“Practice makes perfect,” Harrison told her with a dazzling smile. “I’m certain you’ll be chasing us all through the woods and knocking arrows into our bums in no time.”
Cece and the two other ladies fiddling with bows and arrows—ladies whose names Rupert was too unsettled to recall at the moment, not that he cared when Cece was there—gasped and giggled at the wildly inappropriate comment.
“Your bum would make a fine target indeed,” Cece flirted in return.
Rupert clenched his jaw so hard his head began to throb. He glowered as Cece fired an arrow that sailed wide of its mark and Harrison rushed to retrieve it, like a dog given a command.
“Aim higher,” Denbigh said with an uncharacteristic smile, standing far too close to Cece for Rupert’s liking. “A lady of your caliber can afford to set her sights as high as she’d like.”
“Thank you, Lord Denbigh,” Cece said, treating the bastard to a gracious smile.
“Anything for you, my lady,” Denbigh said, then sent a gloating look in Rupert’s direction.
Cece peeked over her shoulder as well, her eyes instantly meeting Rupert’s as though she knew full well he was watching her little charade. She smiled coquettishly, then took an arrow from the quiver Fergus was holding and fit it into the bowstring, squared her shoulders, then raised her bow to fire. The arrow flew far above the target, skittering in the grass behind it.
“Allow me to fetch that one, my lady,” Fergus said, handing the quiver off to Reese, who, in turn, handed it to Harrison, then dashed off across the lawn to retrieve the arrow.
“Now there’s an appropriate job for an Irishman,” Denbigh snorted. “They can fetch as well as any dog.”
“Lord Denbigh, I would thank you to keep your opinions about the Irish to yourself,” Cece said, pivoting to face him with a stern look. For a moment, whatever game she was playing dropped and the light of genuine irritation shone in her eyes.
“Forgive me, Lady Cecelia, but you cannot possibly see anything of worth in a species of man who would not even be able to feed themselves if not for the guidance of their superiors,” Denbigh said with so much condescension that Rupert winced in advance of Cece’s reply.
Sure enough, Cece looked as though he’d spit on her. “As I recall, it was the mismanagement of land by absentee landlords who had no understanding of or compassion for the horrible effects of the potato blight that caused starvation, not any shortcoming on the part of the Irish themselves.”
Denbigh made an impatient noise and only just managed to keep his patronizing smile in place. “It is clear that your delicate, female brain does not fully comprehend the issues involved, my lady. But I shall not insult you further by pushing you into a condition that is unnatural for your sex when there are so many more suitable and pleasant entertainments to be had. Perhaps you would allow me to accompany you on a stroll through—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish. Cece turned her back on him as though he were dead to her and reached for another arrow. This time when she knocked it and drew back to fire, the arrow stuck firmly in the side of the target.
Rupert smirked. He knew full well that Cece was competent when it came to archery. The fact that she was putting on a show of helplessness to gain attention rankled him, but not as much as the way she snubbed Denbigh filled him with pride in her.
That pride evaporated seconds later when Reese stepped up behind Cece and said, “Here, Cecelia. Let me demonstrate how it is done.”
The bastard whom he mistakenly called his friend circled his arms around Cece, standing with his chest flush against her back as he molded her arms into the right position, then closed his hands over hers. He leaned close to her ear and whispered something that made Cece laugh and blush, and that had Rupert’s stomach twisting in acidic knots.
“I wish they would stop goading you like that,” Freddy said with an impatient huff, moving to stand by Rupert’s side.
Rupert turned to his friend, his brow shooting up. “They’re doing it on purpose?”
“Of course, they are,” Freddy said, grimacing and rolling his shoulders uncomfortably. “It was my sister’s idea. Henny always was a little mischief-maker.”
Relief attempted to wash through Rupert, but it was short-lived as he and Freddy watched Reese help Cece draw her bow and fire a perfect shot. While the other ladies watching clapped in congratulations, Cece threw her arms around Reese and hugged him. The sudden, horrific image of Cece and Reese writhing in passion, Reese enjoying it as much as Cece, burst into his mind and wouldn’t let go. What if they’d been wrong about their friend for all these years? What if all it took was the right woman to change the way a man was. Reese had reproduced, after all, which meant he’d done the deed normally at least once.
“It’s irritating,” Freddy growled, snapping him out of his thoughts. “He shouldn’t be putting on a display like that. It isn’t like him.” He must have sensed Rupert staring at him. He blinked and color splashed his face. “That is to say, I’m aggravated about this whole thing on your behalf. Henny should know better than to stick her oar into other people’s love lives.”
Rupert was no more fooled by Freddy’s short speech than he was by the way Cece laughed too loudly at something Fergus had just said to her. “The only thing we can do is ignore their little games and efforts to make us jealous.”
“Us?” Freddy blinked with genuine bafflement. He frowned at Cece and Reese and their group as the bow was handed off to one of the other ladies. “Why would Lady Cecelia attempt to make me jealous?”
“Not Cece,” Rupert began before he thought better of finishing his sentence and pointing out what was obvious as day to him. It dawned on him with more than a little shock that Freddy didn’t have a clue that Reese was in love with him. Or, perhaps, that the feelings were mutual.
“If not Lady Cecelia, then who?” Freddy asked. “Lady Patience has an understanding with Lord Clifford, and Lady Nora has been staring at John since she arrived.”
Rupert cleared his throat and shifted his shoulders, hoping it didn’t look like he was squirming. He was saved the embarrassment of having to spell out something he didn’t understand and had deliberately avoided thinking about for years by another disaster entirely.
“Lord Stanhope, there you are.” Lady Claudia practically skipped across the lawn from where the croquet match she had just taken part in was ending.
“I’ve been here the whole time,” Rupert said under his breath.
If Lady Claudia heard his comment, she didn’t let on. She whisked right up to him, slipping her arm through his and hugging it. “Isn’t it a beautiful morning? We couldn’t have asked for more agreeable weather for this house party. It’s as though the fates have conspired to make this the most memorable week possible.”
“I believe you’re right, Lady Claudia,” Rupert said, glancing over to Cece.
She had Reese on one side, Harrison on the other, and Fergus showing off in front of her as he took a turn with the bow. Even Denbigh was still sniffing around in the background, as if he stood a chance. Worse still, if Cece had noticed Lady Claudia sidling up to him and making moon-eyes, she wasn’t letting on. She was enjoying herself far too much with her entourage to give a care for him.
“It’s a perfect morning for a stroll,” Lady Claudia said, batting her eyelashes at him expectantly.
“It is,” he replied by rote, not entirely sure he’d heard her question right.
Cece laughed at something one of his so-called friends said to her, and his gut burned with acid. At the same time, a wealth of carnal feelings rippled through him as well. There was something undeniably sensual about a woman who knew the effect she had on men. When he’d left for South Africa, Cece had been more of the traditional English rose type. She’d become something else entirely in his absence, something even more alluring, like a tiger lily. She held her own in a crowd of men and even stepped forward to take up a second bow and challenge Fergus to a competition.
/> She was powerful. She’d made that speech in St. James’s Park. She was more intelligent than he’d given her credit for. And he would never, as long as he lived, forget the way she’d awakened him the other morning by wrapping her hand around his cock and stroking him until he came. He’d have given his eye teeth to have her naked in his arms again.
“…most darling little duck pond with a bench looking out over the water.”
Rupert blinked out of his carnal thoughts, dragged his eyes away from Cece, and stared uncomprehendingly at Lady Claudia. She’d been talking the whole time his mind had been wandering through the tangled and sweaty sheets of his memory.
“Wouldn’t that be divine?” she asked with an expectant smile.
Freddy was still standing a few feet to the side. He wore a poorly concealed grin of amusement.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Rupert said, meeting his friend’s eyes with a sly look. “I’ve promised to help Lord Herrington mingle with the ladies who are present, making introductions and such. He’s in want of a wife, you see.”
Freddy’s teasing look dropped to shock. His shoulders slumped and he let out a sigh of resignation. “Henny keeps telling me that I could solve all my financial problems by marrying well and giving the title the heir it needs.”
Lady Claudia frowned in disappointment. Still holding Rupert’s arm, she pivoted to allow Freddy into the conversation. “It is a shame that your family has fallen into such financial straits,” she said. “Rest assured, no one blames you at all. It is widely known that your father mismanaged your lands.”
Rupert was ready to jump to his friend’s defense in the wake of the stinging comment, but Freddy took the whole insult with a shrug. “The past cannot be changed. Truthfully, I am happy to be relieved of the responsibility of managing an estate. I would much rather devote myself to the sciences, now that I am returned from service abroad. But money is a concern.”
“I shall take it upon myself to find a suitable bride for you,” Lady Claudia said, smiling at Rupert as though the offer were designed to impress him above all. “My dear friend, Lady Maude Carmichael, is set to inherit quite a bit. I’m sure there are other women of my acquaintance who would do as well. I shall become your champion.”
“What’s this about a champion?”
The hair on the back of Rupert’s neck stood up as Cece asked the question from only a few yards behind him. He whipped around, letting go of Lady Claudia’s arm in the process, to find Cece and her court of admirers heading in their direction. Reese escorted her, but Fergus, Harrison, and even Denbigh looked as though they would gladly carry her train, if she’d been wearing a gown grand enough.
“We were just matchmaking,” Rupert said, not wholly above attempting to beat her at her own game. “Lady Claudia has offered to find a wife for Freddy, and I’m certain she’d be willing to do the same for me, if I asked.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Lady Claudia said breathlessly, her eyes lighting up like the stars. “In fact, I have a few ideas in mind already.” She grasped his arm again as though claiming him in the name of England and her loins.
“It’s about time Freddy married,” Harrison said with a wink, nudging Reese for good measure. “Every gentleman needs his lady wife.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Cece said, grinning slyly at Rupert.
“Really?” Rupert blurted before he could stop himself. He crossed his arms, which necessitated shaking Lady Claudia off. “That’s not what you said the other day.”
Cece shrugged. “Every gentleman needs a wife, because without one he is nothing more than a feckless wanderer, likely to get into every manner of uncivilized trouble.”
Several of the group that was beginning to form around them laughed. In addition to all of them who were already standing there, Lady Tavistock and several of the women she’d been talking to got up from their chairs and hurried over to join them, as though the curtain were going up on a particularly entertaining puppet show.
“Women are a great civilizing influence, yes,” Denbigh said, drawing attention to himself by raising his voice. “Which is why they are the crowning glory of any British home.”
“Not just the home,” Cece argued. “Women are a vital force in all of society. See how many wars and famines have been caused because men alone have been given the power to rule?”
It was all Rupert could do not to grin at her boldness as well as her argument. He cleared his throat, put on a disapproving expression in spite of his feelings on the matter, and said, “Are you saying that if women ruled the world there would be no war?”
“That is precisely what I’m saying, Lord Stanhope,” Cece said with her most winning look.
“Nonsense,” Denbigh said, jumping in to steer the argument as though sparring with Cece was the way to win her affection. “Women should exert their influence from the home. That is their realm, not the halls of Parliament or throne rooms.”
“Do you think our beloved Queen Victoria should be made to step down from her God-given position so that she can take up knitting at Windsor Castle?” Cece asked.
Denbigh laughed. “Ah, but Queen Victoria is no ordinary woman, to be sure. She is a monarch.”
“So are butterflies,” Cece fired back. “Are you saying they should rule over the insect kingdom because of their title?”
“You prove my point in the frippery of your answer, Lady Cecelia,” Denbigh said. “Women’s minds are too silly for serious argument.”
Rupert let his arms drop, clenching his fists. It was one thing for him to rile Cece with ridiculous arguments but quite another for an ass like Denbigh to say such things and intend them seriously. At the same time, coming to Cece’s direct defense was likely to have the opposite effect than he intended.
“Let’s put it to the test, then,” he said, mind scrambling for a way out.
“A test?” Cece asked, her voice and her color higher than they should have been, hinting at the full extent of her pique. She stepped away from her coterie and came to face Rupert toe-to-toe. “What sort of a test?”
“Badminton,” Rupert blurted, nodding to the net beside their group. “I challenge you to a game of badminton to prove once and for all which sex has the greater skill, stamina, and intelligence.”
A buzz of excitement went through the friends and acquaintances around them. The ladies of the May Flowers seemed particularly excited about the possibility of a spectacle to enjoy.
“Come now,” Denbigh snorted. “It’s entirely unfair for a man to challenge a woman to any sort of physical contest. They’re simply not built for it.”
Cece whipped around to face him. “You’ve never seen me play badminton then, sir.”
In fact, Cece’s past experience with the game was precisely the reason he’d challenged her. Before he’d left for South Africa, they’d all played regular badminton games while in the country at Broadclyft Hall, the Stanhope family’s country estate. Cece had been as good as he and his sisters back then, and he could only hope she was just as good now.
“It’s the perfect challenge,” Lady Tavistock said, fetching two racquets and a shuttlecock and bringing them to Cece and Rupert. “Although I think it only fair that Lord Stanhope play with his left hand, since Lady Cecelia will necessarily be hampered by her skirts.”
“He can play with whatever hand he likes,” Cece said, taking a racquet and the shuttlecock from Lady Tavistock and marching out onto the court. “As with all women, I am used to excelling in spite of the wealth of restrictions placed upon me. Men are so used to taking the easy path that it makes them complacent.”
Laughter and whistles of amusement and challenge followed Cece’s words. Rupert grabbed the remaining racquet from Lady Tavistock and marched out onto the other side of the court from Cece. Their friends and the other guests took up places around the court, brimming with palpable excitement.
“I’ll let you serve first,” he called across the net to her.
“That is the one conce
ssion I will take,” Cece said, then immediately thwacked the shuttlecock in an expert serve.
Rupert wasn’t entirely ready, and her shot was placed so perfectly that it was as though the birdie went straight through his racquet and plunked into the grass as he reached for it.
“One-zero,” Cece said with a broad grin, holding her hand out and demanding he return the shuttlecock for her to serve again.
“A lucky shot.” Rupert smacked the birdie back over the net to her.
She caught it easily in her left hand, then crossed to the left-hand side of the court. “Everything is luck, my lord. But one makes one’s own luck.”
She served a second time, as expertly as the first. Rupert was ready this time and was able to return the service. He went easy on her, though, hitting the birdie toward her. Cece returned it with a merciless blow that sent it sailing over his head. Rupert wheeled back and was able to make contact, but his return shot fell short of the net.
“Two-zero,” Cece said in a mockingly sweet voice, darting forward and bending to retrieve the birdie for herself.
“Do you know, I think she has a chance of winning,” Reese said from the sidelines.
The comment from his surprise rival put the iron in Rupert’s soul, and he frowned as Cece prepared to serve once more. This time, he went after the shuttlecock with everything he had, smacking it across the net to the opposite side of the court to where Cece stood. She responded admirably, running to return it in spite of the bulk of her skirts. Rupert jerked to the side to hit the shuttlecock once again, sending it to the other side of her court. Try as she did, Cece couldn’t change direction and reach it in time with her skirts.
“One-two,” he said, imitating the way she had demanded the shuttlecock be returned before.
Cece retrieved the shuttlecock and hit it silently over the net to him. He could see the frustration in her eyes and knew full well what was going through her head as she swatted her skirts with her racquet. At Broadclyft Hall, she and his sisters had worn much lighter, plain skirts instead of the heavier skirt and bustle she wore now. Rupert could practically see her cursing the restrictive garment in her mind, which was why he served her with an easier shot than he might have otherwise.
A Lady’s First Scandal Page 15