected Cecilia. “Your hair is finished, miss. Now go to bed. I will clean the brushes, put your clothes away, and see you in the morning. Your riding habits will be out and ready before breakfast, which will be served beginning at nine o’clock.”
When she left the room Cecilia and Beatrice looked at each other. What was that about, do you think? Cecilia asked, her eyes narrowed in speculation.
I have no idea, Beatrice thought, even as she tried to guess.
Bitsy, I am not even sure I want to know.
Beatrice widened her eyes. I do. I truly do.
Finally Cecilia spoke aloud. “Just be careful who you choose to ask about it.”
Beatrice nodded.
“You know, Bitsy, it’s an inconvenient blessing that she doesn’t gossip. For we are much too open around her.”
“But I will find someone who’s willing to tell me everything they know,” Beatrice said.
“Of course,” Cecilia agreed.
“Not the countess. She is too close to Papa and, besides, she would wonder at our curiosity about a man Papa has ordered us to avoid.”
Each climbed into her own small but elegantly canopied bed.
“Did you have the servants move the beds closer together?” Beatrice asked.
“Yes, it was only a matter of moving the table that was between the beds. This way we can whisper as long into the night as we wish without waking Darwell.”
“Wonderful,” Beatrice replied. “But Darwell is our maid, not our governess.”
“I know, Bitsy, but I can’t help but feel that she would report to Papa, or at least the countess, if we did anything of which she did not approve.”
“I think you may be right.” They were both silent a moment, Beatrice listening for Darwell. “Can you hear her?” she whispered.
“No,” Ceci whispered back. “I do think she has gone to bed.”
Beatrice nodded and hurried on in a hushed tone. “Who can we ask? Katherine Wilson might have overheard her mother and her friends discussing the matter.”
Ceci’s nod lacked conviction.
“Ceci, you know how Mama loved to share tea and news with her friends. That’s how we found out about any number of things she would just as soon have kept from us.”
“I am sure Katherine has had the same experience,” Cecilia agreed, “but I am much less sure she would share anything with us.”
Beatrice thought Cecilia might be right. Katherine Wilson was trying so hard, too hard, to be perfectly well behaved. She and Cecilia had that in common. Still, their new friendship might make it possible for them to share confidences.
“Mrs. Kendrick. She would be one to tell all she knows, and welcome all we know.” Though Beatrice wondered what they could possibly have to share that was likely to be as intriguing as Lord Jess’s story.
Ceci responded with a low “hmmm” and Beatrice was sure her sister had not heard a word.
Sighing softly to herself, she turned on her side, wound her leg around the bed linens as she was wont to do, and followed her sister’s example. It took her several moments to relax. She was distracted by the memory of Darwell’s final words to them—she and Cecilia would be riding in the morning. Beatrice fell asleep trying to devise a way to excuse herself from an exercise that she abhorred and her twin loved.
CECILIA SMOOTHED HER dark green habit and raised her face to the sky, risking freckles to be one with nature for just a minute. What was that bit of Wordsworth that Bitsy so favored? “All that we behold is full of blessings.” Today was such a day.
The storm of the previous night had made for a clear sky and it was the perfect morning for a ride. She looked around for her sister and saw that she had not moved from the head of the trail.
“Oh, do come on, Bitsy. That horse is the most placid animal, but surely she can move faster than that. She can eat later.” Cecilia’s much livelier mount jiggled his bridle in agreement. She soothed him with a hand to his neck and watched her sister.
“I do not care to ride in the wood. It’s too easy for a horse to stumble.”
“Calling this a wood is like calling your horse a champion.” Cecilia considered the copse of trees. There was a wood beyond and a river which she hoped to reach sometime before noon.
“You go on ahead, Ceci. I’ll catch up, or maybe you can stop and collect me on the way back.”
“Why did you even come? You could have read or spent time in the gallery.”
“I keep thinking that if I ride more I will grow to like it better.”
“Like it? I would be pleased if you didn’t look like you were facing a death sentence every time you mounted.”
“It could be a death sentence for someone my size. I’m too small to have any control at all.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when the sound of hooves moving at an alarming rate caught Cecilia’s attention. She shifted her horse closer to Beatrice and the sweet slug that was her mount for the day as a man on a great black horse came over the first rise beyond the stables and went thundering by them.
The red scarf around his neck announced the rider as Marquis Destry, but he was moving so fast there was no time to exchange greetings. In fact he did not even acknowledge their presence.
“You see, Bitsy, size has nothing to do with the ability to control a horse. Or enjoy a rousing gallop.” Despite Destry’s lack of manners, Cecilia could not resist making the point.
“Go join him, Ceci. Please. I will go back to the stable soon and the groom can accompany you.”
Cecilia desperately wanted to ride off, but she could not leave her sister alone. She rode back to the groom who was waiting just out of hearing distance.
“My sister has remembered an invitation she does not wish to be late for. Would you escort her back to the stable? She is not sure of the way.” With a look of complete understanding, the groom nodded and followed her back to where Beatrice was waiting.
“Dearest,” she began, and explained the lie to her sister. Beatrice did not even attempt to disagree. Cecilia thought she saw some relief on her sister’s face, but that might have been her imagination.
Cecilia headed out at a sedate walk, moving into a more satisfying canter as Beatrice and the groom vanished from sight.
When she was into the deeper wood, she slowed her horse. Determined to avoid Marquis Destry so she could enjoy the flora and fauna, Cecilia watched the ground and moved away from the trail he’d left. She identified the trees as she rode and delighted in the ferns that grew at the edge of the path.
If she could choose to be a plant she thought it would be a fern, with elegant fronds that opened themselves to the gentle sun that filtered through the trees, which sheltered them from the harshest of weather. Her father would be an oak, she was sure, and Beatrice a violet. Small and delicate, but with its roots digging in everywhere to make itself known and felt.
Lord Destry would be a thistle or some other irritating plant.
Her meditation was cut short by the sound of water. She returned to the well-traveled trail, heading toward the gurgle of water over rock, and found something bigger than a stream but smaller than a river.
There was a ford across it but she was not about to attempt that alone, though her horse showed no hesitation. He lowered his silky neck to drink and she used a nearby rock to aid in her dismount. She dipped her handkerchief into the water, wiped her face, and then found a comfortable seat on the rock, or as comfortable as one could be on a rock. From her new vantage point she surveyed the plants that lined the bank.
Hoofbeats from across the stream drew her horse’s attention before she even noticed them herself. Lord Destry appeared on the other side of the ford and moved through it with confidence.
“Good morning, Miss Brent!” He stopped in the middle of the ford while his horse drank. He did not wait for an answer. “If you would like to cross the ford, I can lead your horse for you.”
“No thank you, my lord. I was enjoying the solitude but must return to the house in a moment.”
He either did not hear, or chose to ignore, the word “solitude,” because he rode up beside her, jumping off his horse with practiced ease. There was no doubt that men had the advantage of women when it came to riding. Someday she was going to risk it all and don a pair of trousers so that she could try riding astride herself.
He sat on the rock next to her and began pulling off his boots. “It’s a perfect day for wading. The cool of the stream will feel marvelous. Care to join me?”
“My lord!” Cecilia stood up, horribly embarrassed by the suggestion that she show her ankles in public. Not exactly in public, but to a man who was not a relative or even a close friend.
“Miss Brent,” he said with a sigh. “I had hoped that any woman who was willing to venture out unaccompanied would not be beyond the very slightest of improprieties.”
“You are wrong, my lord, and I am only alone because Beatrice recalled another commitment and the groom escorted her back to the house. I wished to spend a little more time in the wood.”
“And would not be deterred by convention, which is my point exactly. You know,” he went on, “this is what house parties are for. It is a break from the burden of London rules and prying eyes.”
“I would not know, my lord.” And if they did go to London, she would hardly be traveling in the same social circle as the heir to a dukedom.
“You will know London soon enough, Miss Brent. And I promise you will look back on this lost adventure with great regret.” He had pulled off his boots and stockings. He stood up and waded into the water, his very pale feet quite clear through the gentle wash of the stream.
“Ahhh,” was all he said, but he made the sound a long, drawn-out groan of pleasure.
They were perfectly normal, ordinary feet. His was a perfectly ordinary reaction. But still she blushed. Climbing up onto the rock she seated herself on her horse before she said, “I will leave you to your childish play, my lord.”
“I will catch up with you!” he called out as she left, which only made her more determined to be back at the stables before he could join her.
She could have made it, she was sure, if she had not been stopped by Lord Crenshaw and her sister who were themselves headed to the river.
“I met your sister on her way to the house and she agreed to ride with me. We are going to cross the ford and meet up with Mrs. Wilson and the countess, who have taken her dogcart the long way round to the old banqueting platform she mentioned last night.”
“I’m not sure about the ford,” Beatrice began with atypical caution. What she really meant was that she was not sure about trusting the horses to cross the ford without tumbling them into the water.
“Nonsense,” Crenshaw said. “I’ll be with you and you will be quite safe.”
“Of course you are right, my lord,” Beatrice said with a firm nod.
“I would never let anything happen to you, my dear girl.”
Cecilia watched the scene play out before her. He would never let anything happen to her. Now there was a grandiose thought. A tree could fall and kill them both. The horse could be stung by a bee and bolt.
Lord Crenshaw was charming, but his words represented the perfect example of a man’s pride taking the place of common sense.
“Of course not, my lord.” Beatrice looked away with a knowing grin on her face.
Cecilia watched them ride off, convinced that Beatrice’s grin meant that she and her sister were of like minds when it came to men and their pride. Still, it appeared that Lord Crenshaw had some particular interest in her sister.
Cecilia moved on, mulling over whether she was in favor of such a match. Well, there was no point in making a decision on that until she found out if Beatrice herself would consider it.
Chapter Twelve
CECILIA WAS DOING her best to dispel her speculations about Lord Crenshaw and Beatrice when she heard a mad gallop, apparently the speed at which Lord Destry did everything.
Lord Destry was almost beside her, still moving at an unwise speed, when a rabbit darted into the path in front of his mount. The horse took exception to having company on the path and reared up. Destry held on with amazing skill, but just as the horse was settling yet another rabbit raced after the first. It was too much for man and horse. Destry was thrown and he landed on the dirt path with an alarming thump.
With a screech that she swallowed before it became a full-born scream, Cecilia leapt off her horse and ran over to Destry who was, ominously, not moving. His eyes were open and for the most hideous of moments she thought he was dead.
Then he blinked and her terror resolved itself into anger, close to a wholly unreasonable rage.
“You stupid, stupid man! Why were you riding so fast? Are you hurt?” She put her hands on her hips to still their shaking. His body looked as it should, no arms or legs at odd angles. She waited. When he did speak she understood.
“No breath,” he rasped painfully. He closed his eyes and they both waited.
He was a fine figure of a man. When he was lying down and one was not so conscious of his height, he was handsome and very well formed. She blushed a little at the thought but his eyes were still closed so there was no one to tease her about it. Why was it that a tiny woman like Beatrice was not remarked on, but a short man, at least one as short as Lord Destry, was considered an oddity?
“You look as though you are in one piece, my lord,” she said with a return of her usual calm. “That is, unless you have broken your back and will be crippled for life.”
His eyes flew open at her bluntness and he wiggled his legs and feet.
Relieved, she knelt beside him. He seemed to be breathing more normally. “Are you recovering?”
He nodded. “My horse.”
“Enjoying some grass until you are ready to remount.”
“Good.” He raised himself on one elbow, ignoring the hand she offered. She withdrew it. He would have to beg before she offered him her hand again.
* * *
WILLIAM, YOU IDIOT, he thought. He wanted to swear and was just as glad that he did not have the breath for it since it would dig him deeper into Miss Brent’s bad graces. He looked like some schoolboy trying to impress a girl, which he certainly had done but not in the way he’d hoped.
“I am quite all right, Miss Brent.” Except for a raging headache and wickedly wrenched shoulder. He sat for a moment, letting the world settle around him, and brushed at his trousers as if that would remove the dirt stains.
He began to stand but stilled when he felt her hands on his shoulders. “Please do not try to stand, my lord. I can see you must still be dizzy.”
Yes, he was, but a good part of that came from the sensation of her hands on him, her lovely scent so close, the feel of her breath in his hair. “All right,” he said, leaning his head back into the comfort of her breasts. He bit back a smile and groaned a little.
Miss Brent was quiet for much too long. William turned to look at her. She regarded him through narrowed eyes, as though she was not sure whether to trust him or not.
He raised a hand to his temple and rubbed his aching head. “Thank you. Thank you very much. I cannot recall the last time I was thrown from Jupiter.”
“We can blame the rabbits. One, any good rider could have handled, but two was quite unexpected.”
“Maybe,” he allowed, closing his eyes to escape her gaze, but her beauty was now permanently etched in his memory. There was more to the woman than her perfect skin, her white teeth, her beautiful blue eyes, her perfect mouth, and her burnished gold hair. She had handled his fall with calm and sense and had not made a bad toss worse with histrionics. He valued that as much as her looks.
“Shall I find someone to help you?”
He heard concern in her voice, not impatience with his clumsiness, or anger at him for ruining her outing.
“No, I will be fine once I am over the mortification of looking a fool.”
“But, my lord, that comes so naturally to you, I would hardly think it mortifying.”
There was a set-down that was unexpected. Her air of sweetness hid a touch of acid that surprised him and made him wonder what else she hid behind her ladylike demeanor.
“Then I am in good company.” He straightened as he spoke. “As I often think that myself.”
Before she could answer, insult him more, or, God forbid, apologize, he hurried on. “I am more sorry than I can say for teasing you last night and then making my observation of the company sound so personal. It was not intended that way.”
There was no answering smile, her face remained neutral. Leave it at that, idiot. “I can manage now, and thank you again for your help.” He rose to his feet.
She stepped back, watching anxiously as he moved toward Jupiter. His arm still ached as much as his head, but he felt steady enough as he looked around for his hat. He spotted it and bent to grab it, ignoring the spin of dizziness, and whistled for his horse. Jupiter came but stopped short of where he was standing.
William turned to Miss Brent, who was still studying him, apparently fearing a faint was not far off.
“No comfort from my horse. I expect he thinks me worse than a fool. We’ve known each other much too long for him to mistake me for anything but a human subject to absurd behavior on a regular basis.”
